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Sunday Times Short Story winner

edited April 2014 in - Reading
Has anyone read the winning story yet? I'm going to read it later - curious to see what a £30,000 short story looks like.

Comments

  • I've read it - I'll leave any comments until more people have, as I wouldn't want to influence!
  • is there a link ?
  • is there a link ?
    I haven't looked online - it's published in the Culture magazine of the Sunday Times.
  • is there a link ?
    I haven't looked online - it's published in the Culture magazine of the Sunday Times.
    I've looked at the Sunday Times website - you have to be a subscriber to read the story online.

  • It was originally published in Esquire and you can read it here

    http://www.esquire.com/fiction/nirvana-adam-johnson
  • I've read it too. But I'll follow Heather's example and keep quiet until a few more readers have had a chance to look at it.
  • I've read it too. But I'll follow Heather's example and keep quiet until a few more readers have had a chance to look at it.
    Ooh, now I'm really curious! I didn't have time to read it last night, but will def make the effort tonight.
  • Okay - I read the story last night. Without giving anything away, I found the story fascinating, unusual and poignant. I was, however, a little disappointed with the ending. I'm not sure what I was expecting - but it didn't leave me with a feeling of satisfaction. Of course, this is purely one person's opinion - and one the judges clearly didn't agree with! :)
  • yeah, I thought the same.

    Wont say what else I thought...

  • I found it hard to get into and nearly stopped bothering, but after the first couple of pages i did get into it and thought it was a good story. However, I didn't think it was a great story - I found it rather waffly and confused in places and struggle to see how this can be the best they had. Maybe I'm missing something, or not appreciating the finer points but I have read a lot of stories that IMO are better than this. Each to their own.
  • I really enjoyed it, and I thought it was good to see a "literary" story experimenting with science-fiction elements - an area usually off-limits to any writer wanting to be taken seriously. However, it did seem to be experimenting, and I'm fairly sure you could take away all the SF parts away and still have pretty much the same story.

    The characters were good and I thought their predicament was portrayed realistically - it's poignant and touching but not too mawkish or depressing. I particularly liked the fact there were moments of genuine humour, which is all too rare in the types of stories that win 'serious' competitions. So, overall I thought it was a very good story.

    ...But not a great one. I've read stories that do all the above and wrap it up into a far more cohesive package. I'm encouraged that the judges picked a story more like the type of thing I (sometimes) try to write, but for the amount of money involved I expected something more. Still, it's way better than the story that won the award in its inaugural year - that was so insipid and dull!
  • I quite enjoyed it - I like the juxtaposition of someone needing authoritative reassurance against someone else needing to validate their grief in others'.
    That said, I agree that the ending doesn't feel that cohesive, and the section before seems unnecessary.

    And, to echo some of the above, I do like my literary SF, so it's nice to see some speculative elements in there - although the overuse of company names feels a bit cheap. It will also probably date very quickly.

    Do feel that to win £30k I should do more than quite enjoy it, but oh well.....
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