Poe, Hemingway, Twain, Salinger, O. Henry, and Updike move over, there's clearly a new rival on the block. In his one hundred and sixty five short stories published in eight volumes, David Cope has created a new paradigm of the form. The genres he's chosen cover the map-from noir, mystery, and thriller, to science fiction, humor, death, and amnesia-and these stories range in size from a few pages to short novellas. I find these stories the perfect antidote to the often-endless drivel of today's thousand-page novels and a once-again peek into the world where every word counts. Five stars. Jon Marshall, Bookworm Magazine