Falling from Trees

Falling from Trees is a collection of tales in the tradition of Italo Calvino Jorges Borges Stanislaw Lem and even Philip K. Dick.. And while coming from the speculative tale tradition Falling from Trees strikes out new territory in exploring consciousness identity and the human condition. More than just embodying ideas these stories are written with heart and longing. And humor.. The stories are at once playful and deeply serious. There is delight in reading them. Falling from Trees is a collection of otherworldly tales from Fiorito. This set of loosely connected stories touches on a wide range of timely and universal topics via science-fictional elements...readers will largely find it entertaining. The stories run the gamut from fully realized works to quick slice-of-life glimpses of characters...an often engaging short story cycle. -Kirkus Reviews. Fiorito's prose is magical evocative mesmerizing.-New York Journal of Books   . Fiorito's Falling from Trees is a collection of short stories that revolve around one theme - the relationship with the other with what's 'different ' and troubles our balance. But it is precisely this 'diversity' that saves us because what apparently separates us is what unites us. The important thing is to know as one of the protagonists says that ?? everything is relative even the distance between Earth and other planets. Fiorito uses a surreal and dream style to outline his characters children who draw alone and see ?? the immortality of yellow or aliens that bring special gifts to humanity: first and foremost the meaning of life. And so thanks to their gifts all of us finally ?? have a purpose ?? and discover ?? that the universe is made of music.   -Maria Rosa Cutrufelli Author of The Woman Outlaw    There is something magical about a well-written short story. Past masters of the genre such as Jorge Borges Italo Calvino Lafcadio Hearne and Henry James manage in a few short pages to instill in the reader a sense of wonderment intrigue and mystery. The really great stories do not always need a twist ending to make their impact. Creating a sense of unease or planting an idea that makes the reader look at the normal and mundane in a different way is sufficient. In his anthology Falling from Trees Mike Fiorito achieves all of these things. In many of his stories he places his protagonists in locations of total normality; a man waking up late at night and deciding to go for a walk a chance meeting with an old teacher at a religious shrine or falling in love with a work associate. But all of these situations contain within them lurking just below the surface a magical world of high strangeness just waiting to erupt. In others he starts the narrative from a location of high strangeness and has the mundane and the predictable break through. He then has a third variety a series of vaguely linked stories involving the mysterious entity known simply as Smith. We never really discover who or what Smith is but our own imagination is allowed to fill in the details. Ithoroughly enjoyed these stories. So much so that as soon as I had finished themI read them again. I suspect I will be returning to this short volume of gemsmany times in the future and each time they will shine ever brighter.'-Anthony Peake Author of The Hidden Universe