Marcus Sakey has several well-received novels to his credit, including his latest, The Amateurs, but he’s also written dozens of short stories. He’s chosen seven favorites for an e-book collection called Scar Tissue: Seven Stories of Love and Wounds (e-book, July 2010, $2.99). The title lets you know that these aren’t necessarily going to be happy tales, but one of them, “Cobalt,” is both dark and funny at the same time. Remember Y2K? Can you believe it was so long ago? Read this story for a little trip back in time. And speaking of time, these stories are in Sakey’s preferred format for short pieces, brief blocks of prose that jump around in time and even setting. It sounds odd, but it works very well.

Besides the stories themselves, there’s something else I like about this collection. Each story is preceded by a short introduction that tells a bit about how the piece came to be written. I love introductions like that, and they add a lot to the stories. (Note: this $2.99 e-book may be found online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.—ed.)