Story from:
Oceans, The Anthology edited Jessica West, Holt Smith 2017 trade paperback, SFF anthology
This is a new idea, proposed by Patti Abbott (here) that people can do a post each Wednesday about a single short story, a collection or an anthology of stories.
I bought this anthology, and a companion one, because of the nice cover. I knew it was an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories with a theme of ocean, but that’s all I knew.
“Bug Eater”, 12 pages, turns out to be the name, or nickname, of the lead character. A tribe living on the beach is barely subsisting on a radioactive post apocalyptic Earth, mostly by hunting, capturing and consuming any living animals, including humans. Bug Eater is trying to establish animal farming of bugs and small mammals, against the dictates of her tribe. The story includes the drawing of lots, which is “fixed”.
The story stops without an ending, which I find irritating as all get out. I tried several of the other stories in the anthology which did not impress.
Tip the Wink 
Stories without an ending really are the
This anthology does have a lovely cover. Too bad the stories are not equally as good. A story without an ending can be very frustrating.
No obvious point to Just Stopping? No probable outcome referred to? Odd.
Yes, Todd, odd indeed.
I hope the whole book isn’t stories without ends.
Of the 5 I read, before giving up, the rest had endings. It was just this (the best of them) that had no ending, or conclusion.
I don’t mind a story without an ending. Although I never dared to write one because no ending is harder than an ending sometime. Knowing where/when to let go of it.
Makes sense, Patti.
I feel your pain. I’ve read anthologies like OCEANS and found most of the stories fragmented and ill constructed. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
A story without an ending is like coming to the end of the book and finding the last couple of pages missing. The latter actually happened to me with two gripping novels, Irving Wallace’s THE SECOND LADY and Dan Brown’s ANGELS AND DEMONS. I couldn’t wait to get hold of new copies of both the books.