The life of a mayfly can be harrowing or hilarious, but it is always short.

So, too, the short story.

Fans of the genre will love the inventive specimens on display in this rollicking debut collection: A group of aging engineering professors take the weekend off for some fun and felony. A pro cyclist learns the cost of greatness. A member of the Manhattan Project sees the world’s first nuclear reaction through resentful eyes. A Hollywood editor discovers what belongs on his cutting room floor. And in 1869, an aspiring writer pens a series of letters during his doomed homecoming to Virginia City, Nevada.