Beyond Selidor

You're absolutely right — we go blind into short fiction in a way that we don't with longer pieces of work. I guess that's why I tend to prefer to read short stories written by authors I already know and like, or stories recced by people whose tastes tend to a align with my own.

So far I haven't clicked out of short stories without finishing them (it feels like such a little investment in terms of time that I might as well persist, even if the story isn't to my taste), but I probably should start to be a bit more selective. I suspect once I start doing that that my habits will match your own — completing every novel/novella I start, finishing far fewer of the short stories I start.

Some magazines do have brief descriptions of the short stories (e.g. Tor.com) but it's often not enough to give a clear picture of the story.