After the Quake - Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin All the stories in Murakami's After The Quake center around the 1995 Kobe earthquake so it is fitting that these tales appears to be around the theme of the frailty of existence. This is the first collection of short fiction by Murakami I've read and, while I prefer his novels, the stories are still quite wonderful and full of Murakami's existential wanderings. Only one of the six stores is fantasy and that one is a whopper about a big talking frog. It is my second favorite tale of the collection. My favorite is the last story titled "Honey Pie". It is similar to Murakami non supernatural novels like Norwegian Wood being about unrequited love and missed opportunity. However it ends on a more optimistic note which is a nice surprise. This was a nice excursion into Murakami's short fiction. The Elephant Vanishes is next.