With the decline of magazines, short stories don’t get the kind of love that they used to—even fan-fiction writers seem to consider novella-length fiction to be the smallest preferred format. But maybe this is just because short stories have lost their urgency, and maybe that’s what makes Phil Klay’s Redeployment so important. It’s a collection of exquisitely rendered short stories about soldiers dealing with war’s aftermath. Klay himself is an ex-Marine who served in Iraq, and these stories, at times, are as compelling (and as knuckle-bitingly intense) as Pulitzer-winning reportage. (Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, elliottbaybook.com, 7 pm, free)