all hands on deck

No tempest here to require 'all hands on deck', but still 'all comments and advice solicited'...

"Preying on Malchus" is the 11th story of the Stara Evropa collection, aiming for 15 (to honor Joyce's Dubliners, in due homage) and a story set in Slovakia, northern Poland, Albania and ?? are in the works. I've really enjoyed this endeavor and hope it has been not too self-indulgent.

That acknowledged, can you edit and advise on two levels, please.

a) "Preying on Malchus" has many Spanish references I'm rather naive about, and never in this series do I intend to play cultural or linguistic expert; this said, I'd hope nothing would overtly and unnecessarily distract. The same can be begged for all stories in the collection.

b) I'm starting to consider an order, but not sure why: no story (like Joyce's, to an extent) depends on another, but reading the lot of them can make some difference. I'm teaching Alice Munro to 12th graders, and her excellent collections of short stories lend to a case-in-point: the continuum absolutely makes a difference for (in this case) 18-year-old readers.

Here, then, is an order I'm playing with, cognizant that four or more stories remain:

1) Rain, Rain, Go Away [Hungary]
2) Glassworks (Gone Old) [Czech Rep]
3) Pyrrhic Victory [Albania]
4) Bud' jako Bach [E. Germany]
5) Moment in the Shade [Moscow]
6) [Slovakian story--working title: Swan Song]
7) Snookered [Bucharest]
8) Preying on Malchus [Spain/Moldova]
9) Twilight and Dusk [Lithuania/Poland]
10) Vanushka [Czech Rep]
11) Side-swiped [Czech Rep]
12) We the Pharisees [Bosnia]
13) [Bulgarian story--working title: Tipping Point]
14) The Golden Horn [Istanbul]
15) Babi Leto, Babi Yar [Ukraine]