| Title | : | McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 140003339X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781400033393 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 479 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2003 |
Jim Shepard’s "Tedford and the Megalodon"
Glen David Gold’s "The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter"
Dan Chaon’s "The Bees"
Kelly Link’s "Catskin"
Elmore Leonard’s "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman"
Carol Emshwiller’s "The General"
Neil Gaiman’s "Closing Time"
Nick Hornby’s "Otherwise Pandemonium"
Stephen King’s "The Tale of Gray Dick"
Michael Crichton’s "Blood Doesn’t Come Out"
Laurie King’s "Weaving the Dark"
Chris Offutt’s "Chuck’s Bucket"
Dave Eggers’s "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly"
Michael Moorcock’s "The Case of the Nazi Canary"
Aimee Bender’s "The Case of the Salt and Pepper Shakers"
Harlan Ellison’s "Goodbye to All That"
Karen Joy Fowler’s "Private Grave 9"
Rick Moody’s "The Albertine Notes"
Michael Chabon’s "The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance"
Sherman Alexie’s "Ghost Dance"
McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales Reviews
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Like the cover and the way the stories are presented, the title "Thrilling Tales" is an ironic smirk at the content. Big name writers try to write genre pulp fiction from the '30s and '40s and the results are dire.
Jim Shepard opens with a story called "Tedford and the Megalodon", a snoozer about a guy who goes looking for a prehistoric fish (I think anyway, I was so bored I drifted in and out) and ultimately finds it only to have it swim away. Yup, that's the opening salvo that's supposed to have you clutching the book feverishly. I put the book down for several days out of boredom.
Going for a more well known writer I picked up with Stephen King's "The Tale of Gray Dick", a story set in his Dark Tower world. It's literally a story about a metal plate.
A week later, I picked another famous writer, Michael Crichton, and his story "Blood Doesn't Come Out" a story about a private detective who shoots his mother. Amazingly, this story wasn't hard boiled like the genre it sets out to represent and was utterly dreary.
I stopped at that point realising there were 400 pages left! 400 pages of potentially more soul crushing tedium. Michael Chabon and Rick Moody both supply 70 page stories and having read both writers' previous work I knew I wouldn't like them. The rest, including the other big name - Glen David Gold, Elmore Leonard, Harlan Ellison, Dave Eggers - didn't fill me with confidence given the output so far.
I'd read Neil Gaiman and Nick Hornby's contributions before and liked Hornby's so I felt like I'd read a good enough chunk of the book to get the gist of it. It was ironically thrilling in that it wasn't at all.
Nice one Chabon for editing the weakest issue of McSweeney's ever. Avoid. -
This is a very nicely presented anthology of stories designed to be genre fiction with a very literary bent. Or literary stories with a lot of pulp influence. Or something, but whatever it was didn't work as they hoped and didn't thrill as advertised, I don't think. There are some nice stories, but overall I was vaguely disappointed. There are diverting but slight stories by Stephen King and Harlan Ellison, a funny if mean-spirited story by Chris Offutt, nice stories by Kelly Link, Karen Joy Fowler, Neil Gaiman, and Carol Emshwiller, a fun Michael Moorcock.... and I don't remember any of the others very well.
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#16 in my Top 20 Books I Read in 2015:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIWkw...
An all-star team of super dope writers comes together to try and bring back from the dead that slender beast that is the American Genre Short Story.
Some people in here did not really get what they were supposed to be writing, some were clearly unable to stop being all intellectualish and just put a plot in what they wrote, but most wrote stuff that's purely brilliant. Also because, well - Chabon, Leonard, King, Moorcock... some of the world's best writers are here.
Were such things still published on a monthly basis, I would read every single number. This is exactly the stuff I adore.
Just look at the motherfucking cover and tell me you can resist this book.
Best stories? My main man Chabon's of course (Michael, seriously, write a full novel about it, no, a motherfucking saga), Moorcock's, Nick Hornby's, Elmore Leonard's. -
do you like genre fiction? then read this book. tragically, i dislike genre fiction. i'm sure this is a great anthology for people who do like genre fiction. by which i mean, westerns, mysteries, fantasy, old-school pulp novels, & items that can be found in the gold room at powell's in portland, oregon. when i was in college, one of my several majors was popular culture, with an emphasis on the inter-relationship of cinema & literature. which seems weird to me now that i never watch movies, but okay. to this end, i took several classes on genre fiction, in order to thoroughly understand the tropes of your average western novel or sci-fi book. even though i have never liked books like that & still don't. when i moved to portland & applied to be a bookseller at powell's, i was by chance interviewed by the woman who managed the gold room. she was looking for someone to handle romances, thrillers, nautical fiction ("horation hornblower," "jaws") & books on tape. i talked a good game thanks to my college learnin' & got hired. sadly, everyone else on the genre team was a super-nerd who actually really loved the "star trek" novelizations or the "dr. who" books & got psyched for every new sue grafton release. it was evelen months of pure unadulterated nerd-dom, & that is also how i felt reading this anthology, which i read because i was desperately ill with a sinus infection & couldn't concentrate on reading anything i would have actually liked.
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3.5
Unos cuentos me gustaron más que otros pero el libro sí está para no despegar los ojos de las páginas. -
Well, this wasn’t what I was expecting at all. From the cover I was thinking this would be “all new tales” written today in the style and subject matter of the pulps from the old pulp magazines. Thrilling Publications produced some of the best pulp stories of the 1930s-50s in magazines such as “Startling Stories”, “Thrilling Wonder Stories”, “Thrilling Adventures”, “Captain Future”, “Masked Detective” and many more.
I should have read the fine print.
This is an anthology of supposedly big-name modern-day authors (in 2002 anyway) who have felt it their obligation to rescue the modern short story by recreating genre/pulp fiction. The results are mostly horrendous. Trying to put a literary bent on pulp fiction absolutely destroys any fun to be had from such stories. These tales are almost all convoluted pieces of crap that come from the uppity literati whose main purpose seems to be to try to impress readers with their “style”. I’ve read Michael Chabon’s “
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and thought it a great work but here, acting as editor, he seems to have missed the boat. The best of the batch were from authors I have read before such as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Elmore Leonard, Harlan Ellison, and Michael Moorcock but even those stories didn't really offer what I was looking for. Most of the collection were stories from authors I'd never heard of and, if I actually remember their names, I will be sure to avoid them in the future.
My favorites included here are limited to just two stories. Michael Crichton’s “Blood Doesn’t Come Out” was very well done. But the best story in the anthology comes from Chris Offutt who manages to provide a humorous tale while simultaneously skewering his prolific father (author Andrew Offutt).
The best thing about this collection were the illustrations at the beginning of each story which do a great job of reviving that old pulp magazine vibe. A short catch phrase accompanies them which also worked well to lure the reader in. Too bad the actual stories were such duds.
Sigh. -
If you judge this book by it's cover, you would probably be exactly correct: It's a collection of fun kitschy pulp from the cool kids of modern fiction. Each story opens with a charming illustration fit for the cheapest newsprint and an accompanying tagline such as "He went in search of a relic of earth's past, and came face-to-face with the mortal specter of his own." Although they don't all end in exclamations points, which I personally consider to be a mistake.
The quality is generally pretty high, so if that sounds appealing to you, you will probably like this book.. But if genre-y pastiche ain't your thing, you probably wont. However, there are two stories in here that are so good that you should track down and read no matter what your tastes are:
Kelly Link's "Catskin" creates an amazing surrealistic world which by the end unites all of the bizarre images into a coherent whole - something rarely achieved in short fiction. The images at first seem a tad random, like a witch giving birth to a dollhouse and then raising it into a home, but they are all make beautiful symbolic sense by the end. It left me with similar feelings to when I saw the film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are for the first time.
The other story that absolutely everyone should read is Nick Hornby's "Otherwise Pandemonium." It has a Catcher in The Rye-style second person kid narrator who uses simple language to access complex feelings without ever sounding too knowing or precocious for his age. It's also a story about a magical VCR. Analog nostalgia and YA teen relationship stories are both super not my thing, but Hornby completely transcends his material. It could be used as a model of how to write a prefect short story.
My other favourites in the order that they appeal were were Jim Shepard's "Tedford and the Megaldon," Glen David Gold's "The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter," Elmore Leonards "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman", Neil Gaiman's "Closing Time," and Michael Moorcock's "The Case of the Nazi Canary."
In terms of total duds, I disliked Dan Chanon's "The Bees," Stephen King's "The Tale of Gray Dick," Michael Chrichton's "Blood Doesn't Come Out," Chris Offutt's "Chuck's Bucket," and Aimee Bender's "The Case of the Salt and Pepper Shakers."
The rest were mostly quite enjoyable but wont necessarily stick with me in a few months time.
It's a fun book! -
Perhaps it’s my recent immersion in the world of SF, but this treasury was less thrilling for me than advertised. It’s a good thing I didn’t read Michael Chabon’s intro before beginning the stories; otherwise I never would have continued. In it he complains about a particular type of literary story being all that literary venues have to offer. To which I say, perhaps you should read more widely. “Thrilling” tales are being published in all sorts of places. Perhaps not in McSweeney’s, to their stuffy and pretentious loss. But for the most part the stories in this collection read like poor attempts at genre writing by literary authors. Which is strange, since so many of the authors are first-rate genre writers.
So, we all know that short story collections are hard sells. As a reader I prefer to immerse myself in a long narrative, something that I can’t put down. With an anthology, there are as many places to put the book down as there are stories. Even after a great story—and there are a few of these in the collection (notably “The Bees,” by Dan Chaon; “Otherwise Pandemonium,” by Nick Hornby, and “The Albertine Notes,” by Rick Moody)—the reader feels like taking a break to cleanse the palate. So this collection took me a looong time to get through.
In the end, I didn’t quite make it. I almost gave up during the first story, Jim Shepard’s “Tedford and the Megalodon.” I just kept waiting for the story to begin, and then it was over. By the time I got to Chabon’s story, the last in the book, I just gave up. It seems to be set in an alternate history steampunk world, but the writing is fairly impenetrable. I just couldn’t do it.
In arranging an anthology it’s important to choose the first and last stories carefully. In the immortal words of Mitch Hedberg, “You can’t be like pancakes, all exciting at first, but by the end you’re fuckin’ sick of ‘em.” This was not exciting at first, or at the end. Boo.
I think I’ll go back to novels for a while. -
I wanted to read this collection for the exposure to a number of authors who have intrigued me for a while (namely Rick Moody, Sherman Alexie, Dave Eggers, Elmore Leonard, Nick Hornby and Neil Gaiman). Frequently, though, I got the sense from these stories that these novelists were outside their element, struggling against the short story format. Mainly because the stories they wrote were written nicely with interesting characters, but often I felt the conclusions were rushed and/or unfulfilling (rather than just ambiguous in an interesting way).
Kelly Link's "Catskin" is probably the most imaginative of the bunch. Her story is especially stimulating, set among a collection of what are supposed to be "genre fiction" stories, "Catskin" reads like a fantasy, stream of conscious prose poem. Just really unabashedly unmoored from reality, but the writing never gets in the way of the tale or her strange universe in which she sets it.
Sherman Alexie's "Ghost Dance," a ghost story written from a decidedly native perspective is another highlight. Eggers's "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly" could be considered an adventure tale, but it really reads more like an examination of the privileged first-world psyche set at a tourist destination for thrill seekers in Africa. Dan Chaon's "The Bees" is nicely crafted through and through (it actually does end ambiguously in an interesting, rather than confusing or phoned-in way). Reading it felt like watching a Jeff Nichols film.
McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales is essentially a summer reading-type book (most of the stories are either adventure or mystery) with marquee value from the likes of Stephen King, Michael Chrichton, Michael Chabon and some of the others I mentioned earlier. It's a nice book, but, collectively it is nothing like an O'Henry collection. So the book is worth it if you just want some interesting tales written nicely, without consistently high literary-type aspirations. -
A good collection of ripping yarns, despite any (staggering) misgivings you may have about the imprint. I especially enjoyed “The Nazi Canary” by Michael Moorcock (alt-30’s Conan-Doyle-style whodunnit concerning the suspicious death of Hitler’s niece); “Ghost Dance,” a cowboys-and-Indians ghost story by Sherman Alexie; plus a Depression-era gangster shoot-em-up by Elmore Leonard, a couple of good time-travel stories by Nick Hornby and Chris Offutt, and an in-search-of-prehistoric-sharks science-adventure yarn by Jim Shepherd. In fact, the only weak stories in this collection are a head-scratcher novel-excerpt from Steven King and a long-winded who-cares from Mr. Eggers.
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Meehhh...some of the stories were fantastic, but in general they were just okay.
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Sadly disappointing.
My favourite fiction is pulp fiction. Raymond Chandler, Edgar Rice-Burroughs, Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. So I was really looking forward to this, especially as it's edited by Michael Chabon, probably my favourite writer at the moment. In the introduction, Chabon talks about a collection of genre 'stories', real stories of plot and adventure (rather than literary noodling) but not many here come up to scratch.
The only other McSweeney's I have is the comic issue, which is outstanding.
Which makes this all the more depressing.
The famous names, the ones I usually enjoy (Elmore Leonard, Michael Chichton)'s stories are bland. Stephen King's is terrible, he obviously pulled a half-finished idea out of a draw. Michael Moorcock's is fun (The Case of the Nazi Canary), but he writes something close to pulp anyway. Nick Hornby is usually irritating, but the story here was actually ok.
Harlan Ellison and Rick Moody I'd heard of but never read anything by, and will be avoiding them in the future. Moody's was the only story I actually couldn't finish.
The rest were forgettable.
Also disappointing after the beautifully made McSweeney's comic edition is the production. Weirdly thick paper, cut and pasted ads from old pulp magazines (it would have been more fun to make new ones), and godawful illustrations (why not get an old EC artist, or the guy from Dinosaurs and Cadillacs to do it? Chabon must know all these people).
On the plus side...
There were two writers that I'd never heard of, but I'm definitely going to check out more by; Don Chaon ("People say that fire 'crackles,' but in fact it seems like the amplified sound of tiny creatures eating, little wet mandibles, thousands and thousands of them, and then a heavy, whispered whoof , as the fire finds another pocket of oxygen."), and Kelly Link's story Catkin is amazing ("witches cannot have children in the usual way - their wombs are full of straw or bricks or stones, and when they give birth, they give birth to rabbits, kittens, tadpoles, houses, silk dresses, and yet even witches must have heirs, even witches wish to be mothers....One girl she had grown like a cyst, upon her thigh. Other children she had made out of things in her garden, or bits of trash that the cats brought her: aluminium foil with strings of chicken fat still crusted to it, broken television sets, cardboard boxes that the neighbours had thrown out. ").
And the last story by Chabon, even though it is barely a beginning, is just fantastic. I really love his writing. An airship "strained at the guy that moored her to the campanile, and once tossed her nose like a mare sniffing fire." It's shadow "A spatulate darkness, shaped like a shark, poured itself along the rues and alleys of the Vieux Carre. It splashed against the sides of houses and shops, then surged up walls of brick and clapboard to flood the Quarter's rooftops - drowning chimney pots, weather vanes and tin flues - before brimming over the volutes of a cornice and ladling itself once more down an iron balcony into the street."
And finishes with "We're all liars, Franklin, he said. We lie, and then we wait and hope for time and hard work and the will of God to make us honest men." -
Michael Chabon introduces this book with a thought experiment: What if literary fiction hadn't settled on just one mode of plotless mundane contemporary realism ending with a realization?
Which sounds great. But the very first story (admittedly not contemporary or realistic, and if there isn't quite a plot there are a series of events) still feels very like the literary stories that have driven me away from lit-fic; it's all about the character's feelings and his relationship with his past, and it's still the usual progression through ineffectual activity (or inactivity) to tragedy, even if it is set in the outer form of an old-fashioned adventure story from about the 1930s.
When a quick glance through suggested that this was mostly what I was going to get, I couldn't quite nerve myself to try more. I probably didn't give it enough of a chance, though, and if you like lit-fic more than I do, you may well find this interesting. -
שייבון עף על עצמו יותר מדי. בחר מבחר סיפורים שחלקם בלתי קריאים ומיעוטם טוב. גם הסופרים "הנחשבים" לא תרמו את סיפוריהם הטובים ביותר. אפשר לדלג על כל הספר.
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As with most short story collection, this has a few good stories, some not so good and a lot of average. Still worth a read if you enjoy short stories, I personally have to be in the right mood. Which is why it has taken me over a year to finish...
I do like the way it has been presented in the book with an old "newspaper look" (ads and everything), as well as the cover. -
One of the unanswered questions of modern culture is the reason for the decline of the short story form. As people complain about lacking the time to read it would seem that the short stories should prove the ideal solution; busy readers can read a story from a collection and then walk away until they next have a chance to read. Yet despite this short stories receive less and less of a readership, precipitously falling from the great popularity they enjoyed a few decades ago when readers could choose form dozens of short story publications grouped by genre.
McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales attempts to push back this trend, a noble effort even if it is unlikely to succeed. Reaching back to the great pulp adventure and science fiction magazines of years passed, publications that in their heyday helped launch the careers of giants like Azimov, Heinlein, and Niven, Mcsweeney's presents here a enjoyable short story collection from the desks of many fine authors. Providing a bow for this finely wrapped collection, Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon edits it, includes a wonderful story, and a good introduction.
As is the case with any collection, some stories will appeal more to a given reader's taste than others. As mentioned, Michael Chabon's romp through an alternative history where the US rejoined the British Empire and North American rebellions seeking to refound the republic, proves both fun and makes the reader the look forward to future visits to this world. Karren Fowler, an author who many may think odd to find here, also offers an engaging story reminiscent of stories from times passed. Likewise Stephen King's "Weaving the Dark" stands out for its excellence. Topping my favorites, Elmore Leonard's thoughtful "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman" and Rick Moody's profound "Albertine" both of which stand out as singular works.
Of course a few pieces did not read for me as well, including Harlan Ellison's and Michael Morcock's, both authors I love and the former whom I consider one of the great short story writers of all time. Others doubtless will find other of the works standing out as their favorites. Either way, readers with only intermittent time to read would surely enjoy this journey through a myriad multiverse of fantastic worlds. Whether traveling on short hops or grabbing moments when your infant in napping, readers will not regret any moment they can steal with this fine collection. -
There's nothing better than an anthology of great short stories. What I love best is that this anthology doesn't succumb to the two most common pitfalls usually encountered in short story collections: 1) if the collection is done by just one author, then there tends to be more than a couple of duds in the collection; and 2) it doesn't fall prey to the literary pretentiousness so common in current fiction.
I had a fiction prof who argued that genre fiction could in no way be considered "literary fiction" which is what we were supposed to be writing in his class -- Chabon, as editor here, handles his refutation quite well. These stories are great examples of character-driven "literary" genre fiction. There were only one or two that I wasn't all that enamored with -- and I loved seeing some of my very favorite authors all in one place. Chabon has been a favorite of mine since Kavalier & Clay, and I love knowing that he obviously loves the same writers I do...it makes for great reading all around. -
Deliciously evil.
There were some short stories here that were superb and some I could have skipped. The Albertine Notes started out sort of interesting and developed into an incredibly powerful shocking story that will haunt me forever. The major writers I've heard of didn't write the best stories, although Steven King's tale was better than most of his books. It was an odd collection tied together only because they had 'surprise' endings - like elaborate jokes. The idea was to have them be plotless, but some of them had elaborate plots that underlay the relative inaction of the story. There's time travel and ghosts and Hitler and a circus. Now I want to read the other 9 collections this editor put together. -
Okay. I am sick to death of Michael Chabon going on and on about how the "epiphanic short story" - wherein nothing happens except some realization - is a dud and the short story is boring nowadays blah blah blah. But! This collection proves otherwise pretty thoroughly - namely that adventure, and just plain old plot, are essential elements to a short story. For the most part, a pretty entertaining read - Rick Moody's piece was excellent, as was the one about the Oklahoma lawman not only because it was about the greatest state ever. I admit I didn't finish the last story - but it was Michael Chabon's. So nannee nannee boo boo.
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I hadn’t realized when I picked this up that the title hides what this book really is: just another issue of McSweeney’s fiction. Literally so: at the end of the book, the final page informs us that this is issue ten of McSweeney’s. Most of the stories don’t even pretend to be a thrilling tale, and those that do are hopelessly mired in the nonthrilling tropes of modern writing.
I suspect Harlan Ellison was disappointed to see the final product. His “Goodbye to All That” is a great satire of what should have been his competition. But nobody obliged him—nor me, because I would have enjoyed Ellison’s work, and this collection, more if it had been accompanied by more thrilling stories.
Similarly, I suspect, Chris Offutt’s alter ego tries to write the worst story in the book by complaining about his father (Andrew J. Offutt, editor of the wonderful collection/s of thrilling tales,
Swords Against Darkness), but fails due to the strenuous competition. If his story had been surrounded with tales of his father’s ilk, his story might have been more readable; or if, conversely, his story had been surrounded with modern nonthrilling tales that yet aspired to the stars, his could have been read as satire of modern fiction. But as it is, while it could be a satire of modern writing styles; it could just as well be another in a long line of maudlin self-interested delusionary tales.
The best and most thrilling of the stories would be the final tale, Michael Chabon’s “The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance”, but that isn’t a complete story; it’s a phenomenal buildup to a thrilling tale, but it’s all introduction. The finale, supposedly, comes in the next issue, “McSweeney’s Second Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales”, but issue eleven doesn’t appear to be that book or contain that finale.
Stephen King’s contribution is a very good story, but it’s a condensation of one chapter from his Dark Tower installment
Wolves of the Calla.
There are some very good stories in here, however. Not surprisingly, Michael Moorcock’s “The Case of the Nazi Canary” is a top-notch thrilling adventure, without relying on the tropes that Ellison makes fun of, and making use of modern tropes from steampunk and retro noir. It’s a very weird story—not surprising from Moorcock—about an alternate history on the verge of their version of World War II; Moorcock’s Sir Seaton Begg (a Holmesian incarnation of the Eternal Champion) is hired by Rudolph Hess to investigate the death of Adolph Hitler’s half-niece. It just gets weirder with every Nazi official who enters the picture. Sir Begg is a metatemporal detective, although metatemporality doesn’t appear to affect this particular story; since I haven’t read any other Seaton Begg stories, however, I could be missing some references or even what being metatemporal means.
Fans of the Eternal Champion will be happy to know that the words law, chaos, and albino all appear in this story.
Among the other highlights, Rick Moody’s “The Albertine Notes” comes closest to being a thrilling tale, and is also very pleasantly reminiscent of Philip K. Dick. While it isn’t quite as intricate as a PKD story, it’s also more comprehensible. And the weird repetition, such as about the ferryman and touring ruined New York City makes the story one I’ll want to read multiple times—something not often to be said for repetition.
Elmore Leonard’s “How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman” is a good, solid, modern western, very reminiscent of
Joey Gordon’s real-life tales from the TSRA Sportsman.
Neil Gaiman’s “Closing Time” is a neat little semi-horror story in the line of the old Hammer House of Horror TV shows, or at least the early ones, without the gore. -
Very rarely does a short story collection look like a must read: "Michael Chabon recruits the biggest names in literature to recreate the exciting, pulpy, plot-based short stories they grew up on, recreating the lore and mystery of yesteryear." I mean, with names like Stephen King, Michael Crichton, Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, and Elmore Leonard, who wouldn't want to at least pick it up?
Problem is, this isn't any of their best work. For many, it's outside their wheelhouse, and it shows. If they're not clearly struggling to write in styles that don't come naturally to them--Michael Crichton's seemingly ending-less crime story, or Sherman Alexie's attempt at a zombie story, except the zombies are Custer's army for some reason--they're phoning it in and just writing whatever they feel like. King basically writes a Dark Tower based short story about plate chucking that later ends up in one of his novels. Chabon's "The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance" uses PhD-level vocabulary to tell a story in his traditional, long windy sentences, but unless you're clearheaded with a cup of strong coffee, or have memorized the thesaurus, its a lot to take in. I mean, "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" is arguably my all-time favorite novel, but at least he gives the story time to breathe between poetically worded sentences and long, almost self-indulgent paragraphs.
But that's not to say there weren't good stories in here. Glen David Gold's "The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened After," about an elephant on a murder rampage was great, and "How Carlos Changed His Name to Carl..." was rich and right up Elmore Leonard's lane. I also enjoyed Dave Eggers' "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly" and, of course, Dan Chaon's "The Bees" was great. I wonder if it would have fit in an old time pulpy story, but reading about a man haunted by the family he once left after he'd started a new one....extremely gripping, easy to read, and classic Chaon. -
I finished the second installment of this tongue-in-cheek series first (Astonishing Stories) because it was a much more manageable read, better curated, I think. Tighter. This predecessor is hobbled with stories that wear out their welcome rather quickly.
Let me say I love certain works by Rick Moody and Michael Chabon—but the final two stories in this are so bloated that I have to believe they were paid by the word. Moody's piece is not a story—it's a fucking cocaine-fueled (I'm guessing) NOVELLA. The Albertine Notes is everything I can't stand about Sci-Fi: Dystopian, time-travel, mind-control—all backlit by the titular narcotic. Chabon's final story is best forgotten; one of those What if? type of stories populated with actual historical figures, there are lot of these in both collections and no doubt contributed to the short-lived parody fad which emerged several years later, beginning with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Parody lives on these pages, but there are actually a few very fine tales that exceed kitschy expectations and don't run their premise into the ground.
The collection starts off so promising with Tedford and the Megaladon—a story I came across over 20 years ago and have been searching for ever since. I literally bought and devoured every short story collection Jim Shepard ever wrote trying to find it! I found a story of his once that sort of mentions something like a Megalodon but here we have the actual bonafide object of my fascination which is worth the price of the paperback. (By the way, I really fell in love with Shepard's work the more I read—but I digress.)
The nature of pulp is all story arc, action, entertainment—forget profundity. I had to keep reminding myself of that. Lot of big names here contributing, some fall short, others dazzle. Still others accept that unseriousness of this project and just have quick, well-written fun. That's the thing: quality pulp has more in common with flash fiction. It's hard to sustain for SIXTY SEVEN PAGES, RICK.
Nice cover art and illustrations starting each story. If you're a new or young reader, I suggest you have fun with this romp—then explore the more sophisticated works of all these masters. -
This collection was preceded with an explanation/lament on the dying genre/pulp short story. I gathered that short stories are hard, pulp has little in the way of plot (I'm not sure I've ever read a true pulp story, as this was a phenomenon that occurred before I could read), and started in. Pulp was dying. Whatever. I was just pumped that I'd found a "collection" book on the shelf of the man who would later become my boyfriend (didn't want to start something longer as the "book at his place" in case things didn't work out. That would be an awkward borrow). And the contributing author list was impressive enough to make me consider reading stories out of order--to get the recognizable authors done first, juuuuuuust in case.
So, the thing about short sotires is they're short. It's hard to tell a WHOLE lot in just a few pages, and the best of the stories left me wanting more. As for the bad ones, well, they're over quickly and you can move on to the next. This wasn't a grand slam collection, but there's enough good in here to warrant a recommendation, and some of which I think you should find a way to read regardless of method. I've marked my favorite 7 with [top], and since most of these clustered at the top or above average range for me, I gotta say "I really liked" most of the stuff I read, hence the 4 stars.
Jim Shepard's "Tedford and the Megalodon" -- Excellent, although I must admit I've had a strong recent Antarctic focus (H.P. Lovecraft, Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World), wonderfully atmospheric. Man hunts giant fish in a teeny canoe. Good luck.
Glen David Gold's "The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter" -- Very good. Quicker and arguably better than the flashback half of Water for Elephants. An elephant in hanged.
Dan Chaon's "The Bees" -- Man cultivates superior bee pollen and feeds it to his malnourished and dying baby, with ill effects. The heightening anxiety and tension is well done, although the ending is predictable a little ways out.
Kelly Link's "Catskin" -- very intriguingly written, like a lyrical adult fairy tale, hard to describe, but interesting and eerie. A witch's son carries out her dying wishes. [top]
Elmore Leonard's "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman" -- understated but a solid short. Boy grows up bent on revenge against a bank robber/murderer who kills a man in front of him--and steals his ice cream cone.
Carol Emshwiller's "The General" -- semi-standard captured-child-fights-people-who-killed-his-family-but-must-play-by-their-rules-until-s/he-can-escape-and-use-their-knowledge-against-them with a usually unexamined amount of doubt. Enjoyable (which is between decent and good, these are short-term investments we're talking here).
Neil Gaiman's "Closing Time" -- wonderfully chilling, achieved a level of suspense/quiet grimness that I wished American Horror Story would have. Unnervingly told tale about a haunted house. [top]
Nick Hornby's "Otherwise Pandemonium" -- one of the best in the collection, with equal parts chilling foreboding and honest human reactions (if a bit awkwardly written but hey, the teenage years are awkward). Boy finds a VCR that "predicts" the end of the world. [top]
Stephen King's "The Tale of Gray Dick" -- if I was still in the shadow of King's Dark Tower series, I would've liked it more, but a well-written piece anyway. A farmer and his wife ask an experienced fighter to stay and help them defend their town against their longtime oppressors.
Michael Crichton's "Blood Doesn’t Come Out" -- ... I actually can't remember this one, and the short shrift other reviewers give it online doesn't call up anything. I remember being disappointed, and I'm sure that's what it was.
Laurie King's "Weaving the Dark" --maybe I just couldn't relate because I'm not yet contemplating morality and being saddled with someone I once loved as a burden, but mostly boring. A woman going blind wonders about her life and limits now that her lover is terminally ill.
Chris Offutt's "Chuck’s Bucket" -- pretty self-referential and 4th-wall-breaking, in ways that's sometimes irritating and sometimes amusing; decent. The author uses a scientist friend's experiment to view his lives in alternate realities.
Dave Eggers's "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly" -- Sorry Dave, hated this one. A tourist climbs a mountain and doesn't particularly like it, until the end.
Michael Moorcock's "The Case of the Nazi Canary" -- just plain fun, a Hercule Poirot-type whodunit set in zeppelined Nazi Germany. [top]
Aimee Bender's "The Case of the Salt and Pepper Shakers" -- quite enjoyable. A police detective ruminates on the breakdown of a marriage that results in a double murder. [top]
Harlan Ellison's "Goodbye to All That" -- had high hopes for this one, given Ellison's reputation, and maybe that's just what he was counting on. It also made me want to look up the mose words. Anyway, man climbs to the top of the mountains seeking the be-all end-all to life, the universe, and everything and--! We get a burger.
Seriously.
But how could you ever answer that question anyway?
Karen Joy Fowler's "Private Grave 9" -- thinking dark thoughts at an archaeological site; I was intrigued but ultimately felt unsatisfied...pulp stories aren't encessarily supposed to have a plot, but I guess I wanted a little more action.
Rick Moody's "The Albertine Notes" -- fantastic; clever, creepy, I kind of want someone to make a movie of this. Drug that allows users to experience memory in enhanced detail causes NYC epidemic, recent memory loss, interference in temporal events, and possibly a nuclear explosion. [top]
Michael Chabon's "The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance" -- LOVED this, hopefully Chabon gets around to writing the rest of it; he describes things so well (as I've said elsewhere) and here inhabits the mind of a child with ease. How the children of Francis Drake ('member him?) become orphans in the Louisiana Territory in an alt-history world of airships and "landships." [top]
Sherman Alexie's "Ghost Dance" -- liked it, nothing shockingly new. Zombie Indians avenge their slaughter by Custer/people's ill-treatment in the 21st century.
...gee, I hope Joel never finds this. That first part makes me sound so damn cynical. Anyway, definitely worth a borrow and a read, but I'm hesitant about spending money on books these days. Short story collections unfortunately don't have much replay value, except when it comes to loaning out to friends. -
It's kind of hard to give a star review to this book, as I only read the stories I thought i'd like.
How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman had some charm to it, and I'm glad I read it. But, like all of the stories here, it has a limited audience. I can see how your average reader might not be able to embrace them.
The Tale of Grey Dick is a very small taste of Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series. The events in this story take place in the series, but it felt like this was an early draft, as Oy is refereed to as a dog and is more than once said to be "barking." There's also no mention that Roland and Jake might be traveling with other people. If you're a "Dark Tower" fan, it's an interesting passage to look into. If you're not, this story might make you want to become one.
Blood Doesn't Come Out, Goodbye to All That, and The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance were good enough to keep my attention but not good enough that I'd want to read whole novels about any of their subjects. Decent as short stories go, though.
Over all, I'm giving it 3 stars, but I enjoyed the first two stories enough to give them five stars on their own merit.
Again, not a book for everyone. I like to do a few short stories after I finish a book I really enjoyed, and in this case, these stories were the buffer after the new Star Trek Coda book 1 and whatever longer story I get into next. -
This is indeed a mammoth treasury of tales, and quite a read, with themes of adventure, fantasy, mystery, the supernatural, action, and altered history – so ‘thrilling’ is an appropriate adjective. This edition of McSweeney’s featured a star-studded cast of authors – Chabon (who also edited), Crichton, Eggers, Gaiman, Hornby, Laurie King, Stephen King, and many others. Consistency is quite high across the 20 stories, with only one or maybe two subpar efforts in the whole book.
My favorites:
Catskin, by Kelly Link
Closing Time, by Neil Gaiman
Otherwise Pandemonium, by Nick Hornby
Weaving the Dark, by Laurie King
Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly, by Dave Eggers (later published in How We Are Hungry, but well worth reading again)
The Case of the Nazi Canary, by Michael Moorcock
Goodbye to All That, by Harlan Ellison
The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance, by Michael Chabon (although this one was an exception to the claim in the table of contents that all tales were ‘original and complete’, in the sense that it is not finished, and carried over into the net installment of ‘Thrilling Tales’)
When I counted 8 of these as favorites and considered the overall quality, I bumped my original review score of 4 stars up half a point. Certainly worth picking up and reading from cover to cover, or a story at random. -
These tales were anything but thrilling. These stories are written by some of my favorite writers so I don''t know how they could be so horrible. The three stories I DID like were by writers I have never heard of:
+Chuck''s Bucket - Chris Offutt Unlike fanclub, I thought this was interesting, but really Offutt probably just couldn't come up with another idea for a story.
+The Case of the Nazi Canary - Michael Moorcock This was written in 1932 and published here for the first time! I''m impressed that a story could be anti-Hitler before they realized how truly evil he was.
+The Albertine Notes - Rick Moody I liked this. I liked the main characters disection of a Ricky Martin song. hahaha. I also liked this line: "Battalions of teens slithered past, wearing their headphones and their MP3 players all playing the same moronic dirge of niche-marketed neo-grunge shit." Best line ever!
Some of the stories I didn't bother reading because I know from experience that I hate their writing: Michael Crichton and Dave Eggers
Everything else is just not even worth mentioning. Hopefully I can find someone to send this to that might like it better! -
The three stars is not because of the quality. This is an anthology of all genres, and I do not like all genres.
I love thrilling tales and at the end of one I expect to be thrilled, not frowning, and definitely not sickened. I know Sherman Alexie's work but I wish I had not read his Ghost Dance, or Dan Chaon's The Bees. I gained insight into 'misery loves company' and 'violence breeds violence', as I found myself telling a friend the gruesome details and realizing as I did so that I wanted them to be sick too.
Stories I enjoyed are adventure, with some humor. These are the ones I'd read again.
Elmore Leonard -- How Carlos Webster changed his name to Carl and became a famous Oklahoma lawman
Chris Offutt -- Chuck's bucket
Harlan Ellison -- Goodbye to all that
Michael Chabon -- The Martian agent: A planetary romance
Michael Moorcock -- The case of the Nazi canary. This I enjoyed so much that I am looking up more about Sir Seaton Begg, Metatemporal Dectective! -
I took my time and enjoyed this collection throughout the year. Some of the stories worked better than others despite an incredible lineup of authors. My favorites should come as no surprise ("Ghost Story" by Sherman Alexie, "Up the Mountain..." by Dave Eggers, "Closing Time," Neil Gaiman, "How Carlos Webster ..." by Elmore Leonard). Only two really missed the mark for me: "Albertine Notes" by Rick Moody and Michael Moorcock’s "The Case of the Nazi Canary" (the only one I didn't read entirely). Overall, this is like a mini-masters class in writing modern short stories without succumbing to literary pretension.
