McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, guest-edited by Michael Chabon, will take you to places you never knew existed, send delicious shivers down your spine, and have your heart pounding healthily in your chest. The ghost story, the horror story, the detective story; stories of suspense, terror, fantasy and the plain macabre - all can be found gracing the pages within. Such celebrated writers as Neil Gaiman, Rick Moody, Nick Hornby, Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, Harlan Ellison and Glen David Gold, amongst others, have all put pen to paper in celebration of the art of genre.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Chabon teams up with the editors of Dave Eggers's McSweeney's magazine to create a fiction anthology with an innovative, simple concept: the stories are driven by adventurous plots and narrative action, in contrast to the current trend toward stories that are "plotless and sparkling with epiphanic dew," as Chabon writes in his introduction. The roster includes such heavyweights as Michael Crichton, Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, Nick Hornby and Harlan Ellison. As the retro title might suggest, the collection is heavy on sci-fi and detective stories, often updated with contemporary twists. Crichton offers a detective yarn called "Blood Doesn't Come Out," in which a disgruntled PI takes out his frustration on his wife in a cheeky spin on the domestic violence that punctuates the pulp fiction of Jim Thompson and James A. Cain. Hornby's contribution is an entertaining sci-fi story called "Otherwise Pandemonium," about a man who buys a VCR that fast-forwards into an apocalyptic future. In Rick Moody's "The Albertine Notes," a debilitating drug called Albertine wreaks havoc by sending users back in time to relive their memories. Dave Eggers's "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly" is a thoughtful story in which a woman climbs Kilimanjaro to bolster her self-confidence after experiencing a personal crisis, but proves oblivious to the deaths of three porters when the weather on the mountain turns ugly. Half a dozen or so stories are markedly slight, but overall this is a strong collection.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
From the Inside Flap
A Vintage Contemporaries Original
Includes:
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" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Includes:
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" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Haphazardly entertaining,
This review is from: McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (Paperback)
McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales was a book I really wanted to like. After all, it featured short stories from some really great writers, and the emphasis was going to be on adventure. I really wanted to like it, and found it disappointing that the book was only entertaining in spots.The goal of the book, as Chabon states in the introduction, is to have an anthology of short stories in a more "classic" vein: the sort of stories that were published in decades past, filled with fun and mystery as opposed to the more literary, plotless, "moment-of-truth" stories of today. Unfortunately, this book did not make me long for yesteryear, but instead made me think that the passing of short genre fiction was not necessarily a bad thing. The biggest flaw in the book is that the authors - almost all excellent at long fiction, seem to be unable to write a truly good short story. A couple stories, such as "The General" and "The Albertine Notes" are borderline unreadable. Most of the others are just so-so. Even Stephen King - who has shown over the years that he is adept in short fiction as well as novels - has contributed an only mildly okay story which is probably only best enjoyed by his Dark Tower fans. And Harlan Ellison - a master of the short story and an author who I really enjoy - is also a disappointment here, with a story which comes more as a Harlan Ellison parody than the real thing. There are one or two gems in the bunch (but not much more). Nick Hornby and Elmore Leonard have written a couple good stories, but that's around it. Ironically, some of the stories seem to consist of the very material that Chabon is trying to avoid: for example, one story is nothing more than a character study of a woman climbing a mountain; there is no adventure or real conflict in the tale; it may be good writing, but it does not fit with the themes of the anthology. Most people will buy this book because they enjoy one or more of the authors featured within. My recommendation is to read the authors you like and approach the others at your own risk.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
generally dreadful,
By A Customer
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (Paperback)
The premise of this anthology was terrific-- round up a bunch of first rate (mostly "literary") writers and have them do stories that are unpretentious, unaffected, rip roaring good reads. Just look at the cover illustration and you know what I mean. But the more the literary the writers here, the more it's plain that most of them saw the project as a kind of fun-slumming and as a result, their work wreaks of condescension and self-parody. The only good stories here are written by the likes of Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock and Kelly Link. Genre writers all, but nevertheless heads and tails better than the likes of Rick Moody, Dave Eggers, Jim Shepard, Chabon, etcetera. If you want to read a knockout anthology that wonderfully achieves everything this antho doesn't, check out "CONJUNCTIONS:39-- The New Wave Fabulists" The contrast between the two collections is profound.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Baby and the Bathwater,
By A Customer
This review is from: McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (Paperback)
As might be expected with any collection such as this, it's uneven. I appreciate the idea of re-creating the old pulp style stories and the roster of authors are all top-notch, but a lot of the tales are too cute by half. I love stories that have a flair to them, but sometimes that gets taken to the extreme and damages the narrative. It would seem to me, as someone who has made a hobby of collecting the old pulp comics and magazines, that you can't have it both ways. If you want to throw a curveball at your reader, you can't do it in a lackadaisical manner, which some of these authors tend to do.I made a conscious effort to read each story and give each one a chance and there was really only one that I gave up on, mostly because it was too long. The best, for me, were the contributions by (no real surprises)Glen David Gold, Elmore Leonard, and Neil Gaiman. I was a little surprised by how much I didn't like the Stephen King story and editor Michael Chabon's contribution was also a bit thin. Indeed, Chabon's story seemed to exemplify what was wrong with the stories that just didn't seem to work. He tried too hard to capture the pulp spirit and in doing so ended up with an interesting story but not a very entertaining one. I thought overall the book is worth reading, although I think perhaps it's better to read the stories piecemeal when your appetite for that type of story is piqued.
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