Customer Reviews

Stories

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the introduction to this volume of short stories, co-editor Neil Gaiman laments the narrowness of "commercial fantasy", which "tends to drag itself through already existing furrows, furrows dug by J.R.R. Tolkien or Robert E. Howard". So the goal (as I read Gaiman's rather vague introduction) was to gather together a collection of original short stories that explore the possibilities of the fantastic outside these well-plowed furrows.

This is, of course, not a new idea. There are legions of stories and novels that have traveled the realms of fantasy without the help of elves or barbarians. And indeed, many of the stories here fit fairly neatly into some existing sub-genre: ghost story, vampire story, etc. A few stories have no element of fantasy, but confine themselves to bad or weird real-world goings on.

The question of whether this volume breaks new ground aside, it's a strong collection, whose hits easily outweigh its misses. The stories are mostly by well-established authors, with awards and best-sellers to their credit. The stories are described as "all-new", so presumably they appear here for the first time.

"Blood" by Roddy Doyle: A sorta-kinda vampire story. Pretty good, but I was annoyed by the pointless affectation of not using quote marks. You ain't Cormac McCarthy, Roddy, and it's a pointless affectation when Cormac McCarthy does it, anyway.
"Fossil-Figures" by Joyce Carol Oates: An evil twin story. A well written, respectable piece of work of the sort Oates is known for.
"Wildfire In Manhattan" by Joanne Harris: A 'the old gods are still among us' story. Nice; had me smiling over the artistic turns of phrase at several points.
"The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains" by Neil Gaiman: Good, if fairly typical fantasy story, written in typical fantasy-speak: "In the high lands, people spend words as if they were gold coins."
"Unbelief" by Michael Marshall Smith: A short 'gotcha' story, somewhat less of a cheap shot than that makes it sound.
"The Stars Are Falling" by Joe R. Lansdale: My choice for the best, most powerful story in the book. A brutally dark and Hemingway-esque tale of a WWI veteran's return home.
"Juvenal Nyx" by Walter Mosley: I found this vampire re-mix to be rambling and over-long.
"The Knife" by Richard Adams: A mildly interesting little short-short about a murder.
"Weights And Measures" by Jodi Picoult: A couple dealing with the death of their seven-year-old daughter, mixed with some whimsical magic realism. Ick. Not a good combination.
"Goblin Lake" by Michael Swanwick: Something or other about magically being given a choice between a life of reality and... something or other. I didn't find this one compelling.
"Mallon The Guru" by Peter Straub: An obscure piece -- obscure to the degree that I have no idea what the point of it was.
"Catch And Release" by Lawrence Block: A twist on the unpleasant, over-done genre of let's-spend-some-time-in-the-mind-of-a-serial-killer. Let's not. Not enough of a twist to keep this from being unpleasant.
"Polka Dots And Moonbeams" by Jeffrey Ford: Another opaquely obscure piece, but so delightfully written that I'm willing to forgive the sense of WTF. "and the moon rose slow as a bubble in honey"
"Loser" by Chuck Palahniuk: An LSD-addled college kid gets selected as a contestant on an insipid TV game show. The LSD makes this more interesting for the protagonist, but not for the reader.
"Samantha's Diary" by Dianna Wynne Jones: "The Twelve Days of Christmas" written out as an allegedly humorous story. Tedious as a song, way more so as a short story.
"Land Of The Lost" by Stewart O'Nan: A story of obsession. By definition, obsession is rather pointless, and so was this story.
"Leif In The Wind" by Gene Wolfe: Science fiction blending into fantasy, as Wolfe often does. Beautifully written and delightful. One of the closest approaches to an "upbeat" story in this volume.
"Unwell" by Carolyn Parkhurst: A completely wonderful story about a completely despicable old woman. Black humor at its tastiest. After reading this, I looked up the author and added a novel of hers to my wish list.
"A Life In Fictions" by Kat Howard: In contrast to the heavyweight authors who make up most of this book, this is Howard's first published story, and it's a good one. A nifty fantasy about the unexpected consequences of being "written into" an author-boyfriend's fiction.
"Let The Past Begin" by Jonathan Carroll: I found this one to be rather plodding and self-important.
"The Therapist" by Jeffery Deaver: A clever bid at updating the theme of demonic possession, but I found it tedious and amateurishly written.
"Parallel Lines" by Tim Powers: A solid, effective, well written ghost story.
"The Cult Of The Nose" by Al Sarrantonio: A Maupassant-esque tale of is-it-madness-or-is-it-supernatural-goings-on. I suppose this is meant to be a pastiche of, or homage to, Maupassant, but to me it just felt like a rehash of an old idea.
"Human Intelligence" by Kurt Anderson: The volume's only straight-ahead science fiction story, and a pretty good one. An alien studying human civilization finds his ride home is overdue.
"Stories" by Michael Moorcock: A deeply felt portrait of an author and the world of writing, presumably somewhat autobiographical. Marred by way the heck too much name-dropping, as if we're supposed to be impressed that Moorcock can mention Marcel Proust and Albert Camus and Jean Gabin and Francis Bacon and Alfred Bester and Lawrence Ferlinghetti (etc., etc., etc.) all in the same breath.
"The Maiden Flight Of McCauley's Bellerophon" by Elizabeth Hand: A long, leisurely story about a magical flying machine and honoring past love. Good enough to get me sniffling.
"The Devil On The Staircase" by Joe Hill: An excellent fairly tale about murder and lies ends this collection on an impressive note.

Above are the four words that Neil Gaiman writes about in his introduction to the collection edited by himself and Al Sarrantonio. "And then what happened."--the four words that every storyteller longs to hear. That child-like impulse is the essence of what he and Sarrantonio wanted to evoke with this collection. On that basis, they were largely successful. These diverse stories, written by an impressive array of writers, kept me turning the pages and, yes, wondering what would happen next.

In some cases, I didn't have to wonder long. The stories range in length from a mere three pages to an impressive 48. Despite his name appearing in 72-point font on the book's cover, Mr. Gaiman contributes only one story in addition to his introduction. So, die-hard Gaiman fans, don't be disappointed. Instead, revel in the embarrassment of riches that have been brought together. This story collection features contributors who are among the best in genre fiction (Gene Wolfe, Joe R. Lansdale, Michael Swanwick, Peter Straub), literary fiction (Stuart O'Nan, Joyce Carol Oates, Walter Mosley, Roddy Doyle), and popular fiction (Jeffrey Deaver, Jodi Picoult, Joe Hill, Chuck Palahniuk). Honestly, I barely brushed the surface of all the big-name contributors, so very many of whom are long-time favorites of mine.

I'll be honest, not every single story is a slam dunk, but not one was a stinker. The one I liked best (possibly Carolyn Parkhurst's featuring an unreliable narrator) might be the one you liked least. These things are so subjective. The overall quality of contributions is high. Whether you're looking for quick palate cleansers between longer works, or you're looking forward to reading this collection cover to cover, I feel confident in asserting that there's something for everyone to be found within these pages.

In his introduction, Neil Gaiman says that he feels that fiction has become too constrained by genre and types, and he wanted to offer authors free reign in crafting "stories" (thus the title of the book). The only thing he demanded is that they were well-written, and had the ability to grasp the reader in a way that the reader is hanging on each page, uttering those magical four words "And then what happened?" As a reader, I was pretty excited by that introduction; because that is a feeling I absolutely love. I love it when I am so engrossed in a story that I sacrifice some hours sleep and being tired at work the next day because I simply can't put a book down. And I especially love short stories, so I was looking forward to something original and engrossing.

"Stories" doesn't really deliver on Gaiman's intentions. Oh, there are some great stories here, but they are far too few, maybe four or five out of twenty-eight in total. The rest range from "so-so" to downright bad. If this is the best that a famous man of letters like Gaiman could gather, than I worry that the captivating short story might be a lost art.

Gaiman himself delivered one of my favorites of the collection, "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains," full of jacobites and cursed gold in the Scottish highlands. The other standout was "The Stars are Falling" by Joe R. Lansdale, a haunting tale of a returning WWI vet. "The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellpheron" by Elizabeth Hand was a lovely little tale, and could easily have been the plot for an episode of The Twilight Zone, my all-time favorite TV show. I liked the story of "The Devil on the Stairs" by Joe Hill, although the conceit of spacing the letters so it looked like a staircase was distracting and unnecessary. "A Leif in the Wind" by Gene Wolfe was decent, something that I might have read back when I had a subscription to "Analog."

Too much of the rest of it was just bland and uninteresting. I am just about sick of the "Gods of Olde" coming to Earth and starting rock bands ("Wildfire in Manhatten" by Joanne Harris) or stories of "Good Vampires" who help old ladies ("Juvenal Nyx" by Walter Mosley) or meta-stories of characters who realize they are characters in a story ("Goblin Lake" by Michael Swanwick and "A Life in Fictions" by Kat Howard). Chuck Palahnuik's "The Loser" about a guy appearing as a contestant on "The Price is Right" while high on acid was just boring.

There were quite a few Christmas tales too for some reason, only one of which I really enjoyed. "Samantha's Diary" by Diana Wynne Jones is kind of a boring and predictable take on a Sci Fi version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas." Michael Marshall Smith's cynical Santa Claus story "Unbelief" seemed outdated, but I was charmed by Kurt Andersen's more heartwarming "Human Intelligence" (another candidate for a Twilight Zone episode).

Length was an issue here with more than a few stories. A good short story should be self-contained, and use all of its pages wisely. "Catch and Release" by Lawrence Block would have been a fantastic story if it had ended about three pages in, but instead ruined the chilling effect of the serial killer story by dragging it on. "Let the Past Begin" had totally hooked me with that elusive "And then what happened?" feeling, only to end so abruptly and without conclusion that I was annoyed at the author.

Many of the others are just unmemorable. After finishing the book and looking at the table of contents, I see that there are a few stories I can't even recall the plot of. Not a good sign.

The good stories that are really good, and I am glad that I waded through the mediocrity to get to them. But I wish Gaiman and Sarrantonio had done a little more quality control when picking the stories for the collection.

The book jacket says that this anthology "reinvigorates, expands and redefines the limits of imaginative fiction". The book hosts some huge names in fiction: Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Carroll, Neil Gaiman, Richard Adams, Walter Mosley, Chuck Palahniuk and many others. Serial killers, Santa, a bizarre case of sibling rivalry that extends beyond the grave, vengeance are some of the weave through this book. Some of the stories are brilliant. Sadly, some are not.

Any anthology is uneven. It's just the nature of a collection. But this one ranges from marvelous to a couple I could barely get through. That surprised me, because I expected, with the list of authors this book has, that they would all be stellar. The book is definitely worth reading, but take this advice- if the story seems bad in the first few paragraphs, give up and go to the next one. The good ones start good; the bad ones don't get any better.

It has been a long time since I tried to read a collection of short stories from a variety of writers. This one succeeds far higher than my admittedly cynical expectations. What makes it successful for me is likely the fact that there's no focus on any genre. There's no reason to list the authors as that's in the original solicitation and the fact is many are very established authors (Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, Peter Straub, Michael Moorcock, etc....), but the surprising number of authors whose work I've never read is opening me to a lot of talented work and more writers to follow if I want to expand on my current favorites.
There were some doubts. The first story didn't do much for me (tired of this particular subject). But other than one other I've read them all which is unprecedented. Though the stories vary in quality and content the fact that I read so many -as well as the addictive quality of moving from one tale to the next without pause- is refreshing.
This is the first time I haven't had a middling experience reading so many different types of stories between a single cover.

This anthology is a delightful cross-section of contemporary fiction. Its stories are dynamic and emotionally evocative; they range from heart-wrenching fantastical portraits of loss and grief to riotously witty quips about game shows. There's something in here for everyone, and even a discriminating fiction buff will broaden his or her literary horizons.

This book is for short story lovers.
Without dissecting the introductions for over analysis, I can say that it is what it is: 27 short fictions from some of the most celebrated contemporary writers. While for me, some stories failed to hit the mark, some of them I enjoyed enough to purchase the book for myself (after having first borrowed it from my local library) and to buy it as a gift for a friend.

What you look for in a short story - or any story really - is some sort of an escape into another world. Something that makes you want to keep reading more. This book has that in spades.

I was excited when I read that the stories in this book would make me look at the world in new ways. I suppose I expected something like the stories in Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link. I'm not sure the stories in this book really did that but they did entertain me and most felt fairly fresh. Here is my rating of each:

1. Blood- 3/5, Fast paced, fairly witty and loved some of the visuals but not a whole lot of substance
2. Fossil-Figures- 2.5/5 The bad twin thing has been done to death and so has the evil politician. The end started out creating a powerful sense of dread but so much time was covered that I lost that feeling and got bored.
3. Wildfire in Manhattan- 2/5 The writing in this annoyed me though I liked the end
4. The Truth is A Cave in the Black Mountains- 5/5 Imagery was good. Story was solid. Probably my favorite.
5. Unbelief- 1.5/5 Unbelievable. Not in a good way
6. The Stars Are Falling- 5/5 I really liked this one. Felt like I was right there. The sense that something is not right creeps up on you.
7. Juvenal Nyx- 2/5 Dragged on. Most of it not original. Just didn't work for me
8. The Knife- 2/5 Not really much of a story and not striking enough to make up for it
9. Weights and Measures- 2.5/5 I liked the idea behind it and it was well enough written. I still dislike writings about grief though and that part of it was a bit run of the mill.
10. Goblin Lake- 2.5/5 Was kind of clumsily done but left me thinking
11. Mallon the Guru- 2/5 What?
12. Catch and Release- 3/5 Disturbing. Inside the mind of serial killer has been done so many times though
13. Polka Dots and Moonbeams- 3.5/5 I don't pretend to understand all of it but liked the feel of it
14. Loser- 2/5 You don't shock me. Quit trying so hard
15. Samantha's Diary- 3.5/5 The plot could have been better. I really liked the protagonist though so she kept me from growing bored.
16. Land of the Lost- 2.5/5 It started so good. The end was a let down.
17. Leif in the Wind- 1.5/5 Maybe I missed something? I'm not a sci-fi fan either.
18. Unwell- 4/5 The end infuriated me of course. And I think bad sister was almost written too bad. I get it, she is despicable, but still the plot entertained and surprised me
19. A Life in Fictions- 2.5/5 Felt flat to me and rather clumsy though it seemed a popular one for a lot of people.
20. Let the Past Begin- 3.5/5 This one intrigued me and creeped me out. Felt unfinished though.
21. The Therapist- 4/5 Jumped around a lot but gets the 4 cause it took me by surprise. Didn't know where it was headed
22. Parallel Lines- 2.5/5 Maybe I was sick of evil sybling stories by this time but just didn't do it for me
23. The Cult of the Nose- 4.5/5 Spooky weird little story
24. Human Intelligence- 3.5/5 Won't think of someone the same way again
25. Stories- 1/5 Ugh I hated this. Bored me to tears. Self indulgent. Kept waiting for something, anything, to happen.
26. The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerphon- 3.5/5 Not gripping but well written
27. The Devil on the Staircase- 5/5 The format enhanced the story for me. Not a boring moment and really dark feel

In his introduction to this collection of 18 stories, co-editor Neil Gaiman encourages readers with (p 4), "There's something waiting for you. So turn the page." As a person who loves short stories and any-lengthed tales that are strange, quirky, or queer, I figured this book was a good bet for me and hopefully for my 12-year-old scary-story-loving son. Fortunately, by previewing it, I learned that in spite of my belief, based on familiarity with Gaiman's teen-friendly reads (like Coraline and The Graveyard Book) and the collection's cool cover illustration (a three-eyed, tentacled creature about to eat a fountain pen-wielding stick figure); its content is, in a number of cases, inappropriate for young adult readers.

Although not one to begin at the end, I did so in this case, starting with the story entitled The Devil on the Staircase by Joe Hill because of its neat stair-step text format. It turned out to be a devilishly good tale (in fact, one of my favorites) about a morally challenged young man whose actions spawn additional evil. It was at this point that I realized that Stories might not be appropriate for my tween bookworm. Next I chose Jodi Picoult's contribution, Weights and Measures, about a couple grieving over the death of their daughter, wondering what she, mistress of the prescriptive predictable plot (Iamnotafan), might do to mix things up at the end. Its unscary, easy-way-out conclusion was unsurprisingly disappointing. Next up I picked Blood by Roddy Doyle, whose memoir Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha I restarted reading a few weeks ago (and still haven't finished). The sheer savagery of the story about a normal-seeming man trying to deal with an insatiable desire for a certain crimson liquid was brilliantly done. JCO's Fossil Figures, which I read next, went from eerie to too weird for me. And I couldn't help but note that she decided to attribute the term (p 21) "conservative" to the evil twin, a man who gave (p 23) "impassioned speeches ("sanctity of life"-"pro-life"-"family values"-"patriotic Americans"), read: Republican=evil. At this point, I stopped jumping around and read the stories as they came, loving some and finding the others just okay. Of note: The Stars are Falling by Jon R. Lansdale in which a former farmer man killed during WWII reanimates, returns home, and attempts to take up where he left off with his wife; a (three page) story by Richard Adams called The Knife about a boarding school boy's confession; Goblin Lake by Michael Swanwick, another folk-tale-like story that illustrates a lesson on the longevity of literature; a futuristic tale that incorporates a holiday song called Samantha's Diary by Diana Wynne Jones; Land of the Lost by Stewart O'Nan, about an obsessed amateur crime solver; Parallel Lines by Tim Powers and Unwell by Carolyn Parkhurst which are both about elderly women siblings in which at least one exhibits bad behavior; and The Cult of the Nose by co-editor Al Sarrantonio, which shows that one man's reality is another's irrationality. Lawrence Block's absolutely chilling Catch and Release is notable for its extremely creepy main character/narrator; the story made me squirm. Best of the book: a large sampling of short, strange, scary, unique "All-New Tales," each by a different author. I also enjoyed the About the Contributors section, except in its misspelling of Hayao Miyazaki's name. Also good: The Girl in a Swing by Richard Adams, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and I Am Legend by Richard Matheson.

Never judge a book by its cover. Well, whether you do that or not, I have to say that Stories: All-New Tales has the best cover I've ever seen. On it is an illustration of a three-eyed, many-tentacled sea-monster rising out of the ocean and bearing down on a little stick man wielding nothing but a fountain pen. In the UK, the cover is different but my awesome girlfriend got the US edition imported for my birthday. And what a gift it was. Apart from the cover, the book has unevenly cut pages, like crinkle cut crisps. So the presentation of the book is pretty much perfect. But what about the content? Well fear not because the content is so good that you soon forget the trimmings.

I wanted the book because it was edited by Neil Gaiman, one of my favourite authors, but I really didn't expect to be as blown away as I was by the stories inside. All of them are great but some of them are blisteringly good. The remit for the collection was narrative drive and these stories have that in spades. But they are so much more. Some of the stories had my jaw dropping in admiration for their sheer brilliance.

Fossil-Figures by Joyce Carol Oates was my favourite. It appears second and is about two twins. The language and tragedy of the story reminded me of what stories can do to you when they are so perfectly told. You will be blown away by this piece. It's worth the cover price alone - that good.

I'll only take about the stories that really impacted on me and so the next one is Neil Gaiman's The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains. This is as perfectly formed a story as you're ever likely to see. It's about a man who embarks on an odyssey following an incident by which he will be forever haunted.

Weights and Measures by Jodi Picoult is the story of a young couple trying to recover from the death of their daughter. I didn't know if I was being emotionally manipulated by the subject matter but Picoult was unsparing in her dissection of grief. Magnificent.

Loser by Chuck Palahnuik is the most overtly literary piece. His flare for words and imagery are superb and though he is often imitated nowadays his style is still his own. He really gets into the story of a drugged up student appearing on a TV show, a story that somehow reminded me of the film version of Requiem for a Dream. Very cool.

Unwell by Carolyn Pankhurst was just so painful. It's the story of two sisters, one having spent her whole life under the power of the other. It's one of those stories where you are reminded of how cruel people can be, and how you hope you never come across someone who could be like that to you. It's a superb story with a fantastically unreliable narrator.

The Therapist by Jeffery Deaver is written from the point of view of said Therapist and is a great, fun story. With a nasty sting in the tale. Although maybe not as deep as some of the other stories, it rattles along at great pace - just as stories should.

Human Intelligence by Kurt Anderson is a weird and wonderful tale about an alien spy. His base is located beneath the artic ice but, with the thawing of the great icefields, he is about to be uncovered. Here we have a fantastic example of what the imagination can do. The story is absolutely awesome - so inventive and cool. I loved this one. It had a lot of heart.

The last three stories are all immense. Stories by Michael Moorcock is a huge sweeping, thousand-page epic of modern times condensed into a short story. It's about the intertwining relationships of people in the publishing trade and is both stunning and tragic. How he managed to conjure such emotions when telling such a large story in such a small space I'll never know.

The penultimate story in the collection is The Maiden Flight Of McCauley's Bellerophon by Elizabeth Hand. This is the longest story in the whole book but one of the best. It's about a group of guys who head off to a deserted island in Florida to recreate a film that was recently lost in a fire. The film was of a flying contraption that preceded the Wright Brothers. But there's more things at work - chiefly, love lost and alien life. A riveting read that's also very moving.

And then finally there is The Devil On The Staircase by Joe Hill. This is the most strangely formatted story in the book because the text is laid out to look like a staircase climbing down through the story. Such showy tricks must be backed up with clout and Hill does not fail to deliver. It's a beautiful story about a man who lives in a mountain covered in steps, called Sulle Scale. One day he comes across the devil on a forbidden staircase and the devil presents him with a mechanical bird that helps cover up the lies you tell by chirping a mysterious melody. The story is weird but class, and a great close to a phenomenal collection.

I hope many people read this book because whereas some short story collections contain duds, this one is brimming with ideas, invention and the stuff that tells us what it is to be human. It's a mammoth achievement.