Stories: All-New Tales
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Product Description
“The joy of fiction is the joy of the imagination. . . .”
The best tales pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, keen to learn more—to find the answer to the question: “And then what happened?” The right hallmark of fantastic literature is fantastic imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to fantastic fiction, all genres are equal.
Tales is a groundbreaking anthology that reinvigorates, expands, and redefines the limits of imaginative fiction and affords some of the best writers in the world—from Peter Straub and block Palahniuk to Roddy Doyle and Diana Wynne Jones, Stewart O’Nan and Joyce Carol Oates to Walter Mosley and Jodi Picoult—the opportunity to work together, defend their craft, and realign misconceptions. Gaiman, a literary magician whose acclaimed work defies simple categorization and transcends all boundaries, and “master anthologist” (Booklist) Sarrantonio personally invited, read, and selected all the tales in this collection, and their standard for this “new literature of the imagination” is high. “We wanted to read tales that used a lightning-flash of magic as a way of showing us something we have already seen a thousand times as if we have never seen it at all.”
Joe Hill boldly aligns theme and form in his disturbing tale of a man’s descent into evil in “Devil on the Staircase.” In “Catch and Relief,” Lawrence Block tells of a seasoned fisherman with a talent for catching a bite of another sort. Carolyn Parkhurst adds a dark twist to sibling rivalry in “Unwell.” Joanne Harris weaves a tale of very ancient gods in modern New York in “Wildfire in Manhattan.” Vengeance is the heart of Richard Adams’s “The Knife.” Jeffery Deaver introduces a dedicated psychologist whose mission in life is to save people in “The Therapist.” A chilling punishment befitting an unspeakable crime is at the dark heart of Neil Gaiman’s novelette “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains.”
As it transforms your view of the world, this brilliant and visionary volume—sure to become a classic—will place a match to a new appreciation for the limitless realm of exceptional fiction.
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Tales is an anthology composed by the profilic anthology Al Sarrantonio, along with fantasy writer Neil Gaiman. Bringing together talents ranging from Mr Gaiman himself to Tim Powers, Joyce Carol Oates, and chuck Palahnuik, its an impressive stable of authors for an all new anthology.
The mission of the anthology is to dissolve the artificial barrier between genre fiction and mainstream fiction. providing a suite of tales that straddle the borderland between the regularly walled kingdoms of fantasy, and the realms of contemporary literary fiction.
With such an impressive pedigree of writers, I ongoing the anthology with high expectations. While I didn’t reflect that the anthology would be the holy grail of a book that could help tear down that wall, I hoped that I could find excellent value for money in the tales.
Sorry to say, for me, this proved not to be the case.
I reflect that, for the most part, the authors in the anthology kept the tales *too* contemporary, shying away too much from genre conventions and trappings, in an effort to be more literary. Many of these tales would not be out of place in one of the many high school and college fleeting tales anthologies that I read in English class. That’s precisely the problem, and its a bug, not a feature, of the anthology. Oh, a number of the tales do not fall under this broad brush that I am painting. But for the most part, the tales remain too literary for their own excellent.
Let me not say that the quality of the tales is terrible. They aren’t–not even the ones which remain closest to the literary side of the no man’s land between contemporary and genre fiction. But the tales, one after another, just felt like they didn’t really fulfill the mission of the anthology to my expectations.
The lineup of the anthology is as follows:
Table of Contents
* Blood – Roddy Doyle
* Fossil-Facts – Joyce Carol Oates
* Wildfire in Manhattan – Joanne Harris
* The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains – Neil Gaiman
* Unbelief – Michael Marshall Smith
* The Stars are Falling – Joe R. Lansdale
* Juvenal Nyx – Walter Mosley
* The Knife – Richard Adams
* Weights and Measures – Jodi Picoult
* Goblin Lake – Michael Swanwick
* Mallon and Guru – Peter Straub
* Catch and Relief – Lawrence Block
* Polka Dots and Moonbeams – Jeffrey Ford
* Loser – block Palahniuk
* Samantha’s Diary – Diane Wynne Jones
* Land of the Lost – Stewart O’Nan
* Leif in the Wind – Gene Wolfe
* Unwell – Carolyn Parkhurst
* A Life in Fictions – Kat Howard
* Let the Past Start – Jonathan Carroll
* The Therapist – Jeffery Deaver
* Parallel Lines – Tim Powers
* The Cult of the Nose – Al Sarrantonio
* Human Intelligence – Kurt Anderson
* Tales – Michael Moorcock
* The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon – Elizabeth Hand
* The Devil on the Staircase – Joe Hill
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
It has been said in various ways that “magical realism” is a euphemism for fantasy fiction for people who would be embarrassed to say they read fantasy. The ambiguous, shifting, and regularly arbitrary boundaries between genre fiction and literary fiction form the basis of Neil Gaiman’s delightful introduction, where he praises the quality shared by all excellent fiction whatever the mark – the quality that makes the reader marvel “and then what happened?”
If the fleeting introductory remarks warmed my bibliophile heart, the subsequent tales were more than enough to set it pounding. This is a highly diverse collection of tales and features a nice sampling of many well loved authors writing in several genres. Straightforward science fiction and fantasy such as Gene Wolfe’s “Leif in the Wind,” a tale about a stressed interstellar space crew, and Joanne Harris’s “Wildfire in Manhattan,” where very ancient gods walk the streets of NYC, rub shoulders with the devious strangeness of Elizabeth Hand’s “The Maiden Flight of McCauley`s Bellerophon,” the sad tale of a man`s unusual gift to a terminally ill friend, and the rather mundane reminisces of an aging editor in Michael Moorcock’s “Tales.” Many of the tales have a fantastic element, but some, such as Carolyn Parkhurst’s tale of sibling rivalry in “Unwell,” do not. Dark overtones seem to prevail in the collection, but there are some exceptions, such Diana Wynne Jones’s “Samantha’s Diary” If you’ve ever scowled in annoyance upon hearing a certain irritating Christmas carol yet again, you may well be amused by Samantha’s improbable plight.
I won’t aver that I loved all of the pieces equally. I establish the style of the aforementioned Moorcock tale dreadfully long-winded and dull, and I simply wish I had not read the brutal musings of the sociopath narrator in Lawrence Block’s “Catch and Relief.” Do not take this as a ding against the book as a whole. With the eclectic selection, it was not a surprise to personally find some tales unappealing in style or theme matter. This is a fine anthology filled with tales that are well written, entertaining, and may even broaden your reading horizons. Highly recommended.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
The problem with fiction collections–especially multi-leader collections–is that the quality of the pieces ultimately varies. You’ll get some real dandies, followed by some pretty-goods, followed by some so-so’s, followed by the bottom of the barrel. In the aptly-titled STORIES (Gaiman and Sarrantonio rumor has it that exhausted their imaginations elsewhere), nothing is bottom of the barrel. Most of the tales are excellent, damn excellent. Highlights include: block Palahniuk’s “Fee is Right” acid trip; Lawrence Block’s fishing/psycho-killer analogy; Joe Hill’s horrific Italian fable; Joe R. Lansdale’s post WWI drama; Peter Straub’s delightfully ambiguous tale; Jeffery Deaver’s surprisingly lucid/scientific possession tale; and Neil Gaiman’s modern-day murderous fairy tale. Some, like a schmaltzy bit from Jodi Picoult, and a by-the-numbers vampire diddy from Walter Mosley, don’t do their authors many favors; yet every tale here is readable, and though they won’t all make you “care” (the editors’ intent), they’ll at least keep you turning the pages. Gaiman and Sarrantonio aren’t reasonably reaching for the stars (or, at least, they’re reaching but not touching); but they’ve at least compiled a collection from some of contemporary fiction’s best. Most of these are speculative tales, and persons that aren’t (the Lansdale piece, a parable from Joyce Carol Oates) at least approach the genre. If anything, most of these tales serve as proof that speculative fiction (horror, sci-fi, fantasy, etc.) can easily be represented in literature at large. That, too, was perhaps one of the editors’ goals, and if so, they certainly succeeded with it. STORIES offers up a healthy of dose of well-written fiction that serves as proof that mainstream and speculative literature can live side-by-side…and that maybe they aren’t so different, after all.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
Apart from being fiction, the only unifying theme of these pieces is that they are all well written. To be sure, each is in their own style and some certainly race along more than others. I’d say that you will delight in roughly half of these tales. But which ones, I can’t say! They’re all over: the macabre, traditional sci-fi, urban fantasy, etc.
I’d highly recommend this book, if only to get a flavor of additional fiction styles that you might not have been exposed to before, while at the same time getting a nice, healthy dose of the kinds of tales you already know you like.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
In the introduction to this volume of fleeting tales, 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 fleeting tales that explore the possibilities of the fantastic outside these well-plowed furrows.
This is, of course, not a new thought. There are legions of tales and novels that have traveled the realms of fantasy lacking the help of elves or barbarians. And indeed, many of the tales here fit honestly neatly into some existing sub-genre: ghost tale, vampire tale, etc. A few tales have no element of fantasy, but confine themselves to terrible 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 tales are mostly by well-customary authors, with awards and best-sellers to their credit. The tales are described as “all-new”, so presumably they appear here for the first time.
“Blood” by Roddy Doyle: A sorta-kinda vampire tale. Pretty excellent, but I was annoyed by the pointless affectation of not using quote inscription. You ain’t Cormac McCarthy, Roddy, and it’s a pointless affectation when Cormac McCarthy does it, anyway.
“Fossil-Facts” by Joyce Carol Oates: An evil twin tale. A well written, respectable piece of work of the sort Oats is known for.
“Wildfire In Manhattan” by Joanne Harris: A ‘the ancient gods are still among us’ tale. Nice; had me smiling over the artistic turns of axiom at several points.
“The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains” by Neil Gaiman: Excellent, if honestly predictable fantasy tale, written in predictable fantasy-speak: “In the high lands, people spend words as if they were gold coins.”
“Unbelief” by Michael Marshall Smith: A fleeting ‘gotcha’ tale, to some extent 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 tale in the book. A cruelly dark and Hemingway-esque tale of a WWI veteran’s return home.
“Juvenal Nyx” by Walter Mosley: I establish this vampire re-mix to be rambling and over-long.
“The Knife” by Richard Adams: A mildly appealing small fleeting-fleeting about a murder.
“Weights And Measures” by Jodi Picoult: A couple dealing with the death of their seven-year-ancient daughter, mixed with some whimsical magic realism. Ick. Not a excellent combination.
“Goblin Lake” by Michael Swanwick: Something or additional about magically being agreed a choice between a life of reality and… something or additional. I didn’t find this one compelling.
“Mallon The Guru” by Peter Straub: An obscure piece — obscure to the degree that I have no thought what the point of it was.
“Catch And Relief” 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 block Palahniuk: An LSD-addled college kid gets selected as a contestant on an insipid TV game show. The LSD makes this more appealing 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 tale. Tedious as a song, way more so as a fleeting tale.
“Land Of The Lost” by Stewart O’Nan: A tale of obsession. By definition, obsession is rather pointless, and so was this tale.
“Leif In The Wind” by Gene Wolfe: Science fiction blending into fantasy, as Wolfe regularly does. Perfectly written and delightful. One of the closest approaches to an “upbeat” tale in this volume.
“Unwell” by Carolyn Parkhurst: A completely wonderful tale about a completely despicable ancient woman. Black humor at its tastiest. After reading this, I looked up the leader 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 tale, and it’s a excellent one. A nifty fantasy about the unexpected consequences of being “written into” an leader-boyfriend’s fiction.
“Let The Past Start” by Jonathan Carroll: I establish this one to be rather plodding and self-vital.
“The Therapist” by Jeffery Deaver: A clever bid at updating the theme of demonic possession, but I establish it tedious and amateurishly written.
“Parallel Lines” by Tim Powers: A levelheaded, effective, well written ghost tale.
“The Cult Of The Nose” by Al Sarrantonio: A Maupassant-esque tale of is-it-madness-or-is-it-supernatural-goings-on. This was original and creative when Maupassant did it, but that was a long time ago.
“Human Intelligence” by Kurt Anderson: The volume’s only straight-yet to be science fiction tale, and a pretty excellent one. An alien studying human civilization finds his ride home is overdue.
“Tales” by Michael Moorcock: A deeply felt portrait of an leader and the world of writing, presumably to some extent 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 tale about a magical flying machine and honoring past like. Excellent enough to get me sniffling.
“The Devil On The Staircase” by Joe Hill: An brilliant honestly tale about murder and lies ends this collection on an impressive note.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5