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Astoria to Zion: Twenty-Six Stories of Risk and Abandon from Ecotone's First Decade by Ben Fountain
sitnstew's review
3.0
I was really, really, really torn on what rating I should give this book. I struggled over how fair it is to give a general balloon-rating to a selection of short stories by multiple different authors. In the end I was teetering between 3 and 4 stars but it lands closer to a 3 since I can only rate them as a group.
I don't have much experience with short fiction. This is perhaps the 3rd or 4th book of short stories which I've attempted and I'm embarrassed to admit that one of those I didn't even realize was a collection of short stories until the end - I was confused the whole way through under the assumption that it was a novel. I am split on my overall opinion of the genre. I can clearly see that it takes a great deal of skill to tell a complete an entertaining story in a few pages.
Let me tell you, when I first received 'Astoria to Zion' as a free review copy from Goodreads, I was in love with what I held in my hands. The cover is smooth and soft and gave me an experience that immediately made me excited to read it. The paper is also beautiful - thick and silky (stuff that would work lovely with a fountain pen) - truly a pleasure as I turned the pages. I was unfamiliar with Ecotone prior to reading this but it is clear that love and time went into the design of this book. That itself may convince me to check out Ecotone in the future.
However, in the prose itself, 'Astoria to Zion' is a perfect example of why I'm torn on short stories. Some of them were absolutely incredible (some of the most entertaining few minutes of my life) while others were sleep-inducing. After a while I found myself skipping forward to the next story when I wasn't interested in the first 3 pages of a story. This happened perhaps 4 times total but there were other stories that I didn't love either.
Some of my favorites were 'The Year of Silence' by Kevin Brockmeier (my top pick of the book), 'Falling' by Andrew Tonkovich, 'That Winter' by Miha Mazzini, 'Winter Elders' by Shawn Vestal (a great story about some Mormon missionaries who drive a former church member to insanity), 'Broadax Inc' by Bill Roorback (the one that kept me on the edge of my seat), and the tale that finished it all off, 'The Traitor of Zion' by Ben Stroud. These were all incredible works of literary mastery. A lot of the others just fell flat. I was especially disappointed by Ron Rash's story, probably because I think he's an immensely talented author and this story just didn't shine.
Overall this is a book that short story lovers will totally adore and the rest of us will think is pretty decent. It's a good choice for those diving into short fiction for the first time but I'm not sure it will be enough to keep them coming back for more.
To end this review I want to share my favorite sentence from the book:
"We rose at the crack of a sparrow's fart, when the dew still clung to the rigging like crystals on a chandelier." (from 'The Wreckers' by George Makana Clark)
I don't have much experience with short fiction. This is perhaps the 3rd or 4th book of short stories which I've attempted and I'm embarrassed to admit that one of those I didn't even realize was a collection of short stories until the end - I was confused the whole way through under the assumption that it was a novel. I am split on my overall opinion of the genre. I can clearly see that it takes a great deal of skill to tell a complete an entertaining story in a few pages.
Let me tell you, when I first received 'Astoria to Zion' as a free review copy from Goodreads, I was in love with what I held in my hands. The cover is smooth and soft and gave me an experience that immediately made me excited to read it. The paper is also beautiful - thick and silky (stuff that would work lovely with a fountain pen) - truly a pleasure as I turned the pages. I was unfamiliar with Ecotone prior to reading this but it is clear that love and time went into the design of this book. That itself may convince me to check out Ecotone in the future.
However, in the prose itself, 'Astoria to Zion' is a perfect example of why I'm torn on short stories. Some of them were absolutely incredible (some of the most entertaining few minutes of my life) while others were sleep-inducing. After a while I found myself skipping forward to the next story when I wasn't interested in the first 3 pages of a story. This happened perhaps 4 times total but there were other stories that I didn't love either.
Some of my favorites were 'The Year of Silence' by Kevin Brockmeier (my top pick of the book), 'Falling' by Andrew Tonkovich, 'That Winter' by Miha Mazzini, 'Winter Elders' by Shawn Vestal (a great story about some Mormon missionaries who drive a former church member to insanity), 'Broadax Inc' by Bill Roorback (the one that kept me on the edge of my seat), and the tale that finished it all off, 'The Traitor of Zion' by Ben Stroud. These were all incredible works of literary mastery. A lot of the others just fell flat. I was especially disappointed by Ron Rash's story, probably because I think he's an immensely talented author and this story just didn't shine.
Overall this is a book that short story lovers will totally adore and the rest of us will think is pretty decent. It's a good choice for those diving into short fiction for the first time but I'm not sure it will be enough to keep them coming back for more.
To end this review I want to share my favorite sentence from the book:
"We rose at the crack of a sparrow's fart, when the dew still clung to the rigging like crystals on a chandelier." (from 'The Wreckers' by George Makana Clark)
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