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jason_pym's review
2.0
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."
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."
duparker's review
3.0
A good vacation read, in that it is short stories that don't take much to get into. I'm glad I got it say the library book sale, and didn't pay too much, as the book is filed with what seem like cast off stories. ho hum.
lazygeometry's review
5.0
So many people trashed this book in the reviews that I put it off for a long time. Finally, many years after purchasing, I took it along on a camping trip and read it alone by the fire and found myself completely happy and entertained. Like any compilation, I connected with and enjoyed some stories more than others, but was overall completely pleased to have read it. My personal favorite included short is Catskin by Kelly Link.
troy1713's review
I saw a review say “more like tepid tales” and I couldn’t agree more. Bought it for King, couldn’t even finish his story
colinmeldrum's review
2.0
Thought this would be right up my alley, but I had a difficult time getting through this and only found one or two stories worthwhile.
hippoponymous's review
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
crankyraconteur's review against another edition
2.0
This book plays it fast and loose with the word "Thrilling" in the title.