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116th out of 1,185 books
—
878 voters
McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales
by
Michael Chabon ,
Jim Shepard, Glen David Gold, Dan Chaon (Goodreads Author), Kelly Link, Elmore Leonard, Carol Emshwiller, Neil Gaiman (Goodreads Author)
,
more…
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 "Otherw...more
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 "Otherw...more
Paperback, 480 pages
Published
February 2003
by Vintage Books
(first published 2003)
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Nov 19, 2008
Ciara
rated it
2 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
fans of genre fiction, sci-fi nerds, hard-boiled private eyes, nerdy hipsters
Shelves:
read-in-2008
do you like genre fiction? then read this book. tragically, i dislike genre fiction. i'm sure this is a great anthology for people who do like genre fiction. by which i mean, westerns, mysteries, fantasy, old-school pulp novels, & items that can be found in the gold room at powell's in portland, oregon. when i was in college, one of my several majors was popular culture, with an emphasis on the inter-relationship of cinema & literature. which seems weird to me now that i never watch movi...more
A good collection of ripping yarns, despite any (staggering) misgivings you may have about the imprint. I especially enjoyed “The Nazi Canary” by Michael Moorcock (alt-30’s Conan-Doyle-style whodunnit concerning the suspicious death of Hitler’s niece); “Ghost Dance,” a cowboys-and-Indians ghost story by Sherman Alexie; plus a Depression-era gangster shoot-em-up by Elmore Leonard, a couple of good time-travel stories by Nick Hornby and Chris Offutt, and an in-search-of-prehistoric-sharks science-...more
Like the cover and the way the stories are presented, the title "Thrilling Tales" is an ironic smirk at the content. Big name writers try to write genre pulp fiction from the '30s and '40s and the results are dire.
Jim Shepard opens with a story called "Tedford and the Megalodon", a snoozer about a guy who goes looking for a prehistoric fish (I think anyway, I was so bored I drifted in and out) and ultimately finds it only to have it swim away. Yup, that's the opening salvo that's supposed to ha...more
Jim Shepard opens with a story called "Tedford and the Megalodon", a snoozer about a guy who goes looking for a prehistoric fish (I think anyway, I was so bored I drifted in and out) and ultimately finds it only to have it swim away. Yup, that's the opening salvo that's supposed to ha...more
One of the unanswered questions of modern culture is the reason for the decline of the short story form. As people complain about lacking the time to read it would seem that the short stories should prove the ideal solution; busy readers can read a story from a collection and then walk away until they next have a chance to read. Yet despite this short stories receive less and less of a readership, precipitously falling from the great popularity they enjoyed a few decades ago when readers could c...more
Perhaps it’s my recent immersion in the world of SF, but this treasury was less thrilling for me than advertised. It’s a good thing I didn’t read Michael Chabon’s intro before beginning the stories; otherwise I never would have continued. In it he complains about a particular type of literary story being all that literary venues have to offer. To which I say, perhaps you should read more widely. “Thrilling” tales are being published in all sorts of places. Perhaps not in McSweeney’s, to their st...more
I finished Reading McSweeneys Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (2002) edited by Michael Chabon on the first. It’s an interesting collection of 20 short stories. It’s a little outside my normal reading genre, but I’d read works of eight of the contributors before (and seen a movie based a book by one of the others). I thought the collection as a whole was a little better than OK. A couple of the stories I liked a lot, a few I liked, and most were ok. I didn’t think any of them we awful (althou...more
I always find it difficult to both finish and review short story anthologies, and partly for the same reason - there's so much stuff there. But I've got a few lying around, and this one's been here longer than most.
This volume is an attempt by the editor, Michael Chabon, to rescue the modern short story from lint-filled navel gazing in which nothing much happens to the more narrative form favored by the "genre" (that is, anything not defining itself as "literary") fiction of yesteryear. In the...more
This volume is an attempt by the editor, Michael Chabon, to rescue the modern short story from lint-filled navel gazing in which nothing much happens to the more narrative form favored by the "genre" (that is, anything not defining itself as "literary") fiction of yesteryear. In the...more
I admire Michael Chabon's crusade to break down the barriers between genre fiction and mainstream fiction. As he did when editing 'The Best American Short Stories 2005', Chabon aims for this short story collection to be a celebration of the joys of plot -- of a good 'thrilling tale' -- vs. the tyranny of the "contemporary, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory story". This is played up in a fun way with old-age pulp-y illustrations and blurb text for each story (example: "It was just a lousy seco...more
Deliciously evil.
There were some short stories here that were superb and some I could have skipped. The Albertine Notes started out sort of interesting and developed into an incredibly powerful shocking story that will haunt me forever. The major writers I've heard of didn't write the best stories, although Steven King's tale was better than most of his books. It was an odd collection tied together only because they had 'surprise' endings - like elaborate jokes. The idea was to have them be plot...more
There were some short stories here that were superb and some I could have skipped. The Albertine Notes started out sort of interesting and developed into an incredibly powerful shocking story that will haunt me forever. The major writers I've heard of didn't write the best stories, although Steven King's tale was better than most of his books. It was an odd collection tied together only because they had 'surprise' endings - like elaborate jokes. The idea was to have them be plot...more
The short stories in this anthology remind us why we began reading fiction as children and teens. While the McSweeney's Quarterly Review has established itself synonymously with literary/highbrow contemporary authors, the stories in this collection written from New York Times bestsellers such as Stephen King and Elmore Leonard to Sherman Alexi and Dave Eggers prove that what is truly important in writing is not just espousing fancy language but holding the reader's imagination. In these stories,...more
A great book of short stories from famous authors. Brings back the idea of the old Pulp Fiction books from the 1950's done by today's authors. The stories aren't that long so it's an easy quick read or one that you can put down and come back to at any time. Michael Chabon is the editor of the book and has picked some great authors and good stories to keep you interested. My favorite being Closing Time by Neil Gaiman. It has that "Monkey's Paw" kind of flair to it that bring me back to when I was...more
Okay. I am sick to death of Michael Chabon going on and on about how the "epiphanic short story" - wherein nothing happens except some realization - is a dud and the short story is boring nowadays blah blah blah. But! This collection proves otherwise pretty thoroughly - namely that adventure, and just plain old plot, are essential elements to a short story. For the most part, a pretty entertaining read - Rick Moody's piece was excellent, as was the one about the Oklahoma lawman not only because...more
This collection was preceded with an explanation/lament on the dying genre/pulp short story. I gathered that short stories are hard, pulp has little in the way of plot (I'm not sure I've ever read a true pulp story, as this was a phenomenon that occurred before I could read), and started in. Pulp was dying. Whatever. I was just pumped that I'd found a "collection" book on the shelf of the man who would later become my boyfriend (didn't want to start something longer as the "book at his place" in...more
Good ol' McSweeney's. It can be the height of pretension when you're flipping through the avant-garde hardcovers at the bookstore, although that judgment usually fades when you inspect the quality of the contributions. But Thrilling Tales deliberately takes the short story in another direction: back to the era of the genre story, when they were written for money and devoured for pleasure, and when, most importantly, they actually had plots. Chabon seems thrilled to collect these tales and his st...more
I’m a fan of fiction anthologies because it allows me to sample a variety of writers and possibly discover new favorites. The only thing I don’t like is reviewing them because of the amount and variety of stories. It’s hard to do something like this justice in a short and simple review.
Overall, this was interesting, entertaining, and quite varied with regard to theme. While the genre was fiction, the tales themselves varied from horror-esque to mystery to supernatural to simple fiction. Inevitab...more
Overall, this was interesting, entertaining, and quite varied with regard to theme. While the genre was fiction, the tales themselves varied from horror-esque to mystery to supernatural to simple fiction. Inevitab...more
Quick thought on each story.
Jim Shepard - Tedford...:
Pretty good, diction made it kind of hard to read.
Glen David Gold - Tears of Squonk:
Good. Funny.
Dan Chaon - The Bees:
Awesome. Suspenseful.
Kelly Link - Catskin:
Terrible. Pointless. Reads like furry fan fiction written by 15 year old.
Elmore Leonard - Carlos Webster:
Mastery. I love pulp fiction.
Carol Emshwiller - The General:
Great. Gripping.
Neil Gaiman - Closing Time:
Kind of interesting. Don't 100% get it.
Nick Hornby - Otherwise Pandemonium:
Best...more
Jim Shepard - Tedford...:
Pretty good, diction made it kind of hard to read.
Glen David Gold - Tears of Squonk:
Good. Funny.
Dan Chaon - The Bees:
Awesome. Suspenseful.
Kelly Link - Catskin:
Terrible. Pointless. Reads like furry fan fiction written by 15 year old.
Elmore Leonard - Carlos Webster:
Mastery. I love pulp fiction.
Carol Emshwiller - The General:
Great. Gripping.
Neil Gaiman - Closing Time:
Kind of interesting. Don't 100% get it.
Nick Hornby - Otherwise Pandemonium:
Best...more
Rating: 8/10
Although some of the stories were more satisfying than others, there is enough excellent, entertaining material here that I was very glad to have had the chance to read this collection. The concept of short stories which contain plot and adventure, and which avoid the anti-ending, is an idea I can readily embrace.
Jim Shepard's "Tedford and the Megalodon"
A good opener. Though it is by no means the swashbuckling tale promised by the cover, I found it strangely poetic and transcendent a...more
Although some of the stories were more satisfying than others, there is enough excellent, entertaining material here that I was very glad to have had the chance to read this collection. The concept of short stories which contain plot and adventure, and which avoid the anti-ending, is an idea I can readily embrace.
Jim Shepard's "Tedford and the Megalodon"
A good opener. Though it is by no means the swashbuckling tale promised by the cover, I found it strangely poetic and transcendent a...more
There's nothing better than an anthology of great short stories. What I love best is that this anthology doesn't succumb to the two most common pitfalls usually encountered in short story collections: 1) if the collection is done by just one author, then there tends to be more than a couple of duds in the collection; and 2) it doesn't fall prey to the literary pretentiousness so common in current fiction.
I had a fiction prof who argued that genre fiction could in no way be considered "literary...more
I had a fiction prof who argued that genre fiction could in no way be considered "literary...more
This McSweeny's publication is edited by Michael Chabon and his purpose for the anthology was to include, as the title suggests, thrilling short stories. He didn't dissapoint. Some excellent talent was recruited including: Elmore Leonard, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Nick Hornby, Michael Crichton, Sherman Alexie and of course Dave Eggers and Mr. Chabon himself.
After finishing this book the thing I was most surprised about was that many of my favorite stories were by the authors which I was unfamil...more
After finishing this book the thing I was most surprised about was that many of my favorite stories were by the authors which I was unfamil...more
Sep 06, 2007
Tracey
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who likes "old-fashioned" short stories
I spotted McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales on the New Releases table at the local bookstore a month or two ago - I picked it up & glanced at the list of authors on the back & figured it to be a pretty good read.
I was not disappointed. In his introduction, Michael Chabon discussed his concern with the current state of the short story and challenged his fellow authors to come up with plot-driven stories, more in line with the "pulps" of the 40's & 50's. All 20 authors me...more
I was not disappointed. In his introduction, Michael Chabon discussed his concern with the current state of the short story and challenged his fellow authors to come up with plot-driven stories, more in line with the "pulps" of the 40's & 50's. All 20 authors me...more
Well, I hate to be a pretentious indie hipster, but I love and adore McSweeney's and I want them to publish something that I write someday cause it would be awesome.
That being said, this book only continues my love affair with the publisher.
In the introduction, Michael Chabon complains about how most short stories written today completely lack plot and then end with a startling revelation that is character-related. He's absolutely right. Remember all of those creative writing stories??? Anyway....more
That being said, this book only continues my love affair with the publisher.
In the introduction, Michael Chabon complains about how most short stories written today completely lack plot and then end with a startling revelation that is character-related. He's absolutely right. Remember all of those creative writing stories??? Anyway....more
This is actually a fun read as blaringly advertised by the cover. OK, the premise is a little annoying, hipster number one says to hipster number two: hey Dave, I'm sick of this slice of life moment of truth New Yorker shit, how about we write stories that are actually interesting and about something. Yeah, guys, well others have been doing this all along. But once you get past the Wonder Boys, the other authors in the collection are quite fun and quirky. I like Shepard, Link, Gaiman, Hornby, Mo...more
My passion for short stories was strained when reading this collection. Chabon's master of word magic doesn't transfer to editorship - except for a few engaging and literary artistic stories, most were unsatisfying, twisted, and overly esoteric plots coupled with forgettable characterizations.
Need a break from fiction but will return to my quest for the golden collection of short stories, varied genres filled with sublimely crafted narratives, inspiring and memorable.
Need a break from fiction but will return to my quest for the golden collection of short stories, varied genres filled with sublimely crafted narratives, inspiring and memorable.
Apr 07, 2012
Katherine
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Shelves:
own,
short-stories,
action,
alternate-history,
21st-c,
american,
animals,
fiction,
british,
fantasy
A decidedly mixed bag. Some of the stories (e.g., Sherman Alexie's, Neil Gaiman's, Elmore Leonard's) are solidly great reads, others (e.g., Dave Eggars's) are interminable and pointless slogs, some (e.g., Dan Chaon's, Laurie King's) one forgets thirty minutes after reading them, and a few (e.g., Nick Hornby's) are good examples of why those authors are worth exploring further, but seem to have wandered into the collection from other short story compilations more appropriate for their tone and mo...more
I like McSweeney's. These stories, though, were hit or miss. I really enjoyed "The Albertine Notes" by Rick Moody, along with "Otherwise Pandemonium" by Nick Hornby and "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly" by Dave Eggers. Other stories were a bit forgettable. Stephen King's "The Tale of Gray Dick" and Michael Chabon's "The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance" were particularly disappointing, especially since I usually enjoy both of these authors.
Good collection of fun, upbeat, exciting and interesting works. I am a sucker for short stories mostly because of how quickly I can get through them. I can't remember exactly when I read this collection but whenever I did it introduced me to a ton of authors that I now consider to be some of my favorites. Can't remember the individual stories that well, but as a whole this collection gets a thumbs up from me.
This is a collection of short stories with a wierd premise. That premise is that these are stories with plots. Michael Chabon who was the editor for the volume apparently feels that this is something missing from today's short fiction (including his own). He laments the lack of horror, detective, sci fi and adventure stories. I am left wondering what he has been reading lately. There are plenty of short stories today that have plot and that fit into these categories.
Regardless, the collection o...more
Regardless, the collection o...more
Contents: Tedford and the megalodon / Jim Shepard
The tears of squonk, and what happened thereafter / Glen David Gold
The Bees / Dan Chaon
Catskin / Kelly Link
How Carlos Webster changed his name to Carl and became a famous Oklahoma Lawman / Elmore Leonard -- The general / Carol Emshwiller - poor
Closing time / Neil Gaiman
Otherwise pandemonium / Nick Hornby
The tale of Gray Dick / Stephen King
Blood doesn't come out / Michael Crichton
Weaving the dark / Laurie King
Chuck's bucket / Chris Offutt
Up the mou...more
The tears of squonk, and what happened thereafter / Glen David Gold
The Bees / Dan Chaon
Catskin / Kelly Link
How Carlos Webster changed his name to Carl and became a famous Oklahoma Lawman / Elmore Leonard -- The general / Carol Emshwiller - poor
Closing time / Neil Gaiman
Otherwise pandemonium / Nick Hornby
The tale of Gray Dick / Stephen King
Blood doesn't come out / Michael Crichton
Weaving the dark / Laurie King
Chuck's bucket / Chris Offutt
Up the mou...more
I only read the Michael Crichton short story, "Blood Doesn't Come Out" in this collection (the others, at first glance, did not interest me). I'm working my way through Crichton's entire catalog and was pleased to find that this short story had been published in an easy-to-find volume. I enjoyed the short story, though this is a format I'm not accustomed to, particularly with Crichton.
Since I have fond memories of a delightful few days spent with McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories, I had hoped my experiences with the Treasury would be similar, yet I found this publication, with the exception of one or two pieces, to be rather disappointing. It should have been a home run: I love the concept and I'm a fan of several included authors. Still, my fancy remained sorely untickled throughout, and I think I've worked out why.
The short story is an ideal form for exp...more
The short story is an ideal form for exp...more
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Michael Chabon (b. 1963) is an acclaimed and bestselling author whose works include the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000). Chabon achieved literary fame at age twenty-four with his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), which was a major critical and commercial success. He then published Wonder Boys (1995), another bestseller, which was mad...more
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