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13th out of 13 books
—
15 voters
Stranger Things Happen
by
Kelly Link
"An alchemical mix of Borges, Raymond Chandler and Buffy the Vampire Slayer."-Salon.com (Best of the Year)
"A delightful collection."-Cleveland Plain Dealer
"My favorite fantasy writer."-Alan Cheuse, All Things Considered
The eleven stories in Kelly Link's debut collection are funny, spooky, and smart. They all have happy endings. They were all especially written for you.
...morePaperback, 266 pages
Published
July 1st 2001
by Small Beer Press
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I sort of feel I should apologize for this rating. I picked this up on the strength of some good ratings and reviews here. But I just didn't like this book. I don't mean to be hard to get along with, but I found the stories rather silly.
Again, I'm sorry if you like this book and please enjoy...
I wanted to like this book. Based on what I'd read I picked it up ready for some enjoyable weird stories. The first one left me cold...the "dead man" exploring his situation (and also his genitals. This...more
Again, I'm sorry if you like this book and please enjoy...
I wanted to like this book. Based on what I'd read I picked it up ready for some enjoyable weird stories. The first one left me cold...the "dead man" exploring his situation (and also his genitals. This...more
Short Stories. This was stamped "science fiction" by the library, but these short, fantastic stories have more in common with magical realism and retold fairy tales than science- or even speculative fiction. Plenty of ghosts, being dead, being haunted, dating a son of Zeus, searching for the lover that the Snow Queen stole away -- that sort of thing.
Written with a light hand, these stories are bittersweet, spooky, absurd, crazy, and freeing. Each one is perfectly self-contained, but taken toget...more
Written with a light hand, these stories are bittersweet, spooky, absurd, crazy, and freeing. Each one is perfectly self-contained, but taken toget...more
4 likes · like · see review
My interest came from this article on stories that scare the hell out of authors, in which Joe Hill pointed to the story The Specialist's Hat (available to read for free).
I read the Specialist's Hat first, but then went on to the rest of the stories. The whole thing is free as an ebook on Goodreads.
All in all, this is a very strange collection of very strange stories. Most of them I expect will stick in my mind for years to come.
I read the Specialist's Hat first, but then went on to the rest of the stories. The whole thing is free as an ebook on Goodreads.
All in all, this is a very strange collection of very strange stories. Most of them I expect will stick in my mind for years to come.
2 likes · like · see review
A book of surreal short stories that would vie with Hurakami for the strangest stories I’ve ever read. Unlike Hurakami, however, there is no Kafkaesque feeling of alienation; the odd people in these stories seem generally content with the craziness of their lives. What kind of stories are these? Here’s a list from the back cover: “The girl detective must go to the underworld to solve the case of the tap-dancing bank robbers. A librarian falls in love with a girl whose father collects artificial...more
Kelly Link’s collection of short stories is like a black cauldron bubbling forth archetypes of adolescent reading—from ghost stories, science fiction, myths, Nancy Drew—collectively reconstrued as a literature of loss and longing. In these tales, a dead man who can’t remember names mails letters to his wife from a spectral beach resort, a librarian falls for an enigmatic girl from a family tragically marked by loss (of, e.g., legs and noses), twin girls living in a haunted house with their haunt...more
A lot of the stories in Stranger Things Happen have their basis in fairy tales, but usually only in tangential ways. The most straight-forward of the fairy tale stories is "Travels With The Snow Queen", in which a young woman sets out to find her lover, who has been taken from her by the Snow Queen. The woman muses while she's traveling that "Fairy tales are hard on the feet", and goes on to use the Little Mermaid, Cinderella's stepsisters, the girl who nearly danced herself to death in the Red...more
There were some truly wonderful stories in here, like The Girl Detective, that I would certainly read again. A lot of the stories were just too weird for me. Lots of surrealism, sometimes used well and sometimes just confusing at least to my limited understanding of what was going on. Often it felt more like a book full of imagery -- interesting, weird, crazy, strange imagery -- than a book of stories. Several of the stories ended in ways that left me wondering why it stopped there. Definitely a...more
Kelly Link is one of those authors that, if she wrote novel length fiction, I think would be held up alongside Neil Gaiman as one of the greatest living writers and inspire similarly devoted and obsessed fans.
But her wheelhouse is the short story, and this is no country for short story writers. Still, she has her own cult following of devoted fans, and their passionate recommendations drove me to picking up this collection.
I liked this collection a lot. There are a few duds, as in most short s...more
But her wheelhouse is the short story, and this is no country for short story writers. Still, she has her own cult following of devoted fans, and their passionate recommendations drove me to picking up this collection.
I liked this collection a lot. There are a few duds, as in most short s...more
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I picked up this book because Amazon told me I would like it. Being that I trust their algorithm more than I trust most of my family members, I did it.
Kelly Link's collection of short stories ran the gamut between being successful and kind of pointless. While the concept is interesting: take folktales, fairy tales, ghost stories, etc. and smush with contemporary narrators or situations. Hijinks and fun imagery ensue.
The stories I found to be the most successful were those that had a more disti...more
Kelly Link's collection of short stories ran the gamut between being successful and kind of pointless. While the concept is interesting: take folktales, fairy tales, ghost stories, etc. and smush with contemporary narrators or situations. Hijinks and fun imagery ensue.
The stories I found to be the most successful were those that had a more disti...more
This book will sleep with you on the first date. Then when you wake up beside it in the early morning you will spend some serious time considering whether it was great, or whether it would have been better to wait a bit.
For me it was a bit wild, which I like, from a book, but also a little cold, a little impersonal. This book may have issues with nymphomania. It's definately ready and willing to give you a thrill, but even though you've spent some time with it, it still doesn't quite love you ba...more
For me it was a bit wild, which I like, from a book, but also a little cold, a little impersonal. This book may have issues with nymphomania. It's definately ready and willing to give you a thrill, but even though you've spent some time with it, it still doesn't quite love you ba...more
7 likes · like · see review
A book of surreal short stories that would vie with Hurakami for the strangest stories I’ve ever read. Unlike Hurakami, however, there is no Kafkaesque feeling of alienation; the odd people in these stories seem generally content with the craziness of their lives. What kind of stories are these? Here’s a list from the back cover: “The girl detective must go to the underworld to solve the case of the tap-dancing bank robbers. A librarian falls in love with a girl whose father collects artificial...more
"Stranger Things Happen" is Kelly Link's freshman work of fiction. Within it are eleven exquisitely crafted short stories which range from weird to the truly bizarre. It is difficult to categorize Link's writing, as it seems to straddle science fiction and fantasy, narrative and fiction, real and unreal.
"The Specialist's Hat" is really one of the spookiest stories I have ever read. It is loosely written (as are many of the stories), which - rather than impeding the text - makes it easier to adap...more
"The Specialist's Hat" is really one of the spookiest stories I have ever read. It is loosely written (as are many of the stories), which - rather than impeding the text - makes it easier to adap...more
These are quite tasty stories. Written with a devilish grin and a light touch. Sometimes they remind me of The Yellow Wall-Paper which remains creepy even when you know why it was written - to expose genteel man's treatment of genteel women. But more often the writing and the attitude remind me of Houdini Heart. Houdini Heart is much better written, it's stranger yet more accessible, and it says so much more in one story than Link says in quite a few stories. But she's almost in the running with...more
Rather brilliant, I'm sure, stories that were horror and/or fantasy themed, but in Link's attempt to be literary I'm afraid she lost me on a number of the tales. There were a few that I quite fancied (the Snow Queen one, in particular) but the ones that left me scratching my head outnumbered them. I recommend you give it a try, especially considering it's published free under a Creative Commons License. Someone more sophisticated than me would probably appreciate it more.
I liked this book, but I wasn't expecting to have to work as hard as I did. When I pick up James Joyce or Thomas Pynchon (which I don't...I'm just giving examples of non-linear, postmodern, absurd, abstract prose) I expect to have a little trouble understanding the themes, the characters or even the plot. I did not think that picking up a collection of short stories by someone I've never heard of would have me so flummoxed. Maybe I didn't read carefully enough? That's very possible. Or maybe the...more
Kelly Link is very hit or miss for me. Some of the stories in this collection are amazing, and I was floored by them- particularly "Water off a black dog's back." But, for the most part, they were pretty dissapointing and I only skimmed through many of them. I thought many of the stories felt like they were trying too hard to be deep or have all the right references. It seems like her best stories in this collection were the simple, straightforward ones.
Stranger Things Happen: Genre as Literature
The eleven stories in Kelly Link’s 2001 collection STRANGER THINGS HAPPEN inhabit a startling, exhilarating nexus somewhere in the ether between genre and literature. Link’s writing is complex, risky, and rich in subtext. Though each of her stories, in one way or another, weaves in elements of the supernatural, they are never about the ghosts and murderers, snow queens and shape shifters that inhabit her universe; instead, Link uses these supernatural e...more
The eleven stories in Kelly Link’s 2001 collection STRANGER THINGS HAPPEN inhabit a startling, exhilarating nexus somewhere in the ether between genre and literature. Link’s writing is complex, risky, and rich in subtext. Though each of her stories, in one way or another, weaves in elements of the supernatural, they are never about the ghosts and murderers, snow queens and shape shifters that inhabit her universe; instead, Link uses these supernatural e...more
If you suspect that you might be an ordinary person, one without creativity or imagination... well, then Stranger Things Happen might not appeal to you to begin with, but it certainly won't make you feel any better about your imaginative state. Even if you think you are a fairly creative person, it's hard to believe that you could come close the level of the fantastic and fascinating that Kelly Link achieves in these eleven short stories. A strange combination of fantasy and very modern reality,...more
The only reason I finished this book is because I read Magic for beginners first and I liked that one slightly more than this collection.
In the end, I guess Link just isn't for me. I like my stories to make sense, to have some internal logic and structure I can follow and, possibly, an ending or a hint of an explanation my mind can work upon.
Link's stories instead feel to me more like a dream - scenes, images, moments where time slows down like molasses or jumps all over the place, where stran...more
In the end, I guess Link just isn't for me. I like my stories to make sense, to have some internal logic and structure I can follow and, possibly, an ending or a hint of an explanation my mind can work upon.
Link's stories instead feel to me more like a dream - scenes, images, moments where time slows down like molasses or jumps all over the place, where stran...more
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I do so love Kelly Link. She is just so unique and funny and weird. And very contemporary - or at least to my eye. She is one of those writers that I wish I could write like. She has this love of fairy tales, ghost stories and pop culture that she mashes together in the most surprising ways. There are hairy ghosts trapped in cellos and tin noses, hats with teeth and girls that used to be dogs. There is even a story set in New Zealand, about an end-of-days party in a hotel in Milford Sound. I rea...more
2.5 stars. I was tempted to give this three stars, because a lot of my reaction wasn't that these stories were bad, just that they weren't for me. But boy, were they not for me.
My first exposure to Kelly Link's writing was through her YA collection Pretty Monsters: Stories. I loved it. "Magic for Beginners" is still one of my all-time favorite stories. So I was excited to read her two adult collections, this and Magic for Beginners. I started with this, her earlier collection, and proceeded to b...more
My first exposure to Kelly Link's writing was through her YA collection Pretty Monsters: Stories. I loved it. "Magic for Beginners" is still one of my all-time favorite stories. So I was excited to read her two adult collections, this and Magic for Beginners. I started with this, her earlier collection, and proceeded to b...more
I am sorry. I feel guilty. I feel like I've cheated on a boyfriend. I got Pretty Monsters a while ago, but wasn't totally thrilled and decided to backtrack. Start from the beginning. I was so very excited to read Stranger Things Happen because I have faith I will adore Kelly Link, but it ended up I just didn't give it the attention it needed. I loved it as I was reading it, some passages made me sigh and hug the book close to my chest, but at the end of nearly each story I felt dissatisfied...an...more
Reading these stories was like walking on glass. One of her characters really does walk on glass. I know how she feels. Some were more successful than others, but Ms. Link is certainly an interesting writer. Her tales were clever and odd and compelling. To a degree. That degree came with repetition. Many of the characters seemed the same character inhabiting a different story. But then there were delicious comparisons, surprising choices of similes, a whole lot of metaphors. Actually these last...more
I really, really, wanted to like this book. But I didn't.
In this compilation of 11 short stories, there were a few I enjoyed from start to finish, but the rest I skimmed through, not comprehending the purpose of each narrative and without the desire to.
The stories I enjoyed were other-worldly in design, but generally tethered to the world, providing a frame of reference and context. The ones I couldn't get my mind around were reminiscent of when someone else tells you about a snipped of a drea...more
In this compilation of 11 short stories, there were a few I enjoyed from start to finish, but the rest I skimmed through, not comprehending the purpose of each narrative and without the desire to.
The stories I enjoyed were other-worldly in design, but generally tethered to the world, providing a frame of reference and context. The ones I couldn't get my mind around were reminiscent of when someone else tells you about a snipped of a drea...more
I'm afraid there's a sameness to Link's writing. Grotesquerie, quirky refusal of all resolution. It's a delight for one story (especially when you encounter it somewhere like F&SF, surrounded by the trite and self-serious) but in a collection it quickly becomes annoying.
Favorite stories: "The Specialist's Hat," "The Girl Detective."
Favorite stories: "The Specialist's Hat," "The Girl Detective."
This is a fun little book of eerie and quirky short stories.
The first story ("Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose") was weird/odd...in an interesting way! A little confusing, but thought-provoking. It was pretty interesting/weird. And, it was okay enough to keep me reading the book. Kelly Link's style - exploring the bizzare - tickles my curiosity!
The 2nd story ("Water Off a Black Dog's Back") was pretty funny, at first, then it turned dark and confusing. This author has an pretty twisted outlook on...more
The first story ("Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose") was weird/odd...in an interesting way! A little confusing, but thought-provoking. It was pretty interesting/weird. And, it was okay enough to keep me reading the book. Kelly Link's style - exploring the bizzare - tickles my curiosity!
The 2nd story ("Water Off a Black Dog's Back") was pretty funny, at first, then it turned dark and confusing. This author has an pretty twisted outlook on...more
I felt like I lacked some background info (on mythology/fairytales) to fully get these stories. Some of them felt like riddles I did not know how to solve. "The Girl Detective" felt like it should be set to music (it sort of reminded me of song lyrics with the repetition of certain phrases and the rhythm). I first started on this book on my phone but the file I downloaded free (from feedbooks maybe) had bad formatting problems and I gave up in the middle of The Specialist's Hat. This time I got...more
I liked this better than Pretty Monsters. The first few stories here had the same style-over-substance issues that I was disappointed by in her other collection, but some of the middle stories really wowed me, particularly Travels with the Snow Queen, which I very much loved. But then Louise's Ghost was a total stinker - way too precious for my tastes. I didn't read The Specialist's Hat because this story also appeared in Pretty Monsters and I had read it there, though maybe it wasn't exactly th...more
"Um, he's sick. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious. "
That was funny in Ferris Buehler's Day off. It was just a couple lines. Now imagine an entire book done in that same sort of frantic voice. No real authority or ownership of the events that happened, just a string of hearsay from a high school girl. If you can do that, you unders...more
That was funny in Ferris Buehler's Day off. It was just a couple lines. Now imagine an entire book done in that same sort of frantic voice. No real authority or ownership of the events that happened, just a string of hearsay from a high school girl. If you can do that, you unders...more
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As a writer I love ambiguity, but as an occasional, somewhat reluctant short story reader, it turns out that I find a consistent lack of guidance frustrating and unfulfilling. Link's stories kept me reading, sure — I enjoyed the telling and the offbeat worlds her characters inhabit, and I'll be hitting up Magic for Beginners next, but there was no rush of pleasure at each conclusion. Highlights, though, were the mythopoeic "Flying Lessons" and "Louise's Ghost," which made me laugh out loud sever...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Favorite & Least Favorite Stories in this book | 4 | 43 | Jan 15, 2013 05:32am | |
| Open Books Chicago: Volunteer Review: Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link | 1 | 3 | Aug 29, 2012 06:58am |
Kelly Link is an American author of short stories born in 1969. Her stories might be described as slipstream or magic realism: sometimes a combination of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and realism.
More about Kelly Link...
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“You were going to travel for love, without shoes, or cloak, or common sense. This is one of the things a woman can do when her lover leaves her. It's hard on the feet perhaps, but staying at home is hard on the heart, and you weren't quite ready to give up on him yet.”
—
12 people liked it
“This is the list you carry in your pocket, of the things you plan to say to Kay, when you find him, if you find him:
1. I’m sorry that I forgot to water your ferns while you were away that time.
2. When you said that I reminded you of your mother, was that a good thing?
3. I never really liked your friends all that much.
4. None of my friends ever really liked you.
5. Do you remember when the cat ran away, and I cried and cried and made you put up posters, and she never came back? I wasn’t crying because she didn’t come back. I was crying because I’d taken her to the woods, and I was scared she’d come back and tell you what I’d done, but I guess a wolf got her, or something. She never liked me anyway.
6. I never liked your mother.
7. After you left, I didn’t water your plants on purpose. They’re all dead.
8. Goodbye.
9. Were you ever really in love with me?
10. Was I good in bed, or just average?
11. What exactly did you mean, when you said that it was fine that I had put on a little weight, that you thought I was even more beautiful, that I should go ahead and eat as much as I wanted, but when I weighed myself on the bathroom scale, I was exactly the same weight as before, I hadn’t gained a single pound?
12. So all those times, I’m being honest here, every single time, and anyway I don’t care if you don’t believe me, I faked every orgasm you ever thought I had. Women can do that, you know. You never made me come, not even once.
13. So maybe I’m an idiot, but I used to be in love with you.
14. I slept with some guy, I didn’t mean to, it just kind of happened. Is that how it was with you? Not that I’m making any apologies, or that I’d accept yours, I just want to know.
15. My feet hurt, and it’s all your fault.
16. I mean it this time, goodbye.”
—
8 people liked it
More quotes…
1. I’m sorry that I forgot to water your ferns while you were away that time.
2. When you said that I reminded you of your mother, was that a good thing?
3. I never really liked your friends all that much.
4. None of my friends ever really liked you.
5. Do you remember when the cat ran away, and I cried and cried and made you put up posters, and she never came back? I wasn’t crying because she didn’t come back. I was crying because I’d taken her to the woods, and I was scared she’d come back and tell you what I’d done, but I guess a wolf got her, or something. She never liked me anyway.
6. I never liked your mother.
7. After you left, I didn’t water your plants on purpose. They’re all dead.
8. Goodbye.
9. Were you ever really in love with me?
10. Was I good in bed, or just average?
11. What exactly did you mean, when you said that it was fine that I had put on a little weight, that you thought I was even more beautiful, that I should go ahead and eat as much as I wanted, but when I weighed myself on the bathroom scale, I was exactly the same weight as before, I hadn’t gained a single pound?
12. So all those times, I’m being honest here, every single time, and anyway I don’t care if you don’t believe me, I faked every orgasm you ever thought I had. Women can do that, you know. You never made me come, not even once.
13. So maybe I’m an idiot, but I used to be in love with you.
14. I slept with some guy, I didn’t mean to, it just kind of happened. Is that how it was with you? Not that I’m making any apologies, or that I’d accept yours, I just want to know.
15. My feet hurt, and it’s all your fault.
16. I mean it this time, goodbye.”
Oct 31, 2012 07:52am
Dec 08, 2012 10:01am