The Stone Thrower

by Adam Marek

‘Adam Marek is one of the best things to have happened to the short story this century. His stories might be strange, delicious or haunting - but they're always compelling. Any day now the word 'Marekian' is going to enter the language. Get in on the act early. Read him now.’ – Alison MacLeod. Intelligent clothing, superhero dictators, contagion-carrying computer games, cross-species reproduction… Welcome to the strange and startling world of Adam Marek; a menagerie of futuristic technology, sinister traditions and scientifically-grounded superpowers – a place where the absurd and the mundane are not merely bedfellows, but interbreed. Pulsing at the core of Adam Marek’s much-anticipated second collection is a single, unifying theme: a parent’s instinct to protect a particularly vulnerable child. Whether set amid unnerving visions of the near-future, or grounded in the domestic here-and-now, these stories demonstrate that, sometimes, only outright surrealism can do justice to the merciless strangeness of reality, only the fantastically illogical can steel us against what ‘ordinary’ life threatens. ‘The fragility of children is overwhelming in this collection. In stories beautiful and strange, Marek tries to build a kind of fortress against what would truly break us. This is writing as exorcism and prayer, words to dispel brutality and fate.’ – David Vann

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction

154 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2012

About the author

Adam Marek is the author of three short story collections: Instruction Manual for Swallowing, The Stone Thrower, and, most recently, The Universe Delivers the Enemy You Need. His stories have appeared on BBC Radio 4, and in many magazines and anthologies, including The Penguin Book of the British Short Story. He is an Arts Foundation Short Story Fellow. He loves collaborating with scientists on creative projects, and recently visited CERN to write a story for the Collision: Stories from the Science of CERN anthology, featured on the BBC Click television programme. He regularly works with SciFutures, using storytelling to help prototype the future.

Visit Adam online at: www.adammarek.co.uk

“Early McEwan meets David Cronenberg…Genuine, unsettling talent.”
The Independent

“…this bold young writer is refreshing the form.”
Financial Times

“…hits the target every time.”
The Guardian

“Adam Marek is one of the best things to have happened to the short story this century…Any day now the word ‘Marekian’ is going to enter the language.”
Alison MacLeod, author of Unexploded

Reviews

[Kayla Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

the stormchasers: read it

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well that was very, very good. I don't think you should be able to read a book of short stories cover to cover. Each story should have a sort of impactingness that means you need to roll back, take a drink of coffee, have a short walk, and allow the shape of it to be absorbed and ingested. Marek delivers this impactingness in spades from the first story on.

If there is a theme that runs through these stories it is that of the interaction between adult and child, particularly children that are facing some kind of difficulty or otherness. This inevitably leads to emotive subjects but Marek treats them with tenderness without hiding from their difficultness and, at times, unresolvability. Exceptionally well done.

It has been a very long time since I have been as impressed as this by a book off short stories.

[MichaelK · Rating 3 out of 5]

I lost interest in this book about halfway through, distracted by other books. It's not a bad book, just a very early one. This is Marek's second short story collection, and is the first time I've read any of his stuff. As with most short story collections, it is a mixed bag. The stories range in quality from OK to excellent. Of those that I read, I would only put a few on the 'Excellent' end of the scale. Many didn't make much of an impression on me: looking at the contents page as I write this, I am struggling to recall a few of them. Some of the not-that-great stories were entertaining partly because I could imagine Marek writing them, having fun playing around with the craft.

This is an early collection from an up-and-coming writer. Those stories that I genuinely, thoroughly enjoyed showed me that Marek has the potential to write some truly wonderful stuff. In a decade or so's time I hope to be reading an utterly spectacular 'Best of Marek' collection - which I will actually get round to finishing.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good set of short stories with some real highlights. Perhaps the best imagines a future where orang-utans are pressed into service to produce palm oil – a chilling tale told in a matter of fact way. Many of the narratives are apocalyptic – and in this, it reminded me of Matthew Baker’s most recent collection, Why Visit America?. Indeed, the general gloom/barminess of living in the United Kingdom at the moment really resonates in these tales, even if they were written in 2012. Slightly soberingly, the author doesn’t seem to have produced much since and is working as a freelance copyeditor, showing how hard it is to get published – although he appears to have had a young family so perhaps life intervened?

[Dieuwke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’d read the title story years back in a course, and the collection as a whole didn’t disappoint. Adam Marek is very precise, building up an eeriness or tension within two sentences.
I marvel at his parent/child interactions.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

powerful

[Elizabeth Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic range of stories, my heart was in my mouth reading many of them. Really enjoyed this.

[Ed Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this writer. His first collection, Instruction Manual for Swallowing, was full of darkly comic stories laced with a skewed reality that really appealed to me. The same is true of many of the stories in this collection, but there is an added seriousness, and even a sense of melancholy that wasn't there before. A number of the stories in The Stone Thrower are about parenthood or filial relations, specifically a parent's need to protect a child from harm, and Marek is very good at depicting just how frightening an experience that can be. This collection might not please everyone who liked Instruction Manual for Swallowing, but I think its best stories are evidence of a maturer and better writer.

[Ryan Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Before even reading Adam Marek’s short story collection The Stone Thrower­—a book that openly states its themes of parental protection and vulnerability right on the back cover—I began to worry that I would be slogging through a dozen or so stories written by someone who has been made soft and sentimental by the idea of what they do to nurture their offspring or, perhaps even worse, stories written by someone who has been made hard, writing for the aforementioned softies.

Thankfully, The Stone Thrower is none of that."

FULL REVIEW AT HEAVY FEATHER REVIEW

[Chris Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining collection, although many of the stories lack the overt elements of fantasy and the absurd that characterised Marek's earlier book 'Instruction manual for swallowing'. Instead, there is often a creeping sense of fear and dread which can be very effective. The recurring theme of parents protecting their children is well explored and makes this a more coherent collection, although it does result in the stories feeling a little samey towards the end. As always with short stories there are highs (Tamagotchi, The Captain) and lows (The Stone Thrower, Santa Carla Day), but the overall standard is very high. Well worth a read!

[Tracy Fells · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am an Adam Marek fan and enjoyed this second collection. My favourite story out of this is 'Tamogotchi' where the famous Sky Badger makes his appearance. (Marek's wife later set up a children's charity named after Sky Badger.) Some of these stories such as 'The Captain' were so absorbing that I wish he'd turn them into something longer.

His style is possibly not to everyone's tastes, but if you love the uncanny or quirky with a dose of humanity and truth then this collection is for you.

[Stefan Grieve · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection of dark short stories.
My favourites were 'An Industrial evolution' for its imagination and sadness, about cloned, humanoid and employed orangutangs, then 'Tamagotchi' for its funny, dark inventiveness, and then 'Burying Chiyoko Sasaki' for its slice of well-observed grief and a creeping sense of the unsettling.

[Gregory Norminton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a seriously compelling collection of stories, many of which are still sloshing about in my memory weeks after reading them. THE STONE THROWER is even better than Adam Marek's first collection, and that's saying something.

[Gretel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the thirteen short stories in this collection I loved, others I weren't too keen on. I'm not sure whether they are literary fiction or sci-fi or a completely different genre, but they definitely show that Adam Marek has one hell of an imagination. I'd definitely say give them a go.

[Facundo Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

''Fewer Things'' and ''Dead Fish'' are nice pieces of ecofiction depicting a bleak future with widespread pollution. ''Remember the Bride who got Stung'' and ''Tamagotchi'' are bad. ''Earthquakes'' is low fantasy with an unusual POV and ''Burying Chiyoko Sasaki'' is a superb drama.

[Litro Magazine]

Litro Magazine review by Emily Cleaver: http://www.litro.co.uk/?p=28541

[Jan Moens · Rating 5 out of 5]

8,5/10

[Serge · Rating 2 out of 5]

These short stories I found to be wildly imaginative in terms of their plots and ideas, but were a letdown in their execution. Not my cup of tea!

[Manda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is easily one of the best short story collections I've ever read.

[Emily Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short stories.

[Miz · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best short story collections I've ever read.