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McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #32
McSweeney's #32
Because it seemed important to know in advance, we've dedicated Issue 32 to an investigation of the world to come—near-future stories written by the likes of Anthony Doerr, Heidi Julavits, Wells Tower, Chris Adrian, and Salvador Plascencia, each of 'em unearthing a different corner of life in the year 2024. This will be, we are sure, way more entertaining than waiting fifteen years for the real thing.
258 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2009
15 people are currently reading
161 people want to read
About the author
Dave Eggers
338 books9,477 followersDave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is best known for his 2000 memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is also the founder of several notable literary and philanthropic ventures, including the literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness. Additionally, he founded ScholarMatch, a program that connects donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in numerous prestigious publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
November 24, 2016
This is essentially a Science Fiction anthology, from 2009, subtitled 2024 AD. McSweeney's gave several writers the challenge of traveling to some place in the world, and then setting a story there, but in the year 2024. The title page claims they challenged "a dozen or so" but got only ten submissions.
First, let me make a complaint about the SF ghetto, and one of the things that irritates me about the myopia of my own writing community. I write for both literary and science fiction audiences, and for the most part I don't think of them as different. I know many other writers, like Jonathan Lethem and the late Iain Banks, who have happily lived in both ponds. Now here's a major literary magazine with a long history of being open to "genre" literature (witness issues #10 [McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales], #45 [Hitchcock and Bradbury Fistfight in Heaven], and #46 [Thirteen Crime Stories from Latin America]), and it has an SF issue. What brought this to the top of my reading list was that I recently read the Best American Short Stories issue for that year, and it had not just one, but two stories from this issue of McSweeney's. When I finished reading the first story ["Memory Wall" by Anthony Doerr] I assumed that the major reason it hadn't been in the BASS collection was that it was too long. Excellent story. And then I asked myself, why aren't the three "best" stories already familiar to me?? Because I would have read the Dozois anthology of Best SF for that year, as well as the Hartwell collection. Both those gentlemen being Very Open to Literature (and accused by many readers of SF as being too Literary), I was surprised to discover, on checking, that neither anthology contains a single story from this McSweeney's, nor any mention of it whatsoever.
When I was growing up, the SF community was always bitching and moaning about not getting respect from the literary world or the mainstream world. Now SF has essentially "won" and is being written by literary/mainstream writers and published in literary/mainstream venues, and the SF community mostly ignores this. Not a valid response.
Rant ends.
Anyway, the two stories that ended up in Best American were Wells Tower's "Raw Water" and Jim Shepard's "The Netherlands Lives With Water". I liked the Shepard better, but the writing of both is strong. Indeed, despite being a 4-grimace collection, the writing is quite strong throughout. My least satisfactory reaction was to the last story, a surreal radioplay, "Sky City", which had a very good central concept, but was too periphrastic and too slow for my taste. Good metaphorical work in "The Black Square" (Chris Adrian) and "Material Proof of the Failure of Everything" (Heidi Julavits) as well.
In sum, this is a volume I would urge on folks who want to learn what is possible in short fiction, including short science fiction. This can open doors of the imagination. Strongly recommended.
First, let me make a complaint about the SF ghetto, and one of the things that irritates me about the myopia of my own writing community. I write for both literary and science fiction audiences, and for the most part I don't think of them as different. I know many other writers, like Jonathan Lethem and the late Iain Banks, who have happily lived in both ponds. Now here's a major literary magazine with a long history of being open to "genre" literature (witness issues #10 [McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales], #45 [Hitchcock and Bradbury Fistfight in Heaven], and #46 [Thirteen Crime Stories from Latin America]), and it has an SF issue. What brought this to the top of my reading list was that I recently read the Best American Short Stories issue for that year, and it had not just one, but two stories from this issue of McSweeney's. When I finished reading the first story ["Memory Wall" by Anthony Doerr] I assumed that the major reason it hadn't been in the BASS collection was that it was too long. Excellent story. And then I asked myself, why aren't the three "best" stories already familiar to me?? Because I would have read the Dozois anthology of Best SF for that year, as well as the Hartwell collection. Both those gentlemen being Very Open to Literature (and accused by many readers of SF as being too Literary), I was surprised to discover, on checking, that neither anthology contains a single story from this McSweeney's, nor any mention of it whatsoever.
When I was growing up, the SF community was always bitching and moaning about not getting respect from the literary world or the mainstream world. Now SF has essentially "won" and is being written by literary/mainstream writers and published in literary/mainstream venues, and the SF community mostly ignores this. Not a valid response.
Rant ends.
Anyway, the two stories that ended up in Best American were Wells Tower's "Raw Water" and Jim Shepard's "The Netherlands Lives With Water". I liked the Shepard better, but the writing of both is strong. Indeed, despite being a 4-grimace collection, the writing is quite strong throughout. My least satisfactory reaction was to the last story, a surreal radioplay, "Sky City", which had a very good central concept, but was too periphrastic and too slow for my taste. Good metaphorical work in "The Black Square" (Chris Adrian) and "Material Proof of the Failure of Everything" (Heidi Julavits) as well.
In sum, this is a volume I would urge on folks who want to learn what is possible in short fiction, including short science fiction. This can open doors of the imagination. Strongly recommended.
April 27, 2019
I liked the first story of this anthology, Memory Wall, the best. Of all the pieces, it seemed the most rounded out with the most established world and location etc etc. Second to that was The Black Square. Both of which were very sweet and also very sad, with well-created worlds and characters and relationships between characters that were very believable. I really liked the hopefulness at the end of Eighth Wonder, and the open-endedness of Sky City. I absolutely was not a fan of Raw Water. The rest of the stories were interesting little glimpses into different sorts of futures. All were sort of sweet but gloomy and doomy but honestly that is a pretty good guess for the near future at this point. I definitely enjoyed this anthology.
January 17, 2022
Mixed bag, but some really good pieces in this.
March 23, 2022
I liked the stories in the beginning better than the rest. The one about the spy guy was kind of hard to digest; it reminded by a lot of DF Wallace
November 30, 2016
This is book that I most definitely judged by its cover. I picked it up in the library as it has a very pleasing cover design. The decision to read it was based on the blurb - a series of short stories composed in 2009 by a variety of US authors. Their subject matter, life in some specific place in 2024. I enjoy extrapolations of the future and, indeed, this book contained some interesting ideas. Inevitably, though, the stories were a mixed bag. As often seems to be the case with short story anthologies, the opener was both the longest and the best-written tale of the bunch. Set in Johannesburg, ‘Memory Wall’ dealt rather beautifully with inequality, memory, and aging. The characters and imagery were well-developed and the plot nicely paced and satisfyingly concluded. Amongst the others, none quite managed the same combination of neat conceit and effective realisation. I think this is partly because several of stories seemed determined to be about dysfunctional romantic relationships, which disappointed me. It is more than possible to write a short story without centering it around a couple who don’t understand each other; this is a trope I am very tired of.
Nonetheless, there were notable elements in the later stories that kept me reading. ‘Raw Water’ created an impressively unsettling atmosphere on the shores of an artificial lake. ‘Eighth Wonder’ also evoked its setting, The Dome, very viscerally. The language of the place and its isolation reminded me a little of the film adaptation of ‘Snowpiercer’. ‘Material Proof of the Failure of Everything’ includes a nice edge of political satire. ‘The Netherlands Lives With Water’ has a tedious protagonist but an impressive air of impending doom. The last couple of stories, ‘The Enduring Nature of the Bromidic’ and ‘Sky City’ attempted a combination of big idea and stylistic innovation, which neither of them really managed to pull off. The former was incredibly hard to follow, the latter consisted entirely of clunky dialogue. Yet I liked both the central concepts - of a cultural fragmentation undermining America and an upper atmosphere filled with refuse. Overall, the collection is worth reading not just for its highlights, but also as a demonstration of the uncomfortable discontinuity that can be found between literary fiction and sci-fi. There are many wonderful novels that combine the two, however some of these stories struggle with the reconciliation.
Nonetheless, there were notable elements in the later stories that kept me reading. ‘Raw Water’ created an impressively unsettling atmosphere on the shores of an artificial lake. ‘Eighth Wonder’ also evoked its setting, The Dome, very viscerally. The language of the place and its isolation reminded me a little of the film adaptation of ‘Snowpiercer’. ‘Material Proof of the Failure of Everything’ includes a nice edge of political satire. ‘The Netherlands Lives With Water’ has a tedious protagonist but an impressive air of impending doom. The last couple of stories, ‘The Enduring Nature of the Bromidic’ and ‘Sky City’ attempted a combination of big idea and stylistic innovation, which neither of them really managed to pull off. The former was incredibly hard to follow, the latter consisted entirely of clunky dialogue. Yet I liked both the central concepts - of a cultural fragmentation undermining America and an upper atmosphere filled with refuse. Overall, the collection is worth reading not just for its highlights, but also as a demonstration of the uncomfortable discontinuity that can be found between literary fiction and sci-fi. There are many wonderful novels that combine the two, however some of these stories struggle with the reconciliation.
September 19, 2011
McSweeney's doesn't usually feel like a chore but this issue did. The subtitle is "2024AD" where the 10 writers have to write stories set in that year. Most of them choose to write the usual gloomy drivel. Global warming came true! We live in a post-apolcalyptic wasteland where everything is grey and nobody is happy! Of course global warming is real but couldn't any of these guys think of doing anything original with the material? Thankfully a couple of writers chose to put together decent stories rather than advance a mainstream political idea.
The best of these is the increasingly brilliant Wells Tower whose story "Raw Water" features giant pipes siphoning off excess seawater across land into the deserts, thus transforming them into new landscapes. The water however has turned bad and only a few residents remain. Tower creates some great characters particularly the sleazy drunken real estate salesman Arn Nevis and the newly rejuvenated Rodney Booth whose personality is transformed thanks to the water. It's a fantastic story that showcases Tower's talent for characterisation and storytelling, a compelling mix and a good sign that his next book will be the one that makes his name.
Chris Adrian's "The Black Square" features a small stationary black hole emerging in Nantucket. Initially curious, the black hole spawns a cult following with people seeing it as an opportunity for renewal and a new life, or the end of a particularly painful one. The main character goes there to jump in, ending his life, but finds love with another man. The ending is surprising and excellent.
Sadly, those two were the only stories I genuinely enjoyed. The others feature lifeless characters in (loosely termed) stories who blunder about pointing out that there is less available (food, water, energy, everything) than the past. Very dull stuff.
While most of the writing is competent, the stories' joylessness made for an overall dreary read and eventually made me glad when I finished the last page. 2 great stories out of 10. McSweeney's 32 is batting below average.
The best of these is the increasingly brilliant Wells Tower whose story "Raw Water" features giant pipes siphoning off excess seawater across land into the deserts, thus transforming them into new landscapes. The water however has turned bad and only a few residents remain. Tower creates some great characters particularly the sleazy drunken real estate salesman Arn Nevis and the newly rejuvenated Rodney Booth whose personality is transformed thanks to the water. It's a fantastic story that showcases Tower's talent for characterisation and storytelling, a compelling mix and a good sign that his next book will be the one that makes his name.
Chris Adrian's "The Black Square" features a small stationary black hole emerging in Nantucket. Initially curious, the black hole spawns a cult following with people seeing it as an opportunity for renewal and a new life, or the end of a particularly painful one. The main character goes there to jump in, ending his life, but finds love with another man. The ending is surprising and excellent.
Sadly, those two were the only stories I genuinely enjoyed. The others feature lifeless characters in (loosely termed) stories who blunder about pointing out that there is less available (food, water, energy, everything) than the past. Very dull stuff.
While most of the writing is competent, the stories' joylessness made for an overall dreary read and eventually made me glad when I finished the last page. 2 great stories out of 10. McSweeney's 32 is batting below average.
December 18, 2014
Excerpt from What I've Been Reading - McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Issue 32:
"Aside of a fantastic story by Anthony Doerr (“Memory Wall,” about a device that reaches in and saves memories for those slowly suffering from dementia), and Chris Adrian’s “The Black Square” (which delves into a cool hyper-local science fiction about a cultish black hole with a story no one understands), the general tone of the collection is simply a little too pessimistic.
No one had a happy outlook for the future – no one was convinced that things could be stable in 2025, let alone better. I don’t say this as a blind optimist – listen, I’ve read The Grapes of Wrath and The Road, and I understand that great works of fiction can be absolute downers – but as a person who expects more variety in a collection of stories from an imprint that’s known for off-beat stories.
It’s easy to look into the future and predict doom. It’s as simple as opening up the front page and figuring out what some fringe crazies are “sky-is-falling” about today."
"Aside of a fantastic story by Anthony Doerr (“Memory Wall,” about a device that reaches in and saves memories for those slowly suffering from dementia), and Chris Adrian’s “The Black Square” (which delves into a cool hyper-local science fiction about a cultish black hole with a story no one understands), the general tone of the collection is simply a little too pessimistic.
No one had a happy outlook for the future – no one was convinced that things could be stable in 2025, let alone better. I don’t say this as a blind optimist – listen, I’ve read The Grapes of Wrath and The Road, and I understand that great works of fiction can be absolute downers – but as a person who expects more variety in a collection of stories from an imprint that’s known for off-beat stories.
It’s easy to look into the future and predict doom. It’s as simple as opening up the front page and figuring out what some fringe crazies are “sky-is-falling” about today."
May 17, 2011
I really enjoyed this issue. Themed, regular locations, setting 2024--what's going on? Some creative choices.
Easily the best story was the opener, Anthony Doerr's "Memory Wall." This is followed by a close second (which happens to be second), Wells Tower's "Raw Water." A very strong leadoff, and now I am interested in both of these authors, to read more of their work.
Other good stories are "The Black Square" and "Oblast." I want to read more Jim Shepard, and I liked "The Netherlands Lives With Water," but for some reason his characters and writing style threw or confused me, where I didn't know who was speaking, or if this was a memory or current. But a good regular-guy story nonetheless. I also liked "Material Proof of the Failure of Everything"--I thought the writing was solid and story well-imagined, except that I didn't really know what was going on much of the time. Some of the weaker stories were "Sky City," "Eighth Wonder," and "There is No Time in Waterloo."
All in all a solid issue. Now I need to get back to the current one.
Easily the best story was the opener, Anthony Doerr's "Memory Wall." This is followed by a close second (which happens to be second), Wells Tower's "Raw Water." A very strong leadoff, and now I am interested in both of these authors, to read more of their work.
Other good stories are "The Black Square" and "Oblast." I want to read more Jim Shepard, and I liked "The Netherlands Lives With Water," but for some reason his characters and writing style threw or confused me, where I didn't know who was speaking, or if this was a memory or current. But a good regular-guy story nonetheless. I also liked "Material Proof of the Failure of Everything"--I thought the writing was solid and story well-imagined, except that I didn't really know what was going on much of the time. Some of the weaker stories were "Sky City," "Eighth Wonder," and "There is No Time in Waterloo."
All in all a solid issue. Now I need to get back to the current one.
May 22, 2012
A truly outstanding collection of imaginative sci-fi stories strongly rooted in character and present fears about our near future. All of the stories in this themed edition of McSweeney's attempt to answer the question "what will the world look like in 2024?" While some behave reasonably within the parameters of this question (Chris Bachelder's "Eighth Wonder") others blast out to skim the murky edge of fantasy fiction (Sesshu Foster's dirigible-based "Sky City") There was only one story here which I actively disliked (Sheila Heti's annoying "satire" on the arch-prevalence of smart-phone technology and young adult empowerment) but it cannot detract from the value of this volume. While all must be read, the highlights are definitely Jim Shepard's "The Netherlands Lives with Water," Heidi Julavits' "Material Proof of the Failure of Everything" and Wells Tower's "Raw Water."
December 17, 2009
The high point for me was "The Black Square" by Chris Adrian, it's refreshing to read about realistic gay relationships for once. I'm going to pick up some other books by him soon.
The low, even though it has a great title, was "Material Proof of the Failure of Everything" by Heidi Julavits. I found it so confusing and uninteresting it almost ruined the rest of the book for me.
I also should mention "Raw Water" by Wells Tower as a high point, but the rest of the stories are kinda mediocre. Physically, however, this issue is one of my favorites - a nice, oversized, weighty book.
The low, even though it has a great title, was "Material Proof of the Failure of Everything" by Heidi Julavits. I found it so confusing and uninteresting it almost ruined the rest of the book for me.
I also should mention "Raw Water" by Wells Tower as a high point, but the rest of the stories are kinda mediocre. Physically, however, this issue is one of my favorites - a nice, oversized, weighty book.
January 5, 2010
Here's a McSweeney's that's right up my alley. Set in the fairly near future of 2024, all of the stories sought to predict or warn of a quickly approaching future. Pretty much all of them were dark in tone or setting, and all were extremely enjoyable.
What was most interesting to me was that almost all of the stories told of a future radically affected by climate change. No fascist dystopias or aliens here -- just an earth made mad by global warming and human mistakes.
My favorites were "The Black Square" by Chris Adrian, and Jim Shephard's "The Netherlands Lives With Water."
What was most interesting to me was that almost all of the stories told of a future radically affected by climate change. No fascist dystopias or aliens here -- just an earth made mad by global warming and human mistakes.
My favorites were "The Black Square" by Chris Adrian, and Jim Shephard's "The Netherlands Lives With Water."
March 22, 2010
One of the worst McSweeney's I have read so far, but containing one of the best stories - Anthony Doerr's 'Memory Wall'. Well's Tower, Chris Bachelor, Chris Adrian and Sheila Heti put in some good work. The rest, sadly, is barely readable and highly amateurish. Too much of it relies on the old trick of using lots of systemic words and concepts to sound 'future'-like. Heidi Julavits''Material Proof of the Failure of Everything' in particular is an out-dated, pretentious cliche of a Hungarian spy story that relies on an excruciating 'wit' connecting scatology with 'funny' foreign cake names.
November 21, 2015
Well, this was certainly everything I could have expected of a Dave Eggers brain-child: pretentious drivel by worthless hipsters with more confidence than skill.
Special mentions go to J. Erin Sweeney, who writes at a fourth-grade level, and Jim Shepard, whose knowledge of Dutch culture is such that he thinks Henk and Kees are perfectly reasonable names for characters and who is under the impression picking names more or less at random from a street map of Rotterdam with complete disregard for semantics constitutes a setting.
Special mentions go to J. Erin Sweeney, who writes at a fourth-grade level, and Jim Shepard, whose knowledge of Dutch culture is such that he thinks Henk and Kees are perfectly reasonable names for characters and who is under the impression picking names more or less at random from a street map of Rotterdam with complete disregard for semantics constitutes a setting.
November 19, 2009
This collection of speculative fiction (all set in the year 2024) is comprised of very under-appreciated writers (of them, I believe Jim Shepard is the most well-known), and the best stories give a fascinating idea of what humanity can look forward to in the next fifteen years. There are a couple of stories that don't do much with the conceit, but these are the stories which tend to hit harder emotionally. All in all, well worth the time.
December 31, 2009
A cool concept -- all the stories are set in 2024. I didn't love every piece, but I quite liked the stories by Chris Adrian (especially) and J. Erin Sweeney...and I really, really enjoyed the long, first story, "Memory Wall" by Anthony Doerr. I think I'm going to have to add novels by Adrian and Doerr to my endless to-read list...
Oh, and shock of all shocks: the book is beautiful. Just like all McSweeney's issues....
Oh, and shock of all shocks: the book is beautiful. Just like all McSweeney's issues....
January 11, 2010
10 glimpses of the near-future from personal favorites like Jim Shepard and Chris Adrian. I'm only partway through the opening near-novela, Anthony Doerr's "Memory Wall" and already this is shaping up to be excellent.
...
Yep, it was quite good. As usual, Shepard came out with the real fireworks, and in a story that hits his usual points -- families, man against the uncaring elements -- in a scarily believable way. A few were sort of a weird mess, a few were perfect, all-in-all decent.
...
Yep, it was quite good. As usual, Shepard came out with the real fireworks, and in a story that hits his usual points -- families, man against the uncaring elements -- in a scarily believable way. A few were sort of a weird mess, a few were perfect, all-in-all decent.
May 20, 2013
Most of these stories were good but I skipped a few. I loved the Wells Tower story and the Salvador Plascencia one. I didn't finish the last the story though as it just never grabbed me. An all around good issue of McSweeney's. I also really liked Chris Bachelder's "Eight Wonder", about people living in a flooded dome.
I also really enjoyed the dystopian police state tale ("Material Proof of the Failure of Everything") by Heidi Julavits.
I also really enjoyed the dystopian police state tale ("Material Proof of the Failure of Everything") by Heidi Julavits.
April 18, 2011
Most of these stories were good but I skipped a few. I loved the Wells Tower story and the Salvador Plascencia one. I didn't finish the last the story though as it just never grabbed me. An all around good issue of McSweeney's. I also really liked Chris Bachelder's "Eight Wonder", about people living in a flooded dome.
I also really enjoyed the dystopian police state tale ("Material Proof of the Failure of Everything") by Heidi Julavits.
I also really enjoyed the dystopian police state tale ("Material Proof of the Failure of Everything") by Heidi Julavits.
March 30, 2013
Asked to write about dystopic futures, these authors produced some of the most bleak and thought-provoking short stories I have read in a long time. The opening story, Memory Wall by Anthony Doerr, deserves to be singled out for special mention, particularly for anyone with an affinity for South Africa, while others like Eighth Wonder and The Netherlands Lives with Water are most worrisome for their grains of truth.
December 22, 2009
Great concept for this issue: Stories From the Near Future of 2014. Especially great were Chris Adrian's "The Black Square", Sheila Heti's "There Is No Time In Waterloo" and Jim Shephard's "The Netherlands Lives With Water". I am vaguely concerned that so many of these stories feature a world beset with major water problems related to global warming.
March 7, 2011
So the concept of this issue is what fiction will sound like in the nearish future, like maybe ten years hence or something, I already forgot and the book's in the other room.
I guess in general they expect future-fiction to be more or less compelling but kind of arduous for a guy like me to read.
Maybe it was just me, though.
I guess in general they expect future-fiction to be more or less compelling but kind of arduous for a guy like me to read.
Maybe it was just me, though.
April 6, 2017
This is by far my favorite edition of the Quarterly yet. "Memory Wall" and "The Black Square" are exceptional stories. I'm still making my way through, but I highly suggest folks pick up this edition.
October 27, 2009
This issue: What might happen fifteen years hence? Some really fantastic stories in here that automatically make this a five-starrer, a couple I didn't care for, but nonetheless are useful and valuable to the World in their own way....
November 30, 2009
This is a tough one to rate. "Memory Wall" (Anthony Doerr) is excellent, several of the other stories are good or great, but quite a few are unworthy.
The good ones, though, are good enough that this issue should not be missed.
The good ones, though, are good enough that this issue should not be missed.
March 27, 2011
My favorites are "Memory Wall," (duh), "Raw Water" and "The Black Square." "The Netherlands Lives with Water" and "Eighth Wonder" are pretty good, too. The rest were average-to-weak. I'd give it 3 stars but my favorite three stories were too damn good.
December 1, 2017
This is one of my favorite McSweeney's issues yet. Everything is set in the future ... but only 15 years in the future, so nothing is too out there and sci-fi. The opening novella "Memory Wall" is amazing amazing amazing, and there are many other good reads in here too.
February 9, 2016
Now this was more like it McSweeney's! Not the best, but a nice rebound after the forgotten formats issue. Favourites include "The Black Square" "There is No Time in Waterloo" & "The Netherlands Lives with Water". "Sky City" gets an honorable mention as well.
May 6, 2010
So far all I've read is Wells Tower's "Raw Water" but I'm liking where this issue is going.
November 16, 2009
Mostly a great collection of stories based in variously dark versions of the year 2024, although the final piece bogged me down a bit and I couldn't quite finish it.
February 3, 2011
The first story, Memory Wall, is one of the best short stories I've ever read...worth reading just that.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews