I almost gave this 4 stars because a few of the stories weren't so strong. But is every novel I give 5 stars to perfect from beginning to end? Certainly not. I think the strong stories will stay with me for long time, and they are enough to make this collection excellent.

Not recommended. While a few of the short stories boast novel premises ("novel" here meaning a welcome unfamiliarity) most are bizarre without merit, and while they could have been redeemed through a controlled lyricism or a focused narrative with clear momentum- or preferably both- they fail to be. Few display any sort of narrative movement nor reach any conclusion, which, when combined with Karen Joy Fowler's rather staid prose style, begs the question from the reader of what their attentions

Tiptree shortlist 1998. I enjoyed the first story, but all the others were either just ok or dull and all fizzled out. I didn't bother finishing.Black glass - a DEA agent accidentally summons the spirit of Carry Nation to help in the "war on drugs". Unfortunately she's a bit too zealous in her work. Enjoyable, but sort of fizzled out at the end.Contention - well written but dullShimabara - well written but dullThe Elizabeth complex - Elizabeths' through the ages - quite good.Go back - dullThe tr...

Eclectic, experimental, and entertaining collection of stories. Karen Joy Fowler just wows me.

Black glass: a DEA agent in Panama pockets an obsidian toad from a collection and changes his world, for the worse. Carry Nation come to life.Shimabara: Is the Bible the result of the game of telephone? Another version of Christianity (or Kirishitan).Go back: Fowler was born in Bloomington, Illinois; she often writes stories that start out the same as her life, but differ in some way. In this story, her father goes fishing on the Wabash, with a sad loss instead of a catch.The Travails: Gulliver'...

What do you do with a book when your head clashes with your heart? How do you possibly rate it?That’s the dilemma I face with Black Glass. The collection has been dubbed “ferociously imaginative and provocative” and I absolutely agree. Karen Joy Fowler is a superb writer and her blending of magical-realist elements are innovative, erudite and risk-taking. I could not help but admire these stories – each and every one.There are some, of course, that particularly shine. Lieserl, an epistolary stor...

I generally don’t enjoy short stories as much as novels, but with this collection I experienced many of the same feelings I do with Fowler’s longer fiction. But without the continuity of a larger story arc compelling me, it took longer to finish this volume. I would often pick it up at bedtime to read a story before sleep, and although moved by that story would not pick it up again for several months.

I won the book through Goodreads and was a Goodreads First Reads winner. I found the book very confusing. It was all over the place and was hard to focus on. For some people this might be the book for them, but I have no patience to try to figure out what is happening. I think it has creative ideas and great potential but it is not the book for me.

A simply wonderful collection of short stories. Each story is so well-written that it's a joy to read, from Tonto, the faithful companion, who receives no acknowledgement of his 40th birthday to Carrie Nation who is preaching the virtues of clean living and trying to do away with topless bars and booze. Every story is strong with quite a punch in a small package!

"Black Glass" is a well-written collection of short stories filled with great characters and humorous situations. My favorites were "The Faithful Companion at Forty" and "Duplicity," but there were several other I enjoyed quite a lot.

15 tales, some of which are clever, most of which are puzzling and many of which are dull, to paraphrase the synopsis offered by Goodreads. As I've noted in many reviews, short stories are not my favorite genre, yet for some damn reason I keep picking them up. At least this fulfills on of my reading challenge requirements and I can get it back to the library! Fowler appears to be talented and obviously beloved by many so I'm quite the exception.

As the blurb above says, most of the stories are puzzling...not necessarily bad because when you figure it out you feel pretty smart. And if you don't figure it out, well, humph. Maybe you're not supposed to figure out everything in life. There has to be some mystery somewhere. (view spoiler)[For example, in the last story, Game Night at the Fox and Goose...well, the woman who changes to a man--does he take her to another universe? And not return her? Is it worse? What happens?? A great article

There is very little wonder and a lot of detective-duking in Black Glass which makes for all the wrong proportions. I've loved Fowler's other work (Sarah Canary was incredible for the anti-psychiatry especially when read alongside Marge Piercy's well known eccentric and that bestseller she wrote really wrung my heart) but this one is smart while being really cold. I'd recommend it very cautiously and only to a few.

Some of these stories were immensely enjoyable, like Lily Red and Duplicity. Others, like the title story, are puzzling, lacking detail, and hard to follow.

So amazing! Such a great writer!

As a general rule, I steer clear of short story collections. I was pleasantly surprised when I read the stories and essays in “Black Glass”, a recent reprint of Fowler's works, first published in 1998. Each story stood apart as an interesting study in relationships, often with an exploration into feminism. (Yet the author asks questions and invites readers to reach their own conclusion, rather than expect them to accept her personal position on this topic.) Elements of the supernatural, surreal

Karen Jay Fowler is a smart writer. The stories are all tightly written, extremely imaginative. Her eyes range all over the place, and she ties together very unlikely and disparate tales, persons, visions, actions, eras, and makes me believe I. Their possibility. The title story Black Glass brings to mind Carlos Castaneda, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and oh, l don't know -- the writer of Ipcress File. The story of Tonto or any non-blond, non-white sidekick of some empowered hero is clever. Mrs. Gull...

For someone who doesn't really like short stories, I sure have been reading a lot of them recently... I think if short stories are more your thing, this book would be a 5-star for sure. They're well-written and engaging, without being too full of themselves.

LieserlMy favorite of the fifteen stories from this reissue of the 1998 collection by Karen Joy Fowler is "Lieserl." It consists of a series of letters to Albert Einstein from Mileva Maric, who would later become his wife. He is in Bern, she in Budapest. She writes to him about the birth of their out-of-wedlock daughter Lieserl. But, as this is Einstein, the letters arrive in accelerated time: at one post, she is lying in her crib; at the next, looking at a book; at the next, a tomboy sliding do...

“I have learned to distrust words, even my own.”This collection of short stories is nothing if not odd. Some of the stories I really enjoyed, some not so much. “Black Glass,” the first story in the book, falls into the first category. It is strange, disjointed, and wonderfully creepy.There are no realities. There are too many realities. Time is meaningless. Contradictions are the norm. Sometimes this worked, sometimes it just felt as though the author couldn't decide which storyline she wanted t...