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Too many of these stories lack the tension, relevance and technical superiority of other books in this series. Some also veer into the realm of bad taste for what I believe was a cheap 'shock value' motive on the part of the judges/editor. (The story entitled "Diary of an Interesting Year" was the worst offender for me in this volume--yuck; I felt physically ill.)On the bright side, my reading circumstances forced me to revisit the work of Brian Evenson, whose writing has failed to grab me in th...
Just finished the opening story, "Your Fate Hurtles Down at You" by Jim Shepard--fantastic
Your Fate Hurtles Down at You by Jim Shepard -- 4/5 Stars Diary of an Interesting Year by Helen Simpson -- 3/5 Stars Melinda by Judy Doenges -- 3/5 Stars Nightblooming by Kenneth Calhoun -- 4/5 Stars The Restoration of the Villa Where Tibor Kalman Once Lived by Tamas Dobozy -- 4/5 Stars Ice by Lily Tuck -- 4/5 Stars How to Leave Hialeah by Jennine Capo Crucet -- 3/5 Stars The Junction by David Means -- n/a Pole, Pole by Susan Minot -- n/a Alamo Plaza by Brad Watson
Finally got around to this and great great great, those all so finely-crafted moments when the weight of our human experience comes crashing down on the unsuspecting character. Was nice to see some speculative fiction: Diary of an Interesting Year is a chilling must read and The Black Square shows such expert handling of sci-fi as the story focuses on the characters and their response to the Square not the Square itself. Windeye was a short and powerful rendering of childhood fantasies, or not.
These stories appear to have been selected for their diversity rather than their overall merit. It's a good book to read if you want to be sure that you never read two stories in a row that are remotely like each other. (There's one exception--there are in fact two stories in a row written from the first-person perspective of homosexual men.)
I'm catching up on some of my older reading, this being one. I started it when first released but have been distracted by other stuff (writing mostly) and have only picked it back up to finish this week. I've very surprised by the number of excellent (what I would call) speculative fiction stories. Precisely the kinds of stories I have in the past read in Fantasy and Science Fiction and others. Now some may take offense at this but I think it's wonderful. These are along the lines of The Ceiling...
45% of the stories contain a death. Death by avalanche, drowning, cancer, car crash, falling, suicide, old age, cancer, baboon girl attack, several pages describing all the ways people can die in a war, death by gunshot, by mysterious black box, and unspecified causes.
Reading this anthology was like falling down a long flight of stairs, with each story being one more step in a series of painful landings. I don't mean that they were all bad stories, but pain was a dominating theme. The memorable exceptions were Jennine Capo Crucet's "How to Leave Hialeah", where there were some laughs mixed in with the sadness, and likewise Chris Adrian"s "The Black Square". Mark Slouka"s "Crossing" was gut-wrenching and still relevant to ordinary life. Helen Simpson's "Diary
There were a few fantastic stories that make this collection worthwhile:Diary of an Interesting Year, Helen SimpsonBlack Square, Chris AdrianWindeye, Brian EvensonSunshine, Lynn FreedThese stories were extraordinary, some of the best I've read anywhere.The rest of the collection was pretty mundane - it seems that if you are writing about an exotic locale (Africa, Malaysia, India) and your protagonists are homosexuals, then you had a fair chance of making it into this book. Not that those stories...
Another great collection. This year's stories were grimmer and darker than I had expected (two tramp/hobo stories? Strange!), but it made for an excellent read. Favourite stories: 'How to Leave Hialeah' by Jennine Capo Crucet and 'Crossing' by Mark Slouka.
Overall this was a fairly satisfying collection - I must say I enjoyed reading many of the stories, even though the quality was quite variable. The best story is for me Helen Simpson's "Diary of an Interesting Year". The story impresses all the more because of the cute, chick-lit style narration of absolutely horrific events.Of the rest, obviously Mark Slouka's "The Crossing" is the best. As with many of Slouka's stories, extremely vivid & well-told, and intuitively familiar to most men - who am...
