Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Penguin Books Ltd (2004), Paperback, 512 pages
Description
Collects short stories about mummies, Nazis, witches, murder, and time travel by such authors as Stephen King, Michael Crichton, and Kelly Link.
User reviews
LibraryThing member gbill
This is indeed a mammoth treasury of tales, and quite a read, with themes of adventure, fantasy, mystery, the supernatural, action, and altered history – so ‘thrilling’ is an appropriate adjective. This edition of McSweeney’s featured a star-studded cast of authors – Chabon (who also
My favorites:
Catskin, by Kelly Link
Closing Time, by Neil Gaiman
Otherwise Pandemonium, by Nick Hornby
Weaving the Dark, by Laurie King
Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly, by Dave Eggers (later published in How We Are Hungry, but well worth reading again)
The Case of the Nazi Canary, by Michael Moorcock
Goodbye to All That, by Harlan Ellison
The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance, by Michael Chabon (although this one was an exception to the claim in the table of contents that all tales were ‘original and complete’, in the sense that it is not finished, and carried over into the net installment of ‘Thrilling Tales’)
When I counted 8 of these as favorites and considered the overall quality, I bumped my original review score of 4 stars up half a point. Certainly worth picking up and reading from cover to cover, or a story at random.
Lastly, a note on the random connection discovered to the book I read previously, which was Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town’ – a common reference to Charles Lindbergh.
In ‘How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman’ by Elmore Leonard: “…riding a streetcar for the first time, and being sworn in as a Deputy United States Marshal; while Lindbergh was being honored in New York City, tons of ticker tape dumped on the Lone Eagle for flying across the ocean…”
In ‘Our Town’: “So I’m going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone and the people a thousand years from now’ll know a few simple facts about us – more than the Treaty of Versailles and the Lindbergh flight.”
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edited), Crichton, Eggers, Gaiman, Hornby, Laurie King, Stephen King, and many others. Consistency is quite high across the 20 stories, with only one or maybe two subpar efforts in the whole book. My favorites:
Catskin, by Kelly Link
Closing Time, by Neil Gaiman
Otherwise Pandemonium, by Nick Hornby
Weaving the Dark, by Laurie King
Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly, by Dave Eggers (later published in How We Are Hungry, but well worth reading again)
The Case of the Nazi Canary, by Michael Moorcock
Goodbye to All That, by Harlan Ellison
The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance, by Michael Chabon (although this one was an exception to the claim in the table of contents that all tales were ‘original and complete’, in the sense that it is not finished, and carried over into the net installment of ‘Thrilling Tales’)
When I counted 8 of these as favorites and considered the overall quality, I bumped my original review score of 4 stars up half a point. Certainly worth picking up and reading from cover to cover, or a story at random.
Lastly, a note on the random connection discovered to the book I read previously, which was Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town’ – a common reference to Charles Lindbergh.
In ‘How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman’ by Elmore Leonard: “…riding a streetcar for the first time, and being sworn in as a Deputy United States Marshal; while Lindbergh was being honored in New York City, tons of ticker tape dumped on the Lone Eagle for flying across the ocean…”
In ‘Our Town’: “So I’m going to have a copy of this play put in the cornerstone and the people a thousand years from now’ll know a few simple facts about us – more than the Treaty of Versailles and the Lindbergh flight.”
Show Less
LibraryThing member paradoxosalpha
In Borges' prologue to The Invention of Morel he wrote about the critical scorn for "the adventure story" which could supposedly afford only "nonexistent or puerile" pleasure to readers. "This was undoubtedly the prevailing opinion in 1880, 1925, and even 1940" (Morel, 5). Michael Chabon seems
The book contains a wide variety of stories, many of them by authors who have previously held my attention. Nick Hornby's "Otherwise Pandemonium" had something of the darkly comic vernacular feel of the "David Wong" books by Jason Pargin. "Closing Time" was one of the better Neal Gaiman short stories I've read, and it reminded me a little bit of Arthur Machen. I was entirely unfamiliar with Carol Emshwiller, but her story "The General" was a standout contribution.
Michael Moorcock's piece was a motive for me to pick up the book. It seemed like a mere Sexton Blake pastiche when I first read it, but later I saw how it fit into his Second Ether continuity developed in Fabulous Harbours. That book has its own Sexton Begg (sic) story "Crimson Eyes," set in a London of "the recent future."
The book includes two novellas, the first of which is Dave Eggers' "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly." Like some other stories in this volume, this one showed that an adventure story could be achieved with an exotic setting, while retaining a "literary" focus on character and personal history, and without necessarily becoming plot-forward.
The longest story of the book is Rick Moody's "The Albertine Notes," a Phildickian compound of shifting realities, memory, and drug abuse, set in a near-future New York City where a dirty bomb has killed half of the population. It has a healthy dose of mise en abyme and epistemological tension to spare. I liked it very much.
Chabon's own contribution is at the end of the book. It is a steampunk tale set in an 1876 America where the 1776 revolution had failed. Framed as the first chapter of a serial, it promises its next installment in McSweeny's Second Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales. But as far as I've been able to find out, no such volume has yet appeared, nor has "The Martian Agent" been continued.
Howard Chaykin was a great pick for an illustrator. He supplied title-page graphics for all the stories except for Harlan Ellison's "Goodbye to All That," which has a full-page illustration by Kent Bash.
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convinced that the prejudice is still in full effect in 2002. Yet this Thrilling Tales volume he edited for McSweeny's was sufficiently well-received to be reissued as "A Vintage Contemporaries Original" and kept in print thus for decades. The book contains a wide variety of stories, many of them by authors who have previously held my attention. Nick Hornby's "Otherwise Pandemonium" had something of the darkly comic vernacular feel of the "David Wong" books by Jason Pargin. "Closing Time" was one of the better Neal Gaiman short stories I've read, and it reminded me a little bit of Arthur Machen. I was entirely unfamiliar with Carol Emshwiller, but her story "The General" was a standout contribution.
Michael Moorcock's piece was a motive for me to pick up the book. It seemed like a mere Sexton Blake pastiche when I first read it, but later I saw how it fit into his Second Ether continuity developed in Fabulous Harbours. That book has its own Sexton Begg (sic) story "Crimson Eyes," set in a London of "the recent future."
The book includes two novellas, the first of which is Dave Eggers' "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly." Like some other stories in this volume, this one showed that an adventure story could be achieved with an exotic setting, while retaining a "literary" focus on character and personal history, and without necessarily becoming plot-forward.
The longest story of the book is Rick Moody's "The Albertine Notes," a Phildickian compound of shifting realities, memory, and drug abuse, set in a near-future New York City where a dirty bomb has killed half of the population. It has a healthy dose of mise en abyme and epistemological tension to spare. I liked it very much.
Chabon's own contribution is at the end of the book. It is a steampunk tale set in an 1876 America where the 1776 revolution had failed. Framed as the first chapter of a serial, it promises its next installment in McSweeny's Second Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales. But as far as I've been able to find out, no such volume has yet appeared, nor has "The Martian Agent" been continued.
Howard Chaykin was a great pick for an illustrator. He supplied title-page graphics for all the stories except for Harlan Ellison's "Goodbye to All That," which has a full-page illustration by Kent Bash.
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LibraryThing member davidabrams
Is plot dead? That's the question Michael Chabon poses in his introduction to McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, the latest issue of the hip, irreverent literary magazine founded by Dave Eggers (MMTTT may be a magazine, but it's being marketed and packaged as a book with a cover price
A short while ago, Eggers and Chabon decided to put together a "fun" issue of the magazine ("fun" translated as "something which is more accessible than the average issue of McSweeney's and loaded with popular writers who'll draw in a wider audience"). Why not produce an anthology of plot-driven, action-heavy stories which will recall the good old days when readers got their tales served on reams of pulp?
Chabon hoped to collect stories which were an antidote to most of the short stories flooding the literary market these days—the (as he calls it) fiction that's "plotless and sparkling with epiphanic dew." He longs for the yarns of yesteryear when magazines like Black Mask, Argosy, Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post were filled with tales of bloodthirsty pirates, rock-jawed detectives, prowling werewolves and nurses whose knees buckled at the sight of the handsome young doctor. Somewhere along the line, Chabon postulates, short stories went from lurid to languid (perhaps when serious scribes like John Cheever, Saul Bellow and John Updike started appearing in the pages of The New Yorker). His line of demarcation is set arbitrarily at 1950—right around the time the last issues of Black Mask were rolling off the presses. Genre and plot were sacrificed for mostly inert stories that climaxed with a "moment of truth."
Well, wouldn't it be fun to shake off the epiphanic dew and get back to the roots of genre fiction? That's Chabon's goal here in this wobbly collection of tales which mostly glisten with the dewy sweat of effort. McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales gathers marquee names (Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, Michael Crichton) alongside names which are decidedly less than household (Dan Chaon, Aimee Bender, Glen David Gold, Chris Offutt), all with the purpose of writing stories that are, Chabon insists, "fun." With a capital F.
Trouble is, some of them are downright dreary. With a capital D. The two weakest stories come from the two biggest names: King and Crichton. King's contribution is nothing more than a first draft of a chapter from his next Dark Tower novel, and Crichton's blessedly short tale of a hardboiled private eye with a nagging mother needs another five revisions like its main character needs another five shots of whiskey.
For all of editor Chabon's chipper promises that these tales have thrilling, tingling blood running through their veins—amazing stories that climax with a cymbal crash—most are about as rousing as a tired marching band in the third quarter of a losing Homecoming game. The limpest ones of the bunch just dissipate into thin air, not even strong enough to produce a symbol crash.
Others, however, have the salty tang of adrenaline and while they don't exactly recreate the era of pulp fiction, they stick to the formula of conflict-rising action-climax and avoid narcissistic navel-gazing as much as possible.
Leonard's "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman" crackles with all the energy and dialogue of a Bogart-Cagney movie in the story of a deputy hunting down bank robbers. Chaon's "The Bees" is a haunting, psychological horror story about a man trying to exorcise the ghosts of his first, bad marriage. In "Otherwise Pandemonium," Nick Hornby gives us something straight out of The Twilight Zone when a teenager buys a VCR that records the future, showing TV broadcasts right up until the day the world ends in nuclear holocaust. As the kid, a typical hormone-heavy teen, explains:
Let's say this is the story of how I ended up getting laid—a story with a beginning, and a weird middle, and a happy ending. Otherwise I'd have to tell you a Stephen King-type story, with a beginning and a weird middle and really fucking scary ending, and I don't want to do that. It wouldn't help me right now.
Not coincidentally, Hornby's story is followed by King's "The Tale of Grey Dick" which, as it turns out, is really fucking boring.
But that's okay—skip ahead 40 pages and slide into what is perhaps the collection's best offering: a tense, character-rich story from Mr. McSweeney's himself, Dave Eggers. His "Up the Mountain, Coming Down Slowly" is the story of one woman's quest for self-confidence as she climbs Kilimanjaro with a group of other tourists and faces hardship and death on the slopes of the unforgiving mountain. Eggers excels at descriptions like this of a fellow traveler:
She knows he comes from Montana, and knows his voice is like an older man's, weaker than it should be, wheezy and prone to cracking. He is not handsome; his nose is almost piggish and his teeth are chipped in front, leaving a triangular gap, as if he'd tried to bite a tiny pyramid. He's not attractive in any kind of way she would call sexual, but she still wants to be with him and not the others.
Eggers and Chabon don't exactly herald the renaissance of pulp fiction with the publication of McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales— there are too many effete tales which meander into nothingness—but every so often, they manage to quicken the pulse, reminding us that once upon a time stories didn't spend so much time gazing at their dewy navels.
Show More
to match). A short while ago, Eggers and Chabon decided to put together a "fun" issue of the magazine ("fun" translated as "something which is more accessible than the average issue of McSweeney's and loaded with popular writers who'll draw in a wider audience"). Why not produce an anthology of plot-driven, action-heavy stories which will recall the good old days when readers got their tales served on reams of pulp?
Chabon hoped to collect stories which were an antidote to most of the short stories flooding the literary market these days—the (as he calls it) fiction that's "plotless and sparkling with epiphanic dew." He longs for the yarns of yesteryear when magazines like Black Mask, Argosy, Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post were filled with tales of bloodthirsty pirates, rock-jawed detectives, prowling werewolves and nurses whose knees buckled at the sight of the handsome young doctor. Somewhere along the line, Chabon postulates, short stories went from lurid to languid (perhaps when serious scribes like John Cheever, Saul Bellow and John Updike started appearing in the pages of The New Yorker). His line of demarcation is set arbitrarily at 1950—right around the time the last issues of Black Mask were rolling off the presses. Genre and plot were sacrificed for mostly inert stories that climaxed with a "moment of truth."
Well, wouldn't it be fun to shake off the epiphanic dew and get back to the roots of genre fiction? That's Chabon's goal here in this wobbly collection of tales which mostly glisten with the dewy sweat of effort. McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales gathers marquee names (Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, Michael Crichton) alongside names which are decidedly less than household (Dan Chaon, Aimee Bender, Glen David Gold, Chris Offutt), all with the purpose of writing stories that are, Chabon insists, "fun." With a capital F.
Trouble is, some of them are downright dreary. With a capital D. The two weakest stories come from the two biggest names: King and Crichton. King's contribution is nothing more than a first draft of a chapter from his next Dark Tower novel, and Crichton's blessedly short tale of a hardboiled private eye with a nagging mother needs another five revisions like its main character needs another five shots of whiskey.
For all of editor Chabon's chipper promises that these tales have thrilling, tingling blood running through their veins—amazing stories that climax with a cymbal crash—most are about as rousing as a tired marching band in the third quarter of a losing Homecoming game. The limpest ones of the bunch just dissipate into thin air, not even strong enough to produce a symbol crash.
Others, however, have the salty tang of adrenaline and while they don't exactly recreate the era of pulp fiction, they stick to the formula of conflict-rising action-climax and avoid narcissistic navel-gazing as much as possible.
Leonard's "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman" crackles with all the energy and dialogue of a Bogart-Cagney movie in the story of a deputy hunting down bank robbers. Chaon's "The Bees" is a haunting, psychological horror story about a man trying to exorcise the ghosts of his first, bad marriage. In "Otherwise Pandemonium," Nick Hornby gives us something straight out of The Twilight Zone when a teenager buys a VCR that records the future, showing TV broadcasts right up until the day the world ends in nuclear holocaust. As the kid, a typical hormone-heavy teen, explains:
Let's say this is the story of how I ended up getting laid—a story with a beginning, and a weird middle, and a happy ending. Otherwise I'd have to tell you a Stephen King-type story, with a beginning and a weird middle and really fucking scary ending, and I don't want to do that. It wouldn't help me right now.
Not coincidentally, Hornby's story is followed by King's "The Tale of Grey Dick" which, as it turns out, is really fucking boring.
But that's okay—skip ahead 40 pages and slide into what is perhaps the collection's best offering: a tense, character-rich story from Mr. McSweeney's himself, Dave Eggers. His "Up the Mountain, Coming Down Slowly" is the story of one woman's quest for self-confidence as she climbs Kilimanjaro with a group of other tourists and faces hardship and death on the slopes of the unforgiving mountain. Eggers excels at descriptions like this of a fellow traveler:
She knows he comes from Montana, and knows his voice is like an older man's, weaker than it should be, wheezy and prone to cracking. He is not handsome; his nose is almost piggish and his teeth are chipped in front, leaving a triangular gap, as if he'd tried to bite a tiny pyramid. He's not attractive in any kind of way she would call sexual, but she still wants to be with him and not the others.
Eggers and Chabon don't exactly herald the renaissance of pulp fiction with the publication of McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales— there are too many effete tales which meander into nothingness—but every so often, they manage to quicken the pulse, reminding us that once upon a time stories didn't spend so much time gazing at their dewy navels.
Show Less
LibraryThing member SqueakyChu
This is an anthology of science fiction/fantasy/bizarre stories. I thought I'd like them more than I did because of the great list of authors this book contains. There were Stephen King, Dan Chaon, Michael Crichton, Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby, and Elmore Leonard among others. The two best stories
One story I especially liked was "Chuck's Bucket" by Chris Offutt. In this science fiction tale, a man is immersed in a professor's time machine and enters multiple tongue-in-cheek and often hilarious realities. This was a very clever story and told in a delightful way.
My favorite story, though, was "The Albertine Notes" by Rick Moody in which a news reporter is working on an article about Albertine, a memory-boosting substance. This was a convoluted tale but terrifically engaging and imaginative. Even though I tend to shy away from sci-fi material, this is actually a story I'd enjoy reading over again at a later date.
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were by two authors I'd never read before. One story I especially liked was "Chuck's Bucket" by Chris Offutt. In this science fiction tale, a man is immersed in a professor's time machine and enters multiple tongue-in-cheek and often hilarious realities. This was a very clever story and told in a delightful way.
My favorite story, though, was "The Albertine Notes" by Rick Moody in which a news reporter is working on an article about Albertine, a memory-boosting substance. This was a convoluted tale but terrifically engaging and imaginative. Even though I tend to shy away from sci-fi material, this is actually a story I'd enjoy reading over again at a later date.
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LibraryThing member daizylee
Mine is actually the McSweeney's original edition rather than the Vintage reprint.
LibraryThing member Arctic-Stranger
Mostly fun stories by top rate authors. Some are working a bit beyond their abilities, but you can tell they are having fun doing it. A very good airplane book.
LibraryThing member Periodista
Some good ones here--Laurie King's, Chabon's own, Leonard Elmore.
But Chabon doesn't carry through on his promise to revive pulp fiction, the kind of plot-driven stories that once ran in magazines such as Black Mask, Argosy and Collier's. I had a fuzzy notion of what those stories were like
But Chabon doesn't carry through on his promise to revive pulp fiction, the kind of plot-driven stories that once ran in magazines such as Black Mask, Argosy and Collier's. I had a fuzzy notion of what those stories were like
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(Dashiell Hammett? Jim Thompson? Field & Stream? James Elroy). Now it's even fuzzier. Show Less
LibraryThing member carterchristian1
I have started cataloging my daughter's books on Library Thing (having done all my own) and came across this..now wonder...how did I miss these great short stories. The Amazon reviewers before me are carping about selection of authors, plots, the stories themselves....I dipped into it and was
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instantly facinated by just the characters...not in the stories but standing alone..and together. This is America like it is. I feel like I could walk down the street of any US city and hear snippets of conversations...just like these..whatever the story author. Great. Show Less
LibraryThing member AndersB
It was a story about the genesis of this collection that reeled me in.
It seems that Michael Chabon and Dave Eggers often argued about what Chabon perceived as a tendency towards a certain uniformity in contemporary short fiction. A trend that he comically (and perhaps aptly) analogizes to a
Obviously not all of the tales contained in this volume were as 'Thrilling' as the title would have you believe and I shamefully admit to skipping one of the stories after the first pages failed to engage me (et tu? Stephen King. Phoned it in, did you?). Other stories promised, but failed to deliver.
This is not to say that the original premise of the venture failed or had no merit. On the contrary, I think it's a wonderful idea, and will no doubt be ordering the second volume of tales in this series.
However, it was no surprise to me that the best moments, twists and ideas in this collection came from authors who are already well-established masters of imaginative fiction. Authors who regularly mine the seams of older genre fiction to furnish their longer work with authenticity. In no particular order: Elmore Leonard, Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman and, of course, Michael Chabon.
Nonetheless, I would like to heap a pile of elegantly-perfumed praise on Jim Shepard, an author I had not come across before. His gripping tale of one man's quest to find an Antarctic-dwelling beast read like distilled Conan-Doyle with extra teeth, and preceded the most terrifying, life-like, and at the same time, most creative and inspiring nightmare I can remember.
It was clever of Chabon to use this tale as the opener to the collection, with his 'boy's-own' steampunk adventure (part 1 only... the bastard!) at the end. I am willing to forgive the occasional misses.
Ideal reading conditions: By flashlight under your duvet, or better still, in the library of an old creaking house, in front of a roaring fire on a stormy night, seated in a comfortable leather chair with a ready supply of single-malt by your side.
It seems that Michael Chabon and Dave Eggers often argued about what Chabon perceived as a tendency towards a certain uniformity in contemporary short fiction. A trend that he comically (and perhaps aptly) analogizes to a
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scenario whereby the only novels published since the 1950s are those that strictly follow the basic plot of a "Nurse Romance". In order to put an end to the bickering, Eggers allowed Chabon to guest-edit an edition of McSweeney's and this collection is the result. Being a fan of short 'genre'-style stories I was excited to see what he came up with.Obviously not all of the tales contained in this volume were as 'Thrilling' as the title would have you believe and I shamefully admit to skipping one of the stories after the first pages failed to engage me (et tu? Stephen King. Phoned it in, did you?). Other stories promised, but failed to deliver.
This is not to say that the original premise of the venture failed or had no merit. On the contrary, I think it's a wonderful idea, and will no doubt be ordering the second volume of tales in this series.
However, it was no surprise to me that the best moments, twists and ideas in this collection came from authors who are already well-established masters of imaginative fiction. Authors who regularly mine the seams of older genre fiction to furnish their longer work with authenticity. In no particular order: Elmore Leonard, Michael Moorcock, Neil Gaiman and, of course, Michael Chabon.
Nonetheless, I would like to heap a pile of elegantly-perfumed praise on Jim Shepard, an author I had not come across before. His gripping tale of one man's quest to find an Antarctic-dwelling beast read like distilled Conan-Doyle with extra teeth, and preceded the most terrifying, life-like, and at the same time, most creative and inspiring nightmare I can remember.
It was clever of Chabon to use this tale as the opener to the collection, with his 'boy's-own' steampunk adventure (part 1 only... the bastard!) at the end. I am willing to forgive the occasional misses.
Ideal reading conditions: By flashlight under your duvet, or better still, in the library of an old creaking house, in front of a roaring fire on a stormy night, seated in a comfortable leather chair with a ready supply of single-malt by your side.
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LibraryThing member Djupstrom
A good collection of off-beat writing.
LibraryThing member debs913
Stories meant to entertain...pure and simple. Just the thing when you're curled up in bed on a dark and stormy night, with feet well-tucked under the covers and a candle flickering on the night stand.
LibraryThing member Stahl-Ricco
Good collection with lots of amazing authors! "Closing Time" by Neil Gaiman is pretty creepy, and I very much enjoyed "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name To Carl And Became A Famous Oklahoma Lawman" by Elmore Leonard, even if the title is too long! Stephen King's "The Tale of Gray Dick" was cool
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to read as it reappears later as part of his Dark Tower series, plus I love the throwing plates action! Nice group of stories here! Show Less
LibraryThing member JBD1
A very decent selection of short stories. My favorites: "Closing Time" by Neil Gaiman, "Otherwise Pandemonium" by Nick Hornby, Laurie King's "Weaving the Dark," and Stephen King's "The Tale of Gray Dick."
LibraryThing member RobertOK
My first McSweeney's issue and still one of my favorites. Guest Editor Michael Chabon hit it out of the park with this collection of adventure stories by contemporary masters such as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, Dan Chaon, and Chabon and Eggers themselves. Definitely McSweeney's largest
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issue by page count at nearly 500 with a throwback cover and clever reproductions of ads and offers from mid-century pulp magazines. Chabon's goal was to show that at it's best, pulp adventure writing belongs alongside great short stories and is certainly more entertaining. I'd say this collection more than succeeds. Show Less
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
2002
Physical description
512 p.; 7.6 inches
ISBN
0141014040 / 9780141014043