Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Stories: All-New Tales
    Unavailable
    Stories: All-New Tales
    Unavailable
    Stories: All-New Tales
    Ebook646 pages11 hours

    Stories: All-New Tales

    By Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    An astonishing collection of all-new tales by some of the most acclaimed writers at work today. Edited by Neil Gaiman (Sandman, The Graveyard Book, Anansi Boys, Coraline) and award-winning author Al Sarrantonio, Stories presents never before published short works from a veritable Who’s Who of contemporary literature—breathtaking inventions from the likes of Lawrence Block, Roddy Doyle, Joanne Harris, Joe Hill, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Stewart O’Nan, Chuck Palahniuk, Carolyn Parkhurst, Jodi Picoult, Peter Straub…and, of course, the inimitable Neil Gaiman himself.

    "The joy of fiction is the joy of the imagination. . . ."

    The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.

    Joe Hill boldly aligns theme and form in his disturbing tale of a man's descent into evil in "Devil on the Staircase." In "Catch and Release," Lawrence Block tells of a seasoned fisherman with a talent for catching a bite of another sort. Carolyn Parkhurst adds a dark twist to sibling rivalry in "Unwell." Joanne Harris weaves a tale of ancient gods in modern New York in "Wildfire in Manhattan." Vengeance is the heart of Richard Adams's "The Knife." Jeffery Deaver introduces a dedicated psychologist whose mission in life is to save people in "The Therapist." A chilling punishment befitting an unspeakable crime is at the dark heart of Neil Gaiman's novelette "The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains."

    As it transforms your view of the world, this brilliant and visionary volume—sure to become a classic—will ignite a new appreciation for the limitless realm of exceptional fiction.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 15, 2010
    ISBN9780062008572
    Author

    Neil Gaiman

    Neil Gaiman is the New York Times bestselling and multi-award winning author and creator of many beloved books, graphic novels, short stories, film, television and theatre for all ages. He is the recipient of the Newbery and Carnegie Medals, and many Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Will Eisner Awards. Neil has adapted many of his works to television series, including Good Omens (co-written with Terry Pratchett) and The Sandman. He is a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR and Professor in the Arts at Bard College. For a lot more about his work, please visit: https://www.neilgaiman.com/

    Read more from Neil Gaiman

    Related to Stories

    Related ebooks

    Anthologies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Shelf Life

      Apr 6, 2023

      Shelf Life
      6 min read

    • Article

      Michael Nath

      May 7, 2020

      Michael Nath
      5 min read

    • Article

      Books

      May 15, 2023

      Books
      6 min read

    • Article

      Criminal INTENT

      Jul 4, 2024

      Dis For Death is my first crime novel but it’s my fourteenth novel. It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly I decided to start it, but I wrote the bulk of it from October 22 to May 2023. In a sense it’s the most useful example I can think of for this, a s

      7 min read

    • Article

      Shelf Life

      Sep 2, 2021

      Shelf Life
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Jonathan Escoffery

      Dec 15, 2021

      This year, perhaps more than any other in my adult life, I’ve yearned for narratives that promise big things will happen in the lives of the characters they feature. The post A Year in Reading: Jonathan Escoffery appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Sigrid Nunez

      Sep 15, 2017

      During the 1980s, in California, a large number of Cambodian women went to their doctors with the same complaint: they could not see. The women were all war refugees. Before fleeing their homeland, they had witnessed the atrocities for which the Khme

      23 min read

    • Article

      Shelf Life

      Mar 7, 2024

      When I’m writing, I’m trying to create something as beautiful as possible, but the books have to work well, first and foremost, as dark, kick-ass novels that engage the reader entirely. The bar is to write compelling stories that are effective on man

      5 min read

    • Article

      Ashleigh Bryant Phillips

      Jun 10, 2020

      Ashleigh Bryant Phillips
      6 min read

    • Article

      Double Trouble

      May 15, 2022

      Double Trouble
      7 min read

    • Article

      Carmen Maria Machado

      Feb 15, 2021

      Carmen Maria Machado
      11 min read

    • Article

      Hard to Get: Books That Resist You

      Jan 30, 2019

      1. Recently, for the fourth or fifth time in my life, I started trying to read James Salter‘s A Sport and a Pastime. I bought my copy many years ago, after falling in love with his story collections and enjoying Light Years, probably his best-known n

      6 min read

    • Article

      Jane Campbell

      Oct 12, 2022

      Jane Campbell
      2 min read

    • Article

      Stop! Hammock Time

      Aug 1, 2018

      Stop! Hammock Time
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Bookish Types

      Jun 6, 2021

      The Bookish Types
      9 min read

    • Article

      Seven Books I’ll Never Read

      Aug 7, 2018

      Seven Books I’ll Never Read
      6 min read

    • Article

      Lightning Round 2023 Debuts

      Mar 25, 2024

      Describe Ravensong in one sentence, using as much alliteration as possible. Grumpy ginger god meets merry new neighbor, fights fiends, fails to flirt. Would you date a god? Seems dicey. I definitely wouldn’t. I’ve read myths and folklore from all ove

      6 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Carvell Wallace

      Dec 2, 2020

      No wonder literary critics of the time panned the book. It did not pretend. A perfect thing for a book to avoid doing in a year in which for the very briefest of moments, and in the very slightest of ways, we could all see that the veil had been lift

      9 min read

    • Article

      Tailoring The Classics

      May 7, 2020

      Fashion plays a big part in writing, as it does in so many walks of life. I mean literary fashion, by the way – if writing success depended on having elegant dress sense, I’d have abandoned hope long ago. The harsh reality is that if the type of stor

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Long Slow Universe

      Jun 6, 2024

      The Long Slow Universe
      12 min read

    • Article

      Now Is the Time

      Nov 24, 2020

      Now Is the Time
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Stories

    3.5/5

    283 ratings39 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Stories, an anthology edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio, takes as starting point their love for good stories and good writing, and 4 words: ...and then what happened? I had my eyes on this book ever since it came out – short stories, some great authors (even if the combination of some seemed strange at first), and a cute cover.Stories starts with Blood by Roddy Doyle, that is quite upbeat and funny, even if slightly disturbing – I enjoyed it but the ending didn't quite work for me. But the second story, Fossil-Figures by Joyce Carol Oates, more than made up for it. Fossil-Figures is a story of twins, different from what usually is done, poignant and dark – but what really captivated me was the writing, that conveyed the feelings of both the characters so well. I admit never having heard of Joyce Carol Oates, but it won't be the last I'll read something of this author.The next three stories (Joanne Harris's Wildfire in Manhattan, Neil Gaiman's The truth is a cave in the Black Mountains and Michael Marshall Smith's Unbelief) could have been part of American Gods, and if that is forgiveable in the case of Neil Gaiman, with the other two not so much. Joanne Harris story was still enjoyable for the movie(or TV-series)-like quality of it, fun, with action and a hint of romance. Neil Gaiman's didn't really convince me more because of the writing than the story itself. Unbelief is a cutesy story, with a twist towards the end that made me smile a bit, but not much more than that.The stars are falling by Joe R. Lansdale is a strange case, because although I can't say I specially liked it, it was memorable enough to still have me thinking about it (more than a month after reading it). It's dark and sad, like many of the stories in this book, but strangely uplifting in the end, despite the grimness of it.Walter Mosley's Juvenal Nyx starts really slow and boring, and once it starts to be interesting to me, it pick ups the pace and finishes in a flash. As a vampire story it is different from usual, and had it been more like the ending part, it could have been phenomenal.After Richard Adams's story The Knife I think I am ready to give up on this author, neither writing nor story were to my liking, and the only plus side was that it was extremely short.I was surprised to see Jodi Picoult in the list of the authors, the few names that I was acquainted with screamed Fantasy and Science Fiction to me, Jodi's didn't. But I'm glad she was included, her story Weights and measures was extremely sad, but extremely well written. About the death of child and the grief of parents, I didn't expect to enjoy it, and certainly not as much as I have.Michael Swanwick's The Goblin Lake was fairy tale like at first, jumping into metafiction later on. But it never really convinced me, and to tell the truth, the new-comer Kat Howard manages much better the metaficiton in her story A Life in Fictions, which was really good.Mallon the guru by Peter Straub was another story that didn't work out for me, the same with Stewart O'Nan's Land of the Lost, Carolyn Parkhurst's Unwell and Tim Powers's Parallel Lines (these last two with some similarities, as well as with Fossil-Figures that had already stole my heart).Lawrence Block's Catch and Release and Jeffery Deaver's The Therapist were both rather good, both showing the darker side of human nature. In the first we share the thoughts of a serial killer that has somehow changed his modus operandi, never giving up the chase of prey. In the second story it takes awhile to realize how dark it is, and since there is an element of fantasy there, the reader is doesn't quite know what to believe.Jeffrey Ford's Polka Dots and Moonbeams, Chuck Palahniuk's Loser and Jonathan Carroll's Let the Past Begin were nice stories, with some degree of craziness and surrealism, which is always a bonus for me, but not exactly memorable.Samantha's Diary by Diana Wynne Jones was my favourite story in the book – a retelling of the popular 12 Days of Christmas, set in a futuristic world were such song is almost forgotten. This one made me laugh out loud (I swear, true story). I wish there was a bit more to its ending, but anyway, it is a brilliant story.Leif in the wind by Gene Wolfe was another poignant story, a science fiction one, and I enjoyed it immensely. Al Sarrantonio's The Cult of the Nose is another slightly surreal one, that had the power to actually make me believe in the conspiracies and secret society that the main character was involved on. The ending was also quite twisty, leaving it open to the reader to believe in either side of the story.Human intelligence by Kurt Andersen was another science fiction one, and with quite a big twist in the end that left me with a smile in my face (a much bigger one than in Unbelief). I rather liked it.Stories by Michael Moorcock was tremendously strange to me, because it didn't feel like a story to me – just the author talking about the past and people that I always felt I was supposed to know who they were but I had no idea who they could be. For the most part it made me feel stupid, because surely these should be really famous authors and magazines and what-not. But slowly I became somewhat invested in the characters, especially the one we know from the beginning what will happen – I guess I want to know how he got there.Elizabeth Hand's The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon was a nice one as well, rather long, which made me feel it could have been a novel. I wish there was a better explanation to some of the events, but overall it was good.The Devil on the Staircase by Joe Hill is the closing story of this book, with a different kind of layout. As the main character goes up and down the many stairs of his village, so does the text resemble them. It made it a bit hard to follow the story, but it was nice all the same.My overall opinion of Stories was that it was somewhat of a disappointment: even if there were stories that I loved, they were few and the ones that didn't interest me one bit far too many. Regarding the central point of ...and then what happened? of all the stories, I felt the great majority of cases that I was asking that because the story had an unfinished feel to it, not because I really wanted to know more about it.Also at Spoilers and Nuts
    • 3/5
      Many excellent short story writers contributed to this collection, including Joyce Carol Oates and Neil Gaiman himself, but not all best-selling novelists can write a great short story.Since I picked this audiobook out mainly because a couple of my favorite audiobook narrators read stories on it, I still enjoyed listening to Stories, though. Even the stories that weren’t as great as the others were still read very engagingly by star-quality audiobook narrators Katherine Kellgren and Jonathan Davis, along with two actor/narrators who were new to me on audio, but also excellent – Peter Francis James and Euan Morton.All 27 stories have a fantastical element to them, and there’s a good representation of fantasy, s/f, and horror writers as well as authors like Carolyn Parkhurst, Jodi Picoult, and Chuck Palahniuk, and Stewart O’Nan, who aren’t known for writing in those genres.Read complete review at Bay State Reader's Advisory blog.
    • 4/5
      An anthology of short stories is by its very definition variable. Thus the stories in this aptly named volume vary in length and strength, and in style and genre. Of course, this means that if there isn't quite something here for everyone, there is certainly enough variation for most people to find something they like. As for myself, I found the stories herein all of high quality, found reading the entire volume through a pleasure, and enjoyed finding writers who I'd not read before, whose stories made me ask "what happened next?"
    • 4/5
      Anthologies are difficult for me to rate, since it's the rare anthology where I like every story. This collection was no exception, but the proportion was much higher than usual.This collection was not just a collection on stories, but rather a collection of stories about stories. I don't mean that they were literally about stories, although that was literally true in the case of one, helpfully named "Stories." They had to do with awareness of narrative momentum, of understanding how stories shape our lives, of learning from stories and teaching them to others.Many of the stories had some element of the fantastical about them, although most were more on the literary rather than the genre side. The result is an approach to each story that suspends disbelief and allows us to get lost within the universe glimpsed in each.Recommendation: If you like any of the authors in the collection, give it a try. If not, take a chance and give it a try anyway.
    • 3/5
      Like most short story collections, this is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the tales are fantastic, while others are just weird and kind of boring. My favorites are probably Samantha's Diary by Diana Wynne Jones (hilarious), The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon by Elizabeth Hand (compelling), and Catch and Release by Lawrence Block (terrible in all the right ways). Some other notables: Unwell by Carolyn Parkhurst was both disturbing and amusing; Loser by Chuck Palahniuk spoke in a voice all too familiar; Juvenal Nyx by Walter Mosley was an interesting take on a classic trope. Most anthologies are uneven in quality, and this was no exception, but there were enough gems to make it worth reading overall. I think it helps that I knew to expect weird, but realistic and coherent weird, since that's the sort of stories Gaiman writes (I'm not familiar with Sarrantonio's work). If you don't like that kind of writing, you probably won't like these stories. If you do, it's still not guaranteed, but it's certainly a volume worth flipping through.
    • 3/5
      Some of these stories are amazing, others disappointing. Those who can weave a short story really shine in this anthology.
    • 4/5
      This is a collection of 27 short stories by some very well known authors. Who would of thought that Gene Wolfe would be sharing book space with Joyce Carol Oates or Chuck Palahniuk with Jodi Picoult. The work page details all the contributors and so I'm not going to go through them all especially as most of them were only fair to middling in accordance with my taste. I'll just give a few details on my favourites from the collection.The stand-out story for me was Neil Gaiman's own, The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains which has a dwarf searching for a legendary cave of gold but he may have ulterior motives. The two closing stories were also very good. The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon by Elizabeth Hand details an attempt to recreate a lost film of a pre-Wright Brothers flight as a tribute to a dying past love and The Devil on the Staircase by Joe Hill looks at the evil that man is capable of committing to get what he wants or to stop others from having it instead. The former of these is the longest story of the book while the latter employs different formatting to represent the stairs the main character traverses as he recounts his tale.I also enjoyed Human Intelligence by Kurt Andersen which tells of a visitor sent to spy on planet Earth who has seemingly been forgotten by those who sent him and the Arctic explorer who finally discovers his existence. Jeffrey Deaver's The Therapist and Lawrence Block's Catch and Release take a look at the dark side of humanity while Samantha's Diary by Diana Wynne Jones is a light-hearted take on the 12 days of Christmas. Meanwhile, Walter Mosely offers up a different kind of vampire tale with Juvenal Nyx.I'm surprised I didn't enjoy more of the inclusions considering there was hardly any of the authors that I hadn't at least heard of before and was somewhat disappointed by quite a few. I'm sure others will find different stories more to their taste than mine but I will be surprised if many enjoy all of this collection.
    • 4/5
      27 stories by a variety of recognizable names, collected with a cheerful disregard for genre boundaries. I expected any anthology co-edited by Neil Gaiman to be well worthwhile, as he shows a remarkable feel for storytelling in his own work, but I have to say that on the whole this was kind of disappointing. A couple of rather pointless-seeming pieces aside, the stories generally aren't bad, exactly. They're mostly well-written, at least as far as prose style goes, but very few of them did much of anything for me. The main goal here, according to the introduction, is to offer stories that make readers ask, "What happens next?" In that, I suppose it's sort of successful, because many of these stories did elicit that response, but more often than not when I found out what happens next, the answer just wasn't very satisfying. Even Gaiman's own story was very far from his best work.
    • 4/5
      the characters, the settings, the road trip, everyone's relationships to one another and to regret, and time and accident, and to what might have been, i loved the ebb and flow of all of it.
    • 1/5
      I have a theory that the more well known an author is, the less he gets edited. Here is what a good editor would have said to him: "Neil, I know these stories are by your buddies and are an homage to your genre. But most of these stories are poorly written, boring, unoriginal and lack any true emotion. Some are even down right embarrassing. The best are mediocre. This book would never have gotten published without your name on the cover."

      I forced myself to finish the book, hoping in the name of Gaiman to find at least one gem in the collection. I suffered through this, so you my dear friends, might be spared. Skip this book.
    • 4/5
      Edited by Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio.Twenty-seven short stories by a wide variety of authors. Some well known such as Jodi Picoult, Chuck Palahniuk, & Lawrence Block. I read all the stories but one: Stories by Michael Moorcock was one I just couldn't get through, and also seemed to be one of the longest. Sorry Michael.All in all, this is a great collection of fantasy type stories that meld really well. Some of the stories were too abrupt, seeming to end before we even got started. Others were extremely well done, leaving the reader wondering and enthralled (the reader being me).A few favorites: The Devil on the Staircase by Jo Hill, Parallel Lines by Tim Powers, The Therapist by Jeffery Deaver, Unwell by Carolyn Parkhurst, The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman, The Stars are Falling by Joe R. Lansdale, Catch and Release by Lawrence Block & Let the Past Begin by Jonathan Carroll.As Neil Gaiman says in the introduction, the best four words that show the power of stories is:"...And then what happened?"The stories in this collection leave you asking the same thing.
    • 3/5

      Reviewing an anthology is not an easy task; almost no anthology is perfect. It's like that hackneyed proverbial box of chocolates: You never know what you're going to get when you start a new story. In this particular collection it's even more so, because it's all over the place, thematically speaking. It's not classic Tolkien-style "fantasy," but it's not really Gaiman-style "fantasy" either. In fact, towards the end, some of the pieces don't really have any fantastical elements at all, and feel more like classic literature than anything else.


      The book starts off strong with stories that are engaging and imaginative, each a unique gem. It continues well up until the middle, but sadly, loses its vigor somewhere around the 70% mark. Kurt Andersen's Human Intelligence, page 363, is the last good story in the volume. It's followed by a trio of unfortunately tedious tales, including The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon, which is as pointless a short story as I've ever read. Not to dwell on the negative though -- this is really the tail end of the book, and what precedes it is mostly great.


      In other words, do read this book, but save yourself the tedium that follows Andersen's beautiful tale. Up until that point, I'd warmly recommend this anthology.


    • 4/5
      Incredibly diverse in both it's authors and themes, the quality of all the stories leaves something to be desired. While there are a handful of great stories and a handful of rather dull ones, most were enjoyable while not necessarily exceptional. Nevertheless, this compilation is worthwhile, especially for Neil Gaiman fans who appreciate fiction in all it's forms.
    • 4/5
      Well-known author Gaiman here wears his editor’s hat, pulling together 27 stories by modern masters of both “genre” fiction and “literary” fiction. Gaiman’s introduction tells us that his only criteria was to find stories which leave the reader asking “And then what happened?” Consequently, narrowing down the genre of most of these stories would be difficult. They bend genre conventions, play with tone and trope. Many of the stories here have a touch—or more—of the supernatural. Some are outright fantasy, or clearly science fiction. Some are simply engrossing. Stand-outs in the collection include Gaiman’s own story, “The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains,” Joe Hill’s “The Devil on the Staircase,” and Elizabeth Hand’s “The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon.”
    • 4/5
      Stories: All-New Tales is very nearly the perfect short story collection. It's a very eclectic collection; there are fantasy stories, horror stories, science fiction stories, and general fiction. As Gaiman says in his introduction, the editors wanted to put together stories that are designed to make the reader ask. "...and then what happened?" Almost all of the stories do this and do it well.Notice that I said almost. There are two exception to this. Chuck Palahniuk's "story," "Loser," quite frankly sucks. I would barely even qualify it as a story. It's about a frat boy on acid who goes on a game show that seems to be The Price Is Right as written by someone who's never actually seen the show. There is pretty much no action at all, and nothing of any interest whatsoever happens. Also, it's written in the second person present tense, which is really annoying.The other exception is Michael Moorcock's "Stories," which is at least a story, just a boring one. This is rather surprising coming from the man behind the Eternal Champion series, since I know he can write a good story (I've never actually read anything by Palahniuk). This is a long rambling story about the life of an editor and his slightly nutso writer friend written as a sort of reminiscence. It's not really very interesting.The rest of the stories range from great to pretty darn good. Gaiman's "The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains" is excellent, as you would expect from a writer of Gaiman's caliber.Walter Mosley's "Juvenal Nyx" has great potential as a series character. Joe Hill's "The Devil on the Staircase" is written in a format similar to concrete poetry, but is a very good tale. Al Sarrantonio's "Cult of the Nose" is a great weird story. Really all of the other stories are good. Most of them could very well have been the stand out story in any other anthology. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this being nominated for--and probably winning--several awards.
    • 3/5
      Best stories: "The Stars Are Falling" by Joe R. Landsdale, "Catch and Release" by Lawrence Block, "The Devil on the Stairs" by Joe Hill. Most of the stories here are good, but I skipped over a few. Nothing really blew me away, alas. I expect more from a book with Neil's name on the cover. He says in the introduction that stories should inspire the reader to say, "and then what happened?" More often than I care to admit, I found myself saying, "I hope this gets better soon."
    • 4/5
      An excellent collection of short stories ranging from spooky/creepy to bittersweet and curious. Definitely a worthy read.
    • 3/5
      I had very high hopes for Stories, since it's edited by Neil Gaiman and includes stories by some authors I really love, but I was somewhat disappointed. I found the quality of the stories to be very uneven - there were some great stories (The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman, Juvenal Nyx by Walter Mosley, Wildfire in Manhattan by Joanne Harris, Unwell by Carolyn Parkhurst), but some pretty poor stories as well (Joyce Carol Oates' incredibly cliched Fossil-Figures, Michael Moorcock's dull Stories) and some that were okay but forgettable. There are enough good stories that is probably worth reading the anthology, but it would've been much better if the weaker stories had been left out.
    • 3/5
      This has always been a dream for me: to read a book of short stories by writers who don't usually write short stories, or with writers working outside their genre. For a while, I even thought about doing it myself, but thought it would be rather difficult to talk to Nora Roberts, let alone ask her to write horror.Neil Gaiman, however, has power. Neil Gaiman is accomplished. Neil Gaiman is probably a nice guy too. So, Neil Gaiman phones up his friends. His friends say sure and write stories for him. Neil Gaiman goes to WIlliam Morrow. William Morrow publishes Stories: All New Tales. A dream comes true.Almost.Anyone reading this collection are reading it for their favorite authors. For example, in line to buy the book, I skipped to page 194 for Chuck Palahniuk's "Loser," a well-crafted, head-first story about drugs and The Price Is Right with hints of Hempel-esque influences (one fan can tell another fan, I know). I flipped to page 15 for Joyce Carol Oates haunting "Fossil-Figures" about rival brothers and the ties that bind; this story is visceral and claustophobic--in a good way.Yet once and I sat down and started reading everything else, I was left to ponder how these writers are writing: specifically, that these writers shouldn't be writing short stories. The saying goes, "Never let a man do a woman's job." The same can be said here: Never let a novelist do a short story writer's job.The novelist has different ways of looking. The novelist's technique, craftsmanship, and eye can be seen everywhere. A novelist has time--hundreds of pages for revelation, hundreds of pages for character development, hundreds of pages to draw out. The best thing a short story writer can do to hone his/her craft is attempt the Hemingway story, or in particular, the six-word story:For sale: baby shoes, never worn.In short stories, you need to be precise knowing that you must end soon. These writers don't seem to know that.We have Joanne Harris's whose quirky story about gods in modern Mahattan feeling more like a novel excerpt than a short story. We have Joe Lansdale tale of revenge jumping slowly at times, and then speeding up quickly to get enough killing scenes in. We have Walter Mosley, whose vampire story suffers the same ills as Joe Lansdale: uneven pacing.Yet the novelist problem isn't the only problem. Sometimes the problem is just that the writers are not skilled enough. The stories are simply badly written and not worth the effort of reading, even if it is short. Michael Marshall Smith's Santa Claus story was short, but cheap and predictable. Michael Swanwick's metafiction was (again) cheap and annoying. Jodi Picoult: your writerly strings are showing: we get that they are suffering from grief: their grief is very, very loud. Jeffery Deaver: pick a point of view, stick with it. I can go on for quite a while.But despite these trainwrecks, there are some good stories--highlights that perhaps are worth the price of the book. Besides Palahniuk and Oates, we have Stewart O'Nan's story of obsession left at an ambigious conclusion. There's Lawrence Block superb character sketch in "Catch and Release." Gene Wolfe is who you read when you want science fiction with heart. Tim Powers and Carolyn Parkhurst stories of siblings were respectively touching and darkly humored. Kat Howard makes a strong metafictional debut. The highlight, I can't pick. It's somewhere between Elizabeth Hand's story of grief or Joe Hill's Poe-esque story about evil. Both end the anthology. Both are strong endings to a book of mostly disappointing stories. Or more accurately, both are well-crafted stories to end a collection that didn't feel too serious. Obviously, these are writers having fun, experimenting for a bit. But as someone who love the short story form, this was a disappointment.Gaiman obviously had a goal in putting this anthology together. In his introduction:"It seemed to us that the fantastic can be, can do, so much more than its detractors assume: it can illuminate the real, it can distort it, it can mask it, it can hide it. It can show you the world you know in a way that makes you realise you've never looked at..."Stories is Gaiman's attempt to save the fantasy genre from critics. But screw saving the fantasy genre, save the short story: get people who can write short stories. Show readers that short stories can be fun and well-written.
    • 4/5
      A typical mixed bag of short stories. A few excellent, lots of average and 1 or 2 simply bad. That's it. The hungarian cover of the book is dreadful.
    • 3/5
      This dully-titled anthology features an incredible breadth of talent, ranging from chick-lit writers like Jodi Picoult to thriller writers like Jeffrey Deaver to Booker-prize winners like Roddy Doyle. This is part of the reason I bought it, but I suspect it actually ended up being a weakness rather than a strength - for every story I read tailored to my liking, I had to read several in genres I didn't care for. Despite Gaiman's declaration in the introduction that he wanted to make an anthology of fantastic fiction (i.e. fantasy in the sense that the impossible can happen, not Tolkien-derivative fantasy), most authors paid only lip service to this notion and still wrote firmly within the genres they were comfortable with - Jodi Picoult wrote a story wringing every scrap of emotion she could out of the loss of a child (confirming my suspicion that she's the kind of woman - yes, not author, but woman - who thrives on heartbreak and sadness), Jeffrey Deaver wrote a ham-fisted story about a murder and a court case, and in many cases the authors ignored Gaiman's wish and didn't even insert the token fantasy contributions that Picoult and Deaver did.And in spite of all that - because I'm not actually genre-prejudiced, and don't care whether the stories contained an element of "fantasy" or not provided they were good - this collection still falls short of the mark. There were only a handful of stories I really enjoyed: Joe R. Lansdale's "The Stars Are Falling," about a soldier returning home after World War I, "The Devil On The Staircase" by Joe Hill, and - surprisingly, given I wasn't a fan of much of his previous work - "The Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains," by Gaiman himself. (Speaking of Gaiman, two of the stories - Joanne Harris' "Wildfire In Manhattan" and Michael Marshall Smith's "Unbelief" - were heavily derivative of Gaiman's novel American Gods, and I'm surprised he even considered them, let alone accepted them.)Overall I was fairly disappointed. It's not a bad collection - I was never exactly bored while reading it - but it did fail to match the expectations I had for an anthology from such a huge array of famous names.
    • 4/5
      I got a copy of this book through the Amazon Vine program. It consists of 27 stories that range from fantasy, to sci-fi, to general fiction. Overall it is an interesting collection of stories. Most of the stories have some sort of fantasy aspect to them; something fantastical happens, people have special powers, or events defy reality.For me the highlights of this book were "Wildfire in Manhattan" by Joanne Harris, "Goblin Lake" by Michael Swanwick, "Leif in the Wind" by Gene Wolfe, "A Life in Fictions" by Kat Howard, and "The Devil on the Staircase" by Joe Hill.The majority of the stories were good reads and the collection is extremely eclectic. It would have been nice to have some underlying theme tie the stories together; but, as stated in the beginning, this is a collection of stories that was made for the love of a story. This collection of stories is definitely intended for an adult audience, there is lots of swearing in some of the stories and some sex and violence.The stories included are listed below along with a brief description and ratings given.- Blood by Roddy Doyle (4/5)Interesting story about a normal family man who craves blood. Love the open ending and the crazy dialogue.- Fossil-Figures by Joyce Carol Oates (4/5)About twin brothers that are very different but undeniably entwined.- Wildfire in Manhattan by Joanne Harris (5/5)A story about gods in human form trying to outrun Darkness in Manhattan. I loved the sardonic tone of this story, it was a lot of fun. This setting and the interesting characters could make an excellent book.- The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman (4/5)Fantasy story about a dwarf seeking a cave full of gold. Not one of Gaiman's best stories, but entertaining all the same.- Unbelief by Michael Marshall Smith (4/5)A darkly ironic and somewhat disturbing story about an assassin who is paid to take out a certain well-known old man. I enjoyed it; it was a good story and a fun read.- The Stars Are Falling by Joe R. Lansdale (4/5)This is a story about a soldier coming home from four years of war. This one is a bit disturbing as well, but well-written with great description (it is pretty bleak though).- Juvenal Nyx by Walter Mosley (3/5)Story about a man that gets turned into a child of the night. I didn't like this story all that much; I just thought it was kind of boring. It is well written though.- The Knife by Richard Adams (3/5)Very short story about a bullied boy who takes revenge. It was okay, but nothing special.- Weights and Measures by Jodi Picoult (4/5)A heartbreaking story about a couple whose daughter dies. Somehow they are literally physically affected by the death. I didn't really understand exactly what was going on, but the story was well-written and the author captured what it feels like to loose someone very well.- Goblin Lake by Michael Swanwick (5/5)A story about a soldier who is pushed into Goblin Lake and finds out his life is not what he thought it was. I really enjoyed this story and thought it was very creative.- Mallon the Guru by Peter Straub (3/5)A very short story that was about a man going to seek out advice from a medicine man. This story was very obscure and a bit creepy.- Catch and Release by Lawrence Block (4/5)A very creepy story about a man who likes to "catch and release" single women. Super creepy but very well written and overall well done.- Polka Dots and Moonbeams by Jeffrey Ford (3/5)Some sort of story done in a roaring twenties style about people pulling a hit job, dancing, and trying to "get out". I never really understood what was going on here.- The Loser by Chuck Palahnuik (3/5)About some frat member taking part in a game show. I didn't enjoy this story all that much, it was okay.- Samantha's Diary by Diana Wynne Jones (4/5)This is the diary of a girl who gets to play out the 12 Days of Christmas, much to her horror. This started out as a funny story but did get a bit tedious towards the end.- Land of the Lost by Stewart O'Nan (4/5)A lady becomes obssessed with finding and digging up the body of a missing girl. It was an okay story, an interesting idea but nothing too exciting.- Leif in the Wind by Gene Wolfe (5/5)Very good story about some explorers on a mission back from space. Wonderfully written and excellent characters.- Unwell by Carolyn Parkhurst (4/5)This is about a mean old lady who takes a sort of revenge on her younger sister. Nothing really fantasy about it. It is ironic though and it was well written.- A Life in Fictions by Kat Howard (5/5)I loved this story. It is about a girl whose boyfriend keeps writing her into his stories, literally...she actually physically ends up in the stories. Very creative and well written, I loved it!- Let the Past Begin by Jonathan Carroll (4/5)An intriguing story about a man who is dating a pregnant reporter who may, or may not, be crazy. It is a very incomplete story though.- The Therapist by Jeffrey Deaver (3/5)An okay story about a therapist who tries to cure people who are infected with evil neme. For one woman he takes his therapy too far. This story was okay, but kind of boring and drawn out.- Parallel Lines by Tim Powers (3/5 stars)Story about twin sisters: one who is dead and one who isn't. Okay story but I didn't find it incredible engaging.- The Cult of the Nose by Al Arrantonio (4/5 stars)A man is obsessed with hunting down a cult of people who wear fake noses. This story was well written and engaging, if a bit strange.- Human Intelligence by Kurt Anderson (4/5 stars)Very good sci-fi story about an alien spy that has been forgotten by his home planet. Interesting and easy to read, I enjoyed this story.- Stories by Michael Moorcock (2/5)I had a hard time getting through this one. It is talking about a group of people who write fiction for a magazine called Mysteries. There is so much name-dropping that it is hard to keep anything straight.- The Maiden Flight of MacCauley's Bellerphon by Elizabeth Hand (4/5 stars)An interesting story about a group of guys who try to recreate the first flight of the Bellerphon. It was an enjoyable story and had some interesting twists in it.- The Devil on the Staircase by Joe Hill (5/5)I enjoyed this story a lot. It is written in a fairy tale style and was very creative.
    • 5/5
      A mostly excellent collection of short stories. Normally I'm not a fan of short story collections when it's a book of a hodge-podge of writers (not normally a fan of "Best of' ... " series), but this one stands out. It truly is a collection of stories that will keep you asking " ... and then what happened?" as you read. There are a few misses here, but only a few, and this has expanded my repertoire of writers to keep reading. Always a good thing.

      I've changed this to five stars. It got a new short story out of me, and anything that does that deserves top accolades.
    • 1/5
      A collection of stories that was edited by Neil Gaiman with an inclusion by him had me almost salivating at the thought of this. I was gravely disappointed. Neil Gaiman's entry whilst good was no "study in Emerald", in my mind, his finest short story. The rest of the collection were very poor with one or perhaps, two exceptions to this. I gave up, and I NEVER give up on books, after 200 pages with considerable disappointment. I have not given up on a book in the last 3 years. This was that awful. Honestly.....avoid.
    • 3/5
      I was looking forward to this as I'm a big Neil Gaiman fan and a lot of the included authors come well recommended.

      However I was disappointed in the end result. The theme behind the collection is supposed to be "...and what happened next?". For most of the stories my reaction was "...and who cares?". Mostly the stories were boring and never really engaged me enough that I just had to keep reading and wanting to know more.

      This isn't to say there weren't some gems in amongst the manure. The stand-outs for me were the short stories by Joanne Harris, Neil Gaiman, Joe R. Lansdale, Michael Swanick, Lawrence Block, Diana Wynne Jones, Jeffrey Deaver, Al Sarrantonio and Elizabeth Hand. So that's a third of the short stories. I'd say another third were ok and the final third I disliked.

      I know the odds are good that I'll never like every story in a short story collection, especially with so many different authors and styles, but I was hoping for more than a third. I'd recommend some of the stories but I can't recommend the whole book just to read them.
    • 3/5
      These well-crafted stories defy easy genre characterization. However, they were a bit too dark for me.
    • 3/5
      Stories is an anthology composed by the profilic anthology Al Sarrantonio, along with fantasy writer Neil Gaiman. Bringing together talents ranging from Mr Gaiman himself to Tim Powers, Joyce Carol Oates, and chuck Palahnuik, its an impressive stable of authors for an all new anthology.The mission of the anthology is to dissolve the artificial barrier between genre fiction and mainstream fiction. providing a suite of stories that straddle the borderland between the often walled kingdoms of fantasy, and the realms of contemporary literary fiction.With such an impressive pedigree of writers, I started the anthology with high expectations. While I didn't think that the anthology would be the holy grail of a book that could help tear down that wall, I hoped that I could find good value for money in the stories.Unfortunately, for me, this proved not to be the case.I think that, for the most part, the authors in the anthology kept the stories *too* contemporary, shying away too much from genre conventions and trappings, in an effort to be more literary. Many of these stories would not be out of place in one of the many high school and college short stories anthologies that I read in English class. That's precisely the problem, and its a bug, not a feature, of the anthology. Oh, a number of the stories do not fall under this broad brush that I am painting. But for the most part, the stories remain too literary for their own good.Let me not say that the quality of the stories is bad. They aren't--not even the ones which remain closest to the literary side of the no man's land between contemporary and genre fiction. But the stories, one after another, just felt like they didn't really fulfill the mission of the anthology to my expectations.The lineup of the anthology is as follows:Table of Contents* Blood - Roddy Doyle* Fossil-Figures - Joyce Carol Oates* Wildfire in Manhattan - Joanne Harris* The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains - Neil Gaiman* Unbelief - Michael Marshall Smith* The Stars are Falling - Joe R. Lansdale* Juvenal Nyx - Walter Mosley* The Knife - Richard Adams* Weights and Measures - Jodi Picoult* Goblin Lake - Michael Swanwick* Mallon and Guru - Peter Straub* Catch and Release - Lawrence Block* Polka Dots and Moonbeams - Jeffrey Ford* Loser - Chuck Palahniuk* Samantha's Diary - Diane Wynne Jones* Land of the Lost - Stewart O'Nan* Leif in the Wind - Gene Wolfe* Unwell - Carolyn Parkhurst* A Life in Fictions - Kat Howard* Let the Past Begin - Jonathan Carroll* The Therapist - Jeffery Deaver* Parallel Lines - Tim Powers* The Cult of the Nose - Al Sarrantonio* Human Intelligence - Kurt Anderson* Stories - Michael Moorcock* The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellerophon - Elizabeth Hand* The Devil on the Staircase - Joe Hill
    • 4/5
      These stories weren’t really connected they had no common theme except life. I tried my best to figure out who narrated each story and I may be wrong on some if anyone can correct me I would be happy to change the narrator so I can give credit where credit is due. Some of these stories were very odd and most didn’t have a pat ending, some I enjoyed way more than others and I tried to say a little something about each of them.About the narration- I am now a fan of Euan Morton and I believe her will be added to my “Will listen to them read the phonebook list” so I think I will finally be listening to some Christopher Moore!Katherine Kellgren was as always great, I just wish she had narrated more stories.Anne Bobby showed her range in these stories and I enjoyed her narration and would listen to her again.The two I had a hard time figuring out who narrated which were Jonathan Davis and Peter Francis James because they both have voices like butter I have been a fan of Jonathan since listening to Shadow of the Wind but Peter was a new to me narrator and in the one story Juvenal Nyx he sounded like Dion Graham and that is never a bad comparison I will look for more from this narrator.The introduction by Neil Gaiman was a great story all on its own and of course it’s narrated by Neil so what else can I say. Blood by, Roddy Doyle narrated by, Euan Morton Really liked the narrator of this one but it was a very odd story.Fossil Figures by, Joyce Carol Oates narrated by, Ann Bobby was a creepy but interesting story I liked itWildfire in Manhattan- by, Joanne Harris narrated by, Jonathan Davis this was a story about gods/elements living in Manhattan it was interestingThe Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountain by, Neil Gaiman narrated by, Euan Morton was wonderful! And great narration even after I was a little disappointed it wasn’t Neil himself. Unbelief by, Michael Marshall Smith narrated by, Peter Francis James it was just ok still trying to figure out if he was with his family at the end or if he was dead/a ghostThe Stars are Falling by Joe R. Lansdale maybe narrated by, Jonathan Davis…was a really good story I liked it a lot this was one of my favorite storiesJuvenal Nyx by, Walter Mosley was a very different story, not what I expected from this author narrated by, Peter Francis James who I thought sounded a lot like Dion Graham and did a very good job at the narrationThe Knife by, Richard Adams narrated by Euen Morton Was a very short odd story that really made no senseWeights and Measurements by, Jodi Picoult narrated by, Anne Bobby odd story about losing a child I think it was a metaphor about how you lose a part of yourself but done very oddly.Goblin Lake by, Michael Swanwick narrated by, Jonathan Davis Was a very interesting story that I liked very much begs the question does a character in a book know they are a character?Mallon the Guru by, Peter Straub narrated by, Peter Francis James was another odd story about life and deathCatch and Release by, Lawrence Block narrated by, Jonathan Davis was a really superb story very suspenseful and I could see an entire mystery novel written about this character.Polka dots and moonbeams by, Jeffery Ford narrated by, Peter Francis James? Didn’t really make much sense to me just mehLoser by, Chuck Palahniuk narrated by, Jonathan Davis? Was just meh didn’t really seem to have a pointSamantha’s Diary by, Diana Wynne Jones narrated by, Katherine Kellgren of course I didn’t have to look this one up to try to figure out who the narrator was and really with these two names could the story go wrong? A futuristic take on the 12 days of Christmas that was very funny!Land of the Lost by, Stewart O’Nan narrated by, Anne Bobby Wish there would have been more of this oneLeif in the Wind by, Gene Wolf narrated by, Katherine Kellgren good Sci-Fi story, Would have liked more of this one tooUnwell by, Carolyn Parkhurst narrated by, Anne Bobby crazy old lady and her sister kind of funny kind of sadA Life in Fiction by, Kat Howard narrated by, Katherine Kellgren if someone writes a character slightly based on you are you real or do you become the fiction… interesting storyLet the past begin by, Jonathan Carroll narrated by, Jonathan Davis very odd story that I didn’t quite getThe Therapist by, Jeffery Deaver narrated by, Peter Francis James kind of a murder mystery, psychological thriller, with a touch of the supernatural, and conspiracy a good story… well it is Deaver after all Parallel Lines by, Tim Powers narrated by, Anne Bobby didn’t really get this storyThe Cult of the Nose by, Al Sarrantonio narrated by, Peter Francis James just plain weirdHuman Intelligence by, Kurt Anderson narrated by, Katy Kellgren an alien story with a heck of twist haha this was a good one!Stories by, Michael Moorlock narrated by, Euan Morton A look at the life of a group of writers interesting storyThe Maiden Flight of McCauley’s by, Elizabeth Hand narrated by, Jonathan Davis sort of sci fi another kind of odd one that lost me The Devil on the Staircase by, Joe Hill narrated by, Peter Francis James kind of a Daniel Webster story3 ½ stars
    • 3/5
      Glory, hallelujah, I'm so glad I'm finished with this monster and can put it behind me. It took a year of chugging through this collection, in between reading other novels, to get it finished. Paraphrasing Jewel from Bravo's "Platinum Hit" -- [Short story]-writing is hit or miss, and this was a miss.There were some good stories, but they were very few. As I read on, the mediocre stories made me appreciate the good ones more, and the awful stories made me appreciate the atrocious stories more. For me, the highlights were "Blood," "Wildfire in Manhattan," "The Stars Are Falling," and "Weights and Measures." The atrocious ones that I hated reading were, "Fossil-Figures," "Juvenal Nyx," and pretty much anything towards the end of the collection. The title story, "Stories," was pretty damn bad. It was a classic "and then" story. And this happened, and that happened, and then this happened, and that happened. As I look at the table of contents, there are some stories that I have no recollection of at all. And some of them are ones I read within the past few weeks, as opposed to almost a year ago. Some of them just felt so thrown together and didn't leave an impression on me at all. I'm just glad it's over.
    • 4/5
      I think it will always be hard for a collection of stories from multiple authors to get five stars from me; there's always some that I don't like. Ironically, it was some of the stories from my favorite authors that I didn't care for here.Overall, one of the more satisfying collections of short story anthologies that I've read for a while; however, many of the stories, especially toward the beginning, were so painful (even if good) that I could only read one at a time before switching to something else.My favorites:The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains, by Neil GaimanGoblin Lake, by Michael SwanwickCatch and Release, by Lawrence Block (this is the one that's stuck with me the strongest)Unwell, Carolyn ParkhurstA Life in Fictions, Kat HowardThe Cult of the Nose, Al Sarrantonio (loved this Borgesian thing until the very end, then siiiigh.)Stories, Michael Moorcock (the most interesting story about not much at all)The Maiden Flight of McCauley's Bellepheron, Liz Hand