 The basic steps for anyone wishing to compile a classic collection of short stories are fairly elementary: gather a group of the best authors around, give them a broad enough brief to let their imaginations run wild, sit back, wait for the good stuff to come pouring in, weed out the duffers and then arrange them in the right order. Simple.
Using these basic guidelines, we can measure how successfully editors Gaiman and Sarrantonio have done with this new miscellany of tales. Firstly, the list of authors is fairly spectacular, including Roddy Doyle, Joanne Harris, Richard Amads, Chuck Palahniuk, Joe Hill and Michael Moorcock. The brief appears to have been to create new works of fantasy or magical realism, which in some way illuminate the real world – a blank enough canvas. And what of the duffers? Well, overall the quality of work on display is exemplary and while a handful do disappoint– mostly due to snatched at or unsatisfying endings rather than anything else – the majority of stories are gripping and beautifully written. Their diversity of styles somehow manages to make the whole thing far more than the sum of its parts.
Stand-out stories include Gaiman’s own gloriously rich folk tale “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains”; Joe Hill’s elegant, concrete prose-style morality tale, “The Devil in the Staircase”, which visually represents his protagonists’ descent into hell; and Jodi Picoult’s stunning examination of grief, “Weights and Measures”, which is so powerful it’s hard to breathe while you read it. Overall, it’s a sometimes creepy, dark and dreamlike two thumbs up. Tim Arthur |
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