Name: McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales
ISBN: 9781400033393

Michael Chabon

Collects short stories about mummies, Nazis, witches, murder, and time travel by such authors as Stephen King, Michael Crichton, and Kelly Link.

McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales

Erik Wallace

This McSweeny's publication is edited by Michael Chabon and his purpose for the anthology was to include, as the title suggests, thrilling short stories. He didn't dissapoint. Some excellent talent was recruited including: Elmore Leonard, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Nick Hornby, Michael Crichton, Sherman Alexie and of course Dave Eggers and Mr. Chabon himself.

After finishing this book the thing I was most surprised about was that many of my favorite stories were by the authors which I was unfamiliar with. Case in point, my favorite was an adventure story set in Antarctica penned by Jim Shepard. Other authors stories' I enjoyed: The "Tears of Squonk" by Glen David Gold, "Catskin" by Kelly Link and "The General" by Carol Emshwiller.

One interesting thing I noticed is that two of the stories were adapted from novels that I have read. "The Tale of Gray Dick" by Stephen King is a story that was taken from "The Wolves of the Calla" from his massive Dark Tower series. Also, Elmore Leonard's story, "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman" was an abbreviated version of his book, "The Hot Kid." Each are better stories told in the books they originally appeared in, but the shorter versions aren't bad either.

Looking back at this book as a whole I think it's fair to say the stories border on pulp, but the range is hard to beat. There's something here for everyone from the macabre to adventure to suspense.