McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (Edited by Michael Chabon)

Format: Trade paperback

Condition: vg- condition, one obvious spine crease, minor shelf wear

Size: 5.25"x8.0"

Pages: 480pp, 2003 edition

McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Chabon teams up with the editors of Dave Eggers's McSweeney's magazine to create a fiction anthology with an innovative, simple concept: the stories are driven by adventurous plots and narrative action, in contrast to the current trend toward stories that are "plotless and sparkling with epiphanic dew," as Chabon writes in his introduction. The roster includes such heavyweights as Michael Crichton, Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, Nick Hornby and Harlan Ellison. As the retro title might suggest, the collection is heavy on sci-fi and detective stories, often updated with contemporary twists. Crichton offers a detective yarn called "Blood Doesn't Come Out," in which a disgruntled PI takes out his frustration on his wife in a cheeky spin on the domestic violence that punctuates the pulp fiction of Jim Thompson and James A. Cain. Hornby's contribution is an entertaining sci-fi story called "Otherwise Pandemonium," about a man who buys a VCR that fast-forwards into an apocalyptic future. In Rick Moody's "The Albertine Notes," a debilitating drug called Albertine wreaks havoc by sending users back in time to relive their memories. Dave Eggers's "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly" is a thoughtful story in which a woman climbs Kilimanjaro to bolster her self-confidence after experiencing a personal crisis, but proves oblivious to the deaths of three porters when the weather on the mountain turns ugly.

Ghost Dance by Sherman Alexie
The Case of the Salt and Pepper Shakers by Aimee Bender
The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance
The Bees by Dan Chaon
Blood Doesn't Come Out by Michael Crichton
Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly by Dave Eggers
Goodbye to All That by Harlan Ellison
The General by Carol Emshwiller
Private Grave 9 by Karen Joy Fowler
Closing Time by Neil Gaiman
The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter by Glen David Gold
Otherwise Pandemonium by Nick Hornby
Weaving the Dark by Laurie King
The Tale of Gray Dick by Stephen King
How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman by Elmore Leonard
Catskin by Kelly Link
The Albertine Notes by Rick Moody
The Case of the Nazi Canary by Michael Moorcock
Chuck's Bucket by Chris Offutt
Tedford and the Megalodon by Jim Shepard