The Ultimate Anthology: "The Man in the Woods"

I read this amazing short story last night, and it's been bumping around in my head all morning. Jackson's writing is just so...urgent and compelling. Even when she's holding things back, the prose is luxuriant and evocative. It's a rare writer whose use of adjectives is just so calculated and precise that one stops mid-sentence to marvel at just how that apt term was employed.

This one drips with mythology and menace. It's a slow build to a haunting final scene. And that last line? My, what a way to pay off a story.

While I adore "The Lottery" and all of its wicked charm, I think this is actually a better story. It certainly becomes a highlight of the grand little collection I'm putting together here...

The Ultimate Anthology

"The Man in the Woods" ~ Shirley Jackson

"The Drowned Life" ~ Jeffrey Ford

"Mrs. Todd's Shortcut" ~ Stephen King

"Voluntary Committal" ~ Joe Hill

"The Pear Shaped Man" ~ George R.R. Martin

"The Small Assassin" ~ Ray Bradbury

"Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros" ~ Peter S. Beagle

The Ultimate Anthology: "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss"

Kij Johnson's award-winning tale "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" is one of the more heart-warming pieces I've encountered in recent years. The story has so much to recommend it: Johnson's rhythmic, succinct prose style; its beautiful treatment of the nature of companionship and personal healing; that final element of paying a life-saving favor forward.

I offered my students extra credit for writing on this story years ago in a literature class at the college. To this day, no story that I've taught has created such an emotional and positive response.

To date:

"26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" ~ Kij Johnson

"Mrs. Todd's Shortcut" ~ Stephen King

"Voluntary Committal" ~ Joe Hill

"The Pear Shaped Man" ~ George R.R. Martin

"The Small Assassin" ~ Ray Bradbury

"Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros" ~ Peter S. Beagle

The Ultimate Anthology: "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut"

Any solid speculative anthology should contain a tale or two by Stephen King. "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut" takes one of those slots in my collection.

What's not to like about a sprite of a feisty woman whose obsession with shortcuts takes her into an age-reversing alternate dimension? That narrative voice, a first-person piece told through the eyes of an older caretaker, is just quintesessntially King. At times humorous and horrific, and always atmospheric and unsettling, this is one of his finest.

I think that description of the ghastly frog the size of a large dog is one of my favorites in weird fiction (saw a Colorado River Toad at the zoo this past weekend--that sucker was a monster!)...

To date:

"Mrs. Todd's Shortcut" ~ Stephen King

"Voluntary Committal" ~ Joe Hill

"The Pear Shaped Man" ~ George R.R. Martin

"The Small Assassin" ~ Ray Bradbury

"Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros" ~ Peter S. Beagle

Ultimate Anthology: "Voluntary Committal"

Joe Hill is one of the best new voices out there right now in dark fiction. His novels have been strong, but his short fiction is almost pitch perfect. Twentieth Century Ghosts is one of those collections that begs to be read yearly, if for no other reason than to inspire.

I think the fourth tale I'll collect for the ultimate anthology is his story "Voluntary Committal." This is a perfect specimen of the American weird tale. The postulate is compelling, the solution is bone-chilling, the relationship between Morris and our narrator is--well, it's a well-rendered sibling relationship. Not quite Howard and Bow-Wow Fornoy, but it'll do. Here's what I wrote in my Amazon review many moons ago:

"Voluntary Committal" goes into my all-time anthology. It's a novella about assuaging the mistakes of our youth. Consider all the things you wish you could take away: all the wrongs you've done others, all the hurt you've instilled upon those who've trusted you, all the chances you passed that you wished you'd taken. Think about all of those things and then ask yourself:

What would you change if you could go back?

For our narrator Nolan, the answer to that question rests in a sealed manila envelope in the lower right drawer of his office desk.

And there you have it: officially put into my all-time anthology. I'm paying professional rates in compliments in exchange for first world wishful-thinking rights.

Here's the Anthology to Date:

"Voluntary Committal" ~ Joe Hill

"The Pear Shaped Man" ~ George R.R. Martin
"The Small Assassin" ~ Ray Bradbury
"Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros" ~ Peter S. Beagle

The Ultimate Anthology: "The Pear-Shaped Man"

When I think of compliments as they apply to fiction, the word "unsettling" springs to mind. The best of Rod Serling's work was unsettling. Tales like "To Serve Man" and "The Shelter" and "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" touch deep places in the human psyche. They pick the scabs of the worst of our experiences, and they do so in such thorough and creative ways that they stick with you long after you read them or watch them.

Stephen King's stories are unsettling. So are Joe Lansdale's and Laird Barron's. I'd heard from a number of speculative fiction fans that George R.R. Martin's "The Pair-Shaped Man," which won the Stoker award for best novelette in 1987, was just such a tale. I read it last year and it blew my mind. It's a creeper--a story whose esoteric/exoteric treatment of perception and revulsion gets under the skin and festers. Martin's story is about usurpation, loss of identity, marginalization and judgment.

In The Twilight Zone: The Movie, there's a segment in which a young boy with supernatural gifts has the ability to create any environment he wishes. The adults in his world placate him, fearful of how he might exact his revenge if they don't. In one haunting scene, the innocent who stumbles upon this nightmare world is shown the boy's sister's room. The sister's figure is huddled in the dark, silently watching a snow-filled television screen. It's not until we get the reverse-angle shot of the horrified youngster that we see she is silent because her brother has removed her mouth.

That sense of inarticulation, of being trapped, is perfectly rendered in this story. Martin's observational qualities, from the eponymous weirdo's physique to his love of cheez doodles and scads of Coke, render this an uncomfortable read. I mean, the Pear-Shaped Man probably lives on your block. We have one on ours, I can tell you that--only ours is like 6'8" and shaped more like a giant string bean. When he walks down to the mailbox, that cigarette smoldering in his hand, I usually look the other way.

His smile...it's kind of creepy.

Of course, everything is relative; maybe to him, I'm the Pear-Shaped Man.

Martin's a gifted stylist and this one is a real treat--probably the most horrific of the stories I've included in my dream anthology thus far.

Ultimate Anthology: "Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros"

Peter S. Beagle, who wrote an informative introduction to The Secret History of Fantasy (at the right of your screen), is a fantasy writer's fantasy writer. His marriage of beautiful prose with intriguing premises ultimately leads to some of the best fiction I've looked at in the last decade. Beagle's story "Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros" is a representative tale, and one of the most optimistic short stories I've encountered in many years.

The eponymous professor provides a great character study. After a semi-reluctant chaperoning of his niece to the local zoo, the incredulous rationalist is forced to confront a life with a philosophy-debating rhino who thinks himself a unicorn. As his relationship with the rhino (who travels to the university to listen to the professor's lectures) grows, we get a chance to see how shared passion and companionship make what seems like an empty life more round and vibrant.

The story, masterfully paced, sprawls efficiently across a span of decades. When the professor loses his one true friend at the university, the reader's heart breaks for the old man. When his career arches brilliantly into twilight, it is his horned friend who is there to guide him into the next phase of being.

This story is beautiful with a capital "B," and it's one whose impact on the reader will be felt for a very long time. It's a story that demands introspection, and asks us to reconsider what it means to be a part of a friendship.

Anthology to Date:
"The Small Assassin" ~ Ray Bradbury
"Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros" ~ Peter S. Beagle

The Ultimate Anthology

I believe that most writers of fiction, at some time or another, entertain the idea of editing. I've worked as a copy editor (Clackamas Literary Review) and occasional slush reader (CLR and others), but I've lately been interested in the kind of creative energy that goes into marshaling a stable of stories into an accessible package. I hope to bring you some observations from the best in the speculative field in the coming months but, in the meantime, I'd like to compose a series of posts on what would be, for me, the ultimate anthology.

I'll have to raid my library at the college and maybe hit the bookstore, but I'd like to offer a few notes in the coming weeks on why each of these stories struck a chord with me. In terms of ground rules, let's say I get 100,000 words. No limitations on genre, of course. We're not that kind of people around these parts. No borders on theme, either. No dictates on "literary" quality, and no predilections on era either.

We fancy the idea of the eclectic.

I just got the ominous battery pop-up stating my time is finite (no shit, right?), but I think I'll start the conversation tomorrow with Ray Bradbury's "The Small Assassin"...