Stories: All-New Tales (2010)

There were several good stories in here. Neil Gaiman's was excellent and the book is worth checking out of the library just for that story. I skipped quite a few of the stories, as I often do in an anthology. ( )

I like Neil Gaiman, and love his writing and imagination. It is possible that I would have enjoyed more to read a full book he wrote rather than this anthology.
Anthologies are tricky, because you always get a mixed bag. There is the good story, the passable one, and the absolute snoozer. This one is no different. I also feel sometimes that when reading short stories, the time you invest in getting into them is sometimes more than the payback you get from the unfolding story, and sometimes the ending is too abrupt for pleasure.

My favourites in this collection were: Fossil Figures, by Joyce Carol Oates; The Turth is a Cave in the Black Mountain by Neil Gaiman; The Stars are Falling, Joe R Lansdale; Unwell, by Carolyn Parkhurst; The Therapist by Jeffrey Deaver; The Cult of the Nose by Al Sarrantonio; Human Intelligence by Kurt Anderson; and Parallel Lined by Tim Powers.
I felt some were pointless like Polka Dots and Moonbeams by Jeffrey Ford. At least one was funny: Samantha's Diary by Diana Wynne Jones. And the absolute snoozer was Stories by Michael Moorcock (somehow I felt it lost its energy and got lost between fact and fiction).

I listened to the Audiobook version and had to download the Table of Content to get the titles of the stories. And even after such a shot time some titles already mean nothing to me. I have no clue what they were. Note to self: If I ever write a short story I will make sure the title is catchy and relates clearly and unambiguously to something in that particular story. ( )

A collection of short stories, some fantasy, some mild horror, all of which center around the idea of "and then what happened?"

As I mentioned earlier, I tend to shy away from short story collections because I find them so difficult to get through. I'll just get settled and comfortable in one and then, ope!, it's over and I have to start getting settled again into another one, and that feels sort of exhausting to me. I was willing to give this one a go, though, because Neil Gaiman is one of the editors. And I enjoyed a handful of the stories (Gaiman's contribution I'd already read and loved elsewhere), but it still felt like more of a chore than a pleasure to get through the book. That's completely on me and not the fault of the stories or the curators. If you like Gaiman's sort of stuff, you'll likely like these tales, and there are some pretty big names on the list of storytellers (Peter Staub, Diana Wynne Jones, Joe Hill, Michael Moorcock,...). So take my rating with a heap of salt and leap right in if those names appeal. ( )

Tragically unfinished, this anthology's first story was only OK, the second was similarly meh (but appeared to have a high opinion of itself, making it annoying) and the third story was essentially a YA novel but reduced to a single chapter.

I had to put it down, perhaps if I had infinite time for reading I could try to dig further to find the diamonds in the rough, but it's just not worth it as is. ( )

Overall this book was worth the read but like most anthologies contained its fair share of tedium. Also, the fact that i usually read genre fiction and these stories aren't genre fiction didn't help matters really.

I'm not gonna go through this story by story. The best story by far was Wildfire in Manhattan and was about the Old Gods in a modern city setting. Was very good indeed and almost made this book worth the price on its own.

An OK read, apart from Wildfire in Manhattan which was exceptional.
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