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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
A Rare Collection of Novellas That Mostly Hit the Mark, 7 Aug 2005
As the editor of this compilation (Ed McBain, aka Evan Hunter) says, novellas are rather unusual these days, although in the old pulp fiction days they were fairly thick on the ground. A novella is, as defined in the publishing world, a story that is longer than a short story (which usually runs up to 5,000 words) and shorter than a novel (usually more than 60,000 words), somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 to 40,000 words. And apparently a novella (sometimes called a novelette) is hard to write because it tends either to compress to a short story or expand to a novel. Yet, the ten writers here, none of the neophytes, met their charge from McBain to come up with a genuine novella with aplomb (except perhaps for Stephen King, whose novella really reads like a short story - but then he's a big enough name that it's no surprise that his story made the book without any criticism). As in any collection there are some hits and some misses, but in fact I was engaged by every single entry. Some, though, were a cut above the rest -- Walter Mosley's 'Archibald Lawless, Anarchist at Large: Walking the Line' and Lawrence Block's 'Keller's Adjustment.' (I will admit that I tend to read everything these two writers produce and they are particular favorites of mine. Mosley, in fact, I consider to be one of our best writers, regardless of genre.) As is usual for me, I could not get as involved in the story by Joyce Carol Oates, but I suspect that is some peculiar allergy of mine; I've rarely thoroughly enjoyed anything of hers, even though I can admire her skills and obviously plenty of others admire her more than I. Ed McBain's contribution takes place in his familiar Eighty-Seventh Precinct. One theme that recurs in the stories is the post-9/11 world. Indeed, in stories like 'Merely Hate' by McBain and 'The Things They Left Behind' by King that is central to the plot. (By the way, the King story causes his usual and still spookily enjoyable frisson with its eerie atmostphere.) I would definitely recommend this collection to anyone who likes shorter fiction but wants something more substantial than the usual mystery/suspense short story.
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