Many of my favorite authors span more than one genre. Michael Marshall Smith is probably best described as a genre of his own, his stories span eras, worlds, lives and definitely emotions. His writing is so skillful, it will be hard for you to set the book down and walk away. This book helps with that as it's short stories. The stories vary in length from a few pages to novella length but each has one thing in common. MMS manages to bring the reader an entire experience in a few pages. The back stories are there as well as the characters and their ultimate dilemmas. 30 stories celebrating his 30 years of prize winning stories. Open the book and set back to enjoy a rare writing/ reading treat.

Story collection. Reading them together, it’s clear that Smith is always a dark writer, even when there’s humor. Through fantasy/horror and the occasional sf story, he presents a world of failed relationships (or successful ones ended by early death) and selfish betrayals consistent with an unforgiving universe. There are a couple of lighter stories but many of his protagonists are bad guys.

This collection took me a while to get through. It’s huge, hefty, positively fat. It’s something that certainly works for books in a nicer way than it does for people, but still for this specific reader, it’s a turn off. Then again, if any book has a right to be fat, it’s a best of collection. Especially by an author as excellent as Michael Marshall Smith.
In his case, the page count denotes not the dearth of discipline, not a lamentable tendency for verbosity, but a sheer immense quality of work. All these stories can easily be described as best. In fact, as of now I’m yet to read a MMS (or any his pseudonymed work) and now find it worthy of the inclusion in best as a category or a collection. I did read some of the stories included in this volume before, but even those were a pleasant reread. Most of them were new to me, though. New and great and difficult to put down. Thank goodness for kindles, because unputdownable 544 page book is an entirely different proposition.
So is 544 pages too long for a best of? Is it still selective at all? Well, yes, if you consider that MMS’ career spans 30 years and, as of the time of the boo’s afterword, 96 published short stories. But here are some of the most impressive things about his short stories…they usually take no more than two of three days to write and they are usually written on demand, as in prompted by publishers, solicited for themed anthologies, etc. In fact, in general, MMS is a highly commercial author, specializing in the most marketable of genres and hopping them with ease, simply shifting gears, changing his name and presto….there it is, another fun adventure.
I admit to not having read as many of them as I would have liked, because despite his commercial appeal, our library doesn’t seem to have any of his ebooks. But in an deal world I would very much like to. Because I absolutely love his writing. The man is a natural born storyteller, he writes so vividly, so realistically that his tales play put cinematically on the silver screen of the mind. Absolutely first rate character development too, with these complex, flawed and completely believable individuals populating his worlds. And the imagination on that guy…the plots he comes up…it’s a thing of beauty. And wildly original to boot.
In fact, the only story in the entire book that reminded me of something (and strongly) is The Gist which read almost like a bookish pastiche to The Story of The Late Mr. Elvesham, but then it’s followed up by a terrific and terrifically original stab at metafiction where the author shows himself interact with the characters he created. So clever. And such an excellent reminder of MMS’ creativity and ability to pivot in any direction and excel. Nowhere is it more obvious than toward the end, with a crazybutitworks juxtaposition of a nightmarish fecal driven apocalypse (yes, seriously) and a subtle poignant tale of dealing with death of parents. Yes, the man can do it all. Even the ways he takes on genre standards (zombies, cosmic, etc.) is wildly original.
So yes, I’m not even going to try to name my favorites, there were too many. If ever there was a fat book worth the time, it’s this one. Mind you, it might not be for everyone. It’s very dark, with barely a story (Seventeenth Kind)or two to change things up. It’s dark often in a bleak depressing way, in a way that someone who glimpsed behind the gaudily colored curtain of positivity and cheer and beheld the true state of things might write. For me, it’s a major attractor. That level of realism. Might not be for some. But for fans of literary dark psychological fiction spanning a gamut of genres, this will work awesomely. Because that’s what this collection is, in a word, awesome. Even despite the author’s seeming inability to write a nonsmoking character or his lamentable passion for felines. Still awesome. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

These short stories are amazing! They linger; I didn't read them all at once, since it was more fun to let each one resonate. And I will never think of a chalk drawing quite the same way again....

First off, this book is a Subterranean Press release, which means its going to be of the highest quality. They just don't make bad books. I've never read any of MMS's short stories before, however I've read a few of his novels and loved them all. There is a lot of book here to enjoy, the stories range from approximately 10-30 pages each and the book is about 540 pages long. I really enjoyed most of these stories, there is a few that were only okay for me and mostly because they were just too short to get into the story, I certainly found that I liked the longer stories in the collection. All in all a very good and fun collection of stories.

If you haven't read Michael's work before, this collection is a great introduction. The stories are short and sweet, and will either break your heart (Always) or give you a raging case of the heebie-jeebies (The Motel Business). Not for the faint of heart, highly recommend!

Not fair, but there are four bonus stories... it's a good thing I've already pre-ordered.
https://subterraneanpress.com/best-of...

~ REMtemps™
~ One One Three
~ Look Inside
~ The Chain

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