Stories edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio
What would Neil Gaiman place on the walls of a public library to encourage children to read? "The four words that children ask, when you pause, telling them a story. The four words you hear at the end of a chapter. The four words, spoken or unspoken, that show you, as a storyteller, that people care. ...and then what happened? " Gaiman's introduction to Stories is an homage to story, to our innate desire for a plot, something to give us a sense that what we're reading is actually going somewhere. And so, in this short story anthology edited by Mr. Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio, they gathered short fiction that actually told stories. This isn't the first time I heard and responded to the case for story. Almost a year ago, I read and posted this Lev Grossman article about the plot against plot. A few posts ago, I linked to the Guardian article mentioning Stories and Michael Chabon's McSweeney's intro in one breath. And, in affirmation of the dictum t...