Trampoline: An Anthology

Rating:
Summary: Underwhelmed, disappointed
Review: I ordered this Anthology on the strength of Editor Kelly Link's reputation and fiction. I first read Ms. Link's work in Conjunctions 39 and was blown away (Lull, IIRC). With Authors like Jeffrey Ford, Alex Irvine, etc and Kelly Link at the helm, this had to be a must have anthology.

Trampoline couldn't have disappointed me more. Many stories have barely any speculative elements whatsoever. There's also a disturbing case of 'literaryitis' to quite a few of the stories here -- I guess I have a low threshold for affected stories heavy on character and zippo in the plot department. Maybe I'm just an old fashioned curmudgeon expecting things that keep those pages turnin' -- you know, quaint things that literary writers seem to have a pathological aversion to, like plot, tension, conflict and resolution.

I guess that's what ultimately killed this anthology for me. Most of the stories simply didn't engage me, and within a few pages I was already flipping ahead to see how many more pages I had to endure.

There were very few bright spots. Shelly Jackson's "Angel" floored me, and is the only story in the collection I consider a must read. While there are a few other enjoyable stories, overall the navel gazing pomposity overshadows the few gems in Trampoline.

If you're looking for quality slipstream/magic realism/weird/outre short story collections, I can't recommend highly enough 'Conjunctions 39', Jonathan Carroll's 'The Panic Hand', James Morrow's 'Bible Stories for Adults', Jeffrey Ford's 'The Fantasy Writer's Assistant', Jeff Vandermeer's 'City of Saints and Madmen' and Borges' 'Labyrinth'. Although I've only read the first few stories, Leviathan III (edited by Jeff Vandemeer) is also shaping up nicely (keeping my fingers crossed).

Rating:
Summary: SLIPSTREAM AT ITS MOST COMPELLING
Review: Trampoline is a fascinating and rewarding book. Among the twenty stories are a dozen that I found to be first rate. Another reader might disagree on the ranking of individual stories but not, I think, on the remarkable overall quality.

A nice mixture of fine work by veterans (Carol Emshwiller, Jeffrey Ford, Karen Joy Fowler, Maureen McHugh) and newcomers (Christopher Rowe, Shelley Jackson, Alex Irvine, Vandana Singh, John Gonzalez, Christopher Barzak). All, it seems, are original to his collection except for the extraordinary KING OF SPAIN by Dave Shaw.

The collection shows the strong presence of editor Kelly Link. Common themes crop up: Barzak and Jackson find interesting things to do with dead boys, McHugh and Fowler deal with lost children. This gives Trampoline a cohesion akin to that of a single author collection.

Anthologies of original stories have long been a place where Speculative Fiction redefined itself (i.e. Ellison's Dangerous Visions and Moorcock's New Directions ushering in the tumult of the 1960's New Wave). The last couple of years have seen a number of important titles: Conjunctions 39: The New Fabulists, (ed. Peter Straub),McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (ed. Michael Chabon), Album Zutique (ed. Jeff Vandermeer). A common trend in these books and others I haven't mentioned, maybe the one that will prove definitive, is a tendency toward 'Slipstream', the melding of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror with mainstream fiction.

This is a basic aspect of Trampoline. Even stories that utilize genre tropes: IMPALA's Virtual Reality or DEAD BOY FOUND's necrophilia, use them to explore emotional abuse or the death of the spirit. The wonders glimpsed by the fabulous slackers in GUS DREAMS OF BITING THE MAILMAN or almost caught in the waters of Hawaii in SHIPWRECK BEACH are filtered through much too much beer and cannabis or mad-making psychological damage. Three strong pieces: KING RAT, EIGHT-LEGGED STORY and KING OF SPAIN provide all the illumination and wonder and fear we look for in SF and Fantasy and Horror with little more of the uncanny and inexplicable than most of us find in our daily lives.

Rating:
Summary: Boing! Boing!
Review: Trampoline mixes a group of writers from the literary edge of genre (Irvine, Hirshberg, Ford) with another group of fugitives from the mainstream (Park, Hunt, Jackson), proving that some of the most interesing fiction being written right now is sprouting in the cracks between the two. ItÕs remarkable what a coherent collection this is, given that the only thing that really binds these stories together is a uniformly high quality of writing and a willingness to doggedly pursue an individual vision. What really distinguishes these stories is a sense of possibility and adventure; Trampoline is fiction as a form of play and risk-taking rolled into one. The stories here proceed as if the constraints of genre simply donÕt exist and move from there in some pretty strange but wonderful directions. There are a handful of stories that don't quite work, but even those are worth your time. An extremely strong collection.