What is your favorite short story collection?

Boyle may be my favorite living writer. His short stories are sublime.

Boyle is very prolific. His novels are great. But his short stories are where he really excels.

They’ve done two collections. “Stories” has his first four or five story collections bound in one volume, but, I think, they’ve put the stories in a weird order. “Stories II” has the last several collections in it. They don’t reorder the stories in that one. They just reprint the collections (his two best “After the Plague” and “Tooth and Claw” are included here) and then include a brand new collection.

Boyle is kinda dark, but also kind of funny. He is a master of making you sympathize with somewhat unlikeable characters and writes very, very strong female characters. For novels, I recommend “Drop City” and “A Friend of the Earth” very highly. He has, to date, only had one novel I didn’t care for and even it would get three out of five stars from me.

Let me know what you think of him.

That’s where I would start. “Stories” divides the book into three sections and then puts the stories in (seemingly) random order based on which section they “fit into”. It’s kind of tedious and makes it appear that Boyle only writes about one or two things. If you can’t find “Stories II”, either of those two collections (“After the Plague” or “Tooth and Claw”) show a considerable range. In general, I think the Stories II selections are better, but they’re much darker.

(P.S. There’s a story in “Tooth and Claw” called “Chicxulub” that is one of my single favorite stories by any author ever)