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The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories Hardcover – 14 April 2013


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Called "one of our brightest cultural commentators" by Publishers Weekly, Kit Reed draws from life-with a difference. This new collection brings together thirty-four of her strong, original stories, from early classics like "The Wait" and "Winter" to six never-before-collected short stories, including "The Legend of Troop 13" and "Wherein We Enter the Museum." An early favorite, "Automatic Tiger," is the first in a series of Reed's stories about animals. There's a monkey who grinds out bestsellers with the help of a "creative writing" app. Her uncanny black dog can enter a crowded room and sit down at the feet of the next man to die. Her characters confront war in various arenas: mother/daughter battles, the war of the sexes, the struggles of men scarred by war. Kit Reed's self-described "transgenred" fiction is confirmation of an "extraordinary talent" (The Financial Times). The range and complexity of her work speaks for itself in The Story Until Now.
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Review

"The Story Until Now provides many, many hours of thought provocation and pleasure, but Reed's greatest contributions to American letters might be her willingness and ability to storm the gates and break down the barriers that prevent science fiction and fantasy from getting the critical attention it so richly deserves."--Andrew Ervin, Miami Herald

"Kit Reed's The Story Until Now is a landmark collection spanning fifty-five years of tales from a career that continues to surprise and entertain, as well as intimidate."--Marc Laidlaw,
The Cascadia Subduction Zone

"The 34 stories in this genre-bending collection span a period of half a century, from 1960 until the present. Included are some of the author's earliest stories, such as the chilling tale of sisters snowed in with a stranger as resources diminish ('Winter') as well as more recent offerings, such as the haunting 'Song of the Black Dog' (2011). This volume also includes previously uncollected tales, among them 'Wherein We Enter the Museum' and 'The Legend of Troop 13.' VERDICT A master of vigorous writing who takes a fearless approach to her stories, Reed (The Ballad of T. Rantula; The Baby Merchant) demonstrates here her skill at shorter fiction. Fans will appreciate this smorgasbord of tasty stories, while first timers may discover a 'new' favorite author."--
Library Journal

"It's very rare that one can say there's nothing bad or mediocre about a story collection. The Story Until Now is one such rarity, full of literary gems from beginning to end. Reed Deserves far more recognition than she's received so far, and this collection proves it."--
Foreword

"(Starred Review) The prolific Reed (What Wolves Know) has been a significant figure in speculative fiction and literature for over 50 years. This impressive tome collects 34 of her short works, including six previously unpublished stories and others gathered from across the expanse of her career. Reed appears to have an essential dissatisfaction with the world, but the manner in which she expresses it varies greatly from story to story: claustrophobic generational paranoia in "Denny," absurdist humor in "The Attack of the Giant Baby," melancholy survivor's guilt in "In the Squalus," and smirkingly betrayed revolutionary ideals in "Songs of War." Reed's fiction shows a remarkable consistency of quality; her prose is carefully shaped, with the clarity of diamonds. Often dark but always worth reading, this collection is a must-have for both those new to Reed and those who have been following her work for decades."--
Publishers Weekly

"It's a book worth gettingKit Reed has been producing first-rate work for so long that it would be deeply overstating the case to call her a well-kept secret, but in light of her smaller public footprint we can afford to be a little more expansive here. She's a versatile talent with a thundering grasp of the language and a breadth that ensures no individual story can be used to predict the direction of the story after that"--Adam Troy Castro,
Sci Fi Magazine

"I've interviewed her, I've seen her at Readercon a bunch, etc. But it wasn't until I sat down and read story after story in the new book that I fully realized just how great her writing is. She's one of the best American short story writers of the last 50 years. I feel guilty for not having come to that conclusion earlier. The evidence was there. But the wonder and joy of The Story Until Now is that it makes the case incontrovertible. And people have begun to notice. Simply put: No book I've read so far this year has given me more pleasure."--Matthew Cheney,
The Mumpsimus

"The title of Kit Reed's selection of her own short stories, 'The Story Until Now', reminds us that although she has been writing award-winning fiction for some 50 years, she's still accelerating. The scope of these 35 stories is immense, their variety unmatched. Her fictions are layered, their hearts revealed retrospectively."--Tom Shippey,
Wall Street Journal

"The Story Until Now' unleashes new and classic stories fired by a radiant imagination."--Elissa Schappell,
Vanity Fair

"The Story Until Now provides many, many hours of thought provocation and pleasure, but Reed's greatest contributions to American letters might be her willingness and ability to storm the gates and break down the barriers that prevent science fiction and fantasy from getting the critical attention it so richly deserves."--Andrew Ervin,
Miami Herald

"Her stories are sharp, transgressive and full of the unexpected, with enough keen social observations to launch a thousand dissertations."--Chelsea Cain,
New York Times Book Review

About the Author

KIT REED's novels include The Baby Merchant and Thinner Than Thou, which won an ALA Alex Award. Her newest is Son of Destruction. Often anthologized, her short stories have been nominated for the Nebula, the World Fantasy, and Shirley Jackson awards and the Tiptree Prize. A Guggenheim fellow and the first American recipient of a literary grant from the Abraham Woursell Foundation, she is the resident writer at Wesleyan University. Praise for Kit Reed "These stories shine with the incisive edginess of brilliant cartoons."--The New York Times Book Review (about Weird Women, Wired Women) "Reed has a prose style that's pure dry ice, displayed in dystopian stories that specialize in bitterness and dislocation."--The New York Times Book Review (about Dogs of Truth) "She is the SF writer par excellence of the war between the generations . . . Kit Reed frees us as we read her."--John Clute, Science Fiction Weekly (about Weird Women, Wired Women)

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Wesleyan University Press
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 14 April 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 468 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0819573493
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0819573490
  • Item weight ‏ : ‎ 798 g
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.51 x 3.81 x 23.62 cm

About the author

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Kit Reed
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Kit Reed woke up one morning with an amazing pitch line for her mysterious new novel WHERE. "Everybody on Kraven Island is gone. Even they don't know where." This from a self-proclaimed "trans-genred" writer, translation: "I don't belong anywhere." Her work covers the waterfront-- comic novels, SF, psychothrillers, psychological, i.e. character-driven fiction, you name it. She's been there.

WHERE follows two distinguished 2013 publications, THE STORY UNTIL NOW, a Shirley Jackson award nominee from the Wesleyan University Press, and her novel SON OF DESTRUCTION, from Severn House, titles praised in Financial Times, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal and in the New York Times Book Review, Chelsea Cain writes, "Reed finds humanity in the most fantastic places. She does it without pretension. And she does it with a sense of humor and no apologies. In my Museum of American Writers, I’d have a statue of Kit Reed in the lobby..."

In Vanity Fair, Elissa Schappell wrote: “The Story Until Now unleashes new and classic stories fired by a radiant imagination.”

And Reed? She writes: "Success is when you're still standing up at the end."

Her collection What Wolves Know from PS Publishing UK was also a Shirley Jackson Award nominee. Called "a gripping dystopian thriller" in a starred review in Publishers Weekly, Reed's novels, Enclave, The Baby Merchant and Thinner Than Thou, a winner of the A.L.A. Alex Award, and her collection, Dogs of Truth, are available in trade paperback and on Kindle and other online platforms. The New York Times Book Review has this to say about her work: "Most of these stories shine with the incisive edginess of brilliant cartoons... they are less fantastic than visionary." Other novels include @​expectations, Captain Grownup, Fort Privilege, Catholic Girls, J. Eden and Little Sisters of the Apocalypse. She's had stories in, among others, The Yale Review, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Omni and The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Literature. Her books Weird Women, Wired Women and Little Sisters of the Apocalypse were finalists for the Tiptree Prize.

A member of the board of the Authors League Fund and a longtime member of the National Book critics Circle and PEN, she serves as Resident Writer at Wesleyan University.

http://www.kitreed.net

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  • Dean D.
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Collection of Short Stories
    Reviewed in the United States on 11 July 2018
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    I first heard about Kit Reed via a moving obituary written by her friend Gita Jackson for Kotaku (I recommend you read it yourself!). In the comments, somebody asked about her books and where to start. Reed's son recommended The Story Until Now, and I snagged it on Amazon immediately. I'm glad I did.

    As with any book of short stories, some will appeal to you more than others. Her style/subjects vary so much I think you would be hard-pressed to find somebody who likes every story in this book. My personal favorite was "Denny". It started so slow I thought it was going to be a dud yet by the time I read the final word I was really affected. That is something that I came to appreciate about her writing; she is deceptively pedestrian when she wants to be. At times, I imagined her as a trickster, hoping to vex her readers as they complain about prose while completely missing the point.

    "Automatic Tiger", an early favorite of hers, is also a high point. While reading it, I was convinced I had a personal understanding of exactly what she was writing about. And then I decided it was a metaphor for drug addiction. At the end of the day, I'm not sure which is the truth. Maybe it was just entertaining fiction.

    It's hard not to compare her to Samuel R Delany. Like Delany, her stories worm their way in to your brain and will leave you thinking about them days after you've finished them. But Reed is more lighthearted and hopeful than Delany. If you are in the market for entertaining short stories, The Story Until Now is a compelling offering. I will be reading more of her work.
  • Bartleby (scrivner)
    2.0 out of 5 stars Very Dissapointing
    Reviewed in the United States on 29 October 2017
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    I came upon this writer in her obituary and since I'm a lover of macabre fiction I thought I'd give her a try. Well I've given her a try, some of the short stories in this collection, and now, sorry to say, I'm trying to figure out what all the fuss is about. True she's hard to characterize as a writer and she also has some witty, accurate, and telling observations about our culture but honestly who is it thinks she can write? A lot of folks from what I can tell, she was very prolific, won awards, even taught writing...those are facts. Well, here's my take; she's an awful writer. I can't remember just when I'd read such bad prose. Jumbled writing that defeats whatever it is she's trying to say. Her writing, at least what I've read so far and I can't bear to waste any more time on her, has no rhythm, it doesn't read well, the stories are poorly structured, beginning, middle, and end are messed around with, and there is no vitality to this writing, it's dead on the page and not worth reading. And when she's trying, let's say, satire, she's unfunny and tests your patience; makes you wonder who in their right mind would publish this stuff? And she has a paltry imagination.
    I may dare one or two more stories and I'm curious enough to read her book on writing.
    But in a nutshell, she is not a gifted writer, journeyman maybe, but little talent and although she's full of good ideas she can't get them across effectively. It's hard to imagine her as a teacher of writing, but maybe she can write about writing better, or teach it, can you teach writing? Better than she can write.
    I'll definitely report back if I discover something worthwhile that she wrote but so far I'm more than disappointed.
  • Kindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly prolific writer scores a smash
    Reviewed in the United States on 22 April 2013
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Although I bought this book primarily for the story, "Automatic tiger", which made a sledgehammer impression on me when I read it decades ago, the other stories here, all excellent, show a master at her craft.
  • L. Quick
    5.0 out of 5 stars highly recommend!
    Reviewed in the United States on 23 April 2018
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    Fabulous Book, highly recommend!