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Origin Stories
This hardcover chapbook published to accompany the signed, limited edition of Stranger Things Happen. Not for sale separately. Includes two stories, "Origin Story" and "Secret Identity."
81 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
About the author
Kelly Link
212 books2,718 followersKelly Link is an American author best known for her short stories, which span a wide variety of genres - most notably magic realism, fantasy and horror. She is a graduate of Columbia University.
Her stories have been collected in four books - Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, Pretty Monsters, and most recently, Get in Trouble.
She has won several awards for her short stories, including the World Fantasy Award in 1999 for "The Specialist's Hat", and the Nebula Award both in 2001 and 2005 for "Louise's Ghost" and "Magic for Beginners".
Link also works as an editor, and is the founder of independant publishing company, Small Beer Press, along with her husband, Gavin Grant.
Her stories have been collected in four books - Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, Pretty Monsters, and most recently, Get in Trouble.
She has won several awards for her short stories, including the World Fantasy Award in 1999 for "The Specialist's Hat", and the Nebula Award both in 2001 and 2005 for "Louise's Ghost" and "Magic for Beginners".
Link also works as an editor, and is the founder of independant publishing company, Small Beer Press, along with her husband, Gavin Grant.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 8, 2016
There are two stories in this collection. They are similar in a certain respect and they are so different in their execution.
The first story titled "Origin Story" is copy write 2006 and was originally published in "A Public Space" Issue 1. It is the story of a young single mothers psycho/psychedelic musings on her life and of the fantasy world that sustains her in order to live her real life. This story left me kind of sad at it's conclusion.
The second story is "Secret Identity" from 2009 originally published in "Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd". This is a longer story concerning a fifteen year old girl from Iowa who travels to New York City, via bus, to meet up with a thirty-five year old man she met in a chess room in a video game. She arrives at a high priced hotel which is hosting a couple of conventions. One of Dentists and the other of Super Hero's.
We follow her adventures and run-ins with a number of quirky characters and employees of the hotel as she tries to meet up with the man she thinks she loves and to discover who she really is. This is a great story, well written and compulsive reading. Certainly worth seeking out.
"Origin Stories" accompany's "Stranger Things Happen" which is number 331 of 500 signed numbered copies.
The first story titled "Origin Story" is copy write 2006 and was originally published in "A Public Space" Issue 1. It is the story of a young single mothers psycho/psychedelic musings on her life and of the fantasy world that sustains her in order to live her real life. This story left me kind of sad at it's conclusion.
The second story is "Secret Identity" from 2009 originally published in "Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd". This is a longer story concerning a fifteen year old girl from Iowa who travels to New York City, via bus, to meet up with a thirty-five year old man she met in a chess room in a video game. She arrives at a high priced hotel which is hosting a couple of conventions. One of Dentists and the other of Super Hero's.
We follow her adventures and run-ins with a number of quirky characters and employees of the hotel as she tries to meet up with the man she thinks she loves and to discover who she really is. This is a great story, well written and compulsive reading. Certainly worth seeking out.
"Origin Stories" accompany's "Stranger Things Happen" which is number 331 of 500 signed numbered copies.
June 23, 2015
The epigraph at the beginning of Link's Get in Trouble is, "Year after year/ On the monkey's face/ A monkey face." (Basho, translated by Robert Hass) I think it's pretty much the perfect epigraph for Link's work in Get In Trouble, a collection of short stories that includes "Origin Story" and "Secret Identity." It's a little punny, witty, and sarcastic but it fits each of these things inside a quick, trippy realism. In fact it was reading Origin Stories that made me skip over several books waiting patiently in their piles on my desk and immediately pick up Get in Trouble because I just had to have more.
Link's mentions of the Yellow Brick Road/Oz is pretty spot on as well. When you pick up with one of her short stories it's definitely similar to following a bright, winding road and ending up somewhere unexpected. I think "Origin Story" is my favorite because it's such a pure example of this. You get drips and splotches of the woven endgame throughout the whole story but it still shines when you end up stumbling across it.
Link's mentions of the Yellow Brick Road/Oz is pretty spot on as well. When you pick up with one of her short stories it's definitely similar to following a bright, winding road and ending up somewhere unexpected. I think "Origin Story" is my favorite because it's such a pure example of this. You get drips and splotches of the woven endgame throughout the whole story but it still shines when you end up stumbling across it.
August 30, 2021
I am certain this is excellent craftsmanship .... but I don't get it!
May 27, 2016
This beautifully produced, slim hardcover book holds two of Link's superhero-adjacent stories.
The first, title story, is world building through dialogue. Two characters talk about what's going on around them as the reader pieces together their relationship, the setting (a clever, but ruined, theme park), the rules for the world, and what the future might hold for the couple.
The second, Secret Identity, is more of a character study of a precocious teen who is trying to figure out her adult self. This might involve the mysterious Paul Zell, a man she befriended under false pretenses online, or maybe the superhero convention at the hotel, or maybe the dentists at their own convention, possibly the rebellious hotel employees she gets to know.
Both stories feature grounded protagonists in skewed, imaginative settings. Readers need to keep an open mind as they gather information in each story.
The first, title story, is world building through dialogue. Two characters talk about what's going on around them as the reader pieces together their relationship, the setting (a clever, but ruined, theme park), the rules for the world, and what the future might hold for the couple.
The second, Secret Identity, is more of a character study of a precocious teen who is trying to figure out her adult self. This might involve the mysterious Paul Zell, a man she befriended under false pretenses online, or maybe the superhero convention at the hotel, or maybe the dentists at their own convention, possibly the rebellious hotel employees she gets to know.
Both stories feature grounded protagonists in skewed, imaginative settings. Readers need to keep an open mind as they gather information in each story.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews