The Midtown Butcher

by Andy Weir

Original Fiction, Short Story, Crime Fiction

Michelle fanned herself in the sweltering evening. As a college student living alone, she couldn’t afford a place with central air, and her dingy apartment’s wall-mounted air conditioner was a joke.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Audiobook, Science Fiction, Mystery Thriller, Novels, Crime

3 pages, ebook

First published March 16, 2014

About the author

ANDY WEIR built a career as a software engineer until the success of his first published novel, THE MARTIAN, allowed him to live out his dream of writing fulltime. He is a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of subjects such as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. He also mixes a mean cocktail. He lives in California. Andy’s next book, ARTEMIS, is available now.

Reviews

[رزی - Woman, Life, Liberty · Rating 3 out of 5]

من برگشتم با ترجمه‌ی جدید🌚

داستان «سلاخ میدتاون» با چاشنی قتل سریالی، دختر لخت و گربه‌ی ناز :>

فایل ترجمه‌هام رو اینجا می‌ذارم:
https://t.me/TranslationZahra

[Mario · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Not one of my favorite stories by Wier, but still a fun read.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun, very short thriller by the author of "The Martian". Read it for free here:
http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/midt...

[Ankit Saxena · Rating 4 out of 5]

WOW. Playing with mental peace and making it just a piece. Andy is too good at creating twisting climaxes to short reads. Psychological killer; what a twist? Incredible.

[Fatemeh Bahrami · Rating 4 out of 5]

کم پیش می‌آد از داستان کوتاهی خوشم بیاد، ولی «سلاخ میدتاون» یکی از بهترین‌ها بود. حجم کم، پلات قوی و غافل‌گیری! ممنون از رزی و ترجمه‌ی خوبش، صبحم زیبا شد!✨

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Nothing special.

[Nadin Doughem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, that was quite unpredictable! :)
Enjoyable, trust me!

[Faezeh Saberi · Rating 3 out of 5]

۳ ستاره چون کشش داشت اما داستان محال بود

[Anvi (warner's version) · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOL🤣 3.75 ⭐️

[Todd Coburn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did not see this one coming.

Short. Free. What's not to like?

I am starting to appreciate these little shorties by Andy Weir. They stir the imagination enough to provide a break from the pressures of the day, and are short enough to enjoy without really getting distracted for more than a moment.

Thank you Andy.

[philosophie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Binge-reading all of Andy Weir's short stories today.
This one fell short for me, it was extremely predictable.

[Unsolved ☕︎ Mystery · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh, I didn't like this one. I didn't care for the ending.

Read it here.

I hope Andy Weir will one day write a suspense novel.



Prequel to The Martian

The Martian

Bored World

Antihypoxiant

Meeting Sarah

Access

The Real Deal

The Chef

The Egg

Annie's Day

[Amanda [Novel Addiction] · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perhaps because I have read too many of Weir's short stories in such a short time - I was able to see this coming. I also didn't think it was anywhere near as well written as some of his other stories.

That said, hey, it was an entertaining three minutes while I read the story, so ... that's cool.

[Ken Mandap · Rating 5 out of 5]

Witty short story.

[Tim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Free short story at Galactanet.com. It's a mystery story, a bit of a thriller. Starts well, but then quickly descends into... mediocrity or anything along those line.

And what a surprise, Michelle seems to be the Midtown Butcher. Definitely not Weird's best short story.

[Pamala · Rating 1 out of 5]

The ending and the story line just did not weave together

[Remo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una más de las historias cortas de Weir, "with a twist". Si sabes que el autor siempre mete un giro importante en la historia hay veces que adivinas el final, claro. Pero aun así me parece bien escrita. Muy corta, eso sí.

[estrella ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

what?

[bookaholic_kim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh for me. Giving it 1 star.

If this is not your first short story by Andy Weir then you already know his writing style. I have predicted the plot twist but I think that the story line and the ending does not go together like it just happened and I was like - "What was that?" It seemed that it is monotonous in my opinion. On the bright side, it gave me something to ponder.

But this will not stop me in reading the other short stories of Andy Weir.

[Mayank Agarwal · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing didn't support the plotting.


If she was the killer why was she scared the killer had come for her?
Or
Was the cop the killer ?
Or
Was she having a hidden multi personality ?

[Molly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Again, I expected that twist at the end (the least interesting of the Weir shorts till now).

[Jokoloyo · Rating 1 out of 5]

The twisting is good, but this story requires a little bit of more clue.

[Lau · Rating 2 out of 5]

No es que esté mal, pero me resultó muy obvio.

[uma · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG WHAT?!?! This is definitely one of my favorite short stories by Andy Weir.

[Jessica (JT) · Rating 2 out of 5]

A free short story available on Andy Weir's website.

One of the more boring short stories I have seen from Weir so far. Still had a twist that made me read it twice though!

[Kaylee · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing is juvenile. There's not much of a plot, the adult narrator sounds like a teenager, and Weir uses too many uncommon words in quick succession:

She turned the TV off. Nothing interesting to watch.

With a sigh, she pulled herself off the couch and trudged to the bathroom. She turned on the shower and doffed her clothes. After the water warmed to a reasonable temperature, she adjusted it to be a little colder than usual.

She stepped in and let the refreshing water wash over her. It coruscated down her body in rivulets of relief from the sticky heat she had endured all day.

On its on, "endured" would have been fine, but the rest of it is painfully overdone, and that makes even the fairly common slight-exaggeration come across as overly dramatic.

The ending is pretty good, but not good enough to save the story. I get the impression that a young Weir thought of a clever ending, but didn't know how to write an actual story to lead up to that ending, so everything before the last two paragraphs is just filler.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

This confused the F out of me because I thought "it can't be THAT obvious, right?" I thought there must be an extra twist.

Two issues

(1) Why is she so scared of the police? They're not going to kill her on the spot.

(2) Police don't enter a house like that to arrest a suspect. They would first make sure to cover any exits. Then they would loudly barge in and announce themselves. A single police officer going in like that is very unsafe. What if the suspect takes them by surprise?

So yeah, a weird one.

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I kind of guessed at the ending right away because I've read more of the authors short stories, but I thought that couldn't be the twist because it wouldn't make sense.

You can read it online, here:
http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/midt...

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kinda amusing, but if it were two or three times longer, it would have been 2/5 for lameness. The ending was not cohesive with the earlier part. What? Does she have a psychological disorder and not remember anything? Meh.

[luiloth · Rating 2 out of 5]

http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/midt...