Five darkly erotic short novels that entwine love and death, with horror boosting the sex, by World Fantasy Award winner Simmons (Children of Night, 1992, etc.). Simmons has never been more stylish than here, with the short novel form compressing his effects and squeezing a lurid glow from each page. Best of all, each piece stands richly distinct from its companions and casually shows fearful labors of research uncommon to the horror genre, with writing of an unhackneyed freshness seldom found among the kings and queens of gore. ``Entropy's Bed at Midnight'' tells of the woes and fears of an accident-insurance investigator, his mind a library of fatalities, whose young son died in a freak driveway accident and who now watches his five- year-old daughter set forth alone on a screamer slope for sleds. ``Dying in Bangkok'' unveils a sucker-tongued female vampire in a superbly drawn Bangkok, whose Thai clients pay her to suck blood from their erections—a revenge tale whose twist would delight Poe. ``The Man Who Slept with Teeth Women'' tells of the astral initiation of an adolescent Sioux who will be the wise man of his tribe, of his need to choose a bride from lovers with teeth in their vaginas, and of his climactic penetration. ``Flashback'' is an sf story about a near-future family hooked on a drug that induces flashbacks so that one may relive high-intensity and even imaginary moments in one's life. Explosively gory, ``The Great Lover'' is a relentless tour de force that may well become a classic (along with ``Dying in Bangkok''). Drawing on poems by WW I poets and attributing them to a single poet, this works a variation of the visionary Angel of the Somme (a glowing woman whom soldiers saw walking the battlefield) and turns her into Death as a languorously sexual Pre-Raphaelite goddess whose embrace transcends life. Enduring stuff—even more memorable than Simmons's novels.
Pub Date: Nov. 9, 1993
ISBN: 0-446-51756-9
Page Count: 336
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1993
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The previous books of this author (Devil of a State, 1962; The Right to an Answer, 1961) had valid points of satire, some humor, and a contemporary view, but here the picture is all out—from a time in the future to an argot that makes such demands on the reader that no one could care less after the first two pages.
If anyone geta beyond that—this is the first person story of Alex, a teen-age hoodlum, who, in step with his times, viddies himself and the world around him without a care for law, decency, honesty; whose autobiographical language has droogies to follow his orders, wallow in his hate and murder moods, accents the vonof human hole products. Betrayed by his dictatorial demands by a policing of his violence, he is committed when an old lady dies after an attack; he kills again in prison; he submits to a new method that will destroy his criminal impulses; blameless, he is returned to a world that visits immediate retribution on him; he is, when an accidental propulsion to death does not destroy him, foisted upon society once more in his original state of sin.
What happens to Alex is terrible but it is worse for the reader.
Pub Date: Jan. 8, 1962
ISBN: 0393928098
Page Count: 357
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1962
SEEN & HEARD
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