Clever and often impressive work that succeeds, mostly, in being more than a mere exercise in nostalgia.
Seventeen all-new tales emulating, or re-creating, the ambience of classic Victorian supernatural suspense.
Not unexpectedly, London with its smog haunts of ill repute and real-life history is the favored, sometimes quite imaginary, but by no means exclusive venue. The standouts: Peter S. Beagle's typically lyrical and brilliant conjuring of ghostly voices in an alternate-world past. Gene Wolfe, in inimitable style, gives us a murderer who's brilliantly duped by a vengeful not-quite-ghost. Lucius Shepard weighs in with a creepy tale of a ghost-trapping machine, obsession and incest. John Harwood writes a lethal manuscript. Laird Barron describes devilish sprits, some in human guise, roaming the wilds of Washington State. From Jeffrey Ford comes a fine tale from the early career of Cley, his splendidly deluded Physiognomist. Paul Park offers an eerie, jangling tale of New Orleans wherein nothing is what it seems and, indeed, seems to deny that anything ever could be. And John Langan's effervescently titled "The Unbearable Proximity of Mr. Dunn's Balloons" conjures up some oozily nasty alien vampires. Elsewhere, Robert Silverberg offers a perfect Kipling-esque period piece without surprises; James Morrow's ghost-trapping metal shroud falls apart from illogic; Terry Dowling describes a demonic mummy; Garth Nix offers an imaginative but overdone Sherlock Holmes pastiche; plus, a time-travelling succubus (Margo Lanagan), a ghostly alien invader (Sean Williams), a machine that cures mental illness (Richard Harland), a ghost in a mirror (Marly Youmans) and, with a decidedly modern sensibility, the ghost of a murdered poet (Theodora Goss).
Clever and often impressive work that succeeds, mostly, in being more than a mere exercise in nostalgia.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-199971-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
This brilliant bit of nihilism succeeds where so many self-described transgressive novels do not: It's dangerous because...
Brutal and relentless debut fiction takes anarcho-S&M chic to a whole new level—in a creepy, dystopic, confrontational novel that's also cynically smart and sharply written.
Palahniuk's insomniac narrator, a drone who works as a product recall coordinator, spends his free time crashing support groups for the dying. But his after-hours life changes for the weirder when he hooks up with Tyler Durden, a waiter and projectionist with plans to screw up the world—he's a "guerilla terrorist of the service industry." "Project Mayhem" seems taken from a page in The Anarchist Cookbook and starts small: Durden splices subliminal scenes of porno into family films and he spits into customers' soup. Things take off, though, when he begins the fight club—a gruesome late-night sport in which men beat each other up as partial initiation into Durden's bigger scheme: a supersecret strike group to carry out his wilder ideas. Durden finances his scheme with a soap-making business that secretly steals its main ingredient—the fat sucked from liposuction. Durden's cultlike groups spread like wildfire, his followers recognizable by their open wounds and scars. Seeking oblivion and self-destruction, the leader preaches anarchist fundamentalism: "Losing all hope was freedom," and "Everything is falling apart"—all of which is just his desperate attempt to get God's attention. As the narrator begins to reject Durden's revolution, he starts to realize that the legendary lunatic is just himself, or the part of himself that takes over when he falls asleep. Though he lands in heaven, which closely resembles a psycho ward, the narrator/Durden lives on in his flourishing clubs.
This brilliant bit of nihilism succeeds where so many self-described transgressive novels do not: It's dangerous because it's so compelling.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-393-03976-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1996
BOOK TO SCREEN
A captivating start to what promises to be an epic post-apocalyptic fable.
The first volume in Carey’s Rampart trilogy is set centuries into a future shaped by war and climate change, where the scant remains of humankind are threatened by genetically modified trees and plants.
Teenager Koli Woodsmith lives in Mythen Rood, a village of about 200 people in a place called Ingland, which has other names such as “Briton and Albion and Yewkay.” He was raised to cultivate, and kill, the wood from the dangerous trees beyond Mythen Rood’s protective walls. Mythen Rood is governed by the Ramparts (made up entirely of members of one family—what a coincidence), who protect the village with ancient, solar-powered tech. After the Waiting, a time in which each child, upon turning 15, must decide their future, Koli takes the Rampart test: He must “awaken” a piece of old tech. After he inevitably fails, he steals a music player which houses a charming “manic pixie dream girl” AI named Monono, who reveals a universe of knowledge. Of course, a little bit of knowledge can threaten entire societies or, in Koli’s case, a village held in thrall to a family with unfettered access to powerful weapons. Koli attempts to use the device to become a Rampart, he becomes their greatest threat, and he’s exiled to the world beyond Mythen Rood. Luckily, the pragmatic Koli has his wits, Monono, and an ally in Ursala, a traveling doctor who strives to usher in a healthy new generation of babies before humanity dies out for good. Koli will need all the help he can get, especially when he’s captured by a fearsome group ruled by a mad messianic figure who claims to have psychic abilities. Narrator Koli’s inquisitive mind and kind heart make him the perfect guide to Carey’s (Someone Like Me, 2018, etc.) immersive, impeccably rendered world, and his speech and way of life are different enough to imagine the weight of what was lost but still achingly familiar, and as always, Carey leavens his often bleak scenarios with empathy and hope. Readers will be thrilled to know the next two books will be published in short order.
A captivating start to what promises to be an epic post-apocalyptic fable.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-47753-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Orbit/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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