Not a keeper. Even in his novellength work I prefer Wilson's sciencefiction rather than his horroreven though it's his horror that's much more popular.
I didn't care for The Keep and preferred his much more obscure The LaNague Chronicles, Half of thesestories are oldfashioned horror of the supernatural kind, Half are science fiction. Although quite a few of those have a horror flavor, Wilson doesn't give Stephen King or Isaac Asimov a run for their money, I can't say I find any of the stories particularly memorableexcept "Buckets" which I did remember right from the opening lines from my first read of this years agoproblem is it's the story in the anthology I disliked the most.
True, I don't care for the antiabortion message, but I also thought it eyerollingly heavyhanded, The same could be said of "Lipidleggin'"even if thestory does seem rather prophetic in its food police and I agree with its libertarian message.
And I found other such message stories such as "Be Fruitful and Multiply" even more clunkily trailing anvilsand too far fetched to allow me to suspend my disbelief.
My favorite story in the book was the one with no whiff of horror, the most upbeat of the bunch, and I thought the one with the most clever twist"To Fill the Sea and Air.
" But I don't like it enough to let this book continue to claim shelfspace, Grab this if you can find it, A terrific collection for horror fans, I especially liked "Soft" and "Buckets", Every story is good, and they're all different enough that you can go through the lot pretty quick,
This was a reread, but I've taken to calling corporate people "Giraffes" from Lipidleggin' and have been saying it for years Great collection of stories.
. I really liked it Had a few good stories and a few bad ones, "Buckets" made me want to never read an F, Paul Wilson book again, and I love his writing, But Menage a Trois was fun, This is actually my favorite book by Wilson, a collection of his short stories, Potent stuff. Short story horror collection. One, has person documenting how he is losing skeleton while his body turns to flaccid mush, Other stories flaccid and unmemorable, I only listened to “Soft”, Started to read this collection around the half way point, I plan to get back to this in a few weeks Generally when I read horror it is by people who I would consider "liberal" in their views so it was interesting to read horror by someone who I and many other people would consider "conservative".
I didn't realize the author wrote this way so it came as a bit of a surprise, Writing is fine but I dont share the authors views and some of what he considers horror just makes me sad.
"Buckets" was the tipping point, Reading a prolife horror story definitely made me feel some emotions but not in the way the author probably intended.
Not a bad choice to take a step away from reading a bunch of "series", Some stories definately show a bit of imagination, Presents a collection of horror short stories, among them Soft, Green Winter, and The Cleaning Machine,
Contents:
The Cleaning Machine
Ratman
Lipidleggin'
To Fill the Sea and Air
Green Winter
Be Fruitful and Multiply
Soft
The Last One Mo' Once Golden Oldies Revival
The Years the Music Died
DatTayVao
Doc Johnson
Buckets
Traps
Muscles
Menage a Trois
Cuts
Bonus stories
Performance
Night Dive
Memoirs of the Effster
Rumors
Hunters A mixed bunch of stories tracking Wilson's beginning and growth as a short story writer.
It was fascinating to see how he matured over the years and honed his skills, Understandably, the earlier stories are weaker and they keep on getting better, Hard to find collection, but worth tracking it down, On the whole, this was
a pleasant bag of literary trail mix with enough tasty morsels to make the overall experience a satisfying one.
Being a real fan of a number of F, Paul Wilson's novels, especially the LaNague Federation and Repairman Jack series, I was excited to finally read this collection of his short fiction.
Im glad I did because there are a few “must read” gems lurking within these pages, While the quality of the stories was a tad uneven, I have come to expect this from short story collections and was more than happy to sift through the chaff to locate the wheat.
In my opinion, the quality efforts in this collection definitely make this worth sampling,
That said, the collection starts off tragically with a couple of pisspoor pieces called The Cleaning Machine and Ratman, both of which I thought were several rungs below okay and read very much like rough drafts.
After finishing these two, I thought I may have stepped in a pile and was barely containing my disappointment when the third story, Lipidleggin, turned out to be a lot of fun and restored my hopes for the balance of the tales.
In this piece, Wilson coddles his libertarian leanings to very pleasant effect by depicting a future dystopia where all the scrumptious “fatty foods” that make life worth living have been made illegal by a government concerned with the rising health costs resulting from too much obesity.
Think it cant happen Don't be too sure, Regardless, this one got a solidfrom me as I thought it was a great idea that was competently executed and displayed some warm humor as well.
To Fill the Sea and Air also garnered astar rating, An interesting SF fishing story with a main character that reminded me of Hemingways Santiago the titular “Old Man” from sitelinkThe Old Man and the Sea.
The story had some flaws and the point of the story was a little murky, but overall I thought it was a solid tale with an engaging main character.
Up to this point, I still hadnt come across anything to really geek out about or holler Wow, Wow Wubbzy at the top of my lungs, but that all changed with Green Winter, which was terrific and showed Wilson coming into his own.
Set in a postapocalyptic U, S. and dealing with geneticengineering, biochemical manipulation and what it means to be human, this story displayed Wilsons strongest writing so far and brought a real sense of emotion to the narrative for the first time.
I dont want to give away the unfolding of the plot device as its part of the stories charm, but this was an easystar read for me.
Another aboveaverage story is Be Fruitful and Multiply which is a wonderful tale taking a darkly humorous look at a Malthusian catastrophe.
Both funny and chilling at the same time, the plot deals with the intersection of statesponsored religious fervor, advanced technology and mass media coming together to screw society into an unstoppable population explosion pun very intended.
Next up is Soft which is probably my favorite piece in the entire collection.
Deftly written and skincrawlingly horrific, the story centers around an unusual plague that strikes at random and causes all calcium within each victim's bones to turn to dust, killing them slowly as they turn into human jellyfish.
Told from the perspective of an afflicted father and daughter, this one packs an emotional wallop including a truly haunting, memorable ending.
big for this great tale,
The next two stories, The Last “One Mo Once Golden Oldies Revival” and The Years the Music Died are related stories injecting horror and vast global conspiracies into the world of music.
Good quality stories that I thought were enjoyable, Both betweenandand both demonstrate Wilsons storytelling range,
DatTayVao is set during the Vietnam War and concerns local folklore of a vast healing power residing within certain special individuals.
Wilson presents a nice contrast between the power to heal and the brutal ability to destroy locked within the human animal.
.stars.
Doc Johnson is set within the fictional city of Greystone Bay created by Charles L.
Grant. This was my first experience with this setting and so some of the nuance may have been lost on me, but I thought it was a good solid piece about a new doctor coming to the strange town and being taught the ropes as well as “the rules” by old Doc Johnson.
Buckets is another standout horror piece that is also the most controversial tale in the collection.
A creepy, gorrific Halloween piece about a doctor visited by some very unusual trickortreaters, all carrying unusual metal buckets full of no spoilers.
A definite shiverfestto.stars.
Traps was craps and was probably my least favorite of the collection, I'll toss it.because by this point Wilson had entertained me enough that I was feeling generous,
Muscles was awesome and another big standout for me, An editor for a "national enquirer" type magazine on the hunt for a story comes across Circus freaks, ghost rapes and OMG offspring.
It doesnt get much better than that, A classic horror story with a great ending,.to.stars.
The collection ends strong with Cuts, a wonderful writerrevengefantasy about an author getting “over the top” payback on the producer who turned his novel into a real dump of a movie.
In the intro to this tale, Wilson mentions how furious he was about the movie version of his novel sitelinkThe Keep and that it was certainly the inspiration for this tale of movemaker comeuppance.
Overall, some good, some bad and some truly excellent, In my opinion, the better stories make this collection worth checking out,.stars. Recommended!!
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