Tag: Short stories
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The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories
Review: I have always had a pretty low opinion of Hemingway, macho douchebags like him piss me off and I love that Wallace Stevens punched his drunk ass out in Key west. Are you ready for the however pivot? (Here it is) However, this was brilliant. Top shelf. Amazing, gripping, heartfelt, totally absorbing. No wonder… Read more
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The Preserving Machine
Review: My first exposure to Philip K. Dick, which is weird considering how much I like Dicks. A dark journey into time, post-apocalyptic futures, and paranoid obsessive realism. Read the story that Total Recall was based on. Both are excellent, the story and the movie. I can see now why there is award called the… Read more
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Pleasures and Days
Review: A little gem of a book. All of Proust’s juvenilia, all written before he was 23. All of it excellent. The first story he is definitely working Tolstoy’s Death of Ivan Ilyich but with a more Proustian feel. The little vignette pieces are glorious. Moonlight walks through beech woods, you can really see the… Read more
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Within the Tides
Review: Four novellas/short stories from the master of nautical yarns. “The Planter of Malata” is a dark psychological tale of passion and deception. “The Partner” is an excellent tale of business treachery and scheming. “The Inn of the Two Witches” is very reminiscent of Alamayer’s Folly or even Heart of Darkness. A boat with a… Read more
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The Mammoth Book of Extreme SF
Review: Well exited volume from Mike Ashley, as always. Hard, hard SF. Lots of science, time paradoxes, and more science. Took some doing to get it done, but it was worth it to get out of comfortable SF for a bit Overall rating: How I discovered or acquired this book: Amazon recco Noteworthy experiences while… Read more
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The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures
Review: Superb selection of Jules Verne pastiches. Some very thoughtful, some very modern, all very well written. Will check out some of the authors’ other works. Especially Peter Crowther, that story and the name of that bar. Gotta see more of that. Overall rating: How I discovered or acquired this book: Finishing half-read books Noteworthy… Read more
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Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Short Stories
Review: Harold Bloom hated Poe. I can understand that now. He has one or two outstanding stories, then you wade through a bunch of oddities, articles, hoaxes, and sub-par parables, analogies and other distractions. It was good to get it all read, so you don’t just listen to the singles, you made it through the… Read more