Eye Books In Print, Audio Books.|
Eye buy bestselling books in print, audio books |
 |
List Price: $40.00 Our Price: You Save: $0 |
| [ + Zoom ] [ Buy Now ] | Book : This item is currently not available. |
|
|
| ♥♥♥♥♥ | These tales resonate in the heart, the mind, and the gut |
| Some stories resonate in the heart, some in the mind, others in the gut. Then, there are the stories of David Schow, which usually manage to touch all three. Nowhere is this more evident than in Eye, Schow's fifth short collection. Featuring thirteen entries (the lettered edition contains "Murder," a bonus tale inserted, according to Schow, "to make the breath taking price tag seem more justified"), this collection demonstrates why Schow is one of the premier short story writers working today, in- or outside horror.
The stories range over varied territory, including "Bagged," a vampire hunter tale with a wicked twist, "Petition," a story about prayers answered in a shocking manner, and "Blessed Event," which deals with the uncertainties every parent feels when expecting a child. Also included are a number of tales that explore the uneasy relationship between the sexes, including "Entr'acte," a classic "woman as other" story, "Holiday," in which a hapless protagonist deals with an unruly tattoo, "Calendar Girl," dealing with a youth stealing succubus, and "Why Rudy Can't Read," an unsettling tale of mutant powers and domestic violence. Most intriguing, however, are the tales in which Schow, consciously or unconsciously, channels other masters of the form. Thus, one encounters "Unhasped," which evokes Harlan Ellison's "All the Birds Come Home to Roost," "Saturnalia," whose twist ending brings to mind Roald Dahl's "The Visitor," the brutal "Quebrador," reminiscent of Hemingway's bullfighting tales, plus the sobering "2A Worth" and the irreverent "Scoop Goes Rectosonic, " inspired by the works of Ray Bradbury and Robert Bloch, respectively. No mere homages, and certainly not imitations, these tales can be truly said to have been "inspired by" those masters. Schow grabs familiar concepts and molds them to his liking, in the end coming up with something totally fresh and unexpected. Robert Bloch touches on this talent in his introduction to Schow's last collection, Crypt Orchids: "In offering gore as allegory, Schow transcends the trendy, but he makes expert use of contemporary pop culture. His frame of reference is that of a majority of his readers...But unlike many of those readers he also possesses a broad knowledge of the classics both within and beyond his personal genre. And he enriches that knowledge with personal assessments of the hallucinogenic hell we laughingly label the real' world." By far the most disturbing example of Schow's writing, however, is contained in the author's afterward, entitled "A Poke in the I", detailing an accident in which Schow "scooped a divot out of" his cornea. Incredibly graphic, it makes for true edge of the seat reading, frightening and involving because it's true. Ones own eyes ache after finishing (Schow made a full recovery, by the way) and the story's catch phrase, "Flinching yet?" echoes in memory. It's the perfect capper to this compelling collection, leaving readers with the same sense of unease generated by Schow's fictional efforts. |
|
|