Synopsis
Seven dark, surreal stories by the award-winning author of Gun, with Occasional Music and Amnesia Moon include the tale of a couple who collects virtual reality copies of their former lovers.
Reviews
Although Lethem is claimed by the science fiction community as one of its own?last year, Locus magazine bestowed its Best First Novel award on his Gun, with Occasional Music?this relative newcomer's extraordinary work is really extra-genre, in the manner of Borges or William Burroughs. Each of the seven unsparing stories in this collection hangs a tale of considerable emotional and intellectual power on a futuristic hook. In "The Hardened Criminals," convicts in a state of semi-suspended animation have been set into a prison wall. "Light and the Sufferer" features a race of mute, panther-like space aliens who are visiting Earth. In "Forever, Said the Duck," a couple throws a party whose guests include virtual-reality copies of every lover the couple has known. It soon becomes clear that these hooks are in no way the focus of the stories. The space panthers seek out the depredations of drug culture, for instance, and when Nick Marra, the protagonist of "The Hardened Criminals," is jailed, he has an opportunity to meet his long-absent father, fused into the wall 13 years before. Lethem surpasses himself in this collection. The opening story, "The Happy Man," is a perfect parable about a man, Tom, allowed to return from death for short stretches to provide for his family. To do this, he must navigate Hell?an Alice-in-Wonderland environment ruled by a rapist incongruously called the Happy Man. Once in the real world, Tom struggles with his son, Peter, to unravel the Freudian mystery of that nightmare landscape, and winds up inventing a new hell for himself. In this story and a few others here, Lethem has created tales of such resonance that they graft themselves onto the subconscious.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Seven long stories--five reprints, two originals--from the author of Amnesia Moon (1995), etc. In ``The Happy Man,'' a dead man is brought back to life so he can support his family. Occasionally he subsides into a zombielike state while his soul is tortured in Hell: There's a plot payoff, but savvy readers will see it coming miles away. Future basketball players are given the skills of old-time stars like Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain, in ``Vanilla Dunk.'' A crack addict in ``Light and the Sufferer'' rips off his dealer, only to receive the baffling attentions of a curious and invulnerable alien. Stored computer personalities scheme to break free of their owners in ``Forever, Said the Duck.'' In ``The Hardened Criminals,'' convicts, crushed and plasticized, are used as building blocks for prisons. Of the two original entries, ``Five Fucks'' recounts how a woman who spends the night with a strange man finds that two weeks have passed in the outside world. This intriguing existential conundrum rapidly degenerates, however, into futile solipsism. And in ``Sleepy People'' the older generation gathers in bars to form militias, while amiable young hooligans lackadaisically terrorize the neighborhood, and some people mysteriously just sleep. Striking and fascinating though these ideas may be, Lethem often undermines their significance with bizarre, irrational, or meaningless developments. Frown, shrug, pass on. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Letham, whose quasi-sf novels (e.g., Gun, with Occasional Music, LJ 2/15/94) are perhaps better suited to Harlan Ellison's "speculative fiction" category than sf, is a hot young writer who regularly appears online with the hip digital pop culture rag Hotwired. This collection of short stories is sure to thrill his fans and affirm his high standing among young writers. The two best stories here, "The Happy Man," about a resurrected man whose soul must periodically return to Hell, and "Vanilla Dunk," a hilarious but credible spoof on professional basketball, are certain classics. The rest of the collection is a bit uneven, but Letham never falters simultaneously to unnerve and entertain readers through such otherwise fails examples as "Sleepy People," about a woman who finds a sleeping man on her front porch, and "The Hardened Criminals," wherein the still-animated heads of society's worst offenders are cemented together to form prison walls. Most popular fiction collections will want this.?Mark Annichiarico, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Lethem's acclaimed first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music (1994), a futuristic sendup of Hammett-style detective novels, trumpeted the arrival of an innovative new science-fiction talent. In his first collection of short fiction, Lethem further proves his mettle in seven diverse tales that show his uncanny knack for anchoring far-fetched ideas with riveting, keen-edged prose. In "Light and the Sufferer," a pantherlike alien dogs two drug dealers who try to flee New York. "The Happy Man" describes the plight of a fellow who is brought back from the dead to support his family, only to suffer periodic out-of-body sojourns to Hell. For Chicago Bulls fans, "Vanilla Dunk" depicts a future for NBA basketball in which a white player can boot Michael Jordan's playing skills up into his "exo-suit." Each tale features Lethem's characteristic deadpan wit and unflinchingly macabre vision of life. Lethem's genius can and should be enjoyed by mainstream fiction readers as well as sf fans. Carl Hays
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