Customer Reviews

The Best of Joe R. Lansdale

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Joe Lansdale is the bare-knuckled, no-holds-barred voice of American fiction - a shrewd genius who buries in what seems on the surface to be good ole boy yucks and corn pone a keen insight and deep morality. "The Best of Joe R. Lansdale" is an extraordinarily entertaining anthology that captures the author's versatility and brilliance - a thrill and chill-packed collection of short stories crossing boundaries of horror, drama, and cynically black humor - all creative, off-the-wall, and a lot of fun.

There's not a turkey in the bunch, but my favorites:

"The Big Blow": a fictional but well-researched tale of the deadly Galveston hurricane of 1900, spiced with an illicit boxing match between the first black heavy weight champion, Jack Johnson, and the most vile, despicably drawn opponent I can even remember reading.

"Mad Dog Summer": a moving and poignant tale of racial tension and Great Depression economics combined with gothic mystery - suspenseful with a supernatural lilt. I assume this was the basis for "The Bottoms," one of my all-time favorite Lansdale novels.

"Incidents On and Off a Mountain Road": classic suspense and horror with a wicked and totally unexpected twist.

"On the Far Side of the Cadillac Dessert with Dead Folks": with a title like this, you know you're gonna get an extra dose of Lansdale's mischief. Sure to offend many, leave it to Lansdale to twist zombies and Disney and Christianity around a malignant version of a Michael Crichton plot.

"Bubba Ho-Tep": so what if Elvis really was still alive, and it was actually an Elvis impersonator that died? Whatever you can imagine, I can pretty much guarantee this is not what you're thinking.

"The Events Concerning a Nude Fold-Out in a Harlequin Romance": another wacky-great title, leading into an unlikely murder mystery with well drawn characters featuring Lansdale's unique brand of humor and razor-sharp metaphors.

And perhaps the best, "Steppin' Out, Summer, `68": a coming of age tale so darkly funny that only Lansdale's beautifully warped mind could have spun a story that so-well captures the pressures and myths of a trio of teens' passage into adulthood combined with such hilariously disastrous results. Terrific character development, a sneaky pace, and an outrageous climax make this a classic that deserves a bushel of awards.

Trust me - Joe Lansdale is the real deal, an all original American treasure. If you haven't discovered him yet, I can't think of a better place to start than here. And for the fan, what I great place to get some additional insight into the source of the author's creativity and prolificacy.

Letting the imagination take flight,(What a beautiful cover)THE BEST OF JOE R. LANSDALE, the stories
from this man have stuck with me for years, always look forward
to whatever he pulls out of his head, he is a master of his craft and what can you say about this "Best of", I'm sure their are actually many
of Joe's favorites included here, I've read many of these stories(many, many times over already) but
from the cover art to the back this is first class assault to the senses, one hell of a ride into the odd, bizarre & mixed with heart and soul and some real life sprinkled in. A best of collection to
take out and enjoy for all its thrilling, off the wall stories. Still
knows how to dig deep and tell a mean story and a favorite with
few peers to compare to. Long live Joe R. Lansdale!!

This title doesn't lie. It is truly the best of Joe R Lansdale. He can tell a story like you're sitting in the room listening to him. These stories won't disappoint.

I haven't laughed so much in years! Bubba Ho Tep alone, was worth the purchase price! Wonderful stories in here.

The Best of Joe R Lansdale collection lives up to its title. There wasn't one story I skipped through. No matter who's short story collection it is, I always manage to get bored with at least one story, but not here. It has Southern flare, and that hard hitting splatter that Joe R Lansdale is famous for. I felt transported by every story. The writing is vivid, quirky and fresh. I highly recommend this.

Trying to describe the short stories of Joe Lansdale is awfully tough to do. Imagine the low-key but well-crafted characters of Stephen King, the gore and splattery sensibility of Sam Raimi, and add in a Texas redneck twang, and you might get some sense of what you're in for, but even that doesn't convey the sharp writing, the suprisingly strong emotional cores, or the pitch-black comedy that underlies some of the horrors that await you in these pages. Here's a collection with stories about Godzilla in a 12-step program to quit demolishing cities, an elderly Elvis teaming up with a black JFK in a nursing home to fight mummies, a detective story about a poodle trainer who might be killing people, a man struggling to find a wild mule and its best friend (a pig), and a bizarre post-apocalyptic zombie tale about a Christian-themed amusement park and an unusual interpretation of the Bible. And that doesn't even get into some of the best stories in the collection. There's so much here you could talk about: from Lansdale's unusual but pitch-perfect analogies and comparisons to his nasty but effective sense of humor, from his amazing use of lowbrow characters and dialogue to sketch a story (my favorite dose may be the bathroom graffiti of "Bubba Ho-Tep") to his ability to evoke wonder and horror all at once. But at his best - and I'm thinking here of stories like "Mad Dog Summer," The Cowboy," and "Not From Detroit" - Lansdale can really affect the reader, bringing out surprisingly effective emotion that touches deeply while never feeling cheap or manipulative. Between this and the amazing The Complete Drive-In, I think I'm sold on Lansdale and dying to check out more of his work. And if you've never read any, but the description of a lowbrow Texas redneck splatterpunk horror author with a lot of heart intrigues you - trust me, you have to get started on this one, and do it soon.

Not since Stephen King have I read a collection of short stories as great is this. This is American gothic at its finest. This collection contains some mind-bending tales, dark comedy and twisted horror set mostly in the southwest and Texas. My Top three tales in this book are Bubba Ho-Tep, a tale about Elvis and Black J.F.K. fighting a soul sucking mummy in a nursing home, Incident On and Off a Mountain Road, a cat and well, meaner cat tale of tough as nails survivalist woman stranded in a forest after an auto accident being chased by a psycho serial killer and Not From Detroit, where a man takes on the grim reaper himself, both in vehicular combat and physical altercation. These stories reminded me of a modern Mark Twain, very enthralling, a touch of nostalgia and well verbally painted scenes. This book is not for the uber politically correct. It contains quite a bit of racial epithets told in context for the stories character's and time periods and a lot of gratuitous violence. I greatly enjoyed Mr. Lansdale's tales of Texas weirdness and look forward to reading more of his work in the future. I recommend this to fans of any horror and suspense stories.

The problem with "Best of" books is that it is very subjective. A lot of the stories in this collection are great, but I would not consider many of them to be among Lansdale's "best". Another problem is that many of the stories in this collection are novellas, reaching 45+ pages. This takes away from the variety that the short story collection form offers. But besides those minor criticisms, the book is great, it showcases a wide variety of genres, and it is entertaining. It has several stories I haven't read before or are hard to find, which alone is worth the cost.

Joe R. Lansdale is still as sharp as a razor blade. His mixture of satire, horror, and mystery, mixed with atmospheric social commentary is both entertaining and thought provoking. His originality is a refreshing change from the mediocraty so often seen in recent literature. The one complaint I have is no Hap and Leonard stories.

I own pretty much everything and anything written by Joe R. Lansdale, who is dark and funny and weirdly profound all at the same time. His writing is unique, generally brilliant and always original.