The Cleft and Other Odd Tales [Hardcover]

Gahan Wilson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1998

From the horror of blot to the gentle unease of Campfire Story, from the classic oral-horror style of The Marble Boy to the science fiction scares of It Twineth Round Thee in Thy Joy, this collection shows Wilson at his very best.Originally published in Playboy, Omni, and notable anthologies such as Again, Dangerous Visions, Wilson's short fiction is gathered here for the first time. The 24 stories are each accompanied by an original, full-page illustration done especially for this volume.Gahan Wilson has won two World Fantasy Awards and the Bram Stoker Award for Life Achievement. His most recent cartoon collection is Gahan Wilson's Even Weirder. His latest CD-ROM is Gahan Wilson's The Ultimate Haunted House.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

World Fantasy Award- and Bram Stoker Award-winner Gahan Wilson is best known as a cartoonist, his work gathered in numerous collections drawn from Playboy, The New Yorker, and The National Lampoon, but he is also a writer. His fiction is the equal of his cartoons--delightfully macabre, witty, and warped--but apparently has never been collected until The Cleft and Other Odd Tales, which contains 24 short stories and short-shorts that range across a startling breadth of genres: horror, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, supernatural-detective, and even Oriental pulp adventure. Each tale is narrated in a unique, engaging voice and accompanied by a deliciously grim original illustration.

In "Sea Gulls," an unhappy husband bent on murder finds his plans for his wife foiled in peculiar and chilling ways. In "The Casino Mirago," a desperate international fugitive finds himself in the most clandestine of gaming establishments, gambling for very strange stakes. In "Them Bleaks," a horror writer finds he has moved his family to a small town frightfully unsuited to his expectations. --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Though he's better known for his darkly funny cartoon grotesqueries than for his short stories, Wilson has written numerous tales whose weird wit matches that of his drawings. In fact, an aptly odd original illustration accompanies each of the 24 stories?many previously published in Playboy or genre magazines?in this collection, which traces Wilson's writing career from 1962 ("The Book"; "Phyllis") through 1998 ("The Cleft"). Wilson writes in a straightforward, intelligent, anecdotal style that presents an amusingly sinister look at humanity. Many of the stories are first-person narratives told in distinctive character voices, varying from the boyish breathlessness of the graveyard classic "The Marble Boy" to the cattily feminine purr of "Best Friends." In "The Sea Was Wet As Wet Can Be," perhaps the book's most chilling tale, Wilson combines Lewis Carroll, the vapid lives of the well-to-do and genuine horror with impressive originality. There is a strain of social satire in many of the stories, as members of the upper classes often meet unusual?and decidedly unpleasant?fates. In "Them Bleaks," Wilson describes a certain ghoulish item as "a macabre object, without doubt, but it undeniably had a peculiar kind of charm." The same can be said of this collection.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (October 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312865740
• ISBN-13: 978-0312865740
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,817,709 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quirky and always surprising, October 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Cleft and Other Odd Tales (Paperback)

What an unusual book! This is my first exposure to any of Mr. Wilson's work and I am completely charmed. The illustration at the start of each story provides a clue to it's ending. It became fun to study the picture and hope that I could guess what was to come. I was never able to do it! The stories are a complete and engaging mystery until the very end. I especially enjoyed the macabre view Mr. Wilson took of several characters from the literature of my childhood. "The Sea Was Wet as Wet Could Be" seems like the sort of fairy tale the would result from joint writing between Robert Louis Stevenson and Steven King. Odd and unexpected tales that were a genuine joy to read. I can't wait to explore the rest of Mr. Wilson's work.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous, May 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Cleft and Other Odd Tales (Hardcover)

This book sent shivers down my spine and for days I was paralysed with terror. Hilariously disturbing - I absolutely loved the story about the blob. Gahan Wilson has a tremendous sense of the macabre, I laughed and laughed.

5.0 out of 5 stars Odd, but in a good way, February 6, 2008

By 

chilirlw "chilirlw" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cleft and Other Odd Tales (Paperback)

Wilson is an absolute master of the weird tale, and a writer whose prose is a pleasure in itself. How can you resist an opening sentence like this one from "The Casino Mirago": "At the end of a very long chain of many things gone most astonishingly wrong I found myself booked out of season under an assumed name in the grandest suite of a Hotel Splendide located on the coast of Portugal."?