Customer Reviews

Collected Stories

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I first discovered Lewis Shiner about 16 years ago. I was looking for nothing more than a nice escapist book I could read. Wandering through the library I some how ran across Glimpses; being a Doors fan and a Rock `n' Roll fan in general I checked out the book (literally) and it was great! I found myself reading the book once a year for the next two years and discovered something new in it each time. As new books came out, Say Goodbye, Black & White, I haven't been disappointed in a book written by Lewis Shiner yet.

Reading the stories in Collected Stories, I find myself thinking of it as something like Harlan Ellison's, Dangerous Visions. It's hard to say that comparison comes to mind, both books have a lot of science fiction stories in them. Both books have a paragraph or two written about the story; Shiner in an author's notes section following the stories, and Ellison as a preface to each story. The books don't feel similar in tone or content, all the stories in Collected Stories are Shiner's; in Dangerous Vision's Ellison acted as editor. So what makes me compare the two? Maybe, it's the personalization infused in each book. In Dangerous Vision's, Ellison had a preface of a paragraph or two on how the author came to write the story. In Shiner's stories you can see how his life has influenced his writing without delving into gory autobiography; Shiner is able to illuminate the core themes without petty details or squabbles that may have come from a divorce or a disagreement with a parent.

The stories in Collected Stories are an assortment of genres from traditional literary fiction, heavy on science fiction, detective stories and westerns. No matter what genre the story is, Shiner keeps you hooked in, you want to see what happens in the next sentence, the next paragraph, the next page, you just want more, what comes next moves you almost involuntarily from page to page.

Shiner excellently exploits and executes that "what if" moment all writers use as a point of departure. What if, a highly imaginative kid who imagines aliens are invading the world is right? Twilight Time is Shiner's answer. What if a circle of friends who gather every year at Halloween to scare each with ghost stories, and a mediocre writer they kicked out writes a story that truly traps them in a circle? 9 Hard Questions About The Nature of the Universe, posits an interesting idea of why aliens are visiting our world or any other world. Stuff of Dreams, is about addiction and what if that addiction could physically take you to different times and places (a favorite scenario of Shiner's novels Deserted Cities of the Heart, and Glimpses). What if your girlfriend was one of the hottest rock stars around and she dumps you? Sticks will lets you know what that feels like.

Shiner doesn't subscribe to the usual clichés of a story's genre. In The Long Ride Out, which at first appears to be a standard pulp western, but then he throws in something like a farmer letting a snake slither across his boot instead of shooting it, and you realize something else is going on here and that it may be a signal that something different will happen. And it is something different, it has the usual gunfighter coming to town to right a wrong but he discovers everything isn't as black and white as it appears.

If you've read any of Shiner's other books you may have noticed some of his favorite themes, middle-aged men suffering ennui, psychic if not physical dislocation, or the physical dislocation caused by the psychic dislocation (Straws, Primes), marriages at the breaking point, fathers and sons who don't understand each other, or Rock `n` Roll. They're all in here, and each story has a quality that you'll be tempted to and probably will want to ponder, digest, or savor what you just read before moving on to the next story.

I usually don't comment on the book itself in reviews but Collected Stories is a beautiful book; tome is actually a more accurate description. It's printed on high quality paper, creamy, it has a great tactile quality to it. It seems author and publisher have worked closely to provide a high quality edition.

Reading and buying a book by Lewis Shiner is an investment in great reading! If you're looking for a book and a writer you're tempted to come back to again and again, I recommend Lewis Shiner's Collected Stories.