Going Home Again [Paperback]

Howard Waldrop (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: St Martins Pr (1998)
• ASIN: B000OTK2VY
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Howard Waldrop, born in Mississippi and now living in Austin, Texas, is an American iconoclast. His highly original books include Them Bones and A Dozen Tough Jobs, and the collections All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past, Night of the Cooters, and Going Home Again. He won the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards for his novelette "The Ugly Chickens." George R.R. Martin is the author of the bestselling Song of Ice and Fire series of novels. His fiction has won the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy Award, Stoker, and Locus Awards. He worked on the TV shows The Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Complicated But Well-Written Stories, December 27, 2001

By 

Jon G. Jackson "j_dog_jackson" (Santa Rosa, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Going Home Again (Hardcover)

I'm another dyed-in-the-wool Waldrop fan. If you search elsewhere, you'll see that I've reviewed another of his books with very high praise. But this one has troubled me somewhat. Some of the stories are utterly remarkable, with some truly outstanding writing. Well, *all* of them are quite well-written, researched to the hilt, and then laid out for the reader to grapple with. And grapple we do.

I can't help but compare this Waldrop with the one I met in 1988. This one is far more cynical. This one has withdrawn into his own interests completely. This one is much harder to relate to. If anything, he's an even better writer than he was before. (When you do get what he's writing about, it's a knock-out blow!) Perhaps I should say, he's more eccentric?

But, I think I agree with another reviewer here, in that I wondered several times...WHY was this story written? Does it stand alone, if one is unfamiliar with the research? Some of them do, yes! Others maybe do, maybe don't. Still, his senarios remain completely convincing, and one feels compelled to see them through. Overall, well worth the read (definitely!), but not as classic as his earlier stuff.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy it before it vanishes forever!, July 16, 1998

By 

Nick Mamatas - See all my reviews

This review is from: Going Home Again (Hardcover)

Howard Waldrop's latest collection of "alternate reality" SF defies all convention. His "what if the Nazis won WWII" story brings Shemp Howard, Zero Mostel, Peter Lorre and Brecht's widow together in an absurdist play about a journey to Mars, the Red planet. Fats Waller and Tom Wolfe hang out on a dirigible. Three Mexican luchadors fight off ancient Aztec gods. That's just the beginning. Each story also has an afterword which also solves the riddle of the alternate reality and gives an insight into Waldrop's writing process. Waldrop's books never hang around the stores for long (he has about $6 in his bank account) and his stuff can be shelved under Science Fiction, Literature or anything else. I found my copy under Hunting/Fishing. Buy it on-line before it disappears!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New Collection From an American Treasure, August 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Going Home Again (Hardcover)

Howard Waldrop is an American treasure, and like most, seriously overlooked. Although considered a "science fiction" writer, Waldrop isn't so easily categorized (a likely reason for his not being well-marketed). Anyone who has read and enjoyed the works of Kim Newman, Christopher Moore, Bradley Denton, William Browning Spencer and Terry Bisson will find something to like in Howard Waldrop and "Going Home Again" is a good place to start. Actually, it's the _only_ place to start unless you search for the classic, but sadly out of print, collections such as "Howard Who?", "Night of the Cooters" and "Strange Monsters of the Recent Past." Get this one now before it joins those titles.