Leviathan Three (Paperback)

~ Forrest Aguirre (Author), Jeff Vandermeer (Contributor), Zoran Zivkovic (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Postmodern playfulness and solid storytelling intermingle fluidly in this bountiful third volume of the publisher's genre-bending anthology series. In contrast to previous volumes, whose eclectic contents resisted tidy categorization, the editors have grouped these 21 stories into five different elliptically defined "libraries." As befits a structural scheme that includes a virtual library of books as yet unwritten and a library whose sole volume changes its contents each time the cover is closed, the selections are dominated by themes of impermanence and transformation. James Sallis's elegiac "Up" is set in a world where people disappear once they've reached the limit of their life's possibilities, leaving only shadowy outlines to mark their passing. In Jeffrey Ford's amusingly sentimental "The Weight of Words," a man hires a scientist who has worked out the chemistry of language to adulterate messages to his ex-wife with expressions of affection invisible to the naked eye. Carol Emshwiller, in her delightful "The Prince of Mules," transports a lovestruck woman and the oblivious object of her affection into an enchanted alternate world where identities shift with amusingly unpredictable results. Though many stories are too elusive to register as more than experiments, some like Brian Stableford's ingenious "The Face of an Angel," in which a plastic surgeon is the unlikely agent of mankind's second fall from grace are sure to be shortlisted for fiction awards. The variety and ambition of this compilation mandates that lovers of speculative fiction consider it for their own self-defined libraries.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The third entry in this small-press anthology series is good and clever enough to send readers and librarians scurrying to find its predecessors. Twenty-one of its stories are sorted into five sections, each of which leads off with a story from the Library, a quirky series by Serbian fantasist Zoran Zivkovic. Each Zivkovic story gives its section its title and tone. The stories in "Virtual Library" occur in spaces that aren't--or certainly don't seem--real or material or human, beginning with the cybersite in Zivkovic's tale, where the narrator finds a bio-bibliographical entry for himself, complete with books he hasn't yet written and several dates for his future death. The other sections are "Home Library," "Night Library," "Infernal Library," and "Smallest Library." The stories in them, by the likes of established fantasy hands Michael Moorcock and Brian Stableford, up-and-comer Jeffrey Ford, avant-gardists Rikki Ducornet and Lance Olsen, and nineteenth-century French masters Theophile Gautier and Remy de Gourmont, are very high-order creep shows, brain-as-well-as-spine-chillers, and subtle shockers. Zivkovic's hissy fit, "Noble Library," concludes. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 484 pages
• Publisher: Wildside Press (August 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1894815424
• ISBN-13: 978-1894815420
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,022,004 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantasy isn't dead, May 2, 2002

By A Customer

This is a Pandora's box of a book. Open it up and you'll be amazed. Every approach to imaginative fiction from Zoran
Zivkovic's brilliant Library stories, a Michael Moorcock Jerry
Cornelius story which reads like today's news, Jeffrey Ford,
Scott Thomas, Tamar Yellin -- the list goes on and on. Remy de
Gourmont and Theophile Gautier translated classics. Nothing less than a gold mine. I haven't read every story yet, but the standard is the highest, the variety the richest. I got this for the Moorcock material (I'm a rabid fan) but was amazed at the variety and quality of everything I've read. I would not have believed such a collection possible in this day and age. It makes you realise just how unadventurous mainstream publishers are and how many good writers there are in today's America (and
Europe). It has changed my whole understanding of the state of
modern imaginative fiction. Leviathan 3 is a benchmark. Nobody who loves genuinely original literary fiction will regret getting this box of delights.

3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting reading, September 16, 2005

By	Mystic Marsh Farm "mystics" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Some of the fiction is way out there and hard to understand but for the most part it's interesing reading, some really great stories, quite a mix