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Things That Never Were: Fantasies, Lunacies & Entertaining Lies Paperback – August 1, 2003

by Matthew Rossi (Author)

5 customer reviews

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From Sodom and Gomorrah to the Siberian taigo, from Roanoke Island to lost cities in Africa populated by ape-men in Elizabethan garb, this book is a travelogue of mental expeditions to weird and imaginary places. In this book, demons caper, dinosaurs are dismayed and bewildered, vampires walk in our hospitals and gods dies at the hands of men.

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Product Details

Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Monkeybrain (August 1, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1932265058
ISBN-13: 978-1932265057
Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 0.7 x 9.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,362,259 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

This book is amazing. It's a collection of speculative non-fiction: the old "What if" game played to perfection. -- RevolutionSF

Customer Reviews

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

Universal Unhistory

By Luís Rodrigues on July 10, 2004

Format: Paperback

Ever wondered what boy scouts are really up to? Where all the dinosaurs went? How Robert Heinlein halted the Mongovian invasion of 1938? Who Genghis Khan's spies in Europe were? And what the heck is wrong with California?
Matthew Rossi, who may share a psychic link with people like Avram Davidson, Jorge Luis Borges, Umberto Eco, Charles Fort and H.P. Lovecraft, endeavours to answer these and other perplexing questions in the 35+ strange short essays collected in _Things That Never Were_. It is fun and clever and disconcertingly insane; and no matter how erudite the subject matter may be, Rossi's tone remains informal and unassuming throughout this guided tour of the ten dimensions of the Sephiroth. If the 10,000 volts you've been passing through your head are no longer enough to get you off, this frantic weaving of fact and fiction may just be the ticket to deliver that extra jolt you've been craving for.

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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

Excellent work of...?

By Julianna J. Rossi on October 21, 2003

Format: Paperback

Any discussion of Matt Rossi's book invariably includes some discussion of categorization; where do we place a book which leaps from Tunguska to the hollow earth and back again via express tesseract? The essays contained herein might seem disparate to the casual observer - but if read with an eye to comprehension, one can see a common, nascent thread linking them all- something along the lines of a ley line burning brightly in the darkness. In and of themselves, the works stand alone and stand as plainly informative or as speculatively imaginative as the reader can bring to them. There is simply no end at the end of Rossi's story - only more dimensional vortices to fall through.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

A staggering stagger through contradictory worlds

By Sarris Delapore on February 24, 2004

Format: Paperback

The introduction by Paul Di Filippo sums it up best - "Rossi's several incompatible mindchildren aren't fighting. they're violently screwing, and out of this brain-intercourse is going to arise an unpredictable hybrid of startling portent."
I've never enjoyed a book more. I've never been more confused by one. It's not a simple book, but it is a good one. If you enjoy odd writing, this is one of the best I've come across.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

Bizarre and imaginative essays

By Robert Devereux on November 26, 2004

Format: Paperback

When most people write conspiracy theories, they are grounded in what most people consider "reality." Not so with Rossi. He bases his theories on pulp fiction, fantasy and sci-fi. Instead of going onto the typical areas (like JFK, Freemasons, Templars), he reimagines Greek gods through nanotechnology, the Tunguska explosion as the result of a time travel experiment, Hypatia moving the Library of Alexandria into hyperspace, and other more bizarre theories. In the hands of a lesser author, they would be dismissed as the rantings of a madman. In Rossi's hands, you feel like there is be a kernel of truth to the theories. You might not believe all (or even most) of them, but you may look at things differently after reading it.

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2 of 31 people found the following review helpful

Lost!

By RIJU GANGULY on August 10, 2011

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

Despite all its tall claims (and the reviews posted by others), this book is not enjoyable because it addresses nobody except its own mind that seems to derive pleasure from hurling all kinds of (mostly bad) ideas here & there, mostly in a language that suits American teen-agers more than others. Most of the "discourses" were skewed, fantastic, ribald in a ghastly way, and totally bereft of any redeeming value (like humour and compassion) that enlivens works by Mike Resnick. Don't go for this volume, there are other, far more scholarly or entertaining or valuable-on-both-counts books that are preferably over this wastage of paper & money.

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