Customer Reviews

Unhappy Endings

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Short story collections are often a mixed bag, and quite truthfully, an acquired taste in some instances. Some readers adore the short form for its crisp, bullet-pace narrative, others are more attuned to longer works - novels, novellas - and a short story's brevity and sometime truncated resolution simply doesn't suit their palate. Collections by established authors can also be viewed askance. Is the collection simply a ploy to lure loyal readers into spending more money, or is it a fresh gathering of new stories from a never-ending wellspring of imagination?

Rest assured, Brian Keene's "Uhappy Endings" (Delirium Books) is the later. There are several winners and shockers here, and even the stories that don't leave as much of an impression aren't detractions from the collection itself. In many ways, that's the value of a collection; it's like a literary buffet. Readers can pick their favorites, and if one story doesn't grab them, they can move to the next.

"Unhappy Endings" opens with nothing less than Keene's staple scenario: the end of the world, and no one does it better than him. On a normal, average day, a supermarket turns into a bloodbath as everyone inexplicably goes insane and massacres each other. Only a handful are left sane. Keene's trademark visceral violence is here, also irony, considering the reason these few are spared madness.

"The Resurrection and the Life" is another grabber, pitting fan favorite - Lord of the Siqquism, Ob - against Christ Himself. Keene's ability to take Biblical lore and turn it into a zombie story is frightening, given his well-established Labyrinth mythos. Not a simple tag-on to his zombie stories, this tale gives more insight into Ob's relation to either deities and the structure of his overall universe.
Ob also makes a more humorous appearance later in the anthology in "The Siqquism Who Stole Christmas", along with two characters from Keene's collaboration with J. F. Gonzales, "Clickers II".

Perhaps the two most wrenching stories are "August Bunnies" and "Take the Long Way Home", for entirely different reasons. In the former, Keene manipulates the story AND our emotions in a tale of loss and grief which slowly turns into something much more sinister. The story builds with a peculiar dread that Keene fans will find wonderfully familiar. "Take the Long Way Home" is Keene's rendition of a post-Christian Rapture Earth, and it succeeds where volumes of Rapture and End of the World stories fail, because it's not about theology or doctrine but a man who desperately wants to get home to his wife, fearing he may have lost his last chance to say: "I love you".

"Unhappy Endings" may give the reader an impression of futility: that all these stories end badly. That's not true. All these stories end as they should, and it can be aptly argued that if fiction's purpose is to entertain while accurately portraying life, not all stories can end happily. Some of these stories do have "unhappy endings", but others end with a melancholic resolution that brings closure. Also, in trademark Keene fashion, this collection is refreshingly personal. At the end of every story, notes are included regarding the story's genesis, where they fit into his universe, and of course, bits and pieces of Keene himself. For the devoted Keene fan or a dark fiction fan, experiencing this collection leads to the best ending of all: satisfaction.

Excellent book. I highly reckomend this for begining Keene readers. The stories are a good introduction to the Keene Universe as well as some of his poetry that is located in the back of the book. "Gratefully Dead" is excellently written and when I read it to my daughter she and I both laughed hysterically that being said this book is not for young readers.

The first story in this compilation starts off with one of the best first lines I have ever read and draws you in to a very well written short story titled "Jack's Magic Beans". Another story that stands out on its own merrits is "The Siquism that Stole Christmas" it also gives you an introduction to Ob the Obot and his take on the end of the world.

The authors notes that Brian Keene puts in after the stories and in some cases before the stories are an excellent insight into what the author was thinking and intending when he penned the tales themselves.
Buy this book and you will not be disapointed.

This is a collection of short stories I bought more or less by mistake. I should have more such mistakes. These stories are all quite good, even outstanding. Well worth the price.

I love to read short stories and the ones included in Unhappy Endings are some of the best I've ever read. All of them were great, but three that I especially enjoyed were Bunnies in August, Take The Long Way Home and Tequila's Sunrise. If you are a fan of Mr. Keene, I would definitely recommend this book.

Unhappy Endings, which is one half a two part short story collection(the other collection will be released at some point in the future) overall is a worthwile collection of stories from one of my favorite writers, Brian Keene. I don't like it as well as Fear Of Gravity or No Rest For The Wicked, but that's not really saying much. Glancing at the table of contents for this collection one would think, wow, that's a lot of stories at 23, but this is not the case. It consists of about 19 actual short stories, 3 poems, and 1 Dead Cat story that I don't really consider a short story.

Keene decided to name this collection Unhappy Endings because most of his stories end in an Unhappy Way. However, just because the story ends unhappily does not mean the main protagonist(s) die. It could mean that or that the end of the story gives us a bleak outlook for the future. I just wanted to point this out and make it clear to readers.

Fortunately, Keene started the collection off with a bang in the form of Jack's Magic Beans. There are some stories in here that I either just didn't like or thought were pointless. I'll get to those shortly. I would have to say Jack's Magic Beans is probably my favorite story from the collection. It could almost be considered a novella.

The gist of the story is about 4 people, all of whom are on the anti-depressant Prozac, end up at a Sav-a-lot grocery store in one of Keene's fictional towns and all hell breaks loose. Basically everyone turns into homicidal nutjobs and start killing everyone and each other. We never really know why these people turn into homicidal maniacs(lettuce starts talking to them among other things....that's just great!), but it is hinted that Prozac keeps these people from turning, thus is the reason the previous 4 people I mentioned didn't turn(that's not entirely true as you'll find out) and ended up locking themselves in a freezer. This is a very gruesome story! I really hope Keene will one day turn this into a novel.

Next is an Alzheimer's story called Fade To Null. I didn't like this very short short story. It seemed a bit too weird for me. I read it twice and it just didn't do anything for me.

The third story is The Resurrection and The Life. I like it for the most part once I got through all the exposition. This story is a retelling of the Book of John Chapter 11, except a bit different. It features everybodies favorite demon, Ob, who inhabits a particular character. You'll have to read it and find out.

Next up is probably my second or third favorite story called Burying Betsy. It's a really short story(about 5 or 6 pages) with a nasty little twist at the end. The ending is really what did it for me. The story kind of deals with child molesters. It's a rather twisted story. Like it alot!

The Ties That Bind is next and I didn't much care for it. It's only about 3 pages or so long. I guess the main problem I had is I wish I would have been developed more. It takes place in the world of The Rising. Not really that much to it. Basically about a guy who has his zombie wife tied to a bed and he's reminiscing(don't think I spelled that correctly) about all the good times he had with her. It's ok, just nothing special.

To speed things up I'll combine the next to stories because they are 2 of my favorites in the book. The Black Wave and Take The Long Way Home. Both are great stories. The Black Wave is somewhat similar to Stephen King's short story The Raft, except this story takes place in the South Pacific during WW II. Very creepy story and features a member of a group called Black Lodge, which Keene says we'll see more of soon. Take The Long Way Home is a fantastic apocalyptic novella. I first read it in the limited edition format. I won't tell much about the story except it has to do with the Rapture and a man.....well trying to find his way home. This seems to be a part of Keene's Labyrinth story line, of which we'll being seeing much more of.

The next three stories I just didn't like. Bunnies In August is a bit sad, but it didn't do anything for me. Same with Midnight At The Body Farm. It takes place, if I remember correctly, during the Dead Sea book. It was way too short and just seemed pointless. There are a number of stories like this in this collection that would have been much better had they been more developed and not in the 1 to 3 page range. Ditto for the Ghosts Of Monsters as well. There just wasn't enough substance to it. It takes place after the Ghost Walk events and the ending to it just seemed silly.

Next on list is Tequilla's Sunrise. It's a novel length fable that I surprisingly enjoyed. Again, I won't give too much a way, but I think you'll like it. It was very well written.

I also really enjoyed Keene's story, This Is Not An Exit, which is a sequel to I Am An Exit. This story reveals more, though not much, about the serial killer known as The Exit. Kind of a nasty little story. Not long but it's fairly potent. As Keene reveals in the story notes, we will being learning more about this serial killer soon.

Take Me To The River is an Earthworm Gods story and I very much like it. It's not very long, but it interesting and descriptive. In this story you will learn more about the White Fungus that Keene briefly touched upon in the book. Story has a nice apocalyptic feel. Of course, I've always been partial to Earthworm Gods. It's one of my alltime favorite stories.

An Appointment Kept I also really like. Nicely developed tale about selling your soul to the devil. I wished it would have been longer, but that's just me being picky.

Stone Tears is a fascinating story about Nelson LeHorn from Dark Hollow. This story takes place before the events of Dark Hollow and we learn a bit more about Nelson. Again, I wish it had been longer, but it's still a nicely developed story.

Gratefully Dead is a Dead Cat......well I'll call it a short story though I think it's something else all together. More like a poem, but not. I really didn't like. Of course I never have like the Dead Cat stuff.

Golden Boy is another one I just didn't care for. It just didn't do a thing for and felt pointless.

The Siqquism Who Stole Christmas was excellent and is a real laugher. I won't say much about other than it stars Ob and Tony Genova and Vince Napoli from Clickers II. It's a riot of a story!

Lastly, there are 3 poems. The first one, Hangar 18 I really liked and I don't even like poems. The last 2 I didn't like mainly because, as I mentioned before, I don't like poems.

Overall a well put together collection of stories. I think about a good 5 or 6 of them, along with the poems, were just filler. Fortunately, all of the long material is first rate and most of the non-novella length stories are really good. It's definitely worth your time to pick this up just for Jack's Magic Beans, Burying Betsy, Take The Long Way Home, The Black Wave, Tequilla's Sunrise and The Siqquism Who Stole Christmas. You get 320 pages of mostly excellent fiction with an intro by Keene and story notes.

[...]. Definitely a deal! It's hard to not be pleased by Brian Keene! Happy reading!!!!!!!