Strange But Not a Stranger (Hardcover)

by James Patrick Kelly (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
A meticulous craftsman in the demanding short-story form, as well as a tactful scapel-wielding verteran of many a writers' workshop, Hugo-winner Kelly (Wildlife) delivers 15 tight, deceptively simple tales with complex, often delayed reverberations. The stories dwell on such typical themes as love, loss and loneliness. In an afterword full of genial and witty observations, Kelly explains how he recently forced himself out of his "comfort zone" and discovered a "radical freedom" in writing short-shorts like "Unique Visitors" and "Hubris," unsettling glimpses of the horrors of human frailty. Several stories here relate to Kelly's other writings, like the poignant novella "Glass Cloud," his "architect story" originally intended as the opening of his third novel, Look into the Sun. Some of Kelly's most appealing characters including Phillip Wing of "Glass Cloud" and Wynne Cage, protagonist of his "first true cyberpunk story," "The Prisoner of Chillon" are shoved willy-nilly by moira, the Greeks' name for circumstances beyond one's control, into face-offs with "shiny new cybertoys" that prove dangerous and irresistible. While some of his recent attempts at paying homage to Cordwainer Smith, like "Undone," tread uneasily close to the impenetrable, others, like "The Cruelest Month," a bitterly sentimental ghost story, surprise even the author himself perhaps an indication of how difficult it often is with art, as Yeats remarked, to tell the dancer from the dance.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
This collection of 14 stories--one never previously published--and an afterword begins and ends with time travel. In the opening story, "1016 to 1," a 12-year-old meets a time traveler trying to prevent the third world war from being the war that really does end all wars. The final story, "Undone," features a time-traveling revolutionary fighting utopians who believe that individuality leads to chaos; she has been trapped far in the future by an identity mine--so far that revolutionaries and utopians alike are long forgotten, and she is the last person who remembers the Three Universal Rights for which her people struggled. In between, Kelly flies all over the place, from a scene of alien romance in "Lovestory" to the remnants of a twenty-first-century mind some 800 years after its creation. The sheer variousness of the stories makes the collection work, and the afterword ties it up with a ribbon of Kelly's motivations and inspirations. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 310 pages
• Publisher: Golden Gryphon Press; 1 edition (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1930846126
• ISBN-13: 978-1930846128
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,452,626 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best Single-Author-Collections of the Year., May 28, 2003

By	Haplo Wolf (Los Angeles.) - See all my reviews

James Patrick Kelly's second collection of stories (published by Golden Gryphon, a fine publisher) is a treasury of superbly crafted gems. 15 of them, actually, with a foreword by Connie Willis and an afterword by the author himself.

Highlights are 1016 to 1 (Hugo Winner, novelette category), Undone (Nebula nominee, Novelette category), and Glass Cloud. But nearly each story is insightful.

Contents follow:

Lovestory, Feel the Zaz, Unique Visitors, The Prisoner of Chillon, Candy Art, The Propagation of Light in a Vacuum, Hubris, Proof of the Existence of God, The Cruelest Month, Chemistry, The Pyramid of Amirah, Fruitcake Theory, and the above 3 mentioned.

4.0 out of 5 stars Not Free SF Reader, August 17, 2007

By	Blue Tyson "- http://freesf.blogspot.com" - See all my reviews

This is definitely a good collection of stories, having no less than three with a 4.5 rating, and a 3.60 average overall. Golden Gryphon have a pretty nifty logo, too. It has an intro by Connie Willis, and a reasonably detailed afterword where Kelly describes the genesis of each of the stories.

Strange But Not a Stranger : 1016 to 1 - James Patrick Kelly
Strange But Not a Stranger : Lovestory - James Patrick Kelly
Strange But Not a Stranger : Feel the Zaz - James Patrick Kelly
Strange But Not a Stranger : Unique Visitors - James Patrick Kelly
Strange But Not a Stranger : The Prisoner of Chillon - James Patrick Kelly
Strange But Not a Stranger : Candy Art - James Patrick Kelly
Strange But Not a Stranger : The Propagation of Light in a Vacuum - James Patrick Kelly
Strange But Not a Stranger : Hubris - James Patrick Kelly
Strange But Not a Stranger : Glass Cloud - James Patrick Kelly
Strange But Not a Stranger : Proof of the Existence of God - James Patrick Kelly
Strange But Not a Stranger : The Cruelest Month - James Patrick Kelly
Strange But Not a Stranger : Chemistry - James Patrick Kelly
Strange But Not a Stranger : The Pyramid of Amirah - James Patrick Kelly
Strange But Not a Stranger : Fruitcake Theory - James Patrick Kelly
Strange But Not a Stranger : Undone - James Patrick Kelly


Time traveler wants kid to save the world, at least with Galaxy and Green Lantern preparation he has a decent shot at it

4.5 out of 5


Alien baby changes.

3.5 out of 5


Schizo CAT woman has old time star turns Down.

4.5 out of 5


Upload immortality, longtime.

3.5 out of 5


Spook journalist thinks spiders and snakes is WILDLIFE overload.

4 out of 5


Ancestral timeshare problems.

3 out of 5


Lightspeed not at all lucid loopy love.

3 out of 5


History never repeats, I tell myself before I read a heap.

3.5 out of 5


Alien architecture requirements are quite whacky.

3.5 out of 5


Multiversal self-belief can be shocking.

3.5 out of 5


Ghost phone release.

3.5 out of 5


Lack of hormones gambler.

3.5 out of 5


Structural belief is slow.

3 out of 5


Alien bloody xmas incident.

3 out of 5


Future escape a problem of many dimensions.

4.5 out of 5

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A marvelous book, November 2, 2002

By	Austin Ross (Marietta, OH) - See all my reviews

Why has James Patrick Kelly not reached a mass-market audience? Why have his two short story collections been published by small print houses? "Why" has always been a difficult question to answer, but I believe there are two reasons for this. The first, of course, is his relatively slow writing pace. American audiences demand things that are NEW; new films, new books, new television shows. As Charles Dickens said, any book you haven't read before is new. If you've never read The Pearl by John Steinbeck, or Animal Farm by George Orwell, why aren't they considered new?

And so, ranting aside, I present unto you my review of James Patrick Kelly's wonderful collection of short stories, Strange but Not a Stranger. By turns witty, funny, insightful, frightening, and intense, the word that practically springs to mind that describes the collection is entertaining. Your attention quotient, as Connie Willis duly noted in the introduction, will be at a constant peak. Thus, I present as evidence for my cause: "Hubris," "The Propagation of Light in a Vacuum," "10^16 to 1," "Undone."

But where is the description of these aforementioned stories, you ask? Where are the cleverly placed lines of wit, the insightful comments? As with all James Patrick Kelly stories, you have to read it to believe it. But be forewarned: reading these stories is merely half of the journey, for the stories have hidden meanings that will haunt you until you're sure you've figured them out, sure that you've gotten your full money's worth out of them, and suddenly, without warning, they come at you again with another viewpoint or idea for consideration. To put it succinctly, and to practically make the rest of this review obsolete, this book is worthy of a spot on your bookshelf. Enough said.