Zombie Sharks with Metal Teeth by Stephen Graham Jones
My rating: 3/5 cats
come enjoy the many faces of karen!
SO – since i am was reading only shark-related books for shark week, and i somehow hadn’t realized this was a book of short stories and not an entire book about zombie sharks with metal teeth, my plan was to read the whole book, but only review the titular story. only, i can’t even do THAT because of LIES! it is NOT a story about zombie sharks with metal teeth at all, but towards the end there’s a half-veiled reference to something that could happen given the circumstances, which is definitely not enough content to generate a review. so thanks for that, mr jones. although i learned in the acknowledgments (because yeah – i always read the acknowledgments, what of it??) i learned that cameron pierce is to blame for the collection’s (and presumably the story’s) title, since jones claims, My title was, as is often the case, stupid. stupid it may have been, but at least it wouldn’t have led me to stray off course on my sharks-only reading path. i feel like such a fraud!
so now i gotta review this in some way. this is a collection of bibs and bobs that jones wrote over a period of time and in a variety of styles that didn’t seem to fit anywhere. or, as the acknowledgments state (because i’m just gonna review the acknowledgments, apparently) I knew I had this one directory of stories that were always oozing out over the fences, peering back over with their stalk-eyes and grinning goodbye in their secret evil ways, but until Cameron hit me up to collect them, I never knew what they could look like all in place. well, this is what it looks like. utterly sharkless.
so to keep in interesting (for me) here is a review of every story in facial expressions. and you will forgive me for not putting on makeup for this or trying to look all glamorous. it’s too hot and i have too many books to review to get any fancier than this.
Good Times
dog nipple. ew
The Age of Hasty Retreats
interesting advice for surviving the zombie apocalypse
My Hero
i don’t think i have a single emotion in response to this story of cubicle heroism
How Billy Hanson Destroyed the Planet Earth, and Everyone On It
not sure i fully understood this one. story notes (because yeah – i always read the story notes, what of it??) say – I wanted to see if you could actually use stars’ gravity to look through like a tunnel. Turns out you can, but you shouldn’t. That seems to be the story a lot of the time, really.
the parts i understood i liked
Little Monsters
i liked this one – short but cute. my squinty eye is meant to convey how short the story is.
The Half Life of Parents
weird, but fun. creepysweet.
Old Meat
i liked this one a lot – a great spin on a known mythology. also – great title.
Nearer to Thee
i didn’t think i was going to like this one at first, but it won me over with its slow reveal. that is a gradual smile, suffering from technical limitations.
Jumpers
i’ll let m. skellington take this one
i’m interested, but what does it mean?
The Sea of Intranquility
i love all the amplified noir stuff married to the sci-fi:
She settled into this tall chair I had back then, crossed her legs like she’d just flunked out of leg-crossing school. At least the one for ladies.
I would have lit her cigarette for her, except for the bans. Everybody was afraid of lighting the atmosphere on fire again.
but like with so many stories in this collection, he lost me somewhere along the way. you know, giant space lobsters and all…
This is Not What I Meant
no fucking clue, man
The Case Against Humanity
this one i liked a lot, bitterly
Hell on the Homefront Too
definite thumbs-up
I Was a Teenage Slasher Victim
definite two thumbs up, but these are selfies and no one knows how to work a camera timer
The Many Stages of Grief
this one i found very disquieting and surreal but oddly affecting. story notes say This is the one where the main character is me, without any hiding at all. Not even a little, which only intensifies my feelings of disquiet.
Catch and Release
loved!
Submitted for Your Approval
loved like candy!
Deathtrap Whirlpool
very cool. food for thought…
and i like the idea of a future in which …all the big problems, hungers, war, disease, oil, math, that’s all been solved by then. Like, generations ago. Seriously.
Zombie Sharks with Metal Teeth
no! lies!
begrudgingly, i must admit i enjoyed it, but still – lies.
Rocket Man
fun stephen king-ish coming of age story. with zombies. i approve. i am, however, running out of different faces for the liking of things.
Because My Therapist Asked Me to Tell a Story Using Hamsters
gross weird fun. my kind of fun.
The Calorie Doctor
best half page story ever. squinchy eyes meant to convey how this one is even shorter than that other short one i liked.
so, there you have it. a book review.
ta;dr* – a bit of a mixed bag, for my particular tastes, and some editing malfunctions, it must be noted -including a typo in the very first sentence of the very first story, COME ON! and an overuse of the word “bilateral,” but otherwise a bunch of stories i am glad i read, even if there were zero sharks for shark week.
*too adorable, didn’t read
