Horror Story and Other Horror Stories by Robert Boyczuk
My rating: 4/5 cats
i guess i am someone who reads short stories. it’s what i do now. so, to celebrate the short, i am going to make this review a series of pithy one-sentence… summaries? commentaries? of/on each story. this is not me being lazy; it is actually quite difficult. especially with stories like these, which frequently have little twists in them that i want to avoid destroying. so some of these sentences might even be misleading, a little. who knows, i haven’t written it yet. come with me on my tiny journey.
query
some publishers will work harder for you than others.
gaytown
sorry, kids, apparently it actually doesn’t get better.
home
obsession and paranoia in space just makes it hard on everyone.
assassination and the new world order
congratulations on being elected; now watch your fucking back.
when fat men love thin women
jazz threnody
self-scrutiny is no fun, is it?
doing time
would you like some poetry with that justice?
falling
when your life flashes before your eyes, it can take ages, man…
object of desire
you’d think it would be nice to have everyone love you…
the death artist
like kafka, only more committed
shika
for some reason, i have nothing to say about this story.
tabula rasa
worst party ever
the back shed
ah, the muse, she is destructive….
the uncertainty principle
love triangles in space are hard!!
monster
a brief and clever reversal of a familiar story
the love clinic
oh, god, people – just talk to each other before you make decisions!!!
pirates
well, how do you like it, fazellas?
cure for cancer
it seemed like a good idea at the time…
horror story
i realize now that this was probably a bad idea, and this “review” is too reductive to give any sense of the true impact of the stories, and it makes it all sound a little silly. but i’m not good at covering my tracks when i make mistakes, so i’ll just plow on into an overview of the collection. most of it was great – i wasn’t crazy about the sci-fi/military ones, but that’s a me vs. genre thing. these are highly original and stunning stories about the destructive force of love and obsession and the horrible decisions we make while in their throes. i think the only one i didn’t like at all was shika. there were some that were okay, but the ones i loved i really really loved, so this was a more successful collection than most, and considering it took me almost two years to be able to get it into the store, i would say it was definitely worth waiting for.
spooky month continues…
