false 627211 3 James P. Blaylock has been publishing singular, literate, evocative stories since 1977, but <I>Thirteen Phantasms and Other Stories</I> appears to be his first (and a complete) collection. Its 16 stories have little concern for genre; Blaylock slides from the fantastic to subtle horror to slipstream, sometimes in the same story. His introduction, with its mentions of an antique shop of mysterious orientalia and of aquaria stocked with obscure oddities, perfectly prefigures the concerns of his stories. The past is sometimes the setting, and it often haunts or drives the characters. But this is no simple nostalgia; Blaylock knows the past, irrecoverable yet inescapable, can be a burden and a trap. Mysteries, too, compel or lure many characters, with their strangeness and shadows and dangers. And some characters pursue--or are controlled by--peculiar obsessions.<p> <I>Thirteen Phantasms</I> does not present the stories in chronological order, but reading them chronologically reveals Blaylock's evolution into a great writer. His first sale, 1977's atmospheric ship-of-fools/bus-of-bozos fantasy "The Red Planet," is creepy, but too mysterious and underdeveloped to please many readers. A decade later, Blaylock would win the World Fantasy Award with the deserving and powerful "Paper Dragons"; set in a world in which matter has become mutable, it is one of the most unusual dragon stories ever written. The most recent story, 1998's "The Old Curiosity Shop," is a tremendous work in which a man who abandoned his wife discovers she has literally dwindled away from grief, and the objects she left behind, curios sold to a strange shop, are so invested with the weight of memories that a man might be crushed beneath a single item.<p> Most of the stories take place in contemporary California, but three of the exceptions ("The Ape-Box Affair," "Two Views of a Cave Painting," and "The Idol's Eye") are set in an alternate-history England in which H.G. Wells's science fiction must be fact; and they belong to that rarest of subgenres, comic steampunk. These entertaining adventures feature Langdon St. Ives, a Victorian scientist-adventurer after the manner of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger, and the hero of Blaylock's novels <I>Homunculus</I> (winner of the Philip K. Dick Award) and <I>Lord Kelvin's Machine</I>. <I>--Cynthia Ward</I> 410160 2000 Thirteen Phantasms and other Stories total:20|5:7|4:6|3:6|2:1|1:0| 20 79 47 3 4 0 false false Wed Aug 05 05:30:53 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 05 05:34:15 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 2 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Thu Mar 13 16:14:33 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 13 16:17:19 -0700 2008 insane that anyone should be able to write this good. Blaylock's novels have been hit-and-miss with me, but every one of these short stories is an absolute gem. Some are horrific, some are humorous, some are creepy, some are poignant...all are masterfully written. I bow down in the presence ...more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Oct 22 19:09:30 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 22 19:09:48 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Fri Oct 16 08:49:28 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 16 08:49:28 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Wed Oct 07 12:40:36 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 07 12:40:36 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Wed Sep 30 14:31:49 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 30 14:31:49 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Tue Sep 15 10:51:59 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 15 10:51:59 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Aug 19 17:45:05 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 19 17:45:05 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Sat Aug 01 01:14:25 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 01 01:14:25 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Mon Jul 06 05:25:37 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 06 05:25:37 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Jun 30 16:13:20 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 30 16:13:20 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue Jun 02 17:34:26 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 02 17:34:26 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Tue May 19 03:21:58 -0700 2009 Tue May 19 03:21:58 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Mon May 04 08:17:59 -0700 2009 Mon May 04 08:17:59 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Apr 29 16:25:02 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 29 16:25:02 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Thu Apr 09 20:24:44 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 09 20:24:44 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Wed Apr 08 02:08:11 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 08 02:08:11 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sun Mar 22 21:44:22 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 22 21:44:22 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Fri Feb 27 04:44:34 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 27 04:44:34 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Wed Jan 28 19:38:15 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 28 19:38:15 -0800 2009