false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177736802m/729804.jpg 729804 1 Paul Di Filippo returns in fine protean form with his story collection <I>Little Doors</I>. "Billy" satirizes both the Reagan presidency and the American anyone-can-make-it myth, as a boy born literally without a brain grows up to become president of the United States. "Rare Firsts" places a fantastic temptation before a failing rare-book dealer. A deceased milquetoast may yet save the day in the amusing nightmare-noir of "The Short Ashy Afterlife of Hiram P. Dottle." The melancholy "Slumberland" reveals the later adventures of the old man who once dreamed his way through the Sunday comic strip "Little Nemo in Slumberland." And "Return to Cockaigne" turns high fantasy inside out, in what can only inadequately be described as a collision of Candyland, C.S. Lewis's Narnia, James Branch Cabell's Poictesme, and LSD.<p>The promotional printing of <I>Little Doors</I> promises "seventeen new stories that represent his best work to date": this is not true. The anthology contains 16 stories and one poem. Also, the copyright page indicates that every work has been previously published, and some of the stories date back a decade or more, to a time when Di Filippo was a less skilled and versatile stylist. However, the early stories do display the wild imagination for which he is justly praised, and the later stories demonstrate his full creative powers, from the impressive surrealism of "The Death of Salvador Dali" to the jabberwacked-out magic realism of "Jack Neck and the Worry Bird" to the eerie e.e. cummings tribute "Mehitabel in Hell." <I>--Cynthia Ward</I> 716004 2002 Little Doors (Di Filippo, Paul) total:9|5:1|4:5|3:2|2:1|1:0| 9 33 15 2 3 0 false false Mon Oct 26 02:41:29 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 26 02:41:54 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Mon Mar 31 11:47:43 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 01 08:01:25 -0700 2008 0 0 false false Mon Oct 26 03:14:34 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 26 03:14:34 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Sat May 09 20:45:01 -0700 2009 Sat May 09 20:45:01 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 01 13:27:46 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 01 13:27:46 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sat Nov 22 20:00:30 -0800 2008 Sat Nov 22 21:17:50 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Sat Aug 23 07:10:02 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 23 07:10:02 -0700 2008 2 0 false false Tue Jun 24 08:33:49 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 24 08:33:49 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Tue Jul 01 21:45:03 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 18 20:11:07 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 01 21:45:03 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Tue Jun 03 07:54:44 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 03 07:54:44 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Tue Jan 29 23:43:47 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 29 23:43:47 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Mon Jan 21 03:53:22 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 21 03:53:22 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Tue Dec 18 05:33:00 -0800 2007 Tue Dec 18 05:33:03 -0800 2007 4 0 false false Sun Oct 14 02:44:07 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 14 02:44:07 -0700 2007 4 0 false false Tue Jul 24 21:08:50 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 24 21:08:50 -0700 2007 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=729804