The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men: Stories

by Randy F. Nelson

The mechanical men in these stories--Industrial Age holdovers, outsiders wanting for relevance and respect, or overwhelmed people who confuse the certainties of one reality with the doubts of another--are cut off in some way from contemporary culture. Sometimes in these stories, which Randy F. Nelson calls "thought experiments about values in conflict," the characters are like the Native American prison guard in "Escape" Rifkin thinks that atonement is possible even for fugitive killers. Others are less sanguine. In "Breakers," a corporate hitman arrives on a forgettable island off the African coast. His to shut down a hellish, polluting, ship-demolition business. His a lawyer, now gone Heart-of-Darkness crazy, who preceded him years earlier for the same purpose. The bottom drops out in other stories, rearranging all reference points to good and bad, true and false. In "Abduction," for instance, a distraught young woman summons a tabloid reporter to a grubby hotel room, where the now-lifeless alien who had invaded her body lies wrapped in a sheet. Nelson once explained his motivations by alluding to a line in a Gabriel GarcIa MArquez story. A crowd of villagers are gazing upon a man, "but even though they were looking at him, there was no room for him in their imagination." "Stories and characters and situations that ask the imagination to accommodate something bigger, further, deeper--that's what I'm after," said Nelson.

Genres: Short Stories, Literary Fiction, Fiction

210 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this man and the cover is sweet.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breaker is the jewel of this collection.

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not exactly my cup of tea. I picked it up at the library because the cover looked interesting. But, the short stories didn't really grab me. I stopped reading about 1/3 through the book.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Click the link for a full review at my blog.

http://ichaerusstudios.blogspot.com/2...

-Ichaerus

[Alen Bjelopetrović-Dax · Rating 3 out of 5]

Neloše štivo. Pisano vrlo jednostavnim jezikom. Zapravo me naivnost glavnog lika u isto vrijeme očarava i zgraža. U glavnom zaboravljam da je cijela priča ispričana s aspekta imaginarnog bića koje iako jest svjesno, zapravo nema sve ljudske osobine - kao da gledam odraslog čovjeka u kojeg je usađen um djeteta koje tek otkriva svijet i koje se u njemu ne snalazi najbolje.
U svakom slučaju vrlo zanimljiv eksperimen, iako surrealan. Zgodno štivo za razbibrigu i promišljanje o mentalnim sklopovima odraslih ljudi te njihovu usporedbu s jednim imaginarnim, nevinim pogledom na svijet.