What do you think?
Aliens
Esther Friesner witnesses four women sharing their very different close encounters in "Jolene's Motel" David Silva explores a town's decimation by one very voracious visitor in "Nothing As It Seems". P.D. Cacek inhabits the body of an accident victim who feels the inexplicable spark of alien life. Plus eighteen other masterworks harvested by the Horror Writers Association.
459 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
About the author
Whitley Strieber
139 books1,313 followersAmerican writer best known for his novels The Wolfen,The Hunger and Warday and for Communion, a non-fiction description of his experiences with apparent alien contact. He has recently made significant advances in understanding this phenomenon, and has published his new discoveries in Solving the Communion Enigma.
Strieber also co-authored The Coming Global Superstorm with Art Bell, which inspired the blockbuster film about sudden climate change, The Day After Tomorrow.
His book The Afterlife Revolution written with his deceased wife Anne, is a record of what is considered to be one of the most powerful instances of afterlife communication ever recorded.
Strieber also co-authored The Coming Global Superstorm with Art Bell, which inspired the blockbuster film about sudden climate change, The Day After Tomorrow.
His book The Afterlife Revolution written with his deceased wife Anne, is a record of what is considered to be one of the most powerful instances of afterlife communication ever recorded.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 22, 2012
A quick read for any fan of Whitley's podcast Dreamland!
March 11, 2026
I picked this up from a hobby shop hoping for either some good scary extraterrestrial horror, or at least some some entertaining science fiction. I mean, the cover and the back copy and all made it very clear that this was a collection born of the want to appeal to a particular market in the horror genre. I wasn't particularly picky, though, because I figured a scary concept is a scary concept, and maybe I'd get lucky and come across something as disturbing and thrilling as Fire in the Sky.
Well, it wasn't terribly good overall. There were a couple that had elements that were intriguing. Specifically, "Radience" by Nina Hoffman, "Jolene's Motel" by Esther Friesner, "The Glassy Apes" by Tracy Knight, and elements of "Realizations" by Don D'Ammassa. Of the 21 stories here, those four were the ones that had something in there of value. I really only enjoyed "Radience"... the rest were tedious but at least somewhat original.
As for the others in this collection, it feels really phoned in, perhaps rushed. Half-concieved. Almost all of them are artificially melodramatic, with things like rape, revenge murder, drug abuse, and insanity awkwardly sweezed in to fill up space. I know these are horror writers, but in almost every situation, you don't care for the characters or their objectives, nor do you fear for their lives - the effort isn't put in to endear the characters or flesh them out before placing them in peril. I genuinely cannot remember a single defining trait of any of the characters. "Jolene's Motel" less so - you actually get to know the characters very well - but this comes at the expense of any compelling developments in the story. Indeed, that and many other stories feel like the beginning stages of a larger story that never made it past the first chapter, and are thus hugely unsatisfying and anticlimactic.
Another thing that bugged me was the way almost every male character in this collection was a hilariously amoral wife-beater, rapist, or obsessed violence-fueled monster. I think this was done to build up drama, but what you get is a collection of stories about how terrible these guys and husbands are and how they must be killed for the good of us all. It's just weird. Who would find that entertaining? It's not even a set up for something 99% of the time. There will just be an abusive male character present who terrorizes the protagonist until she kills him.
Disappointing, unfortunately. If you see this book at a store somewhere, though, it's worth reading the amazingly phoned-in introduction by Whitley Striber. You can tell he did not read a single story or even know what the introduction was for, beyond "a book about aliens." THAT part, is genuinely really funny.
Well, it wasn't terribly good overall. There were a couple that had elements that were intriguing. Specifically, "Radience" by Nina Hoffman, "Jolene's Motel" by Esther Friesner, "The Glassy Apes" by Tracy Knight, and elements of "Realizations" by Don D'Ammassa. Of the 21 stories here, those four were the ones that had something in there of value. I really only enjoyed "Radience"... the rest were tedious but at least somewhat original.
As for the others in this collection, it feels really phoned in, perhaps rushed. Half-concieved. Almost all of them are artificially melodramatic, with things like rape, revenge murder, drug abuse, and insanity awkwardly sweezed in to fill up space. I know these are horror writers, but in almost every situation, you don't care for the characters or their objectives, nor do you fear for their lives - the effort isn't put in to endear the characters or flesh them out before placing them in peril. I genuinely cannot remember a single defining trait of any of the characters. "Jolene's Motel" less so - you actually get to know the characters very well - but this comes at the expense of any compelling developments in the story. Indeed, that and many other stories feel like the beginning stages of a larger story that never made it past the first chapter, and are thus hugely unsatisfying and anticlimactic.
Another thing that bugged me was the way almost every male character in this collection was a hilariously amoral wife-beater, rapist, or obsessed violence-fueled monster. I think this was done to build up drama, but what you get is a collection of stories about how terrible these guys and husbands are and how they must be killed for the good of us all. It's just weird. Who would find that entertaining? It's not even a set up for something 99% of the time. There will just be an abusive male character present who terrorizes the protagonist until she kills him.
Disappointing, unfortunately. If you see this book at a store somewhere, though, it's worth reading the amazingly phoned-in introduction by Whitley Striber. You can tell he did not read a single story or even know what the introduction was for, beyond "a book about aliens." THAT part, is genuinely really funny.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews