Status Updates From Rule Dementia!

Crisp certainly knows how to tug at the heartstrings, then rip them clean out. "Unimaginable Joy" is an ironic title, a double-entendre. You cannot imagine joy. It is beyond you. Any joy you think you might have grasped was only a hazy mirage. A heart-rending story of innocence lost. Five depressing stars.

"The Waiting" is the kind of story that you read and the bottom drops right out from under you. A cosmic conspiracy on a grand scale. Four stars.

"The Tao of Petite Beige" is an esoteric story about pornography addiction, if nothing else. The occult journey, a sort of sublimation from banality to heaven to hell, portrayed therein is compelling, the ending predictable. Beautifully written (last para page 214 is a masterwork and will be quoted in my full review), if meandering. Four stars, and for adults only!

"Zugzwang" is one of the most effective stories of paranoia I've ever read. A relative of mine (through marriage) was once clinically diagnosed with paranoia. I've spoken with him about it a couple of times. This story is a fair fictional approximation of the disorder, with a touch of cosmic horror, which makes it truly disturbing. Four stars, only because of the unlikelihood of the relationship.that begins it all.

"The Haunted Bicycle" has one foot in Bizarro-land, one foot in the old English ghost story, and one foot firmly planted ankle-deep in William S. Burroughs' grave. Lurking behind it is a veil (eventually rent) of cosmic horror and more than a touch of insanity. And, yes, the story is about a haunted bicycle. Five crazed stars to this unclassifiable, yet utterly delightful story.

Remember those episodes of the X-Files that were intentionally goofy as heck and, yet, somehow sinister? That's what this novella "feels" like. And more on the goofy side, with an intellectually-clumsy narrator and some weird characters and situations he encounters. I'm having a hard time describing this story, and that's good!

Oops. Little slip. I don't like self-referential surrealism. Nothing less surreal than saying you're surreal.

Crisp is very good at portraying whimsical awkwardness. Or is it awkward whimsy? In either case, it is strange and playful and I like it in a twisted sort of way.

"Jellyfish Joe" is a beautifully-written story of a messiah, of sorts, who forms a cult based on the metaphysical philosophies of the jellyfish. It is an interesting meditation on the interface between naivete and faith and the reactions to the ultimate test of one's deeply held beliefs and spiritual experiences. This story gets in your heart and brain and is extremely poignant. Five stars.

I admit it: sometimes I will take an author's introduction as a challenge to see if they live up to their own assessment of their work. Let's see . . .