In these twelve stories we enter the darkest corridors of America's hospitals. Meet a scientist who discovers how to predetermine and alter the sex of a pregnant woman's fetus, and proceeds to contemplate his own gender...and a surgeon whose primary practice is removing organs and limbs from unwilling patients to redistribute them to unfortunate victims in impoverished countries. Filled with dark surprises, these splendid tales invite us to glimpse the world of high-tech medicine from a disturbing new angle.
Amazon.com Review
"There's a . . . detachment that happens as a physician when you're dealing with frightening, horrifying, or sad events that you maintain an objectivity that's required, and I do that also when I write." When so many tales of the dark fantastic are told as if with exclamation marks, Dr. Michael Blumlein's sonorous, objective voice is refreshingly chilly. This collection of 12 elegantly crafted stories (first published in 1990) displays a range of subject matter defying categorization as science fiction, horror, or fantasy. The title story, nominated for a World Fantasy Award, is a provocative thought experiment about gender identity. Other topics include radical surgery with political intent, a child's flight into another realm, a technopunk romance, and various surreal excursions into minds obsessed with family secrets, hauntings, madness, poverty.
From Publishers Weekly
The dozen stories in Blumlein's first collection signal the appearance of a major talent on the horror scene. Subtle and chilling in their spare suggestiveness, many of the short tales revolve around medical and surgical matters, but are not grossly gory. In "Tissue Ablation and Variant Regeneration: A Case Report," an extensive surgical procedure becomes a metaphor for Reaganomics at its cruelest. In a similar vein, "Bestseller" concerns a failed writer who is forced to sell off parts of his body to support his family. The title story, a 1987 World Fantasy Award nominee, examines the distress of a mad scientist torn by the contradictions of his own sexuality and by the amorphous nature of male and female sexual roles in general, for which he proposes a drastic solution.
Scan Quality : 5
Last Read : 10 2012
WC : 62,568
Work Table : JPW
Add'l Contributors : McDowell, Michael
Formats : AZW3, EPUB