Grotto of the Dancing Deer and Other Stories by Clifford D. Simak

Published by Open Road Media Sci-Fi & Fantasy on March 1, 2016

Grotto of the Dancing Deer is one of several books in a series that will collect all of Clifford D. Simak’s short stories. The stories in this volume are representative of Simak’s range as a writer. Most of them are quite good.

In “Over the River and Through the Woods,” two children show up to visit their grandparents, but the grandparents have never seen the children before. The boy says his father is a temporal engineer, a phrase the grandmother doesn’t understand. Well, you can see where this is going, although the story takes an interesting turn. The story reflects Simak’s love of simple country lifestyles as well as the moral dilemma inherent in time travel. The story is short but powerful. It shows Simak at his best.

“Grotto of the Dancing Deer” is about a 20,000-year-old man. He’s the original survivalist and he does it without a bug-out bag, because survival is about instinct and judgment, not gear and guns. The story’s well-deserved awards include a Hugo and a Nebula. Its point, I think, is that having a friend who understands you, even if the friendship is fleeting, is the true key to survival.

“The Reformation of Hangman’s Gulch” is one of Simak’s westerns. It has the hallmarks of a classic western, including the theme of good versus evil, but the good guy isn’t all that good, giving the story the kind of subtlety that Simak brought to much of his fiction. The dialog could have been better but the story is entertaining.

In “The Civilization Game,” the human race is striving to preserve its culture (everything from art to politics to war) as humans become a minority in the galactic matrix. Those who try to preserve human achievements discover that many of them (like political assassination) are quite ugly. Simak gives a clever twist to the notion of cultural preservation as the story ends.

“Crying Jag” is about an alien (and his robot) who comes to a small town and listens to the sad stories people love to tell about their lives. They feel better after confessing their sorrows, making the alien seem like a priest or psychiatrist, but the alien listens to the stories because they have the same effect on aliens that alcohol has on humans. The gentle humor and the twisted ending are typical Simak, but the story is also typical of Simak’s ability to make a profound point with a simple story.

“The Hunger Disease” was written when sf authors thought that Venus was just a rainy version of Earth. Colonists on Venus come down with a fatal disease that makes them insatiably hungry. A reporter wonders if there’s a connection between the disease and a visit by a colonist from Mars. Simak’s appreciation of agrarian life and its rigors is evident the story, as is his love of westerns. The story, in fact, gives a science fiction twist to a traditional western theme of a man fighting to save his land from swindlers who file an opposing claim. Add a Martian conspiracy, and you’ve got classic Simak.

“Mutiny on Mercury” is probably the first published story that Simak wrote, although it took him a while to sell it. It’s sort of a John Carter story that is easily skipped.

The spaceship crew in “Jackpot” spend their time plundering planets. They come across a planet with only one structure. It appears to be an immense library. This creates a moral dilemma -- should they rob the library, a prospect that will finally give them the wealth they want, or should they leave it for the rest of the galaxy to enjoy? Should education be freely available to benefit all of humankind or should it be sold at a profit to those who can afford it? Is honesty the most important value, even if it leads to complacency? Simak excelled at stories that ask moral questions. This one stands out.

Some aspects of “Day of Truce” reminded me of the first stories in City: the tension between city dwellers and those who are turning the country into cities with larger yards; the tension between generations; the difficulty of living in peace when people have their minds set on conflict. The story builds on a shrewd version of the angry old man who shakes a fist while yelling “you kids get off my lawn.” The story also asks whether a preemptive strike can ever be justified as self-defense. This isn’t one of Simak’s best, but it’s a good effort.

“Unsilent Spring” returns to one of Simak’s favorite themes -- the merits of simple country lifestyles. A rural doctor is asked to keep an eye out for a strange malady that is becoming epidemic. Symptoms include lethargy, abnormal blood sugar, and an increased appetite. Only townfolk complain of those symptoms; country and hill folk seem to be immune. The hill people, in particular, are healthy and self-sufficient, surviving on the food they grow, the fish and game they catch, the few cows and pigs they own. They are “happy, reliable, proud, and independent people, filled with dignity and inborn curiosity” -- the kind of people Simak extolled in his fiction. The story is sort of an ode to country doctors. The solution to the medical mystery might be a little silly, but it’s consistent with Simak’s lifelong interest in the process of evolution.

RECOMMENDED

Hap and Leonard by Joe R. Lansdale

Published by Tachyon Publications on March 1, 2016

Joe Lansdale has written eight or nine novels featuring the characters Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. Hap provides the narrative voice. He's sort of an East Texas liberal who has been on a long and unsuccessful quest to find himself. His buddy, Leonard Pine, is a black, gay conservative who has anger management issues. Whether Hap and Leonard have a knack for finding trouble or whether trouble finds them is a question they often ponder.

Hap and Leonard are now appearing in a series on Sundance TV. Apparently the episodes can be streamed online. I haven't done that yet due to my lousy internet service but I'll get around to it eventually. I assume that this collection of Hap and Leonard short stories was released in anticipation of the Sundance show.

A couple of the short stories in the volume are billed as novellas. I’m not sure they’re long enough to qualify as novellas rather than long short stories. The entire volume is relatively short, but most of the stories are entertaining, as you would expect from Joe Lansdale.

The first long story is “Hyenas.” A young man looking for someone to help him prevent his brother from committing a robbery has the misfortune of meeting the wrong guys before he finds Hap and Leonard. A couple of violent confrontations later and the problem is solved. This is a fun, straightforward story that is enlivened by Lansdale’s trademark wit.

“Veil’s Visit” is co-authored with Andrew Vachss. The story blends Vachss’ trademark darkness with Lansdale’s trademark humor. The darkness (involving kids, another Vachss trademark) comes at the beginning but the story becomes cheerier as it progresses. Veil is a lawyer and an old friend of Hap. He travels to Texas to help out Leonard, who is charged with burning down a crack house. Again. The trial is a masterpiece of wit and theatrics. It’s also deliciously funny.

“Death by Chili” is a very short story that was written as a promotional giveaway. Leonard solves the mystery of how a person died. The chili recipe at the end is more amusing than the story.

“Dead Aim” is the best story in the collection. Hap and Leonard are asked to help out a woman whose husband is threatening her. That problem takes a couple of twists before turning into a bunch of new problems … the kind that Hap and Leonard like to solve with an axe handle, a few bullets, and nonstop banter.

In “The Boy Who Became Invisible,” Hap recalls an incident from his childhood. This is a very short, very serious story, quite unlike the other entries. Also from his younger days, Hap explains how he got to know Leonard in “Not Our Kind.” The story features some of the usual Hap and Leonard banter, but its subject matter -- racism and homophobia -- give it a serious edge.

“Bent Twig” is a fairly predictable story about Hap’s efforts to find the drug-addled daughter of his girlfriend, who regularly gets into trouble and disappears. The plot gains some zip toward the end, and the snappy dialog and amusing moments that characterize Hap and Leonard stories make it worth reading.

Rounding out the collection is Lansdale’s brief interview of Hap and Leonard. It comes across as filler. Lansdale also devotes a few pages to explaining how and when he penned the various Hap and Leonard novels and stories.

On the whole, this collection is something that Hap and Leonard fans (or, more generally, Lansdale fans) will appreciate. It doesn’t consistently showcase Lansdale at his best, but “Hyenas” and “Dead Aim” are worth the price of the volume.

RECOMMENDED

Condor in the Stacks by James Grady and The Little Men by Megan Abbott

MysteriousPress.com is publishing (in digital form) a series of stand-alone stories by popular crime authors in which books, bookstores, libraries, or manuscripts play a central role.  I don't usually review individual short stories, but I'm making an exception for the Bibliomysteries series because the concept is interesting and the authors are well known.

"Condor in the Stacks" by James Grady was published digitally on February 23, 2016.

Condor fans know from reading Last Days of the Condor that the Condor, sometimes known as Vin, was heavily medicated and given a (supposedly) safe and undemanding job at the Library of Congress, sorting books into bins for reshelving and recycling. Vin thinks pretty much all books should be saved. That attitude makes him well suited for the Bibliomysteries series.

Vin tries to kick back his sedation long enough to help a library employee named Kim who thinks she is being stalked. Meanwhile, he tries to solve the puzzle of why he packed seven coffins full of books for recycling but nine coffins are being hauled away.

The plot is beyond far-fetched and it isn’t fully developed. I'm not sure it even makes sense. Still, it entertained me. I liked the story, but not nearly as much as I liked the last Condor novel, which had a depth of character and intricacy of plot that can be difficult to achieve in a short story. I probably would not recommend this story to readers who did not read and enjoy Last Days of the Condor.

The text of the story mentions or alludes to about a dozen authors. James Grady acknowledges them at the end, which is helpful for readers who recognize, but can’t quite place, an allusion. I am one of the readers who benefitted from reading the acknowledgements.

Judging from Amazon reviews, some readers are turned off by Grady’s writing style, which is far from conventional. Odd punctuation, sentence fragments, and stream of consciousness sometimes take over the narrative. The frenzied, off-kilter style reflects Vin’s shaky mental status. I like it for that reason but I realize that it puts off readers who are looking for straight-forward prose. If you are one of those, be warned that this might not be the story for you.

RECOMMENDED

"The Little Men" by Megan Abbott was published digitally on September 15, 2015

In 1953, Penny went to Hollywood to pursue her dream of fame. Like most wannabe actresses, she found a less satisfying life that the one she pursued. At night, she consoles herself with the books that came with a surprisingly affordable bungalow that she rents in the canyon. Her neighbors soon reveal that the rent is affordable because nobody wants to rent the bungalow where the bookseller killed himself. Or did he?

This is a story of bad dreams and spooky nocturnal noises and shadows on the walls. A mystery with the flavor of a horror story. Like Psycho, the story asks the reader to divine the secrets of a spooky place. Are the horrors that Penny experiences real or imagined?

A well-crafted story, “Little Men” creates a visceral atmosphere and gives flesh to its characters. The story resolves with a couple of unexpected twists. Most of the stories in this series have been quite good, and this one is no exception.

RECOMMENDED

We Install and Other Stories by Harry Turtledove

Published by Open Road Media on August 25, 2015

I have a mixed, but generally positive, reaction to this collection. Harry Turtledove is known for his alternative histories but this volume showcases his range as a science fiction writer. Readers expecting alternative histories might be disappointed, since none of those are represented here, although history does play a role in a couple of the stories.

Sort of the flip side of alternate history, “Drang von Osten” is a story of the future, told from a German soldier’s point of view as his army (combined with various Scandanavian forces) fights a campaign against Soviet Russians. If you’ve read any of the books that Turtledove has set in a time of war, this story is fairly typical in terms of content and style. The ending comes as something of a surprise, perhaps because it is jarringly out-of-the-blue.

In “Hoxbomb,” humans and an alien race who are grudgingly sharing a world find the need to conduct a joint criminal investigation. The aliens are truly alien, cleverly so. They are different from humans in most significant ways but with enough similarities to make productive interaction possible.

The longest and best story, “Down in the Bottomlands,” is a fun blend of the mystery and spy genres with modest elements of science fiction. A tour guide who shows tourists the sea bottom of a long-dry seabed finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy to reignite a war between the various political divisions on his world.

“Father of the Groom” is about a mad scientist who literally turns a bride into Bridezilla. “We Install” is about a salesman who installs solar systems (as opposed to solar power systems). Both stories are cute but trivial.

“Under St. Peter’s” explains the resurrection of Jesus in a clever way that people of a religious bent might find sacrilegious. I thought it was amusing. “It’s the End of the World as We Know It, and We Feel Fine” imagines domesticating humans in the way that Balyaev domesticated foxes. I liked the story but the style is a little too author-intrusive for my taste.

Turtledove’s attempt at something that isn’t science fiction, “Logan’s Law” (“the good ones are already taken”) is a bland story about a guy who is happy because he got laid …. duh. “Birdwitching” is about a witch who goes birding. Not my kind of story.

A few nonfiction pieces add to the page count, but not to the quality of the volume. In short, while the stories are uneven, the best of the bunch are quite good, and they make the collection worth reading.

RECOMMENDED

The Book of the Lion by Thomas Perry

Published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road on July 14, 2015

This is another entry in Mysterious Press’ Bibliomystery series of short stories that relate to books, bookstores, libraries, or manuscripts. Joyce Carol Oates, Jeffrey Deaver, and a number of other popular crime writers have contributed to the series.

A professor who is a leading expert on Chaucer gets a call from a mysterious stranger who claims to possess the only existing manuscript of Chaucer’s Book of the Lion. The manuscript is thought to have been lost, or possibly it never existed. Is its sudden appearance a hoax? A prank? A fraud?

Rather than offering to sell the manuscript, as a con artist might, the mysterious man has another scheme in mind. Of course, the scheme involves money. With the help of a wealthy friend who has a literary bent, the professor strives to learn the truth about the manuscript.

Thomas Perry peppers the story with snippets of history from the Middle Ages. The characters and tidbits about Chaucer’s works and medieval history make the background more interesting than the plot, which is fun but leads to an unsurprising ending. Still, the fast-moving story is a worthy entry in the series.

RECOMMENDED