The Wall of the Eye, The Wall of the Sky contains eight short stories by Jonathan Letham:

The Happy Man
Vanilla Dunk
Light and the Sufferer
Forever, Said the Duck
Five Fucks
The Hardened Criminals
Sleepy People

Out of all of the stories in this collection, I found The Happy Man to be not only the most effective, but the most emotionally impactful, followed closely by The Hardened Criminals. Both stories involve a fractured father/son relationship that is believable and nuanced, and have no problem communicating the devastation and despair of the characters to the reader; the ending to The Happy Man stayed with me for quite a few days after reading. Also, science fiction or fantastical elements in both of these stories, while comical or ludicrous on the surface, are an integral part of the narrative, both metaphorically and literally.

Light and the Sufferer is also a serious story involving familial relationships, but the science fiction element is less of a contributing factor to the the main actions in the story itself, and in my opinion the story would be equally as strong if it were to be removed altogether.

Five Fucks and Sleepy People are more lighthearted, humorous additions to the collection. Just as enjoyable, if on a different level. Five Fucks actually made me laugh out loud at one point. Good stuff.

Vanilla Dunk is a decent read, but seeing as how it is primarily about basketball - a subject I have no interest in or knowledge of - it was a little lost on me.

Forever, Said the Duck was my least favorite of the bunch, and I think it mainly falls flat because it feels somewhat out of place. While the science fiction elements of the rest of the collection are either incidental to or a catalyst for the overriding story, in this one the science fiction element takes center stage as the focus, setting, and even character of the piece. It's a shift in tone that throws the entire collection slightly off kilter, but while it is the weakest story of the bunch thematically, it is not necessarily bad, just different.

Overall, this is an excellent collection of works by Letham, full of human frailty and the overwhelming struggle against emotional distance. I would hesitate to classify this collection as Science-Fiction, as I feel that most of the stories manage to transcend the genre, but I guess when it's this good, it doesn't matter what you call it. ( )

His first collection of short stories, some of which are still terrific, like "The Hardened Criminals." ( )

Read the UK version, so no Ducks in mine.

Odd to read this simultaneously with [b:In Persuasion Nation|28746|In Persuasion Nation|George Saunders|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167955855s/28746.jpg|1128238], which furnishes its scifi similarly (lousy jobs, desperate people beyond sadness), but which, unlike Lethem, marries style to content. I recommend the Saunders wholeheartedly; the Lethem? Two stories, maybe three.

Recommended: "Five Fucks," which, as one (and, sadly, only one) reviewer below remarks, does a kind of Krazy Kat meets Calvino thing; and "Sleepy People," which is, as the title promises, dreamlike, barring, of course, the attempted rape, which isn't so dreamy. These stories, incidentally, are the only ones told from the POV of a woman. No accident that they're the best: Lethem clearly is stretching his empathy.

Why only 3 stars? The VR/postapocalyptic thing in "How We Got in Town and Out Again" is as dated as any VR fiction. And SPOILER "The Happy Man" is yet another boo-hoo story about child rape, which, troll prophylactic, is bad, but is as cheap a way to tie together a plot and character as the Holocaust: see [b:Hannibal Rising|32416|Hannibal Rising|Thomas Harris|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168390386s/32416.jpg|46673]. "Light and the Sufferer" is a crack deal gone wrong, told from the perspective of a white Long Island college kid whose brother's gotten mixed up with the wrong (black) crowd: basically Adventures in Babysitting meets The Panic in Needle Park, mixed with a bit of Howl's Moving Castle.

( )

A mediocre collection of short stories. The first one was almost good, until it took a turn for the predictable. The rest were mostly forgettable. Lethem is capable of writing good short fiction, but he sure didn’t put any of them in this book. ( )

An early short story collection from Lethem. As is usually true of his work, some stories are more postmodern with science fiction conceits, while others are the reverse. At times I'm content with the elusiveness, and at others I'd like more fleshed-out world-building. I enjoyed "The Happy Man" (though I anticipated the ending very quickly) and "The Hardened Criminals." "Forever, Said the Duck" was the weakest piece because the least original. I'm a huge Lethem fan and I enjoyed this collection, but I do have a strong preference for his novels. ( )