Ray Vukcevich

This is a mystery that can't quite pull all of its components together. However, Vukcevich is often funny and sometimes outrageously so. As does Lethem in Gun, with Occasional Music, Vukcevich spoofs many of the conventions of the noir detective novel. Like the protagonists of Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn and Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Skylight Howells has characteristics that let (or make) him view the world from an unusual perspective. In Skylight's case, show more it's multiple perspectives--either he has a partially integrated form of dissociative (multiple) identity disorder, or he's really good at shifting his ego state. Either way, some parts of him are better than others at the various tasks associated with detective work. Vukcevich creates a character who is both competent and somewhat pathetic. Encounters along the way with the Russian mafia, secret kitchen rites, cybersex, computer documention, and the heartbreak of tap-dancing addiction almost work, but not quite. Like Skylight himself, the parts just miss coming together. I can enjoy that as a textual parallel to the protagonist's condition; if you can, too, or would enjoy the setup at least as much as you'd enjoy a more satisfactory conclusion to the mystery, read it. show less

A large collection of short surrealist fiction - not my usual taste, but there are some interesting things in here. My favorites were "Finally Fruit," about a woman who becomes a monster; "Pretending," about a group of atheists who decide to pretend that one of their group is a ghost, and "Whisper," a pretty classic creepypasta-ish story about a guy who tape records himself sleeping to prove he doesn't snore and catches something else.

I returned my library copy when I ordered my own from the publisher; I just had to have it. I only give it five stars, because I can't give it six.Folks might get scared off by the collection's description of being "surreal," but it's still very accessible--the cover illustration is definitely appropos. There were two stories that might have been a little on the too-surreal side, but the "The Finger" more than made up for them both. The best story of them all, "White Guys in Space" is show more absolutely brilliant as a multi-layered cultural commentary that's thinly disguised as a piece of mysogynistic 50s sci-fi pulp shlock.I was drawn to it because of the brevity of the stories, but I noticed that these were different from the tightly-written-to-the-point-of-breaking microfiction/flash fiction stories I've been reading lately. These were short, short stories that really were precisely as long as they needed to be. show less

Some really inventive and unusual stories. Overall a decent, enjoyable collection of bizarre fantasy/SciFi with some great, original ideas.
For the most part I didn't find much emotional connection, the tales were mostly about stuff happening and the exploration of quirky ideas. If there had been some more emotion or feeling or humanity them I would have given more stars.