Jack Dann

Visitations collects short fiction by Dann from the 1970s through the early 21st century. Only a minority of the stories are patently science fiction, though nearly all have some preternatural or at least "speculative" elements. Most don't have a denouement, and a few seem to be missing even a climax, although all have some sort of plot. A few of the stories written earlier share an emphasis on the Jewish perspective of the protagonist: in worlds however strangely transformed, the tenacity show more of Jewish culture is a given. A couple of the stories written later feature Giovanni Pico della Mirandola as a character, in the magick setting of his own Renaissance Italy. (These appear to have been byproducts of Dann's 1996 novel The Memory Cathedral.)

I started reading this book while in bed with a cold, and the fact (reflected in the title) that most of the stories involve visionary states and distortions of memory and consciousness has had the unobjectionable effect of casting the flavor of a fever dream over the whole thing. show less

Yes it is well written and contains some heady ideas about where mankind is heading, yet I still found it a difficult slog. Why? Too many lines lost to meandering introspection and lint-gathering. Dann's three main protagonists can't get their acts together as they spin their wheels in and out of one psychic pothole after another and despite the woo-woo explanations behind their actions it just gets annoyingly repetitious. Could have been trimmed by at least 50 pages or so.

A collection of classic horror and thriller tales by some very famous and some not so well known, including some overlooked stories by the famous. The Introduction is by Uncle Stevie, and briefly covers a lot of the same ground as did his non-fiction masterpiece on horror, [Danse Macabre]. The book is worth the price just for this missive on the inner workings of horror literature. Some of the names you'd expect: [[Edgar Allan Poe]], [[H. G. Wells]], [[H. P. Lovecraft]]. Others, not so: show more [[Winston Churchill]] with a thriller about a man overboard; [[Theodore Dreiser]] with a spiritualism tale.

Rather than capture all the stories, I'll hit what I thought were the high points:

The Squaw by [[Bram Stoker]], a tale of revenge from the most unlikely of characters, a cat. While this one has been largely lost to the world, no doubt owing partially to the less than politically correct title, it's chilling.

The Girl with the Hungry Eyes by Fritz Leiber, a vampire of a very different sort, and one that is imminently more frightening than most, especially the sparkly kind so popular these days.

Camps by Jack Dan, a man balances on the edge of death, dreaming of a life he didn't live in a concentration camp.

Sardonicus by Ray Russell, beware what you wish for, as the consequences may outstrip your expectations. A horribly disfigured man coerces a doctor to cure him, but the cure imprisons him beyond his original disfigurement.

The Oblong Room by Edward D. Koch, a police procedural that requires the gumshoe to expand his mind beyond the natural.

The Party by William F. Nolan, a fevered dream that cannot be escaped.

The Crate by Stephen King, this one bears a slight resemblance to [[Douglas Preston]]'s [The Relic]. Here, a man opens a long forgotten crate in a university research laboratory and unleashes a very hungry entity. But the twist here - after the beast eats a couple people, the man's friend realizes its utility in doing away with his shrew of a wife.

Highly Recommended!!!!!
4 1/2 bones!!!!! show less

This is an exceptional collection of military science-fiction, well balanced between action, philosophical meditations on the costs of going to war and coming home, and speculations about developments in weapons and strategy. Philip K Dick's "Second Variety" leads off the collection, in my opinion one of the best and creepiest stories about robotic warfare ever written, but the rest of the book doesn't slack off much. I particularly enjoyed Tony Daniel's "A Dry Quiet War", but all of the show more stories in this collection are worth your attention. show less