Blue World

This is the first McCammon I read (though I followed it up with Usher's Passing). Blue World is a wide ranging selection of his short fiction work from the 80s and early 90s, plus the titular novella.
The collection is a pretty broad cross-section of his short fiction; horror (He'll Come Knocking), thriller/slasher (Blue World), science fiction (Red House), fantasy (Nightcrawler), and Twilight Zone-esque (I Scream Man) stories are all represented here. The influence of script writing on McCammon's style is evident across genres, which helps keeps the pacing as reasonably fast a short story tends to demand. It also lends itself to satisfying endings, though ones that do not always explain what we've just experienced (Doom City).
While I show more have seen complaints the stories fail to address more timeless themes in favor of what would be more commercially successful at the time, I feel that's definitely an off-base claim. Like Michael Shea, a lot of our main characters to tend be from the working class or poor who are sometimes driven to criminalized behaviors based on that (Makeup), and though the trappings of those experiences may have shifted over the decades, their struggles are as easy to identify with now as then. Though main characters are almost all white, and for the most part men, we do have a number of strong female characters (Yellachile's Cage, Night Calls the Green Falcon, Blue World), and main characters ranging in age (Yellowjacket Summer) from children to the elderly (Night Calls the Green Falcon). McCammon does a masterful job of creating evoking strong relatable emotions and creating sympathetic (though not always easily identified with) characters in the limited space he has for each story.
I would normally single out strong shorts from the collection, but with the possible exception of Pin they're all standouts. show less

I'm often hot and cold with short story collections. Various author collections seem to bug me the most, because the quality tends to be all over the place. And with single-author collections such as this one, well, it's often hit or miss. Either the author kicks ass, or they suck.

Thankfully, I think, for the most part, McCammon kicked some serious ass here.

This is my introduction to McCammon the short story author. And, to be honest, he should do more of it. There's the odd one that didn't quite stick with me, but for the most part, these were absolutely excellent. Included in this particular edition by Subterranean Press, I got three additional stories, that fit in perfectly with the previously published ones.

In fact, the weakest show more link in the collection--and the reason for four stars instead of five--is the title story. It was the unlikely mashing of a psychopathic killer (who, at times, seemed to be forgotten by the author), a Catholic priest and a "porno" actress. For me, the story, at something like 170 pages, was about three times as long as it needed to be, and likely due to that fact, the material often seemed to hit cringe-worthy notes when it came to Debbie's (the porn girl) naivete or downright stupidity at times, as well as priest John's painfully overwrought reactions to her.

But there's a few stories in here that, even on their own, would be worth the price of admission. Excellent book, overall. show less

This has set on my shelf for ages....I'm not the biggest fan of short stories, generally speaking. But, alas, it was time to break it open...my favorite time of year is here, my fall reading has began.

I ended up really enjoying this! It is now on my list of fave short story anthologies. I was rather disturbed by 2 of the stories...and let me tell you, thats not an easy feat. I have been reading horror since childhood and often read " shock horror", but McCammon managed to do it here.

Each of the stories were unique and interesting and didn't suffer from the vagueness and lack of development that I find with most short stories. A well written, fun and entertaining read.

Blue World by Robert McCammon is a collection of his early stories and one novella, Blue World. The stories are excellent with a few: Chico, PIN, Yellowjacket Summer, Nightcrawlers, Yellachile, are almost perfect horror stories. Chico and PIN are my favorites. The other stories are good too, just not as perfect.

However what lowered this from 5 to 4 stars was inclusion of the long novella Blue World itself. I thought the plot was formulaic: black night, fallen white night, female fallen angel, white night reforms fallen angel and achieves his salvation in the process. Courtly love is all that is available in the end.

One thing I have read somewhere is there are only 9 basic plots possible (Don't quote me on the number, it might be as show more many as 12.). The article stated that part of great fiction is the author makes you think his novel/story is not one of those 9 plots. I didn't get that here.

Well worth a read for McCammon's early stories. show less

The Basics

Blue World is a collection of short stories and one novella, all of which seem to be from McCammon’s early career. They’re all mostly horror/thriller and run the gamut on subject matter.

My Thoughts

I hate books like this. A story collection is meant to be a balanced read where each story is a cool, little nugget you enjoyed on some level. So that by the end of the journey, you feel that the overall experience was worth it. What it’s not supposed to be is what this collection was. A couple of good stories, a great novella, and then a whole lotta weak stuff. So that by the end, you’re trying to figure out if you even want to keep this thing or not.

A lot of these stories felt like tales I’d heard before, only done better show more by someone else (“Nightcrawlers” and “Pin”). They were bleak in ways that weren’t scary or profound, just empty (“He’ll Come Knocking At Your Door” and “I Scream Man!”). Some were grasping for heights they missed by a long shot (“Chico” and “Yellachile’s Cage”). Stories that should’ve been good and all missed the mark by varying margins.

Were there gems? Of course! Were they worth reading the entire book for? That’s where I’m struggling. “Doom City” was a really unique look at an apocalypse setting, or maybe even a hell setting, and the fact that I can’t figure out which it is promotes the story even more. “Something Passed By” had that apocalypse magic, as well. “Night Calls the Green Falcon” is a strong story, especially if you’re a comic book fan, with emphasis on something like Watchmen.

Finally, the novella for which the book is named, “Blue World”, was the strongest story of the bunch, in my opinion. The fact that it takes up half the book means that it feels more significant than the rest, and thank all that is good, else this book would’ve been a two star endeavor. It was more about characters than it was about being thrilling, and it gave me what the internet refers to as “feels”. It wasn’t entirely perfect, but after sloughing through the rest of the collection, it felt like a breath of fresh air.

I can no longer tell if this is a recommendation or not. Which is why, I repeat, I hate books like this.

Final Rating

3/5 show less

A collection of short fiction which ranges from a slightly sentimental story set in a prison to extreme surreal dystopia and post-apocalypse fiction. The main part of the book is taken up with a novella which rather unbalances the collection as it deals with the passion that a Catholic priest develops for a woman who is a porn star and cocaine addict, and is being stalked by a psychotic killer who murders porn stars. A certain character appears who is obviously set up to be a victim and the whole thing is rather predictable and odd.

The better stories are 'Yellowjacket Summer' about a truly creepy town beset by wasps, and 'Something Passed by' in which the laws of physics have become crazily upturned. 'Doom City' is a sort of Groundhog show more Day in hell. 'Night Calls the Green Falcon' is a somewhat sentimental but better nuanced story of an old man who dusts off his superhero costume - he played one in serials in the cinema up until the early 1950s (the book was published in 1988) - to bring a friend's killer to justice.

Overall, a 3-star read on balance. show less

I picked this up, my first McCammon, because it's October and I was looking forward to some ghosties. Really, there are not any spooky stories here besides one, which I'll get to momentarily.

I thought that "Blue World" must be a collection of McCammon's earlier works, given the simplicity of style which makes this sentence look daunting; however it was published in 1990. It is to note that most of McCammon's Pocket Books titles are now out of print; and that McCammon himself chose, from a pride which was contemptuous of, and indeed embarrassed of his early success, to pull his first four novels from print—I could forgive this egoism had (maybe they had) sales stopped completely. Then again, not having read them, I don't know—maybe show more they make Stephenie Meyer look like Henry James. McCammon allegedly went on to whine that he had to learn to write publicly. These foggy revelations have given me pause at contemplating the reading of further works by the author; though really, let the work speak, not the author. That's the good thing about antiquarian authors—they can't ruin your reading of them with their own mouths. I suppose they can though, if you go looking hard enough...

About the stories collected in "Blue World": they are clean and simple and straightforward, and Isaac Asimov, who called for simplistic writing, would be proud; except that I keep thinking these stories, I've read someplace else, in a slightly altered and more eloquent form.

"Yellowjacket Summer" was a nice little nature story. I enjoyed it because this past summer I had the pleasure of angering some yellowjackets to violence towards my person.

"Makeup" was a bit juvenile, in that the character was juvenile, though I really liked the idea of the cursed movie monster makeup.

"Doom City" was post apocalyptic goodness.

"Nightcrawlers" was good, in an agent orange ethereal zombies, we're all held up at the diner, sort of way.

"Pin" was garbage.

"Yellachile's Cage" was good, very good, and I only thought a few times of prison movies. It spoke to me, "Yellachile's Cage", that is, of what it is to be a writer, a creative person.

"I Scream Man" was not that great of post apocalyptic short fiction.

"He'll Come Knocking At Your Door" was the one spooky story fit to read around Halloween time, and it made me feel queasy. It gives me chills and makes me feel a bit nauseated to think about it even now. I think it is because it is a true microcosm to our own postmodern reality. Just look who has power in the world, luck, money, success. It costs too much. I think the main character, because he was good, was doomed here, but should be OK in the afterlife.

"Chico": creepy malformed mentally disturbed Mexican messiah to cockroaches.

"Night Calls the Green Falcon" was like a few stories here. It's sort of hell to read, but it's kind of neat, and you carry through because you are a completionist and want to see what the hell happens to the old man.

"The Red House" I didn't really care for. I think it was actually, as the father feared, communist (interchangeable now with capitalist) propaganda.

"Something Passed By": the third post apocalyptic story here, which still doesn't beat out "Doom City" but is better than "I Scream Man".

"Blue World": this too was hell to read, but I carried through, strung along by a thread of interest until I reached the far away ending, which I actually liked.

I may come back and read some of the out of print McCammon which is sitting on my shelf, or I might not. Maybe I'll read some reviews for a change. show less