Here we have another collection of short story memoirs by Burroughs. The material in this book is all new, and not found in any of his other books, which never fails to astonish me. How many crazy things can one person have happen in their life, after all? Apparently there is no limit.

The cover of this book is an attention getter. Bright yellow background, the same shade of yellow that stands for “danger” or, if found in nature, indicates that the contents might be poisonous if eaten. There is a large hand on the cover, which I didn’t see anything wrong with until I was nearly done reading the book. The hand has six fingers, instead of the usual five. Some “possible side effect” has caused the owner of this hand to grow an extra middle finger. Of course, it’s that finger that was doubled. If you have read a lot of Burroughs’ work, you will find that quite fitting. It took me so long to discover the extra finger either because I’m dyslexic, (and somehow blurred the extra fingers into one finger), or possibly because my grandfather was born with six fingers on each hand. I never met my grandfather, but I wonder if some sort of “genetic memory” caused me to see the six fingered hand on the cover of Possible Side Effects as “normal”.

This book contains twenty six short memoirs. I found all of them fascinating in their own way. These stories do not follow chronological order, (as they seemed to in Magical Thinking), and instead, jump around in time. Some are stories from his childhood, some are from after he and his partner got together, a few are from somewhere in between, when he was still drinking. A few stories take place after he has become a recognized author. All stories are very different, and written with the honesty, sarcasm, and wit that only Burroughs can create.

I will mention just a few of the stories that I found so delightful and absurd that I had to share them with my husband. “The Sacred Cow” is about a puppy that Burroughs and his partner bought, to be a companion to their first dog. Bentley, the first dog, was a perfect puppy, who had recently taken an interest in a toy cow. One day, Burroughs sees this sweet, tiny, puppy in the window of a pet store, who happens to resemble a cow. He has spots, and drooping ears. Chaos ensues, but it does have a happy ending. Any story that includes a cute animal is going to get my attention.

“GWF Seeks Same” is a story about when Burroughs “helps” his friend, a lesbian woman who hates the word lesbian, place a personal ad. They end up with the biggest ad I have ever heard of, and that’s just where things start. This might be the funniest story in the book.

“The Forecast for Sommer” is a story from when Burroughs was a child. His mother starts dating a woman named Sommer, and the story is about both Burroughs’ prediction for how long that relationship will last, as well as for Sommer herself. This one is a heartbreaker. “Bloody Sunday” takes place in an airplane, where Burroughs has a nosebleed. Here we have some insight into what it’s like to be a “recognised” author, and having to deal with a messy, bodily situation in public. Very interesting, I thought.

If you are looking for more memoir work by Burroughs, you are in luck. Just this month, his new book, “A Wolf at The Table” has come out. From what I have seen, this one is about his father, and some secrets.

The term “Magical Thinking” is defined by Webster’s as: “Thinking involving assumptions that don’t hold up to rational scrutiny”. Read all about it here. You can find a better definition of “Magical Thinking” on one of the first pages of Burrough’s book. Burroughs uses the classic childhood example of “step on a crack and break your mother’s back”. No rational person really believes that stepping on a crack in the sidewalk will cause their mother to have back problems. But, little kids still avoid the cracks, and sometimes, this behavior continues on into adulthood. Magical thinking is hard to stop, especially when life gets rough, and you feel like you have no other form of control.

Magical Thinking is a collection of short story memoirs. All are little pieces of Burrough’s life, in somewhat chronological order. You won’t find any of these stories in either Running With Scissors or Dry. This is stuff readers haven’t come across before. There are twenty seven stories in all, giving the readers twenty seven little windows into Burrough’s life, and into his head.

My favorite little memoir in this book is called “Debby’s Requirements”. It’s about a horrible person named Debby, whom Burroughs had the misfortune of hiring as a housekeeper. Things escalate beyond what one would ever expect, and it has an absolutely perfect ending.

“Vanderbilt Genes” is about a visit to “The Breakers”, an estate owned by the Vanderbilt family. Burroughs goes there with his parents, and is convinced that he was kidnapped at birth, and really supposed to be part of the Vanderbilt family. I think all adults who came from horrible childhoods can relate to this one. I myself, for years, was convinced that I must have been adopted, or kidnapped, because I was nothing like either one of my parents.

“Ass Burger” is a story about Burrough’s brother, who, it turns out, has Asperger’s Syndrome. Of course, when they were children, no one knew what to call what his brother was. Asperger’s Syndrome is something that seems to be “in the news” a lot lately, as more and more people figure out that their odd, brilliant, loved one has this syndrome. My brother has it, and I found myself nodding my head at the similarities between my brother and Burrough’s brother. Fascinating story.

“Telemarketing Revenge” features Burrough’s acidic wit as he avenges himself against telemarketers, and their constant phone calls. I found it absolutely hysterical, and was amazed by his creative plan. “Key Worst” is dark and funny at the same time, as Burroughs describes the horrible people he is forced to share a glass bottom boat ride with in Key West, Florida. It’s one of those stories that makes you laugh, and then feel guilty for laughing. And, of course, there is a story called “Magical Thinking”, where Burroughs and his friend share some magical thinking experiences.

These are but a few of the little memoir stories contained in Magical Thinking. Some are darker or sadder than others. Some are funnier than others. All are a painfully honest peek into the head of Augusten Burroughs. If you have already read Running With Scissors and Dry, and want more, then this is your next read.

I love books that contain a bunch of short stories! These are not easy to find, particularly books that contain short stories all by the same author. It seems that in order to get a publisher to let you do a book full of short stories, you must first become a famous, money making, author. Otherwise, your short stories are destined to become part of an anthology with a whole group of less well known, (or completely unknown) authors, or in some of the literary magazines that print short stories. The less lucky authors of short stories will end up with their stories in a box in their closet, or, taking up space on their computers. Koontz includes at the end of the book a little note (of sorts) for readers, describing his own experiences trying to get his short stories published.

The title of the book “Strange Highways” comes from the very first story in the book. It is one of the longer short stories in this collection. Joey Shannon, a forty year old alcoholic, goes back to his hometown to make arrangements for his father’s funeral. He thinks back to all the times he disappointed his father, and his mother, and drinks some more. He thinks about his amazingly successful older brother, P.J., who has become a famous writer, traveling the globe, and sending money back to his father. Much is said about the funeral, about how the other people in the town also disapprove of Joey, and how badly his drinking has affected him. I found the first part of this story so dark and depressing that I seriously considered giving up and moving on to the next story.

The story got better, (but remained dark). Joey starts “seeing” a dead woman, who is reaching out to him. No one else can see this woman, and so, Joey assumes he is hallucinating. On the way out of town, Joey sees a road that should not exist, because the town removed it years ago. The houses located beyond the road were located on a fault line, of sorts, and ended up being torn down as well. He thinks back to a fateful night when he was back in high school, and something P.J. convinced him to keep secret. This road that should not be, this “strange highway” turns out to be Joey’s salvation. He gets transported back in time, to that very important night, and given the chance to make things right. The rest of the story is a combination of an incredibly suspenseful chase between the two brothers, and a whole lot of Christian symbols and iconography. Not my favorite story in the book, by far, but, a good read nonetheless.

There are a total of fourteen stories in this collection, all of which are dark, scary, and creepy in a number of ways. My overall impression after reading all the stories is that there was an underlying theme of “you get what you deserve”. The evil are punished, or, at least stopped in some way. Bad actions reap bad consequences. The innocent are saved, rescued, or rewarded in some way. If you happen to be angry at someone, this book will serve as a virtual way to exact revenge on that person, as you harmlessly substitute them for one of the evil characters.

My absolute favorite story is the second one, called “The Black Pumpkin”. Halloween is my favorite holiday, and so, this story caught my attention right away. Tommy, an eleven year old, visits one of those places selling pumpkins under a tent around Halloween. He goes with his father, and his slightly older brother, Frank. An old, extremely creepy man sits towards the back, surrounded by the pumpkins he has hand carved and decorated. Frank becomes enamored with a large, black pumpkin that is misshapen, has wart like growths, and sharp teeth. The old man says that people are to pay for his pumpkins the same as the not yet carved ones, and “only give me what you wish, you get what you give”. Ominous! Frank, being the nasty kid he is, gives the old many only a nickel. Tommy goes home terrified about what will happen that night, what the pumpkin will do. The old man gives him a warning, of sorts, but that doesn’t make things easier. Freaky story, with an element of Grimm’s fairy tales in it. My favorite, by far!

“Miss Attila the Hun” is a story about alien abduction (in a particularly gruesome way), and a tough teacher who tries to save the town.

“Down in the Darkness” made me cringe the entire time I was reading it! Recent immigrant finally saves up enough to buy his family a big house. The house comes with a door to a basement that only he can see, and the basement contains something horrible, that wants to be fed. There are some real world elements in this story that just make me sick to my stomach, because Koonts references some horrible things that really did happen to some people.

“We Three” and “Kittens” involve children, who are attempting (in very different ways), to punish the adults in charge of them for the perceived mistreatment they children believe they have received from said adults. These are some of the shortest stories in the book, and both gave me chills, which continue as I write this and think about each story. If you are going to read only one story in this collection, it should be one of these two. You won’t be disappointed.

There is one story that gives the reader some comic relief, but still manages to be scary. “Bruno” is about a detective, who finds a man-bear that appears in his living room. Bruno is from some other dimension, tracking a bad guy, and the main character, who happens to be a detective, decides to help him. All sorts of interesting information spills out about the differences between Bruno’s world, and ours. Wait until you read who made Bruno’s gun! Fans of Simon Green will like this story best.

There are a few more stories in this collection that I didn’t even mention, for you to discover on your own.

Any book that says it’s the best of a particular year is a bit misleading, but it cannot be helped. This book includes the best Science Fiction short stores printed in magazines in the year 2006. These compilations are always a year behind themselves, due to their very nature.

Most of the time when I read these kinds of compilations I find one or two stories that I love, a few that I found a bit interesting, and a whole lot of stuff that isn’t at all what I hoped to find. I usually end up skipping over many of the stories after reading about halfway through each, and having it fail to catch my interest despite my efforts to give it every chance to entertain me. Not so with this book, however! For the first time, I found myself really enjoying all the stories. Very impressive! If you have not yet picked up a copy of “the best science fiction” for any year yet, and were considering giving one a read just to see what it’s all about, I recommend this particular compilation. It’s well worth it.

At the very beginning of this book is an introduction by the editor that describes some of his thought processes involved in making the decisions about what stories to include, and which ones to leave out. It seems there was a whole lot of good Sci-Fi to pick from this time. I found the introduction to be interesting, but you can skip over it if you want to, without losing anything from the individual stories. I won’t go into every story from this book in this review, although I could, because they were all so good this time. Instead, I will focus on just a few of my favorite ones.

“Okanoggan Falls” by Carolyn Ives Gilman describes life in a small American town after a race of aliens have taken over the country, (and possibly the world as well). America is occupied by bipedal aliens that look almost as if they are made of stone. They don’t eat, they don’t drink much water, and, for the most part, they don’t want to really get too close to the humans. The humans, of course, resent this occupying force, but are powerless against them. This is not a story of oppression, but rather of hope. One brave woman in one small town sets out to try and make the two sides get along. She focuses her attentions on the alien who has been placed in charge of her town, right after he announces that everyone is going to have to move. The aliens are interested in the rock lying beneath the town. Susan tries to be nice to Captain Groton, inviting him over for dinner, and to town events. In the process she gets the deadline moved farther and farther back, hoping to save the town. In the process, Susan’s eyes are opened to how small minded and, well, “racist”, for lack of a better term, many of the people in her small American town are. This includes her husband and children, who make it clear that they don’t like how much time she spends with Captain Groton. The two become close, each influencing the other. Captain Groton is becoming more and more human as a result of his exposure to Susan and her town, and not at all in the way you might expect! There’s a bit of a twist on the more traditional story line of “woman loves an officer on the enemy side, Officer falls for woman, fate separates them forever”. This might be my favorite story in the entire book.

“Saving for a Sunny Day, or the Benefits of Reincarnation” by Ian Watson plays around with the implications of a society where controlled reincarnation is a fact. A sentient, supercomputer like force controls which souls get reincarnated, and into what kind of life. Debts are inherited, and so are fortunes. No one uses their riches to help the less fortunate, or the physically or mentally impaired, because, perhaps that soul was rich in a past life, and already had their turn. And besides, if someone is really in debt and physically disadvantaged in this life, well, that’s because they didn’t manage their finances well enough in their previous life. Children find out at a young age just how much they are going to inherit, (or how much debt they will carry from their past life), and make their life choices accordingly. What can you do to make a ton of money and pay off this debt? How much fun can you go have, since you are going to be fantastically wealthy this time around? Will you save for your next life, or blow it all this time around? I found this a very compelling concept to think about.

“Incarnation Day” by Walter Jon Williams presents a future where children are raised in virtual environments, and have to earn a physical body to incarnate into once they become adults. Told from the viewpoint of an adolescent girl who is still living virtually, working hard to become incarnated, and also trying to rebel like a “normal” teenager. This story touches on a whole lot of deep concepts. “Parents” can be a man and a woman who are married, or not married, or two people of the same sex, married or not. It costs a great deal of money to have a virtual child, and so, “Parents” can be a whole group of people who pull funds and efforts together to raise one. Whatever the situation, the Parents basically own the virtual child, and can decide to terminate the program whenever they want to. Is this murder, or property damage? Children grow up with a group of other virtual children, in order to give them a chance at learning how to socialize properly. Parents choose what the children will study, in an effort to give the child something valuable he or she can do for society once he or she becomes incarnated into a body. The children can choose whatever they want to look like, and change it around as often as we might change our icons on our chat programs. Oh, and it might not be a typically human body that they graduate into. This is a world where humans have adapted to living in space, and so, some have extra arms and no legs, to better navigate a weightless environment. The very concept of “human” is enlarged to include any body that thinks like a human. A virtual child could incarnate into a hairy bug like creature, and still be considered “human”. Lots of food for thought inside this story.

“Inclination” by William Shunn describes an odd religion that is followed by the main character who is living in space. The religion includes following the ideas behind “the great builder” and uses metaphors that involve “the six fundamental machines”. I found it interesting to see this isolated deeply religious teen interact in a larger society that doesn’t follow or respect his religion, and how he was affected by these new ideas. Something like a space age version of The Amish dropping into a very technologically entwined dominant society. I found this story interesting in it’s contrasts.

“A Billion Eves” by Robert Reed is a trippy story. Kala breaks into a sanctuary that is basically a time loop. Inside is the span of one day, lived over and over again for all it’s inhabitants, who are completely unaware of the reality they exist in. The sanctuary is a bubble that holds Seattle preserved in time before the wars that destroyed the rest of the world. Kala is searching for something, and chooses to stay stuck in this loop, reliving one perfect day over and over again forever. After the first loop, she will become like everyone else in the sanctuary, blissfully unaware that time is a loop and all these events happen over and over again.

Again, I thought all the stories inside this book were wonderful. I selected a few that I enjoyed the most to describe here, but that doesn’t mean I think you should skip over the rest of them. Short stories are nice little breaks, especially in between reading longer novels. If you are new to Sci-Fi and are looking for a taste of what it’s all about, this book is a great place to start. Long time fans of Sci-Fi will love it too.

This is the second time I have read this book, and I laughed just as hard this time around as I did through the first read!

Written in a series of short essays, Laurie Notaro captures moments in her transition from self proclaimed “Idiot Girl” to Married Woman. She mentions the panic involved in planning the wedding, struggles with getting along with family, (both her own and the new in-laws), and some hysterical stories involving the family pets! There are also essays about her sister’s new baby, and how he starts to act when he turns into a toddler, essays about getting along with her husband, and some about stuff all girls have to deal with from time to time, just because we are female.

This time around, as I was reading, I found myself particularly relating to her essays that described the struggle involved with not only finding a house, but actually moving in. Sounds like maybe her house needed as many repairs to make it livable as mine and my husband’s did!

This book will make you laugh. It is smart, funny, and a quick read. Its as instantaneous a mood lifter as bite of chocolate, and has much less calories! Notaro has even written a few more books to enjoy after you are done with this one.

I know, because I work in a bookstore, that there were people who were extremely excited to get their hands on a copy of this book. But, was the book really something to get excited about? I decided to find out.

From the title alone, I already knew that this was book was likely to fall into the Romance genre, which is my least favorite category of books. I read the back cover, and found out that this book is made up of four short stories, by four different authors, which made it a bit more interesting. There were a lot of pages here, and I figured that since it was split into four different stories, maybe I could manage to read it. After all, if I didn’t like one story, there were three more to try! Two things made me decide I would read this book. One, it sounded like there would be at least one vampire in it, and hinted at demons and werewolves as well. That’s usually a good thing. Two, I got it for free, because I work at a bookstore. Can’t go wrong there!

By the time I was done, I got about what I expected. I asked someone I work with who also has read this book what she thought of it. She summed it up quite nicely. “Eh.”

The first story is by Kim Harrison, and is called “Undead in the Garden of Good and Evil”. I had high hopes for this one, thinking it would be something like the book by a similar name. I ended up liking this story the best out of the four. Ivy is a vampire, but a “living” vampire. She works in a CSI type place, that is run by vampires who aren’t alive anymore. Her boss is attractive, but is hitting on her, and so, she’s not interested. She knows he only wants her for her blood. The Vampire boss isn’t allowed to just take it though, without her permission, so he tries to change her mind. There are some pretty well written scenes of the two of them trying to tease the other one into giving in first. The best part of the story is the “universe” it is set in. It had witches, banshees, werewolves, and a whole hierarchy of vampires. I would like to have read more about all of that.

The second story was by Lynsay Sands, and is called “The Claire Switch Project”. Claire works in a lab with two guys she has known since high school. One has asked her out, but she declined. The other one is the twin brother of her best friend, and she is damned near in love with him. The three are working on zapping animals with some kind of laser, to make them be able to change their appearance like chameleons. Its pretty obvious where this is going. Some of it might have been a little funny, if it wasn’t so telegraphed before hand. No surprises here. I almost quit reading this story when Claire and her best friend are talking about a glamorous, sexy, popular, actor, who is in all the movies, who Sands named “Brad Cruise”! C’mon!

Kelley Armstrong wrote the third story, called “Chaotic”. Hope is a half demon who is working by day for a tabloid, and by night as a spy of sorts for some secret group. She goes on a blind date with this guy her mom set her up with to a museum for a benefit. Within seconds, its clear that two things are going on here. One, the blind date guy is boring. Two, there is someone trying to steal jewels from the museum, which Claire finds out about because she’s a half-demon who can sense chaos. The story takes some interesting twists and turns. There are a few sex scenes in the story, which seemed kind of thrown into the story, and not really essential. I would have liked to know more about the half-demons and all their weird powers instead.

The last story in the book was called “Dead Man Dating” and was written by Lori Handeland. Kit is a frumpy, chubby, studious type, who goes on a date with some guy she met on the internet. He turns out to be dead, but does show up for the date. Things go from there. Kit is rescued by a demon hunter who sounds a lot like Antonio Banderas. This story was had too much “romance novel” and not enough “action/sci-fi” for my taste. This story is practically made to order for women who are fourty-something, living at home with mom, and not dating anyone. A lot of emphasis was put on how the main character is a virgin, and things go much as you would expect. The parts about the demons were very interesting though. I might have liked the ending more if this was a longer book. As it was, it seemed kind of early for what happened to happen.

Here is a book about some college kids who go on a road trip to Los Angeles. On the way across the desert, they stop at some gas station in the middle of nowhere, and find that for 75 cents, you can go check out “The Mystery”. This much I got from flipping the book over and reading the back cover, and it had me interested right then. “The Attraction” is not a love story, or a porn, its actually about thing you view in a circus like side show. A thing that is both unbelievable and dangerous! How exciting!
(more…)

This one is slightly out of date. I think they may be on “Best SF 11″, or something close to that by now. Anyway, this book contains the best Science Fiction short stories published in the year 2000. The editor, David G. Hartwell, selects them all, puts a little blurb about each author before their story, and wrote the introduction.

The introduction is rather interesting. Hartwell comments on how the year 2000 is a BIG year for science fiction, and makes references to many of the famous stories that take place on or around that year. (Such as Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001, and Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward). Hartwell also emphasizes, emphatically, and repeatedly, that these stories are all examples of “hard Science Fiction”. I have never heard that term before I picked up this book.

Anyway, these were the best Science Fiction short stories published in 2000, (at least, according to Hartwell, and whoever he confers with, if anyone). I found that I was not really interested in many of them, which was a disapointment. Maybe I’m just not that into “Hard Science Fiction”? I don’t really know. Some stories were just too technical, and didn’t seem to really go anywhere. Others presented a very interesting concept, but, then abruptly ended, sometimes after just a page or two. It would have been nice to have some of those stories expanded upon.
(more…)

This was also a fun book to be reading right before and on Halloween. It has fourteen little short stories, all written by Stephen King, and all very much in his style. I happen to be a Stephen King fan, so I really enjoyed this book. Some of these stories link up with his other work,(some of the books in the Dark Tower Series), which is always interesting.

Even the cover is great! Its this pencil drawing of a table at a resturant. The water glass has a red drop of liquid falling down to the bottom of it, which just must be blood. The back cover of the book has the rest of the resturant, and has blood spattered all over it. This artwork is on the hard cover version of the book. Im not sure what’s on the paperback. This drawing is directly related to one of the stories in the book, “Lunch at the Gotham Cafe”, a really gorey story about a guy going crazy at a resturant.

Not all the stories in the book were wonderful, but most were good. My favorite is “Little Sisters of Eluria”. It is almost like part of the Dark Tower series, which I love, but takes place before the first book. Roland goes into this abandoned town, called Eluria, and things happen from there. Its just as captivating as the rest of the Dark Tower series. Also interesting is that this story seems to link up with something in the book “The Talisman”, (which King wrote with Peter Straub). Fans of King will enjoy this story.

The story that the book takes its title from, “Everything’s Eventual”, is a story that reminds me of part of the Dark Tower series as well. But, even if you have not read the series, you can enjoy this one. A teenager, whose life is going nowhere, finds he has a strange power, and gets offered an even stranger job. A good read on its own.

Overall, there were more stories I liked in this book than ones I didn’t like so much. This is a good book when you want to read a Stephen King story, but don’t have that kind of time. Bite sized horror, to be enjoyed like the little “fun size” candy bars one gets while trick-or-treating.

This book is a collection of Vampire stories by 18 different authors, none of whom I have ever even heard of before. I think the editors anticipated Readers looking at the author list in the table of contents and saying: “Who?” because they felt the need to add little paragraphs about the authors immediately following each story. This was annoying to me. Other story collections I have read put the author information in the back of the book, where you can either look it up, or look at some of it, or, ignore it entirely if you want. With the author info immediately after the stories, it kind of comes across as a commericial break in between stories. Not something I wanted to look at, but, in my way anyway.

I was largely disapointed with this book. It feels like the editors went “Hey, everybody! Write me a vampire story for this collection! Let’s make some money!”, and most of the authors went. “Yes….well… I’ve actually been working on this totally different story. Perhaps I will just throw in a Vampire somewhere, and make it work anyway!”. The editors must have looked at what they got back from the authors, and thought, “Uh oh! A lot of these aren’t really about vampires much. I know! We will put them in chronological order! Then it will work!” And then they named the whole lot “Time of the Vampires”, thinking themselves rather clever, and called it a day. Only a few stories held my attention. Most of them I just dragged myself through, hoping they would suddenly improve. They didn’t improve.
(more…)