Friday, January 20, 2012

Horror Planet - S. D. Tullis

It is almost impossible to pick and choose what should be lifted from the text and quoted as I would have to retype the entire story here. I suggest you pick up a copy of this anthology and read everything in it including this story and then you will see what I mean. But I will quote one observation here: ‘But he knew, or at least guessed- which for him was as good as knowing- that it was how the mechanics of dream operated: constructing through an unfathomable process a piecemeal assemblage of dream-motifs, a willy-nilly patchwork culled from first- and second hand experience, overactive imagination, and even smuggling them in from already dreamed landscapes of the unreal.’ This is a guy meets girl story. Robert falls in love with Charlotte. I am still not giving too much away to say that we end up in space, hurtling towards the sun. There is a role to play for a horror anthology. I’m just going to quote one more paragraph here. No I’d better not. I want to though. I must resist. Read the story.

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"...its acid trip condensed narrative bringing to mind similar voyages by J.G. Ballard and Malzberg." (Black Static #25 - TTA Press)

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S.D. Tullis’s “Horror Planet” consists of a deconstructed narrative that flits between scraps of seemingly random thought, depicting, in a few short pages, a kind of planetary collapse. I loved the frantic pace of this story.

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Any further reviews after 20 Jan 12 will appear in the comments below.

My own views: http://horroranthology.wordpress.com/editors-story-by-story-commentary/