- Paperback: 332 pages
- Publisher: ChiZine (Mar 15 2010)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0981297854
- ISBN-13: 978-0981297859
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 16.3 x 2.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 408 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #204,037 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
Quill & Quire
Douglas Smith opens his new collection of stories with a cheeky definition of the imaginary titular object: “An instrument, in book form, used for viewing a disparate (but hopefully, not grotesquely so) collection of impossible (but hopefully not foolish) fantasies.” This playful classification veers toward the insufferably clever, but rest assured, it is the Toronto-based author’s only instance of overt self-indulgence. The remainder of Chimerascope is a massively enjoyable trek through the far-fetched, the horrifying, and the flat-out weird, all filtered through Smith’s remarkable imagination and prodigious talent.
Chimerascope is primarily made up of fantasy and science-fiction stories. Although Smith’s tales focus on the fantastic, what is immediately evident is his steady grasp of character, which lends humanity to even the most absurd situations.
The stories in this collection traverse genres and styles – from outright horror to witty surrealism to martial-arts mythology – without missing a beat. “The Boys Are Back in Town,” set in a tavern managed by a fallen god, posits a reality where “lawyers flirted with nymphs, tourists played pinball with satyrs, and professors debated hydras.… Hydras aren’t too bright, but just try getting a word in against multiple heads.”
“The Dancer at the Red Door,” with its mix of oblique horror, urban fantasy, and monsters equipped with pincers extending “from each side of a slit-like mouth,” recalls Clive Barker at his most disturbingly fanciful. “State of Disorder” layers a time-travel scenario over a polite dinner between colleagues, with unsettling results. The closing story, the post-apocalyptic narrative “Memories of the Dead Man,” contains echoes of Stephen King.
Chimerascope is a sterling set, with nary a weak or disposable entry. Smith’s writing, evocative yet understated, gracefully brings to life his imagined realms.
Book Description
Chimerascope—a story of many parts.A dinner conversation takes three lifetimes to finish.A geologist faces a planet-sized, eons-old puzzle to save her crew.The hero of the Fall of Earth must choose between love and revenge.A man is born each day into a new life—only to die each night.A sentient aurora threatens the last of humanity.A house as big as the world.These are some of the stories you will encounter in Chimerascope, the first full collection of short fiction from award-winning Canadian author, Douglas Smith. Sixteen stories of fantasy and science fiction that take you from love in fourteenth-century Japan to humanity’s last stand, from virtual reality to the end of reality, from alien drug addictions to a dinner where a man loses everything.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.ca
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Favourite read in 2011, April 21 2012
By Krista - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Chimerascope (Paperback)
I had intended the read the first story, get a feel for the collection, and then book a time that I would read it all. No way. This collection was impossible to put down. This contains one of the best collections of speculative fiction I have ever read. There is a reason that the majority of these stories have won awards and nominations. Smith is absolutely brilliant as he proves SF is every bit as intelligent and thought-provoking as any literary work out there.My favourite in the collection was "Scream Angel," with my new favourite first line: They stopped beating Trelayne when they saw that he enjoyed it. I surprisingly also liked "By Her Hand, She Draws You Down." I generally don't like horror, so it was a surprise to have enjoyed this one as much as I did.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Where does he get this stuff?, Feb 13 2011
By Cindie Geddes "cindie geddes" - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
I don't know where Douglas Smith gets his ideas or how he manages to wrap those ideas inside such real characters, but I'm happy he does. Each of his stories stands on its own as a great read. But taken together, they add up to a way of seeing the world that I find fascinating. His imagination is a place I could explore for years.
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Literature & Fiction > Canadian > Short Stories
- Books > Literature & Fiction > Short Stories > Canadian
- Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Anthologies
- Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Anthologies
- Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Short Stories
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
