From Publishers Weekly
Music resembling the theme from
Star Wars—complete with bombastic kettledrums and an announcer who sounds like he's caught in an echo chamber—ironically introduces Lethem's offbeat collection of short stories. Though the stories deal with the extraordinary (i.e., superheroes, super inventions and, in one case, a look into the future), themes of loneliness, despair and absurdity usually prevail. Each offering opens with a mood-setting musical backdrop, against which the reader introduces him or herself and the selection. The nine stories are read by eight readers and, from the start, the standard—both literary and narrative—is set quite high. Actors David Aaron Baker, David Krumholtz and Kevin Corrigan each present fine readings, ably setting the tone their stories require. Less convincing, but still entertaining, is Sandra Bernhard, who seems like the odd woman out in this nerdy man's world of comics and sci-fi. Conversely, the most inspired choice is John Linnell of the rock band
They Might Be Giants. Lethem himself maintains the audiobook's high standard and performs his prose with a sensitivity that's sweet but never cloying. Overall, this is a satisfying, and sometimes surprising, audio collection.
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This anthology of nine stories, variously dealing with relationships, memories, masculinity, and superheroes, is offbeat, weirdly Zen, and surprisingly satisfying. The opener, "The Vision," read by David Aaron Baker, is set at a neigh-borhood beer bash where the guests play a disturbing parlor game during which superhero fantasies come to the surface. "Access Fantasy" is a mini-sci-fi thriller about a world that exists only in a traffic jam, while another hidden realm exists beyond a veil. Comedienne Sandra Bernhard, the only female narrator on this collection, renders the story in a disappointingly flat style. By contrast, "The Glasses," a slice-of-life featuring an altercation at a Brooklyn optician's shop, is read with lively and credible style by Danny Hoch. The author reads two stories in the collection, including "Super Goat Man," which follows a young academic over two decades of his acquaintance with a third-rate superhero. S.E.S. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
