Aftershock & Others
16 Oddities
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4.6 • 7 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Aftershock and Others is the third collection of short fiction by New York Times bestselling author F. Paul Wilson, hailed by the Rocky Mountain News as "among the finest storytellers of our times."
Includes the short story that was the basis for the short "Foet."
The title novelette won the Bram Stoker Award. Its companions touch on the past, present, and future—from the inflationary insanity of Weimar Germany ("Aryans and Absinthe") to disco-club-era Manhattan ("When He Was Fab"), to the rationing of medical services in a grim near future ("Offshore"). Wilson's stylistic diversity and versatility are on display in stories that pay tribute to Ray Bradbury ("The November Game"), use a sentient killer virus as a point-of-view character ("Lysing toward Bethlehem"), and pay unabashed homage to pure pulp fiction in two yellow peril stories ("Sex Slaves of the Dragon Tong" and "Part of the Game").
And finally, Wilson treats us to his popular antihero Repairman Jack at his most inventive: trapped in a drugstore with four killers ("Interlude at Duane's").
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Wilson (By the Sword) displays an expert grasp of storytelling mechanics and an impressive breadth of themes and approaches in what he says in an afterword is his last collection. The title tale is a moving meditation on love and loss, built on the unlikely premise of lightning-strike survivors seeing the spirits of their dear departed at their near-death moment of electrocution. "Dreams" riffs on the Frankenstein theme with its speculation on how the monster might act were its brain to have retained aspects of its predeath personality. In "Interlude at Duane's," urban mercenary hero Repairman Jack must foil a four-man holdup with found weapons fashioned from consumer goods on the shelves of the drugstore where it takes place. In all these efforts, Wilson establishes characters with a few deft strokes, quickly sets up a tricky plot, and then masterfully maneuvers the reader to a well-orchestrated (and sometimes surprising) ending. Fans will hope they haven't seen the last of Wilson's short fiction.
