Hit Parade of Tears
Stories
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3.3 • 6 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A new collection of stories from the cult author of Terminal Boredom
Izumi Suzuki had ideas about doing things differently, ideas that paid little attention to the laws of physics, or the laws of the land. In this new collection, her skewed imagination distorts and enhances some of the classic concepts of science fiction and fantasy.
A philandering husband receives a bestial punishment from a wife with her own secrets to keep; a music lover finds herself in a timeline both familiar and as wrong as can be; a misfit band of space pirates discover a mysterious baby among the stars; Emma, the Bovary-like character from one of Suzuki's stories in Terminal Boredom, lands herself in a bizarre romantic pickle.
Wryly anarchic and deeply imaginative, Suzuki was a writer like no other. These eleven stories offer readers the opportunity to delve deeper in this singular writer's work.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With this impressive collection, translators Bett, David Boyd, Helen O'Horan, and Daniel Joseph bring 11 strange, transfixing, and compassionate short stories from Suzuki (1949–1986) to English-speaking audiences. Suzuki has a real sympathy for the alien and the marginalized—especially young girls and women confused or constrained by societal expectations of female sexuality—and tends to end each story with a bizarre yet fascinating twist. Standouts include "Trial Witch," wherein a housewife uses her newly granted magical powers to teach her abusive husband a lesson, and "Hey, It's a Love Psychedelic!" a metafictional forerunner of the cyberpunk genre about a former music groupie discovering a warp in her timeline after Tokyo's Triangle Building gets filled with salmon roe and eaten like sushi. Readers should be aware of a running thread of fatphobia that does not age well, but the quirky sci-fi concepts and some delightful turns of phrase (a self-centered man is described as "an ad for himself on an infinite loop") mean these tales largely hold up quite well. SFF fans are sure to be pleased with these slangy, accessible new translations of a master.
Customer Reviews
wonderfully grey
apathetic yet contains a world rich in detail if one knows where to look…..