No Escaping The Horror Review

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(More customer reviews)The stories in this collection are twisted and often blackly humorous as well as unnerving and slick. This writer has an angle of vision that is bent and his characters are the better for it.

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From the Nevada desert to the Louisiana bayou, from an off-shore oil platform to a backwater moon and beyond... there is no escaping the horror!Nine tales from the mind of Chris Jacobsmeyer, author of Zombie Chunks.

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Hotel China Review

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(More customer reviews)Give a bunch of displaced, culturally interstitial, writers the theme of a Hotel in Hong Kong and well, you get a lot of sex and a lot of violence and a lot of people staring out of windows looking at the rain, hanging about in bars, taking drugs, and lurking on musty staircases watching and stalking... This will probably do the tourist industry of Hong Kong no good at all, but it's an intriguing collection of interlinked stories that curiously build up an overall image of something or other that has not quite jelled yet. One is never sure how real any of this is, or how fictional, with its mix of high literary tone and low exploitation bloggery. A fractious and fractured testimony to a crumbling image of what was once the exotic east but is now just another cable service and weather report to be checked, because tomorrow you will wake up another side of the world, but only a text message away. Idioms collected from a whole universe of influences drift about the prose and story traditions and the internet influence is never far away making in some respect this a very current sort of literature.

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BEHIND EVERY DOOR, THERE'S A STORY... What can happen in the privacy of a hotel room? Anything and everything, if you check into the Hotel China, a brilliant new collection of short fiction set in a hotel in the heart of Hong Kong's historic and notorious Wan Chai district. Written by some of Hong Kong's finest authors, these twenty-six tales follow the exploits of the hotel's patrons and staff as they navigate the city's distractions and hazards in pursuit of their goals, be they love, money ... or even murder! Journalists, businessmen, grifters and prostitutes rub shoulders with cleaners, doormen and bell-boys: each story is as individual as the characters that inspire them. And behind them all stands Hong Kong itself, the glittering reception hall for the political and economic powerhouse of China today.

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Hotel of the Saints Review

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(More customer reviews)One morning a little over a month ago, with too much loose change in my pocket and a desire to read something new, I spotted this brightly coloured book in the book shelf of the UN. I picked it up, had never heard of the author, but the title was evocative and as i said, the cover was lovely. And what a lovely book it turned out to be. The author has a beautiful calm and engaging style of prose and captures the reader in the extraordinariness of the ordinariness of which these stories are founded. From stories dealing with domestic abuse, to suicide, to the end of love- this collection creates a palette of characters whose names escape you as you turn the page but whose vision which you have concocted in your head-haunts you and stays with you. For me one of the best stories was suprisingly 'A woman's perfume' which is as much a coming of age story for a young girl, than it is the lost dreams of adulthood.
The final story 'Lowers crossing' is heartfelt and compassionate, 'Stolen chocolates' is for me about beauty and acceptance and the two stories 'the doves' and 'for their own survival' have similar themes of freedom. It is a wonderful collection and I feel I have allowed myself to be introduced to another author who I anticipate will inhabit my bookshelf for years to come.

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Mrs Eckdorf in O'Neills Hotel Review

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(More customer reviews)The first Trevor book that made one realize that Trevor was more than merely a brilliant funny man. Which is not to say that the book isn't full of laughs--it is. But it's much else besides. Of all his books this is probably one of his richest in terms of character, moral insight, etc. At any rate, certainly a pivotal book for the most artful storyteller now working.

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What was the tragedy that turned O'Neill's hotel from a plush establishment into a dingy house of disrepute? Ivy Eckdorf is determined to find out. A professional photographer, she has come to Dublin convinced that a tragic and beautiful tale lies behind the facade of this crumbling hotel.

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Storeys from the Old Hotel Review

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(More customer reviews)I should try to load this review down with penetrating insights into Mr. Wolfe's methods and modus, and his (to me, lofty) place in the post-modern literary world, but I get toungue (finger?) -tied and flounder and it comes off sounding lame. Suffice it to say that this short story collection is interesting in that it is comprised almost entirely of stories that were never published or published only with great difficulty. Not all, or even most, of these stories are science fiction (but then, what of Mr. Wolfe's work has ever been exclusivly SF? And who cares?) These tales form a diverse collection ranging from a various ghost stories, wide ranging fantasy pieces, a light meditation about life as seen from a train, and, as always (Mr. Wolfe's forte'), some very incisive comments on humans and why they do the weird things they do.
My own favorites are "The Sightings at the Twin Mounds," "The Death of the Island Doctor," "Redwood Coast Roamer," "A Solar Labyrinth," and "Redbeard."
If you've never read Wolfe, this is a good place to start. If you have read Wolfe and you don't have this book, then what the heck are you waiting for?

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The Hotel Eden: Stories Review

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(More customer reviews)A story should either make you laugh or cry. Ron Carlson's stories do both. I don't know how else to describe his stories other than comparison -- he's as poignant as Andre Dubus, as funny as Lee K. Abbott and John Dufresne, as insightful as Charles Baxter and Lynne Barrett, and has an eye for detail like William Trevor or Alice Munro. Though he's not a minimalist, Carlson doesn't waste a word to sentimentality or a scene to gratuitous fluff. His stories are chiseled out of granite. A great collection.

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