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Read Blue World (1990)

Blue World (1990)

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Rating
3.89 of 5 Votes: 3
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ISBN
0671695185 (ISBN13: 9780671695187)
Language
English
Publisher
pocket books

Blue World (1990) - Plot & Excerpts

This is McCammon’s only volume of short stories. This volume includes:Yellowjacket SummerA young woman and her two children run out of gas in a strange town straight out of the Twilight Zone. It seems the hot summer brings out the bees --- and they terrify.MakeupA small time thug ends up with the makeup case of a famous horror actor. Was the long deceased actor brilliant, or was the secret in his makeup? One of the better stories in the book.Doom CityBrad wakes up one morning and finds the wife he went to bed with the night before has turned into a desiccated corpse. He wanders about the town and finds himself alone – almost! This reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode. This story is the kind that Stephen King used to be able to write. Nothing but the barest essence of a story here. But the plot is intriguing and chugs right along. Masterful writing!NightcrawlersA strange traveler comes in from a storm into a truckstop and brings the stuff of his nightmares with him. Seems his old buddies from Vietnam are eager to have him join them where he left them. This one reminded me a little of Straub’s Koko only much better. PinThis is a strange, first person narrative of a young man contemplating sticking a needle in his eye. This is the weakest story in the book. I’ll give McCammon credit for a creative approach and an unusual story. However, I did not care for it.Yellachile’s CageA voodoo man keeps a gold finch in his prison cell. The bird is his familiar who keeps him informed of all that is going on in the prison. The only well-kept secret in the prison is the voodoo man’s. I like a good prison story (King wrote two brilliant prison stories) and McCammon did not disappoint me with this one.I Scream Man!An ordinary game of Scrabble between the most incredibly average family in a most unusual setting. Again, just the bare essence of story, but McCammon makes the most of his few words.He’ll Come Knocking At Your DoorHalloween is taken very seriously by members of this community and its leading citizen is generous with his treats but evil with his tricks. Reminiscent of Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown.ChicoIn a home with a abusive, alcoholic father and despondent mother, a child with a special gift lives and thrives. Perhaps the weakest story in the book.Night Calls the Green FalconAn over-the-hill star of Saturday serials is called out of retirement by his conscience to find the serial killer who killed his neighbor. This story is hokey and cornball, but well written and a pleasure to read. The Red HouseA young boy’s dad is outraged when a bright red house springs up in his entirely gray world. An excellent allegory on why sometimes change should be feared!Something Passed ByEarth is in decline after the passage on an interstellar object. The people who are left in the end pass the time in a variety of ways. This one reminded me of an old radio show like X Minus 1 or Dimension X.Blue WorldThis is one of the finest stories I’ve ever read. McCammon shows us, as he did in Swan Song that he is a true master of character development. A priest’s faith and vowels are tested when he finds himself oddly attracted to a porn star. A chance encounter at a grocery store thrusts him into her world of drugs, sex, and the desire to be something more. Meanwhile, he struggles to remain chaste and save the young woman’s soul.

At this point in my life my favorite authors are John Shirley, F.Paul Wilson and Robert McCammon. McCammon wrote my second favorite novel of all time – Swan Song. He has written several other favorites in my collection including Mine and the weird crime classic Gone South. I had been saving two of his books for the “Right time” for years. That has included “Boy’s Life,” and his short story collection “Blue World.” While I still have found the perfect time for the other yet, I read Blue World this last summer and I am so glad I did. McCammon is to me the genre author who has the most readable and smooth prose of any I have ever read. The pages just fly when you read his novels. I had read one or two of these short stories but I was reading most of these ten short stories for the first time. The title piece at the end is longer and I would argue that it is actually a novel. In the fifties it’s length would have been considered a novel. It is easily 60,000 words, has twenty three chapters and it feels like a novel. I Digress.While McCammon doesn’t write traditional horror anymore, he is stillactive with historical mystery novels like “Speaks the Nightbird” which do contain macabre elements and the novel “the Five” which was genius Rock and Roll thriller. Blue World is filled with classic 80’s McCammon shorts and I loved every single page of it.My favorite story was a Halloween classic called “He’ll come a knocking at the Door.” This perfectly wicked Halloween story would be perfect for a campfire. Other favorites included “Something Passed By,” and the opener “Yellowjacket Summer.” The classic story Nightcralwers that William Fredkin directed as an episode of the 80’s Twilight zone and the amazing “Night calls the Falcon” which celebrates old school super hero serials.The title story is a very strong character piece that is more about people in the story than the thriller aspects. It is the story of a porn star named Debra Rocks, and the priest that falls in love with her after she comes into confessional. Father John can’t himself, but as he gets to know Debra he discovers that he not only one obsessed with the star. Someone is killing her co-stars, is she next?There is no dud in this collection, McCammon was at the top of his horror skills in the 80’s. I am glad I finally read this one, it’s a classic, If you like short horror fiction do yourself a favor and read it.

What do You think about Blue World (1990)?

The BasicsBlue World is a collection of short stories and one novella, all of which seem to be from McCammon’s early career. They’re all mostly horror/thriller and run the gamut on subject matter.My ThoughtsI hate books like this. A story collection is meant to be a balanced read where each story is a cool, little nugget you enjoyed on some level. So that by the end of the journey, you feel that the overall experience was worth it. What it’s not supposed to be is what this collection was. A couple of good stories, a great novella, and then a whole lotta weak stuff. So that by the end, you’re trying to figure out if you even want to keep this thing or not.A lot of these stories felt like tales I’d heard before, only done better by someone else (“Nightcrawlers” and “Pin”). They were bleak in ways that weren’t scary or profound, just empty (“He’ll Come Knocking At Your Door” and “I Scream Man!”). Some were grasping for heights they missed by a long shot (“Chico” and “Yellachile’s Cage”). Stories that should’ve been good and all missed the mark by varying margins.Were there gems? Of course! Were they worth reading the entire book for? That’s where I’m struggling. “Doom City” was a really unique look at an apocalypse setting, or maybe even a hell setting, and the fact that I can’t figure out which it is promotes the story even more. “Something Passed By” had that apocalypse magic, as well. “Night Calls the Green Falcon” is a strong story, especially if you’re a comic book fan, with emphasis on something like Watchmen.Finally, the novella for which the book is named, “Blue World”, was the strongest story of the bunch, in my opinion. The fact that it takes up half the book means that it feels more significant than the rest, and thank all that is good, else this book would’ve been a two star endeavor. It was more about characters than it was about being thrilling, and it gave me what the internet refers to as “feels”. It wasn’t entirely perfect, but after sloughing through the rest of the collection, it felt like a breath of fresh air.I can no longer tell if this is a recommendation or not. Which is why, I repeat, I hate books like this.Final Rating3/5
—Quill

If you read horror, you'd have to have been in suspended animation not to have heard of Robert McCammon. A veritable writing machine, with bestsellers like They Thirst, Night Boat, Stinger, and Swan Song, the man has virtually rewritten the horror genre from whole cloth. (There are some who say he's rewritten Stephen King and done it better.) His new novel just hit the stands as I write this; called Mine, it has no outlandish or fantastic events, just good old aberrant human psychology. The publisher is hoping that it will appeal to the same people who make Thomas Harris a rich man. I think it's a good bet. McCammon's novels are daunting, though, large and epic, what my buddy Tad Williams would term "Winnebagos of a book" (of course, that's the pot calling the kettle black). Luckily, for those interested in dipping their toes into the McCammon river there's a book that just fits the bill: Blue World, a short story collection including "Nightcrawlers" (which was filmed for the revival of The Twilight Zone), "He'll Come Knocking at Your Door," "Night Calls the Green Falcon," the title novella and nine others. Stories like "Yellowjacket Summer," a cross between King's fog from "The Mist" and that Twilight Zone classic "It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby, in which a town is held captive by a lone boy and thousands of stinging insects; the life affirming "Yellachile's Cage," a heartfelt story about prison life and hope; and "The Red House," a story of escape from the small town--literally and figuratively. For those of you that missed the episode of The Twilight Zone in which "Nightcrawlers" aired, run! don't walk to your nearest bookstore and read this story. Instead of giving the story away, let me give you a list of elements diverse and weird, yet all fitting together in this one story: Vietnam, a small Florida diner, nightmares, tourists, ghosts, guilt, fear. And, for those that wonder what makes a good story even better, the best example is the story "Blue World" itself. A priest who learns that lust is something you never rise above, a porn star who discovers real friendship, and a gun-happy star-fucker out to blow away his every fantasy make a strange threesome in this tale of sex, God, and hope. Beginning with all the trappings of the most graphic splatter story ever, it twists in on itself until what you thought wouldn't happen does and what you were afraid might happen, doesn't. McCammon is in complete control, upsetting the applecart of your expectations but serving a fine applesauce with the results.
—Glen Engel-Cox

Re-reading "Blue World," I was reminded of why it's such a pity McCammon doesn't write more than he does."Blue World" is a collection of 12 short stories spanning McCammon's career, and one novella. The stories are all worth reading, offering up a good variety of material, from the frightening ("Yellowjacket Summer") to the disturbing ("Pin") to the sublime (the novella, "Blue World").What this collection brings to mind most, however, is McCammon's skill at setting a mood. He tells a great story, but very few writers can set the stage better than McCammon. While reading "Yellowjacket Summer" the reader can't help but feel the oppressive heat prevalent throughout the story, and how the characters must have felt experiencing that same heat. In "Blue World," he captures equally well the quiet of that soft twilight, just before full dark. In "Night Calls the Green Falcon" one can really feel and understand the frustration and the impotence of a young man's ambition trapped in an old man's body.By so skillfully establishing the mood in each and every one of the stories in "Blue World," McCammon makes the reader experience them as if they were there, inside the story itself. This is the magic of what great writing can do, bring the story home to the reader, and make it an experience.Like my other McCammon favorites, "Boy's Life" and "Speaks the Nightbird," "Blue World" is one of the books that I treasure, from an author who now writes far too infrequently.
—Rich Stoehr

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