In the early 1980s, I subscribed to TWILIGHT ZONE MAGAZINE from the first issue - being young, I didn't realize that what I was reading was what would end up being one of the last widely published forums for short fiction, specifically of the weird/supernatural/fantasy/horror persusaion. Many careers for writers of the 1990s started in TZ, and certain writers still stick out in my mind as having been discovered by me in the pages of the magazine: T.E.D. Klein, David J. Schow and Joe R. Lansdale.Lansdale went on to a career writing movies and novels - his Hap & Leonard books get mentioned quite a lot but I've never read them. I did buy this collection back in 1989, however, and recently decided to re-read it (along with Schow's Seeing Red collection - a review for that will follow when I can geographically reunite with the book). I appreciated Lansdale at the time for writing gritty, sweaty rural fiction - kind of like a nastier Mark Twain or Ambrose Bierce but also more southern-fried, absorbing all that greasy, drive-in, psychotronic pop-culture and ladling it over simple pulp yarns. I guess he'd be considered one of the fathers of Splatterpunk (and Bizarro, if I could find a definition of that movement that was cohesive or attractive) - which is funny because I tend to not like fiction that exists simply to disgust or shock, or even dazzle with crazy imagination (unless there's some human resonance or literary style apparent). So Lansdale is a storyteller of little *depth*, but he is careful and takes his writing and stories seriously, even when he's having fun, which immediately puts him ahead of the "carve 'em up which new way" wannabes who I can't waste my time with.This collection, however, is uneven. It has a lot of the author's highlights at the time it was printed, but it also has a few pieces that, simply put, are parts of larger wholes and so read as unsatisfying. For instance, there's "Boys Will Be Boys", which is a compelling examination of a bond formed between two sociopathic juvenile delinquints - but it's not a whole story, just the roots of a character study that would be expanded in The Nightrunners. The same holds true for "Hell Through A Windshield", which is really an atmospheric memorial essay to the great southern tradition of the drive-in theater, with the sketch of a plot idea (about people trapped in a drive-in that is dimensionally sealed off from the world) tagged to the ending - which would later be expanded into the Drive In novel and its sequels. The same also holds true for "The Windstorm Passes" which, again, sets up a character and cuts off right as the real story starts - as it's an excerpt from The Magic Wagon.The rest of the stories fall into the horror, dark fantasy or crime/noir fiction traditions. A quick word: racial strife, specifically southern racism, are up-front in Lansdale and he unapologetically writes racists as racists, so that means that if seeing certain words written out hurts you to the core, you should not read much Lansdale.Let's get the negatives disposed with - there are two experiments in alternative history (which nowadays gets called Steampunk when it has cool inventions with rivets or airships), a subgenre type I'm not much of a fan of (it mostly strikes me as frippery and showboating). The first "Letter From the South, Two Moons West of Nacogdoches" posits a world where the Native Americans beat back the whites and still have problems with the blacks (and John The Baptist was historically considered the messiah, not Jesus). "Letter" is cute but forgettable and falls into that area of why I don't read much alternative history stuff - its effects derive from momentary surprise and re-adjustment, but doesn't say much more than a magician's trick (or say prosaic things like - "see, it wouldn't be any better if the Indians won, I just proved it in this story!"). The other alternative history piece, "Trains Not Taken", is better, a bittersweet meditation on lives, loves and alternate timelines featuring two "not famous in this world" characters.I should mention that I did not read 2 stories here that I had read previously and noted as not liking too much. "Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back" is a post-apocalypse story, and "On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks" was part of the zombie-themed collection Book of the Dead which precursored all these current zombie anthologies way back in 1989 (it, and its sequel anthology Book of the Dead 2: Still Dead are quite good) - which I guess also counts as a post-apocalypse story. I had also not liked the title story, "By Bizarre Hands", but decided to reread it - it's a grotty little tale of madness about a travelling preacher who has a thing for Halloween and retarded little girls - the grottiness and lunatic humor impressed me a little more this time but it still isn't really my cup of tea.If there's an odd, stand-alone story here it's "The Fat Man and The Elephant" about a broken down old elephant at a roadside attraction and the aging preacher who gains spiritual guidance and vision from it. It's not horror, it's not crime, but it is interesting.One of the things Lansdale excels at is muscular, tight crime and action writing. "The Pit" is something between an action tale and a horror story as a man is waylaid in a backwoods town and forced to fight for his life in an arena - what impresses here is that the majority of the writing describes the fight itself, and yet it never gets boring, as Lansdale makes you feel every punch and gouge. This would have found an appreciative audience in the pulp mags of yore. "The Steel Valentine" is another noir-tinged tale of revenge that, again, spends most of its time detailing a very physical confrontation between a man and a dog. Exciting stuff (I was able to purchase the rights from Mr. Lansdale himself and featured it as an episode of my weekly horror fiction podcast PSEUDOPOD - here: "The Pit")."I Tell You It's Love" sketches out a sadomasochistic relationship that ends badly - this was probably more shocking when such things were less mainstreamed than now (for good or ill, take your pick). "Duck Hunt" is a nasty little story about enculturation, and reminded me a bit of Raymond Carver's "So Much Water So Close To Home" in the way that male hunting rituals deaden their participants to human suffering."Fish Night" and "Down By The Sea Near The Great Big Rock" are both short, extremely effective bits of weirdness, the former spun from the realization of geologic time and how vast parts of North America were underwater millenia ago, the latter just a great, creepy horror story about a camping trip gone awry that can't be discussed without giving too much away. Finally, there's the much-lauded, Stoker award winning story "Night They Missed the Horror Show". It's a brutal tale, again on that margin of crime and horror, where some unlikeable teenagers get more than they bargained for out on the backroads on a boring night.I like Lansdale. As I said, he mostly spins pulpy yarns but he's good at it, with some striking imagery and nasty dialogue, and he takes his writing seriously, which is more than you can say for other writers who trawl the same lurid waters. BY BIZAARE HANDS is definitely worth reading for "Duck Hunt", "The Pit", "The Fat Man And The Elephant", "Steel Valentine", "Fish Night", "Down By The Sea.." and "Night They Missed The Horror Show", not to mention sections of the excerpted stories. That's more than some writers can manage!
Není tomu dlouho co se mi do rukou na doporučení portálu SFF.cz dostala sbírka od mě dosud neznámého autora Joea R. Lansadalea - Bizarníma rukama. A skutečně kniha je to bizarní, je plná toho nejkrvavějšího hororu, plná motivů nejhrubšího násilí, rasismu, šovinismu, sexu, krve a vulgarit. Dalo by se říci, že z prvních třech povídek jsem byl docela vyděšený, ale spíše to bylo v tomto směru: "Za co jsem to utratil peníze!?" Naštěstí jsem nepřestal číst.Když se totiž čtenář přenese přes prvotní šok, zjistí, že se skutečně jedná o velmi dobrou povídkovou sbírku, a že až na výjimky povídky opravdu působí na tu část mozku, kterou mají, to jest tu, co se ráda bojí. Povídek je patnáct a většina z nich je postavena na násilí. Odehrávají se v různých časových obdobích a ve všech je přítomen prvek sexu nebo/a rasismu. Jsou to:Jáma (The Pit) - Jak by jste se asi cítili kdyby jste si chtěli zkrátit cestu a byli chyceni partou magorů co vás pro svou zábavu předhodí psům a nutí bojovat na život a na smrt? Takle povídka nemá nějaký složitý děj, spíš sleduje vnitřní pocity muže "který tu neměl být" během jeho zápasu o přežití.Lov na kachny (Duck Hunt) - Tak trochu jiný rituál který stvoří z chlapce muže.Bizarníma rukama (By Bizarre Hands) - O knězi, který se stará o duchovní spasení mladých postižených dívek k čemuž si volí výlučně Halloween. Škoda jen že jsou dívky spaseny dříve než by jim bylo milé. Tahle povídka je krutá, bezcitná a krvavá ovšem když se nad tím tak zamyslíte tak by mohla být velice jednoduše realitou. Možná to je na ní hororové ze všeho nejvíc.Krvavý Valentýn (The Steel Valentine) - Vaše nová přítelkyně je zároveň bývalkou mafiána, škoda jen že on o tom ještě neví. V téhle povídce jde jen o jedno. O pomstu.Jak chutná láska (I Tell You It\'s Love) - Krvavě :)Dopis z jihu, dva měsíce na západ od Nacogdoche (Letter from the South, Two Moons West of Nacogdoches) - Tenhle dopis jsem jaksi nepobral, jediné co vám k němu můžu říct, že je z alternativní reality.Kluci jsou kluci (Boys Will Be Boys) - Variace na téma: "Ale vždyť on je to takový hodný chlapec.", případně: "Dnešní mládež je tak zkažená."Tlouštík a slon (The Fat Man and the Elephant) - Jestli je kromě dopisu z jihu nějaká povídka opravdu slabá, je to tahle.Peklo za čelním sklem (Hell Through Windshield) - Autor vzdává hold zombie filmům ale hlavně autokinům.Balvan na břehu moře (Down by the Sea Near the Great Big Rock) - Idylická rodiná dovolená na břehu moře.Zmeškané vlaky (Trains Not Taken) - O jedné manželské krizi, tahle povídka je stále aktuální a vypráví proč muži odchází od svých starých partnerek, třebas s "holým zadkem". Nevim co je na ní hororové, každopádně je dost reálně představitelná.Mrtvý muž s jehlami v zádech (Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man\'s Back) - Jedna z nejpovedenějších povídek. Vypráví příběh muže, který za to všechno může. Po dvaceti letech vylezl z krytu a našel poušť a zcela zdecimovanou faunu a floru. Jediné co přežilo jsou jeho výčitky svědomí a velryby, i když...Větrná smršť (The Windstorm Passes) - Tahle povídka není ani tak děsivá jako spíš smutná. Je o chlapci co přijde o všechno, nic víc nic míň.Té noci, kdy nešli na horor (Night They Missed the Horror Show) - Prvotřídní hororová povídka která se může stát opravdu jen v Americe v zemi neomezených možností a těch nejbalíkovatějších vesnických balíků., (A možná v Rusku, ale jen za velmi specifických podmínek. )S mrtvolákama na poušti kadilaků (On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks) - Postkatastrofický western za který autor mimo jiné obdržel cenu Brama Stokera. Co se týče děje, i kdbych naznačil řekl bych příliš takže můžu jen říct že pro mě je to dvojka téhle knížky.Bizarníma rukama je přes svoji levně vyhlížející obálku a moje počáteční zděšení velice dobrá povídková sbírka a pro milovníky hororu by bylo chybou ji opomenout na svém "to do" seznamu. Pokud se tedy nachomýtnete k tomuhle skvostu a nevadí vám, že si budete muset na Lansdaleho styl zvykat, přihoďte ho do košíku a nebudete litovat.
What do You think about By Bizarre Hands (1989)?
Just as good as I remembered it! Glad I slated this collection for a re-read, Lansdale's writing is visceral and succinct, there's no fat on any of these stories. It was interesting to read the introductory comments, where some justification is given against labelling Lansdale as exclusively a splatterpunk writer, and having read "By Bizarre Hands" for the 2nd time I can't help but agree. When he puts gruesome violence into his fiction, it's there for a reason, not just for effect. There are a few stories in this book that contain absolutely no violence, and in some instances there are nicely executed alternate histories, and some character-driven short pieces that were quite pleasing to read. Highly recommended. And now I want to watch Bubba Ho-Tep again :-)
—Jason Fischer
Fish Night • (1982) • shortstory by Joe R. LansdaleThe Pit • (1987) • shortstory by Joe R. LansdaleDuck Hunt • (1986) • shortstory by Joe R. LansdaleBy Bizarre Hands • (1988) • shortstory by Joe R. LansdaleThe Steel Valentine • (1989) • shortstory by Joe R. LansdaleI Tell You It's Love • (1983) • shortstory by Joe R. LansdaleLetter from the South, Two Moons West of Nacogdoches • (1986) • shortstory by Joe R. LansdaleBoys Will Be Boys • (1985) • novelette by Joe R. LansdaleThe Fat Man and the Elephant • (1989) • shortstory by Joe R. LansdaleHell Through a Windshield • [My Darkest Fantasy] • (1985) • essay by Joe R. LansdaleDown by the Sea Near the Great Big Rock • (1984) • shortstory by Joe R. LansdaleTrains Not Taken • (1987) • shortstory by Joe R. LansdaleTight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back • (1986) • shortstory by Joe R. LansdaleThe Windstorm Passes • (1986) • shortstory by Joe R. LansdaleNight They Missed the Horror Show • (1988) • shortstory by Joe R. LansdaleOn the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks by Joe R. Lansdale
—Susan
