Just After Sunset

If I can’t be permitted to sleep, I shall post!

I got done with Just After Sunset last night.

I really liked Stationary Bike and N. a lot. Those two are, in my mind, some of the best stuff he’s done in years. Mute was also very good.

Willa, Rest Stop and Ayana are okay, but they didn’t electrify my brain or anything. The Cat from Hell is interesting, but not one of his best.

Harvey’s Dream, Graduation Afternoon and The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates seem like fragments that old Steve just threw into the book for the hell of it. They’re hardly stories at all, just fragments that never quite fit into another story. As such they’re too short for me to either like or not like.

I couldn’t finish The Gingerbread Girl when I got it when it first came to CD a couple of years ago and I found it just as tedious and annoying this time as I did then. So I didn’t even try really, gave up on it sooner than I did last time. I’ve still only got the idea that she gets away because that’s ALWAYS how Steve ends these stories. I didn’t get very far into A Very Tight Place before giving up on that either. It was just tedious.

I don’t know if I like this collection more or less than Everything’s Eventual because half those stories I don’t really associate with that collection. I listen to a lot of audio and the stuff in Everything’s Eventual came out sort of piecemeal. (see the audio section on the linked page) Lots of stuff came out as audio only before the actual collection came along.

Nightmares & Dreamscapes is still my favorite collection, and those are out on CD in two volumes if you don’t have them and want them on audio.

N. started a germ in my head though. I really like the idea of giving OCD behavior a legitimate reason to exist, building the story around the symptoms, but I got a little annoyed at the ending. I won’t spoil it per say, but I will mention this idea I’ve always had. I’ve had this thought for years that the difference between fantasy and horror is down to can the protagonist fight back and is there a power for good? In the bulk of horror stories the answer to both is no. Evil is strong and people just whimper in the face of it. What if you shifted the thought a little? Instead of OCD, what if your patient is a paranoid weapons freak? He thinks he needs weapons to protect against THEM only he won’t say who THEM is because A) using a creature’s name is supposed to summon it and B) he knows that the real answer (eldritch critters from beyond the void) will sound even crazier than the idea that he’s just a PTSD addled nut looking for Commies or Terrorists or Martians that are lurking around every corner. And the reasons he keeps the weapons is that he knows his Irish folk lore and so knows that iron (and steel by extension) will keep the nasties at bay. From there you build up. Not original, because I just said I’d be swiping the idea from this story, but it could be interesting.