Электронная книга - «The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection». Краткое содержание книги:
This acclaimed series, winner of numerous World Fantasy Awards, continues its tradition of excellence with scores of short stories from such writers as K. W. Jeter, Karl Edward Wagner, Terry Bisson, S. P. Somtow, Charles de Lint, Kobo Abe, Jane Yolen and many others. Supplementing the stories are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantastic fiction, Edward Bryant's witty roundup of the year's fantasy films, and a long list of Honorable Mentions—all of which adds up to an invaluable reference source, and a font of fabulous reading.
Angry Woman, edited by Andrea Juno and V. Vale (Re/Search) is an important and fascinating document of some of the contemporary political artists who are putting themselves on the line (sometimes physically) in order to change society. Interviews with performance artists Karen Finley, Carolee Schneemann and Dia-manda Galas, writers Kathy Acker and Bell Books and poets Lydia Lunch and Wanda Coleman. This oversized book is about how men and women respond to female bodies; it’s about political, economic and sexual power. A must for anyone interested in political art and sexual politics.
Witnesses from the Grave: The Stories Bones Tell by Christopher Joyce and Eric Stover (Little, Brown), ostensibly a profile of Clyde Snow, a prominent forensic anthropologist often called on by the police to identify victims of violent accidents or crime by their skeletal remains. But the book is actually much more than that. Although it begins with a brief history of forensics (overlapping somewhat with the Colin Wilson books) and a brief biography of Snow, a colorful Texan, those first chapters are only preparation for the good part—stories of how Snow and his colleagues used forensic anthropology to identify a mysterious outlaw whose mummified body ended up in a carnival; aircrash victims and some of John Wayne Gacy’s victims; the alleged remains of Josef Mengele in Brazil; and opening mass graves in Argentina to help identify “the disappeared” of the late 1970s to help discourage human rights abuses. The best parts of the book read like detective stories, the step-by-step meticulous process of comparing skeleton and skull remains of the dead to antemortem x-rays and medical histories.
Permanent Londoners by Judi Culbertson and Tom Randall (Chelsea Green Press) details the lives and deaths of the rich and famous—and where they’re buried (not seen).
Great White Shark: the Definitive Look at the Most Terrifying Creature of the Ocean by Richard Ellis and John E. McCosker with original photographs by A1 Giddings and others (HarperCollins) is for anyone with an interest, fear, or obsession with the great white shark. It’s a thorough and attractive combination of scientific information and popular lore on sharks, which covers everything from their taxonomy to man’s hunt of them. There’s a section covering reports of shark attacks in great detail, and one on the “Jaws” phenomenon, that is, the enormous popularity and aftermath of the film cycle. Copious paintings and photographs, and fascinating tidbits of information—the whale shark, which eats plankton, is actually the largest but the great white is the largest that attacks large prey. A $50 hardcover edition, which is worth every penny for shark aficionados.
The World of Charles Addams (Knopf) is a marvelous retrospective of the cartoonist’s work from his first cartoon for The New Yorker at 20 years old to those appearing in 1990, after his death. His macabre sense of humor is evident throughout this coffee-table book. It’s obvious that some of the actual cartoons were used as inspiration for the hit movie The Addams Family. The movie has most certainly brought renewed interest in Addams’s work, perhaps seducing a new generation to look for and appreciate his cartoons. If you’re a horror fan or reader and are not familiar with his work, shame on you.
More Haunted Houses by Joan Bingham and Dolores Riccio (Pocket Books) is the second guidebook to haunted houses, schooners, forts, cemeteries, and the like. (The authors, by the way, never claim to have seen a ghost themselves.) Well written and well researched, this looks like a fun book to take on a tour. Recommended.
Ellen Datlow
Horror and Fantasy in the Media
Edward Bryant
I have mixed feelings about the fact that science fiction or fantasy films rarely trigger as much discussion among viewers as does, say, Thelma and Louise. Actually I got a big kick out of watching—and participating in—mixed-gender discussions of Ridley Scott’s examination of women as aliens (I don’t think it takes too large a sophist’s shoehorn to slip the film in as a first cousin to The Man Who Fell to Earth . . .). Do Bill and Ted audiences exit the theatre with at least half the crowd mildly radicalized—and the other half either sobered or defensive? Is the end message of Body Parts as open to debate? Do viewers of The Rocketeer make observations like, “Huh, do you know Thelma and Louise is sort of a gender-turnaround of Richard Sarafian’s classic (well, I think it is) Vanishing Point from twenty years ago?” Does the latest Star Trek installment or even Terminator 2 catalyze the same level of activity in the head and the heart as Jungle Fever or Boyz N the Hood? Are all these unfair questions or just inappropriate ones?
Just asking, friends. As far as I’m concerned, Thelma and Louise doesn’t hold a candle to the controversy of such past masters as Do the Right Thing. Before I talk myself out of writing this summary survey of the film of the fantastic for 1991, let me sip a slug of caffeinated diet cola, calm myself and admit there was plenty to talk about with last year’s crop. But I think you see the point.
The Rapture is a film that could have been a contender. Much like a jet fighter, it screamed down the runway, started to lift off, then lost power and control toward the end and threatened to stall. The Rapture was director Michael Tolkin’s second feature film. It is fantasy, though there are many who might consider it a prescient documentary. For others, the film would fall into no other category than horror. It’s an unabashedly religious drama, though nothing like the cheapjack features you can catch for free at storefront tabernacles. The Rapture stars Mimi Rogers as a directory-assistance operator whose arid, empty life is filled only with the attentions of a kinky lover and group sex. She starts to sense the possibility of meaning after overhearing her co-workers talk around the water cooler about shared dreams of The Pearl. What occurs is a very literal playing out of the prophecies of Revelation, which is all done straight. Even though I don’t think Tolkin’s script really ever satisfactorily grappled with the material, it’s a brash and sensational idea, and a genuinely ambitious film. More important, The Rapture may well turn out to be a bellwether, as the proximity of the century’s end triggers more and more millennial pop art.
And now for some of my favorites, films that worked for me on a lot of levels. My two picks from the horror side are actually more dark—very dark—suspense— if you insist on sticky categories. A 1988 Dutch film, The Vanishing, finally was released in the U.S. last year. Directed by George Sluizer, this starts with one of everyone’s favorite paranoid scenarios. A young Dutch couple who are in France to see the Tour de France stops at a bustling freeway service area. The woman disappears. Her boyfriend then spends three years obsessively trying to locate her. The viewers quickly find out who the kidnapper is, an otherwise dull French lxviii chemistry professor played by Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu. This villain is one of the screen’s great psychos. Until the end, we do not understand his motives. He torments the disappeared woman’s lover with teasing postcards. Eventually he works an act of evil that, for most beholders, is unforgettably disturbing. I found the surprise to be fairly planted, but still shocking in a way no film’s done for me in years. One of the great achievements of The Vanishing is its total lack of blood. No graphic violence. No dismemberment. I didn’t think this sort of horrific thriller could still be made.
