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Unforgivable Stories (Paperback)

by Kim Newman (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Pocket Books (7 Aug 2000)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0671022210
  • ISBN-13: 978-0671022211
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.7 x 2.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 953,953 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #26 in  Books > Horror > Authors > Contemporary Authors > Newman, Kim
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Product Description

Product Description

A collection of stories which re-open some of the great closed cases of fantasy and horror fiction. Newman explores familiar universes in a new, unusual light, from Dr Jekyll to Dracula, and from a Victorian ghost story to the Paris of Bogart and Bergman.


From the Publisher

A familiar universe fragmented by fiction
Kim Newman looks at some of the classic figures of fantasy and horror fiction and takes those stories a stage further. So he re-opens the mysterious case of Jekyll and Hyde, explores how Dracula might have led his conquest of the Victorian world, examines the precise nature of Edgar Allan Poe’s name, shows the infinite variety of Frankenstein’s monsters and makes a Victorian ghost story a commentary on Victorian values.

He takes a look at familiar places with fresh eyes; his 40’s Paris is a city of archetypes, of Phantoms, courtesans and world-weary Americans, of an American city where superheroes have been around since the 1930’s and reinvented themselves and the city for new generations and of an England in the 60’s caught in a war with Indo-China, being fought by the great "heroes" of British sit-coms. Kim also looks at the alternative histories that could have resulted in John Major managing to get a job with London Transport and of a90’s Britain celebrating the successful fiftieth anniversary of the Nazi invasion.

Including stories written in collaboration with novelists Eugene Byrne (author of THiGMOO) and Paul J. McAuley (author of Fairyland), this collection weaves horror and humour from the familiar stories and alternative possibilities of the universe.

Kim Newman is an author, a film expert and critic, an enthusiastic pundit of SF writing, and one of Britain’s great eccentrics. Born in Brixton in 1959, he grew up in Somerset, graduated in English at Sussex University, before coming to London in 1980 working with the Bridgwater Arts and Entertainment Collective as a kazoo player and cabaret performer. He is the author of several specialist film books and is a regular film reviewer for Empire and Sight And Sound magazines.

Kim has published highly successful novels with Simon & Schuster: The Night Mayor, Bad Dreams, Jago, The Quorum, Life’s Lottery and his reworkings of the Dracula mythology Anno Dracula, The Bloody Red Baron and the most recent in the series Dracula Cha Cha Cha plus collections of short stories: Famous Monsters and The Original Dr Shade.

Anno Dracula won the Children of the Night Award for Best Novel from the Dracula Society and the Best Novel Award from the Lord Ruthven Assembly. It was also a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. The Quorum, Dr Shade and Anno Dracula have all been optioned for movies.

Kim is currently working on a new novel An English Ghost Story, and with Eugene Byrne, a novel cycle entitled The Matter of Britain. He lives in Islington, north London and has written 8½ novels.

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars When it's good, it's very very good..., 26 April 2001
By A Customer
...and when it's bad it's still not too shabby. To say that the stories in this collection are eclectic would be to stretch the term to its breaking point. They provide an unsurpassed view of the weird and wonderful vistas of Kim Newman's imagination. The undoubted stand-out of the book is "Teddy Bear's Picnic", co-authored by Eugene Byrne, which is taken from Newman & Byrne's collaboration "Back in the USSA". In the parallel world of the USSA stories, America underwent a communist revolution in 1917, with Russia becoming a capitalist monarchy. "Teddy Bear's Picnic" is set in the Vietnam War of this world, with Terry Collier and Bob Ferris (of Likely Lads fame) as grunts in the British struggle against the Yank-backed Commies. The real genius of this story is how it manages to work as a traditional anti-war story, a satirical commentary on said war stories and a spot-the-celebrity competition (including both fictional characters, mostly from '70s British sitcoms, and real historical people). It really is quite superb. A more down-to-earth take on the alternate history genre is found in "Slow News Day" and "The Germans Won", a pair of tales featuring John Major. "Slow News Day" is a rather tedious story about the 1995 celebrations of the 50-year anniversary of Hitler's invasion of Britain, which takes a long time to get nowhere in particular. "The Germans Won", on the other hand, is a brilliantly upbeat account of a world in which Germany won the 1966 World Cup final and John Major is shyly contented as a bus conductor. Other stories continue the theme of cutting and pasting narrative conventions: "Great Western" sees a traditional cowboys & indians yarn played out in the West Country. "Coastal City" is a rather jaundiced look at the world according to four-colour superheroes. "Une Etrange Adventure de Richard Blaine" is a twisted version of Casablanca taking place in a truly bizarre version of 1940s Paris, and "Dead Travel Fast" is the obligatory vampire tale, showing the reader what else Dracula got up to on his tour of Europe. Meanwhile "Quetzalcon" and the sublime "Completist Heaven" paint a surreal picture of the life of an obsessive fan. However, the continual chopping and changing can get a tad wearisome at times, and some of the shorter stories seriously lack depth. In addition, non-British readers may miss a lot of the references (especially in "Teddy Bear's Picnic"). On the other hand, since this is a book of short stories, when your head starts to hurt you can always put it down and read something else until you feel the urge again. Oh, and finally, the introduction (by Eugene Byrne) is quite superb, letting you know just how twisted Newman was as a child. Highly recommended.
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