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Title: White and Other Tales of Ruin by Tim Lebbon, Jack Ketchum ISBN: 1-892389-34-7 Publisher: Night Shade Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Things fall apart.
Comment: Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
W. B. Yeats
One wonders whether "The Second Coming," excerpted above, is among Tim Lebbon's personal favorites. Its sentiments permeate much of his work, including the six stellar novellas that have been collected in White and Other Tales of Ruin.
Ruin is defined as "total disintegration, either physical, moral, social or economic." The concept is pervasive throughout these cautionary tales of quest and survival. Tales dealing with quests include "Hell," a modern day Inferno, detailing a man's search for his missing daughter, 'Mannequin Man and the Plastic B**ch," in which a synthetic man's love for another artificial life form may prove to be strong enough to change the world, and "From Bad Flesh," in which the protagonist seeks a cure for the virulent disease that is slowly killing him. Interestingly, "the Ruin," Lebbon's term for "an ambiguous nasty fate that has befallen society," provides the depressing backdrop for this tale.
"The Ruin" also precedes the events chronicled in "White," the story of a group of friends under siege by forces they can't comprehend. Other tales of survival include "The First Law," in which shipwrecked sailors are attacked by an island that has evolved into a sentient entity, and the poignant "The Origin of the Truth," in which nanotechnology has gone awry, threatening to wipe the entire planet clean.
There's a tension in each of these novellas, a tension arising from the conflicting emotions of hope and despair. Lebbon himself addresses this tension in his story notes to "Mannequin Man." He muses,
"And still, however different the worlds may be, the Ruin is always there. The ills of society, perhaps. The inevitable future. The slide into chaos and decay which humanity faces as a race. Cynical and pessimistic maybe...but what better places to tell stories about the triumph of the human spirit?"
What better places, indeed?
Rating: 5
Summary: Grim, Gruesome, Top Notch
Comment: After reading a positive review of this book in Cemetery Dance magazine, I took a chance and bought it. Good move! I haven't read Lebbon until now, but I am impressed. The stories in the collection are very grim and extemely gruesome, but not at the expense of memorable characters who actually behave in a realistic manner considering the circumstances that they find themselves in. The sense of place in each story and the overall doom-laden-planet scenario that is used as a loose backdrop are both extremely well done. Top-notch!
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Title: The Nature of Balance by Tim Lebbon ISBN: 0843949260 Publisher: Leisure Books Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: City Infernal by Edward Lee ISBN: 0843949880 Publisher: Leisure Books Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Teratologist by Edward Lee, Wrath James White ISBN: 0972915796 Publisher: Medium Rare Books Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $9.99 |
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Title: The Harvest by Scott Nicholson ISBN: 0786015799 Publisher: Pinnacle Books Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Peaceable Kingdom by Jack Ketchum ISBN: 0843952164 Publisher: Leisure Books Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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