Living Shadows by John Shirley
Living Shadows is a collection of twenty gritty stories spanning roughly 35 years of an exceptional career in speculative fiction. As well-respected as Shirley is in the business, he still isn’t getting the recognition he deserves (i.e., his own dedicated shelf in every bookstore in the world), and he proves it with every tale in this book.
The first of the collection’s two sections features twelve stories grounded in the horrors of reality: standouts include The Sewing Room, about a woman who discovers her husband’s darkest secret; What Would You Do For Love?, about a disturbingly freaky illicit affair gone horribly awry; and Brittany? Oh: She’s in Translucent Blue, a public-service announcement about why you shouldn’t have a drug-fueled orgy while your kids are playing in the backyard. The second grouping is comprised of ten stories of a more supernatural bent: highlights include Sleepwalkers, a Dollhouse-esque (from 1988; I love you, Joss, but John was there first!) story of a man relinquishing his body in exchange for drug money; Skeeter Junkie, about a would-be rapist who gets in touch with his inner insect; and Isolation Point, California, about a man’s attempt at romance following the outbreak of a disease that makes people kill each other when they get too close. Also of note is Blind Eye, a collaboration with Edgar Allan Poe born of an anthology of stories that each offered a continuation of an unfinished Poe story.
Shirley’s skillful and lavish characterization and attention to detail make each story an unexpected (and unpredictable) delight, whether he’s describing a vengeful director’s suicide-by-proxy attempt or the twisted surrealism of a reality-warping teenager. This is quite possibly the strongest single-author collection I’ve read since Asimov’s Nine Tomorrows, and one I know I’ll be picking up again and again. 5/5 and I’m still kicking myself for not discovering John Shirley years ago.