Blue World

I picked this up, my first McCammon, because it's October and I was looking forward to some ghosties. Really, there are not any spooky stories here besides one, which I'll get to momentarily. I thought that "Blue World" must be a collection of McCammon's earlier works, given the simplicity of style which makes this sentence look daunting; however it was published in 1990. It is to note that...more

I picked this up, my first McCammon, because it's October and I was looking forward to some ghosties. Really, there are not any spooky stories here besides one, which I'll get to momentarily. I thought that "Blue World" must be a collection of McCammon's earlier works, given the simplicity of style which makes this sentence look daunting; however it was published in 1990. It is to note that most of McCammon's Pocket Books titles are now out of print; and that McCammon himself chose, from a pride which was contemptuous of, and indeed embarrassed of his early success, to pull his first four novels from print—I could forgive this egoism had (maybe they had) sales stopped completely. Then again, not having read them, I don't know—maybe they make Stephenie Meyer look like Henry James. McCammon allegedly went on to whine that he had to learn to write publicly. These foggy revelations have given me pause at contemplating the reading of further works by the author; though really, let the work speak, not the author. That's the good thing about antiquarian authors—they can't ruin your reading of them with their own mouths. I suppose they can though, if you go looking hard enough... About the stories collected in "Blue World": they are clean and simple and straightforward, and Isaac Asimov, who called for simplistic writing, would be proud; except that I keep thinking these stories, I've read someplace else, in a slightly altered and more eloquent form. "Yellowjacket Summer" was a nice little nature story. I enjoyed it because this past summer I had the pleasure of angering some yellowjackets to violence towards my person. "Makeup" was a bit juvenile, in that the character was juvenile, though I really liked the idea of the cursed movie monster makeup. "Doom City" was post apocalyptic goodness. "Nightcrawlers" was good, in an agent orange ethereal zombies, we're all held up at the diner, sort of way. "Pin" was garbage. "Yellachile's Cage" was good, very good, and I only thought a few times of prison movies. It spoke to me, "Yellachile's Cage", that is, of what it is to be a writer, a creative person. "I Scream Man" was not that great of post apocalyptic short fiction. "He'll Come Knocking At Your Door" was the one spooky story fit to read around Halloween time, and it made me feel queasy. It gives me chills and makes me feel a bit nauseated to think about it even now. I think it is because it is a true microcosm to our own postmodern reality. Just look who has power in the world, luck, money, success. It costs too much. I think the main character, because he was good, was doomed here, but should be OK in the afterlife. "Chico": creepy malformed mentally disturbed Mexican messiah to cockroaches. "Night Calls the Green Falcon" was like a few stories here. It's sort of hell to read, but it's kind of neat, and you carry through because you are a completionist and want to see what the hell happens to the old man. "The Red House" I didn't really care for. I think it was actually, as the father feared, communist (interchangeable now with capitalist) propaganda. "Something Passed By": the third post apocalyptic story here, which still doesn't beat out "Doom City" but is better than "I Scream Man". "Blue World": this too was hell to read, but I carried through, strung along by a thread of interest until I reached the far away ending, which I actually liked. I may come back and read some of the out of print McCammon which is sitting on my shelf, or I might not. Maybe I'll read some reviews for a change.   hide