Subject: BY BIZARRE HANDS by Joe R. Lansdale

From: [email-masked] (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070)
Date: 26 Nov 91 19:20:30 GMT

BY BIZARRE HANDS by Joe R. Lansdale
                        A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
			 Copyright 1991 Evelyn C. Leeper

        I don't normally read horror, but I made an exception in this case.
   First, there were reportedly two alternate history stories in this book, and
   I'm an aficionado of alternate history stories.  And second, Joe Lansdale
   has a reputation for writing unusual stories.  (I think of him, rightly or
   wrongly, as the Howard Waldrop of horror.)

        Of the sixteen stories, I will comment specifically only on two--the
   alternate history ones, of course.  "Trains Not Taken" is a fairly
   straightforward alternate history: the Japanese settled North America from
   the west as the Europeans settled it from the east, leaving no frontier or
   "Wild West."  So the great heroes of that era ended up as politicians
   instead.  This is fairly mundane and the historical underpinnings don't bear
   close scrutiny (what happened to the Spanish if the Japanese had the West
   Coast sewed up?).  "Trains Not Taken" is an interesting character sketch but
   not much else.

        "Letters from the South, Two Moons West of Nacogdoches," on the other
   hand, is a gem.  Like "Trains Not Taken," it's set in a world in which the
   Japanese got involved in North America, but there the similarity ends.  And
   to tell any more would be unfair--suffice it to say I didn't think an author
   could put that many twists in a five-page story.

        The other fourteen stories are closer to my definition of horror and
   range from merely well-written to memorable.  There are no clunkers, and I
   don't hesitate to recommend this book to you even if you don't read that
   "horror stuff."

   %B      BY BIZARRE HANDS
   %A      Joe R. Lansdale
   %C      New York
   %D      September1991
   %I      Avon
   %O      paperback, US$3.99 [1989]
   %G      ISBN 0-380-71205-9
   %P      242pp

Evelyn C. Leeper   |   +1 908 957 2070   |   att!mtgzy!ecl or [email-masked]