Shock 1

Shock I consists of "thirteen tales to thrill and terrify" from the brilliant mind of Richard Matheson. Originally published with the title Shock! in 1961, the short stories collected here all date back to the 1950s (1953-1959, to be exact) and possess much of the offbeat brilliance that makes Matheson, when he is in top form, one of the most formidable authors in the horror/science fiction genre. Matheson's specialty is the introduction of the impossible and the outré into ordinary life, and each of these stories seems to take place in a world that is slightly warped in one way or another; perhaps the term "paranoid fiction" best represents the types of stories you will find in this out of print yet exceedingly impressive short story collection.Children of Noah leads off the baker's dozen of stories, and it has what I call a slightly Lovecraftian feel to it, as it explains why you do not want to go speeding through a certain sparsely populated Maine township in the middle of the night. It is followed by Lemmings, by far the shortest of these stories and, to me, the least impressive. The Splendid Source prepares us for the stories to come; this somewhat facetious tale leads us in search of the source of the world's dirty jokes; as the protagonist declaims, the same jokes appear everywhere, but no one knows who originated them. This type of skewed viewpoint of the world represents one side of the foundation of Matheson's unique vision. Paranoia truly rules the day in a number of the remaining tales. A crippled elderly lady is haunted and increasingly terrified by a series of mysterious phone calls in Long Distance Call. Legion of Plotters is a story that truly connected with me; many little things that others do in the course of each day sometimes drive me up the wall; thus I can identify with the protagonist of this tale who comes to believe that there is indeed a conspiracy afoot to drive him insane. Death Ship serves up a different variant of paranoia, this time in a science fiction setting - imagine landing on an alien planet and discovering wreckage containing your very own quite dead bodies. The Edge travels far into The Twilight Zone territory with its doppelganger motif, while The Distributor gives us a flip side look at a community that should be paranoid but is not. Mantage falls in the category of "be careful what you wish for," doing a remarkably effective job of showing just how short life can be. One For the Books is a story that might be familiar to many science fiction fans. I know it has been adapted for television at least once. In this story, an elderly janitor wakes up one day speaking perfectly fluent French and quickly proceeds to learn just about everything there is to know - the only things he does not know are what this strange new knowledge means and what purpose it is supposed to serve. This really is a wonderful collection of stories. Lemmings, Dance of the Dead, and The Creeping Terror seem less effec

I can't believe this is out of print! My dad owns this book, and it is one of the best collection of horror/sci-fi short stories out there. You can really see its influence on others, like Stephen King's "Night Shift" - another great book of short stories. Richard Matheson is one of the most underappreciated authors of the horror genre. If you pay attention to any of the sci-fi anthology shows (like "The outer Limits"), make sure to check the credits to see if the episode is based of one his stories. You'd be surprised how many are! If you are a Stephen King fan, you will love Matheson-especially this book and "I am legend."