Black Pockets: And Other Dark Thoughts

In this masterful collection of horror stories, George Zebrowski divides these nineteen tales into personal, political, and metaphysical terrors—stories to scare you individually, stories to frighten you as a social animal, and stories that should terrify the entire human race. In “I Walked with Fidel,” a young man encounters a once politically powerful zombie; “Jumper” focuses on a young woman with a dark and troubled past, while in “The Coming of Christ the Joker,” the lighthearted banter of a celebrity TV talk show becomes something far more serious. “A Piano Full of Dead Spiders” is an eerie story of genius, its demands, and its delusions; in “Passing Nights,” the truth behind a recurring nightmare is revealed; “The Soft Terrible Music” depicts a man who must hide his past even from himself. And in the title story, the novella “Black Pockets,” Zebrowski asks: What happens to a man when his desire for revenge becomes all-consuming? With an introduction by Howard Waldrop and an afterword by the author, George Zebrowski reveals himself in Black Pockets and Other Dark Thoughts as a writer who can play on our more disturbing emotions even as he impels us to deeper thoughts.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Veteran SF author Zebrowski (Macrolife) probes the nether reaches of horror in this outstanding story collection. Spanning three decades and divided into "Personal Terrors," "Political Horrors" and "Metaphysical Fears," these 19 disturbing tales treat "the greatest horrors that dwell inside us," or what Zebrowski calls "our jailed innards." From "The Wish in the Fear," a story of heartbreak and alienation, through "The Soft Terrible Music," a searing portrait of the fate of dissidents, to the soul-shaking "Interpose," a wholly new look at Jesus Christ, Zebrowski treats the psychological enigma of the look-alike Other—or perhaps what he calls "the fault in us" responsible for mankind's crimes. Clearly displayed also is Zebrowski's deep sympathy for the underdog, whether the starving Polish zoo animals in his ferocious allegory "General Jarulzelski at the Zoo" or the helpless female trapped by her reproductive system in "First Love, First Fear." The title story sums up humanity's Faustian fascination with power, forcing those fearful glimpses into what we all would rather not see: ourselves. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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