![]() ![]() ![]() He has no control over it and it is alienating him from his wife and holding back his career. It is about a frustrated writer who is full of excuses for why he never gets anything written and just as full of anger about it. “Mad House” is one of the longer stories in the book. Under his breath the officer calls them “Monsters!” But they were just following orders, just like him, and isn’t their commanding officer every bit the monster as well? I found this story quietly disturbing: young girls whispering, giggling and chewing bubble gum, after destroying so many lives, then saying, “Aren’t we awful?” and going downstairs for breakfast. He wants them to use their powers to destroy the enemy and they do, in spectacular fashion. This is a strange story and the hypocrisy did not escape me when an officer from the communications room goes to tell the seven girls that the enemy is approaching. Seven pretty little girls all sitting in a row and all of them witches, who kill to order for their military masters. This happens sometimes and what might be blatantly obvious to one reader is an enigma to another. ![]() This does not mean that it is a bad story it probably just means that I failed to pick up on something in it, or was perhaps looking at it from all the wrong angles. I must come clean here, though, and admit that I didn’t understand this story. It is obvious that something bad has happened at Leo’s home and the police seem to be trying to get to the bottom of it. The police officers are taping the interview and they keep switching off the tape recorder when Leo is slow in answering. “Through Channels” takes the form of an interview between some police officers and a young man named Leo. There, I told you it was unorthodox and it certainly gives his class, not to mention his teacher, quite a shock when he reads out his composition in school: My Ambition by Jules Dracula. He wants to be a vampire and smell of death. “Blood Son” is the story of a strange young man called Jules and Jules has a rather unorthodox ambition. When her grandma is asleep though, she goes in anyway and is especially enthralled by momma’s white dress. She now lives with her grandma who forbids her to enter her momma’s room. It takes a little getting used to, but it is a very clever way of telling the story. “I guess that is why granma is mad at me. The use of language reflects this, with the thought patterns of the child coming across as being very disorganized when compared to an adult train of thought: “Dress of White Silk” is written in the first person and from the viewpoint of a young child. The only problem is no one believes the man when he tells them about it and every time the gremlins sees anyone else about to look out of the window it pulls a disappearing act. He is a rather nervous passenger and it does not help the poor guys nerves any when he looks out of the window and sees a gremlin on the wing, busy sabotaging the plane’s engines. The first story, Matheson’s famous “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”, and it is the tale of a man travelling on a plane. That admiration works both ways though, and the dedication in the book reads: “To Stephen King with much admiration for taking the ball and running with it all the way.” If you are one of the latter group, you are missing out on something special and the fact that King is so full of praise for Matheson should probably tell you this. Most people reading this review will be familiar with Stephen King, but younger readers might be totally unfamiliar with Richard Matheson and his work. It was such a popular episode it was revamped and used in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)Īll of the stories in the anthology are very good and the book contains an introduction by Stephen King, who seems to be a great admirer of Matheson. The first of which I am sure you will be familiar with because it was used in an episode of The Twilight Zone, starring William Shatner and called, of course, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. Richard Matheson’s Nightmare at 20,000 Feet anthology is 335 pages long and contains 20 short stories. ![]()
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