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Summary: A very important book...
Review: It's difficult to come to The Incredible Shrinking Man (or The Shrinking Man, as originally titled) as a blank slate. Many fans of 1950's horror movies all ready know the story, and yet the book is still a must. Matheson makes it more interesting by having two timelines running simultaneously--the hero at the beginning of his ordeal and the hero versus the Spider.Also, a great plus about this book is that it features several of Matheson's short stories, including Nightmare at 20,000 Feet and Duel--both of which are more famous for their filmed TV versions.
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Summary: CAREY MAY STILL BE SHRINKING TODAY
Review: ONCE AGAIN MATHESON SHOWS US THE GENIUS THAT WE ALL HAVE COME TO EXPECT FROM HIS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. ONLY R.M. CAN CREATE CHARACTERS THAT HAVE BEEN LEFT SO ALONE AND DESPERATE THAT WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT FEEL SORRY FOR THEM. I CAN ALMOST PLACE MYSELF THERE.
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Summary: Richard Christian Matheson is somebody else!
Review: Richard Christian Matheson is a terrific writer, but he is not Richard Matheson, the author of this book. They are son and father, respectively. Matheson is elder is one of the great fantasists of the twentieth century. Please fix!!!
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Summary: Fantastic
Review: Richard Matheson's "Shrinking Man" is one of the best novels I have ever read, up there with Clarke's "2001:A Space Oddessy" and the very best Stephen King novels. The book provides more depth and prospective than the 1957 movie of the same name wherein Matheson wrote the screenplay. Besides the additional storyline and suprising situations (which Matheson obviously had to delete for 1950s movie audiences in the film version of his novel), the writing style is very vivid and imaginative. Moreover, the existential plot and the hero's choices in dealing with his situation in light of his ultimate fate also remind one of Camus' The Stranger. Overall, I find Matheson's work here a classic in the horror/science fiction genre and an extremely enjoyable reading experience.
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Summary: A man faces many dangers when he gradually shrinks.
Review: Richard Matheson's classic tale,familiar to many of us from the movie version,is an engrossing fantasy about a man named Scott Carey who is gradually shrinking. As he gets smaller,his life gets more bizarre,embarassing,and dangerous.Told in flashback form,the story centers on Carey's adventures in his cellar,where he must face a voracious spider,his own hunger,and the thought that he may shrink down to nothing.There are flashbacks to earlier times,in which Carey has a love affair with a midget and is attacked by a drunken pederast and a teenage gang.This novel looks at the ordinary from a bizarre perspective, as the tiniest things can cause all sorts of trouble for Scott Carey.This paperback edition also contains several of Matheson's short stories.
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Summary: A very imaginative adventure and 9 amusing short stories.
Review: Richard Matheson's novel is one great adventure yarn. At times, it is a too in-your-face existential allegory (what with Scott Carey's, the main character, constant doubts on why he keeps on hanging to life?), and the tale never really points to the direction it takes in the ending. Yet, it left me satisfied to have followed it up through the whole journey. The story of Scott's gradual descent into oblivion is framed by the events in what he expects to be his last week on Earth, before he shrinks to nothing. His cat-and-mouse game with a black widow bent on devouring him is an involving thriller. And in holding the tension of this hunt is where Matheson's prose shines. The 9 stories included go from the darkly comic to the thrilling. Here are the titles of these stories: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
The Test
The Holiday Man
Mantage
The Distributor
By Appointment only
Button, Button
Duel
Shoofly
Most of these share one of the basic topics of the novel: a man looking for a meaning to his actions, his life, a reason to go on. These ones, together with "The Shrinking Man", show the preocupations Matheson reflects about through his whole work.
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Summary: Much better thn the movie
Review: Scott Carey is a typical American family man. He is happily married and loves his wife and daughter. However, everything changes including relationships when the tidal wave of spray soaked him while sunbathing on the top of a boat. Now Cary is shrinking inch by inch into a micro world of the unknown. He has only six days left on the human plane and this is his account of when he became THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN. Though this anthology is labeled the INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, it actually contains several other stories besides this classic. Included are great tales like "Duel", "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", and "The Test" that prove that Richard Matheson works not only hold up, but he remains the master of tales that involve an outside force that harm the innocent. Horror meets science fiction at a signpost that Serling would have relished announcing, as this is a great collection worth reading and in many ways better than the several well-done movies that are based on these tales. Harriet Klausner
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Summary: The Reduction Of The Self
Review: Scott Carey is exposed to a one in a million chemical reaction (brought about by a mysterious sea-spray and being drenched in pesticides) and finds himself shrinking 1/7th of an inch every morning. While the Scientific explanation is a little bit of a throwaway, and left me going `huh?' (like Bruce Banner getting the gamma rays or Peter Parker getting bit by a nuked spider), the end result is certainly not. What plays out as a relentlessly depressing view of mortality and the loneliness in which man faces that mortality (much like Matheson's I AM LEGEND), ends with a surprisingly optimistic conclusion which puts this story into the realm of a zen-line allegory. As he shrinks, the protagonist's social struggles grow. He is often mistaken for a child (by bullying teenagers and in one scene, a drunken pedophile) and begins falling into the `little man's complex,' raging at seemingly insignifigant things and growing increasingly more neurotic as a result of his inability to be taken seriously. His manhood is challenged as he becomes too miniscule to relate physically to his wife (in the pit of his self-loathing he contemplates the rape of a sixteen year old girl), and in a final display of his ineffectiveness, his young daughter treats him like a doll. After being locked and lost in the cellar of his own house, his neuroses become manifest in the body of a black widow spider who torments him endlessly (amusingly, its the same spider he wounds with a stone while in a larger state). Carey's biggest problem is his fear. He fears his innate impulses and desires, he fears his financial instability with his brother, he fears the way his wife and daughter see him and his own concept of masculinity. The shrinking seems almost Heaven sent - a gift to teach the guy the importance of life and how to shed his petty concerns. In that it is very much like a zen parable. Carey is effectively being reduced physically and emotionally. It is his notion of `self' which is dwindling. Yet, when in the last pages he accepts his fate and performs a ritualistic sort of purging of worry by engaging the spider, things begin to fall into place both physically and emotionally for him. He comes to understand that he cannot (and doesn't need to) `escape.' From a Taoist perspective, he is rewarded for this, being in the end able to percieve the worlds within worlds (possibly a spiritual metaphor?) and gaining new hope. Probably I AM LEGEND is more suspenceful and better written, but SHRINKING MAN is a much more thought provoking, nearly mystical read. In both novels Matheson spends a lot of time with internal thoughts, but I don't know many other writers that can make a one-man show this compelling. This isn't the adventures of the Human Atom, but the realistic study of a man. Well-deserving of the handle `classic.'
Rating:
Summary: The Reduction Of The Self
Review: Scott Carey is exposed to a one in a million chemical reaction (brought about by a mysterious sea-spray and being drenched in pesticides) and finds himself shrinking 1/7th of an inch every morning. While the Scientific explanation is a little bit of a throwaway, and left me going `huh?' (like Bruce Banner getting the gamma rays or Peter Parker getting bit by a nuked spider), the end result is certainly not. What plays out as a relentlessly depressing view of mortality and the loneliness in which man faces that mortality (much like Matheson's I AM LEGEND), ends with a surprisingly optimistic conclusion which puts this story into the realm of a zen-line allegory. As he shrinks, the protagonist's social struggles grow. He is often mistaken for a child (by bullying teenagers and in one scene, a drunken pedophile) and begins falling into the `little man's complex,' raging at seemingly insignifigant things and growing increasingly more neurotic as a result of his inability to be taken seriously. His manhood is challenged as he becomes too miniscule to relate physically to his wife (in the pit of his self-loathing he contemplates the rape of a sixteen year old girl), and in a final display of his ineffectiveness, his young daughter treats him like a doll. After being locked and lost in the cellar of his own house, his neuroses become manifest in the body of a black widow spider who torments him endlessly (amusingly, its the same spider he wounds with a stone while in a larger state). Carey's biggest problem is his fear. He fears his innate impulses and desires, he fears his financial instability with his brother, he fears the way his wife and daughter see him and his own concept of masculinity. The shrinking seems almost Heaven sent - a gift to teach the guy the importance of life and how to shed his petty concerns. In that it is very much like a zen parable. Carey is effectively being reduced physically and emotionally. It is his notion of `self' which is dwindling. Yet, when in the last pages he accepts his fate and performs a ritualistic sort of purging of worry by engaging the spider, things begin to fall into place both physically and emotionally for him. He comes to understand that he cannot (and doesn't need to) `escape.' From a Taoist perspective, he is rewarded for this, being in the end able to percieve the worlds within worlds (possibly a spiritual metaphor?) and gaining new hope. Probably I AM LEGEND is more suspenceful and better written, but SHRINKING MAN is a much more thought provoking, nearly mystical read. In both novels Matheson spends a lot of time with internal thoughts, but I don't know many other writers that can make a one-man show this compelling. This isn't the adventures of the Human Atom, but the realistic study of a man. Well-deserving of the handle `classic.'
Rating:
Summary: Super Classic that will tug at your heart strings
Review: Simply one of the best sci-fi horror hybrids I have ever read. The plight of the poor Scott Carey is so moving and disturbing. The book makes you ponder the question, "what makes a man a man". This story will cause you to question your own place in the universe. It is witty, and absolutely addicting. I read it in a day.
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