Beneath the Skin and Other Stories

Rating:
Summary: Don't bother...
Review: A glorified vanity press output, you'd be better served buying a good magazine.

Rating:
Summary: Great Read
Review: Matt Sturges is a talented up-and-coming author. Books like this, published when he was part of the (now defunct) Clockwork Storybook* online collective, will someday be sought-after collectibles to his fans.

Beneath the Skin is some of Matt's best work. Witten mostly under the guise of horror and fantasy, Sturges is at his best here when he plays with his favorite themes of philosophy, religion, aberrant psychology and surrealism in gems like The Horizon's Far Margin and The Odd Within.

The stories in Beneath the Skin are a great read, whether you catch them in this collection, or wait to see them eventually published somewhere else...

*(Clockwork Storybook was a unique, experimental online world of written fantasy, shared between writers Chris Roberson, Mark Finn, Bill Willingham, and Mr Sturges. The writers have recently moved on to other projects.)

Rating:
Summary: A Remarkable First Book
Review: Sturges combines science fiction, horror, mystery and mythology in this gripping collection of short stories. Each work is totally different, but they are all instantly absorbing and mucho creepy. The common thread throughout the collection is the location, the fictional California city of San Cibola, created by Sturges and 3 other Clockwork Storybook writers in their "online shared world anthology of urban fantasy." The Clockwork Storybook website is well worth visiting. Sturges is a talented writer--let's hope we see more from him.

Rating:
Summary: Don't bother...
Review: Sturges's first collection of short stories shows wit and facility with language, as well as an unusual sympathy for the the weirdos, freaks, and has-beens of the world. And perhaps more important, he is an able storyteller who takes simple pleasure in the old campfire tradition of creeping himself (and others) out. The best of the six stories have the head-tweaking quality of acid dreams. Somewhere in that haze of the sleazy and the divine, you find moments of genuine insight, and it's a cool, if funky, trip. Elsewhere, you walk away with the queasy feeling of a theme park ride you're not sure you can stomach twice. "The Odd Within," which takes its title from an Emily Dickenson poem, exlores the fragile and foggy mind of a young schizophrenic, and suggests that mental illness can offer a great gift, at a high price. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to pity her, or BE her. "In Theory" comes closest to the recognized standard language of modern American horror fiction. Yet it offers an appealing hook in its worn-out hero, who finds a strange release in his own impotence and exhaustion. Sturges combines the lurid, graphic violence and sour-tempered humor (including a hookah-pulling convenience store clerk repressing "American Psycho"-like lusts, and a bizarre stand-off between a deranged dentist and a Rottweiler) with the cool noir world of San Francisco detective fiction. The whole fantasy rests on a narrative of paranoia rising from our own growing fear of contagion in this age of global superviruses and ravenous bacteria. My favorite is "Horizon's Far Margin," which follows the unlikely career of a biker in Hell. Here, most of the Devil's employees aren't genuinely bad folks, just ambivalent drifters with no ambitions other than to live eternally and ride forever...and drink copiously on their nights off. "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" it ain't. The main character ends up in Hell not because he's chosen the wrong, but because he's avoided making any choices. The defining moment of his life, or rather his afterlife, comes when he learns to make his own decisions. Overall, Beneath the Skin and other Stories is a fine first effort, because Sturges is a strong writer and a good storyteller. He experiments freely, combining forms, mythologies, and narratives. At times, the effect can be jarring, and a little awkward. But at its best, the collection manages to be very pleasurable, greatly entertaining, and rich in human insight as well.