Reviews and Comments
A Coffee Cup/Alien Invasion Story
Strange Horizons February 7th, 2005
Douglas Lain's "A Coffee Cup/Alien Invasion Story" (Strange Horizons) is a first-rate story of a marriage that may be in trouble -- and an alien invasion that may be real. It's legitimate SF, and it's "mainstream," and it's metafiction: I don't know anyone else doing quite what Lain is doing (here and elsewhere); fascinating work, moving, strikingly honest, powerful.
Rich Horton, Locus Magazine
In the aptly titled, "A Coffee Cup/Alien Invasion Story," Douglas Lain provides the reader with a snapshot of the lives of Alex and Shelly. They are a young married couple who contemplate over drinks the "UFOs in the sky over Portland." Beneath the first layer of the story is a monologue by the narrator about the choices he has made, not only in weaving the story, but also in his personal life.
The narrator explains to the reader his template for the story, his research in naming Alex and Shelly, and his plan for their growth. The story unfolds as he predicted, precisely and completely, which felt a bit odd at times, yet it was also comforting. I truly cared for his protagonists and wanted them to succeed. I knew the characters weren't likely to change much, still I was entertained. In the author's own words, the concept "fit somehow."
The first memorable moment in the story occurred when Alex explained a religious epiphany that sprang from a viewing of the HBO logo. The second is in the parallel story, where the narrator recalls a visit "to the Washington Park Zoo [for] a Christmas light display." In both cases, the nuances are subtle and strange, making the story a perfect fit for Strange Horizons.
The illustration by Jeff Foster cleverly blends the zoo visit with the UFOs.
Suzanne Church, Tangent Online
Sorry, but I stopped reading. I just got confused, which happens to me a lot with modern short speculative fiction.
-blue j
A lovely take on national and personal denial, Doug. Thank you. I smiled through the Slinky scene. You totally rock.
-barth
I'm sorry, but this story just doesn't work for me. This seems a jumble of disjointed, undeveloped scenes. I'd rather see two or three of these scenes developed more fully.
Obviously, this story is a fable, that is, a story with a message, much like a parable. When telling a parable or a fable, a simple, easy to understand (and thus to believe) structure works best.
I think now of Kafka, the master of the fable disguised as a short story. Think of the simple structure of "The Hunger Artist." Think also of how Kafka doesn't beat us over the head with the true meaning of his fable, but lets us experience the joy and wonder of figuring it out ourselves.
The author could take some of the advice of the writing instructor mentioned in his own story. Simplify this story. Let the characters discuss the saucers over a beer. The example of this is not Kafka, but Hemmingway's "A Clean Well-Lighted Place." Note that Hemmingway doesn't beat the reader over the head with the message, either. Let the characters change only a millimeter. A millimeter really is enough.
- bagoink
I don't think this story would have been better if Kafka or Hemmingway had written it, much as I love them both. I don't think they could have written this story better because I don't think they could have written it period. This is Lain's territory. And though it's been influenced by Vonnegut, I think he does it better than Vonnegut, personally, of course.
I didn't find this story reticent or impossible to understand. I think it's a sort of story where you have to let it teach you how to read it, but to do that you have to be willing to read a story without preconceptions of what a story should be before you start reading.
-Christopher Barzak
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The Dead Celebrity
The Whirligig #9
August, 2004
I saw issue #9 of this 'zine. As far as I can tell the editor prefers to remain anonymous. (At least I couldn't find his or her name in either the magazine or website.) This issue included one novelette and four short stories (two short-shorts), as well as some "minimal fictions" and some "two word anagrammatic stories" by Richard Kostelanetz. There is also a poem by Jessica Wickens. The novelette is "The Dead Celebrity" by Douglas Lain, and it's as strange and weirdly involving as you might expect from Lain. Of the short stories, perhaps Mike Cipra's "Evidence of Cannibalism in the Culture" is the best.
Rich Horton, Speculative Literature Year in Review 2004
It's good to see a lit zine out there where the writing is decent, original and not too full of itself. I enjoyed almost everything in this issue, but I especially liked Douglas Lain's story, The Dead Celebrity about a guy who stays famous as long as he doesn't leave the mall and Mike Cipra's piece, Evidence of Cannibalism in the Culture, a biting satire about prejudice and government bureaucracy. Definitely worth checking out.
Fran McMillian, Xerox Dept #15
For all its modest, zeeny presentation, The Whirligig is one of the most important lit journals being produced in this country... The fiction in this issue is represented by two poles. At one extreme are the well-written literary stories of Douglas Lain and Ron Gibson Jr.
Lain's absurdist "The Dead Celebrity" is long, intelligent, interesting, confusing, ultimately unsatisfying.
King Wenclas, AttackingtheDemi-Puppets
Music Lessons
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet
June, 2004
Douglas Lain's "Music Lessons" is a long story, by LCRW standards, but with a very loose structure and ambiguous story-line. Told in interview snippets and first-person narrative sections, this tale describes a composer's rather odd daily life and even stranger influences. With a wife who worries that Jesus is a zombie, a strange fixation with bees, an encounter with a man in a gorilla suit on his way to a guest appearance on the Mr. Rogers Show, and an alien abduction, John does indeed lead an odd life--but one well-suited to this mysterious examination of creativity, eccentricity, and the dissolution of the boundaries of personality.
Matthew Nadelhaft, Tangent Online
Shopping at the End of the World
Strange Horizons September, 2003
Several recent Strange Horizons stories impressed me...
And best of all is Douglas Lain's "Shopping at the End of the World", in which a shredder has effects far beyond simply shredding paper. It's both a wacky working out of a wild idea,and a sharp critique of consumerist culture.
Rich Horton, Locus Magazine
Got bored with the Douglas Lain story halfway thru and just skipped to the end.
A. Nonymous
-- Saturday, October 04, 2003
To each his own, I suppose, A. I enjoyed Doug Lain's story. The symbolic blood leaving the Nike building alone was pretty kickass.
MRM
-- Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Indeed, to each their own. Shopping at the End of the World did nothing short of blow me away, and The Birdcatcher made me grin like an idiot.
Erika, Doug: kudos on taking some possibly predictable starting points in new and incredible directions. I am very much wowed. :)
Toronto, ON Canada
-- Friday, October 10, 2003
Strange Horizons Readers Forum
The Headline Trick
Rabid Transit June, 2003
One group of young writers who have begun to attract attention is the Ratbastards: DeNiro, Christopher Barzak, barth Anderson and Kristin Livdahl. Last year they put out a chapbook called Rabid Transit, one story by each of them, all slipstream. This year they serve as editors for Rabid Transit: A Mischief of Rats, five stories that again straddle the SF/fantasy/mainstream border. I liked Douglas Lain's "The Headline Trick" best for the utterly weird money-making scheme presented, and for the political/historical resonances.
Rich Horton, Locus Magazine
In Douglas Lain's "The Headline Trick," the protagonist, Ian, is a telephone solicitor for Time/Life books. Solicitors work on commission, which is why he can't understand how Scott, the guy in the cubicle next to him, is making a living. Scott spends his day cutting out headlines from the newspaper. Then, one evening, Scott shows Ian "The Headline Trick." By placing newspaper headlines into a deposit envelope, folding it in half and placing it in the debit card slot of an ATM, he is able to obtain cash. The problem is that headlines are a short-term investment: to get a return the news has to continue getting worse. At some point the news will get so bad that you (and the ATM) will grow numb to it and the dividends dwindle. (There's a brief, but brilliantly funny scene of Ian practicing "shock at the headlines" in the bathroom mirror.) This is an exquisite little story, savvy in its perceptions and sophisticated in its execution. Lain is a master at imbedding information for the reader to discover on subsequent readings.
Therese Pieczynski, Tangent Online
Scott and Ian work as telemarketers, except Scott spends his shifts cutting headlines out of newspapers while Ian and the rest of his colleagues are struggling to make quota. Over drinks, Ian learns that Scott's family has a bizarre system whereby they deposit copies of the day's bad news in a safety deposit box or ATM, and get cash back from some unknown source. But when Ian starts to take advantage of the scheme, he discovers that those around him pay the price. It's a rather strange gimmick, but the the story does some very neat things with it. All of the characters are interesting, and the quirky plot makes for an excellent story.
Andy Hatchell, Andyhat
Intrigued by Alan DeNiro's manifesto and the Ratbastards website, I ordered their two chapbooks.
I have since read them both cover-to-cover, and can say that if you want to read great stories by new authors, read these books. You get a heck of a lot more bang for your buck with these two chapbooks than you do with any of the magazines in the SF field (at least with recent issues of the major magazines, whose names I won't mention for fear of bringing shame upon my karma).
[...]Of the two books, the most recent one, Rabid Transit: A Mischief of Rats seems to me to be the stronger, more consistent and cohesive volume. There isn't a weak story in it.
[...]Did I forget 'The Headline Trick' by Douglas Lain? I loved that story! Anything involving magic and cons of any sort, even ones that work against the space-time continuum, appeals to me, and this one has the added benefit of being written well. It's entertaining, thoughtful, thought-provoking ... and even Ricky Jay would probably like it.
[...]Let me try this -- without slighting the other stories, because I do think these are extremely strong collections, and the tales balance each other well, I will say here that there are a few stories which no serious reader of SF, or of short fiction of any sort, should miss. They are [imaginary drum roll]:
Particularly Exemplary Short Fiction from the Remarkably Exemplary Ratbastards:
*"The Blue Egg" by Christopher Barzak
*"A Number of Hooves" by Alan DeNiro
*"The Headline Trick" by Douglas Lain
*"Gramercy Park" by Haddayr Copley-Woods
What's the point of such a list? Ugh, there isn't one. I was just trying to be a good critic and be discerning. It's pointless. These are two excellent chapbooks, every story deserves at least one reading (with Alan DeNiro's requiring quite a few ... I'm still not sure I get it, but I so like the sentences and the chutzpah of it that it seems a standout to me), and if any major magazine rejects a story by one of these writers, that magazine's editor deserves to be fired and run out of town on a rail.
Clear enough?
Matthew Cheney, The Mumpsimus
The Sea Monkey Conspiracy
Polyphony September, 2002
"Philip K. Dick would have admired Douglas Lain's 'The Sea Monkey Conspiracy,' and would have been unsettled by it, for the same reason—he would have seen himself in the alienated young narrator/protagonist. He might have argued that it's a sequel to—and perhaps better than—his 1979 story 'The Exit Door Leads in.'"
Paul Williams, author of Only Apparently Real, The World of Philip K. Dick
Douglas Lain's "The Sea Monkey Conspiracy" reads with compelling immediacy, an unnerving combination of masks, secrets that distort and finally shred one's identity, psychological experiments, and the growing threat of war in the Gulf Coast--focusing on Iraq. The undertone of violence--guns and missiles--and the helpless yearning for female understanding with sex's urgency just getting in the way all evoke the dissonances of the young man on the verge of adulthood who, without yet comprehending either himself or the world, might find himself swept away to be a player in the 'game', the stakes being sudden death. A fast pace and tight transitions make this story work well.
Sherwood Smith, Tangent Online
The Subliminal Son
The Third Alternative May, 2002
Douglas Lain's offering "The Subliminal Son" is written in episodic sub-sections, each with a title-heading, in montage style, which reflects the story's central conceit and concern: the collage-videos made by an ad-man's young son, which seem to act as a devastating psychological catalyst on the story's protag. Lain's satire of commercial culture is both melancholy and angry. Again, the theme of insanity-as-clarifying-vision emerges, as we follow the protag through a de-evolution of consciousness. While trying to treat his son's speech impediment, the narrator finds his own speech patterns and thought patterns regressing, rather like a protracted "brain flush" that leaves fragments of ads and popular slogans in its psychic wake. The thrill of the tale becomes evident when the regressive state leads both the narrator and his son to a more pure state of consciousness -- one that reveals an ambiguous psychic/telepathic ability. "The Subliminal Son" is a very good story -- but it misses being a great one due to a muddled climax. That said, this story is a must-read for originality and perceptive social satire.
Daniel E. Blackstone's Firebrand Fiction Column 6/25/02, SFReader.com
The Third Alternative, out of the UK, is simply one of the most impressive and entertaining magazines out there in Magworld, including slicks, inside and outside of the SF/Fantasy/Horror genres. Expertly produced and creatively illustrated, editor Andy Cox offers up a magazine that engages, pleases, entertains, provokes and informs. Issue #30 serves to bolster TTA's already impressive reputation, with a batch of quality fiction with that British feel, and a gallery of worthy illustrations.
[...]"The Subliminal Son" by Douglas Lain [is] an interesting tale about an ad designer who appears to be losing his memory and command of English, regressing to a child-like state that mirrors his young son's difficulty with speech therapy classes. The narrator begins revisiting forgotten moments from his past, leading to serious life changes in his present, and the result is a well-balanced story presented in a fairly original way with an original premise.
Erol Engin Tangent Online
Identity is a Construct
Strange Horizons January, 2002
If Strange Horizons were a print monthly, I would say the January theme is experimental literature. While Douglas Lain's ""Identity is a Construct" (and Other Sentences)" isn't quite as far out as the previous week's offering from Dana Christina, it definitely falls on the far side of that line that says "comfortable story." In a way, it reminded me of K.W. Jeter's too-little read classic Farewell Horizontal. (Read it if you haven't, but that's another review. Meanwhile, go read the Lain piece on Strange Horizons.) People (maybe) with strange but internally consistent problems trapped in an infinitely-layered artificial environment engaged in an absurdly reductionist evaluation of Earthly (or at least Western) culture. Sounds like graduate school, doesn't it?
As always, there is both more and less to the story. "Identity..." skates on the edge of being a bit twee, as my English friends say, with clever references to literary theory and contemporary SF scattered throughout—all in a logical manner, of course. The small-minded might say there's quite a bit of pseudo-intellectual twaddle here, but I enjoyed it. There's an ending that like many great endings means one thing to the characters and another to the reader. And some of the Sentences referred to in the title are just astonishing. It's hard to explain, it's worth a read.
Jay Lake Tangent Online
"Identity is A Construct (and other sentences)" is brilliant and funny and scary and deep. Thanks for publishing it.
Benjamin Rosenbaum
Basel, Switzerland
On a Scale of One to Three
"On a Scale of One to Three" was recently reprinted in the magazine Full Unit Hookup.
As it happens, I recently met Douglas Lain in person, in large part as a result of a review I wrote of one of his stories in Strange Horizons a while back. I referred to his story in SH as "a bit twee"—a British slang term meaning overly cute or self-consciously precious. "On a Scale of One to Three" is a lot of things, but it sure ain't twee. (This is the one reprint in FUHU, originally appearing in PIF magazine.) Stylistically, it drives straight out of the Pamela Zoline era of New Wave fiction, with a strong dose of nuclear paranoia and Reagan-era "kill a Commie for mommy" reverse-nostalgia. Lain writes straight from the conscience, with a strong dose of style and a quirky world view.
Jay Lake Tangent Online
"On a Scale of One to Three" is a disturbing and thought provoking piece. I congratulate you for publishing it. Lain's style is so deadpan that I wasn't sure whether to laugh (I did at times) or to buy a gas mask. Way to go.
Fiona Kelleghan
South Miami, FL
Selling Jesus
One of the more successful pieces in this issue for me is "Selling Jesus" by Douglas Lain. Skillfully using a second-person narrative, Lain tells the story of Paul Dart, a door-to-door salesman of a holographic Jesus Christ. During the course of the story, Dart travels from town to town trying to sell his wares, along the way interacting with his hologram Jesus as it increasingly deviates from its biblical programming, soon complaining that he is "tired of being bought and sold." The SF scenery on display here is somewhat old-fashioned, but it's also effective, reminding me of one of Philip K. Dick's universes. In this increasingly malfunctioning world, Dart's grasp of reality (not to mention virtual reality) grows more and more confused, as the haywire Jesus slowly transforms him. While perhaps a tad too long, "Selling Jesus" is a quirky, enjoyable read, with a rather unique style and a genuinely funny, dry sense of humor.
Christopher East Tangent Online
Suburbs of the Citadel of Thought
The hints of Philip K. Dick present in "A Perfect Day for Babyfish," however, cannot compare with the decidedly Dickian tale "The Suburbs of the Citadel of Thought." Here Douglas Lain presents the longest and one of the strongest stories of the issue. Lain directly acknowledges his debt to the old master by noting that his main character, Philip Hoffman, is named after Philip K. Dick and Abbie Hoffman. Lain laces the story with anecdotes of this sort—many of them dealing directly with Lain's own family history and experiences. The wonderful autobiographical inserts leave the reader wondering whether Lain has written the story or the story has written Lain. The overall premise involves Philip's psychic abilities (or is it madness?) and the impending arrival (paranoid delusion?) of aliens as they affect his adulterous relationship with a pop-kitsch minister's wife. One is never quite sure if the main character is sane or not, nor is the reader ever clear about what is real and what is illusion. A fitting tribute to Philip K. Dick.
Forrest Aguire Tangent Online
Douglas Lain's tale The Suburbs of the Citadel of Thought is brilliant!