Extremities by Kathe Koja

Extremities

by Kathe Koja

(Stephen's updated bibliography of short fiction)

(Review first appeared in Nova Express)

Kathe Koja is the author of The Cipher, Bad Brains, Strange Angels, Skin and Kink... and if you wanted to sum up this collection in ten words or less, those titles would do it, for ciphers, bad brains, strange angels, skin and kink can be all found here. An even better précis, however, is the title of one of the stories: 'The Disquieting Muse'.

In Danse Macabre, his non-fiction book about horror, Stephen King quotes a review in which a horror film is dismissed as being "for those who like to slow down to look at car crashes" (which, King suggests, is most if not all of us). Koja's brand of horror is quite different. Only a few of the 16 tales in Extremities are horror stories, in the sense of having conventionally scary plots and subject matter - ghosts, demons, monsters, madness - but even most of those that aren't have a dreamlike quality that is disquieting if not terrifying, more like the moments before or after a car crash, where shock distorts your sense of time and reality in a way which is painless but in which everything feels vaguely wrong. Even though all of these stories are told in third person, many have the subjective quality of first-person narrative, making it more difficult to deny or even doubt the insanity of what is apparently happening.

Koja's basic plots are simple, but unpredictable; her main strength, apart from her sensual and often surreal style, is her characterization. As with The Cipher, many of these stories are shaped by how her complex and often bizarre yet believable characters will deal with equally bizarre situations. In 'Arrangement for Invisible Voices', an impotent man becomes obsessed with the head of a Barbie doll. In 'Bird Superior', the survivor of a plane crash becomes capable of flight. In 'Illusions in Relief', an artist specializing in horrific collages is sought out as a faith healer. In 'Queen of Angels', a nurse believes that a comatose patient is crying pearls.

If you're unfamiliar with Koja's work, this is an excellent introduction. If you like her novels, these stories are just as weird, but tighter and slightly more intense. Buy it, keep it, and read the stories with intervals of reality between them for maximum effect.

Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows (hardcover, 1998) ;

Four Walls Eight Windows (paperback 2000)

Hardcover is 200 pages ; Paperback is 208 pages

ISBN: 156858122X (hardcover) ; 1568581505 (paperback)