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HarperCollins, UK, 1996 |
Dead Things
HarperCollins, UK, 1996; St Martin's Press, US,
1997
'Richard Calder's Dead Things brings to a close one of the
stranger sf series of recent years, begun with Dead Girls and
continued in Dead Boys … It is a slim but densely imagined book
centred upon an imaginative examination of the effects of technology
on human evolution … Dead Things is highly recommended, but be
warned that to read it properly it is necessary to read (or re-read)
its predecessors first.'
Interzone
'Add a dash of postmodern gothic, a dollop of William S.
Burroughs' Nova Express and a pinch of Angela Carter's The Passion
of New Eve. Stir in a healthy (or perhaps not so healthy) serving of
material from the alt.sex.fetish newsgroups on the Internet. Allow
the mixture to steep overnight in a sauna. The result might be
something like what Calder has concocted in this final addition to
his much praised, ever-so-noir SF horror trilogy, Dead Girls, Dead
Boys, Dead Things … Calder is a fine stylist, and the complex
history and nanobiology he has created for his Dead novels is
fascinating. The trilogy holds many rewards, cerebral and aesthetic,
for those willing to persevere.'
Publishers Weekly
'As with the first two books, what we are lusting after is
the brilliantly corrupt baroque inflections of his text, the leering
gloss he provides on everything from superheroes to Grail Quests;
Krazy Kat to Gnosticism; Wonderbras to the French Revolution; Xena,
Warrior Princess, to Poe. Reading Dead Things is like having an
imp-sized George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde sitting on your
shoulder and regaling you with cynical witticisms as you watch all
five hundred channels
simultaneously.'
Asimov's
'Obsessive, murky,
horrid; the only thing missing is the government health
warning.'
Kirkus Reviews |
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