I think I'll write about it!
The Skin Trade is a 1988 anthology of original stories by Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and George R.R. Martin. I hear those guys wrote some other stuff, too.
This was book five in the Night Visions series, where each entry had three writers drop about 100 pages each. Some would do a long novella, some would do a whole bunch of stories.
I read this in the early 90's and re-visited it because I heard George R.R. Martin's story in here is getting adapted for TV. Makes sense, it's a very cinematic werewolf noir tale.
Verdict: it's mostly good! Not as mind-blowing as when I read it at age 12, but nothing is.
Here, have some fun facts about this book and this series:
-George R.R. Martin not only wrote a story for this series, he also edited an earlier book in this series that had the first publication of Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart, which was adapted as the film Hellraiser. So the Game of Thrones guy was responsible for Pinhead!
-This contains a Stephen King story that was never published anywhere else- "The Reploids." This joins the ranks of "The Crate" and "Weeds"- which were both adapted for the Creepshow script- great King stories that were never officially collected.
-Dan Simmons reveals that Hell as we know it was invented by Dante in The Inferno and still exists only because we believe that tale's descriptions. Also cancer is caused by invisible cancer vampires.
-I made it to book six in this series- The Bone Yard- then lost track. Just Googled it- there's 12 of 'em. The authors were getting kind of iffy on the later entries. I'm pretty horror-savvy, but I've never even heard of Mark Morris, Lucius Shephard, Thomas Tessier, James Kisner, P.D. Cacek, or David B. Silva.
-George R.R. Martin is well-known for his blatantly objectifying descriptions of women. Page 238 of this one reveals that he was doing this long before his ice-and-fire singing: "The white robe opened just enough to give him a quick peek at her small breasts. Her chest was lightly freckled, her nipples wide and brown." I assure you, every word of that introduction to her character was essential to the plot and essential to understanding her as a human being.
-Stephen King's other two stories in here- "Dedication" and "Sneakers" were collected in Nightmares and Dreamscapes. "Dedication" contains no violence or gore, but manages to be the grossest and most offensive thing King ever wrote.
-The other Night Visions books contain stories by Dean R. Koontz, F. Paul Wilson, Charles L. Grant, Karl Edward Wagner, Joe R. Lansdale, Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon, and Robert R. McCammon. No slouches, those Night Visions story pickers!
If any of this sounds interesting to you, then this book will be well worth the two bucks you pay for it in any given used bookstore or on eBay.
-Phony McFakename
Verdict: it's mostly good! Not as mind-blowing as when I read it at age 12, but nothing is.
Here, have some fun facts about this book and this series:
-George R.R. Martin not only wrote a story for this series, he also edited an earlier book in this series that had the first publication of Clive Barker's The Hellbound Heart, which was adapted as the film Hellraiser. So the Game of Thrones guy was responsible for Pinhead!
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| I didn't even make this myself, just Googled "Game of Thrones Hellraiser"- go Internet! |
-Dan Simmons reveals that Hell as we know it was invented by Dante in The Inferno and still exists only because we believe that tale's descriptions. Also cancer is caused by invisible cancer vampires.
-I made it to book six in this series- The Bone Yard- then lost track. Just Googled it- there's 12 of 'em. The authors were getting kind of iffy on the later entries. I'm pretty horror-savvy, but I've never even heard of Mark Morris, Lucius Shephard, Thomas Tessier, James Kisner, P.D. Cacek, or David B. Silva.
-George R.R. Martin is well-known for his blatantly objectifying descriptions of women. Page 238 of this one reveals that he was doing this long before his ice-and-fire singing: "The white robe opened just enough to give him a quick peek at her small breasts. Her chest was lightly freckled, her nipples wide and brown." I assure you, every word of that introduction to her character was essential to the plot and essential to understanding her as a human being.
-Stephen King's other two stories in here- "Dedication" and "Sneakers" were collected in Nightmares and Dreamscapes. "Dedication" contains no violence or gore, but manages to be the grossest and most offensive thing King ever wrote.
-The other Night Visions books contain stories by Dean R. Koontz, F. Paul Wilson, Charles L. Grant, Karl Edward Wagner, Joe R. Lansdale, Jack Ketchum, Richard Laymon, and Robert R. McCammon. No slouches, those Night Visions story pickers!
If any of this sounds interesting to you, then this book will be well worth the two bucks you pay for it in any given used bookstore or on eBay.
-Phony McFakename
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