I love to read, but I'm not the sort of reader who is willing, like some, to walk down a street or subway platform absorbed in a book or magazine. Greg van Eekhout, though, has forced me into that mold twice in the past 24 hours, the bastard.
I've been reading his chapbook Show and Tell and Other Stories in bites and nibbles over the past couple of days*. Both last night, on my way to meet friends for drinks in Brooklyn, and this morning, on my way to work, I arrived at my subway destination and had to finish the story I was reading on the hoof. I couldn't put the chapbook down.
Each of the six stories is odd, surprising, and moving in its own way. There's a good reason that Gardner Dozois chose the book's one original story to reprint in his upcoming Year's Best Science Fiction. You should get a copy of Show and Tell yourself, for only $7.00 including shipping.
This makes me all the more eager for a full-length van Eekhout collection, and a novel.
*Yes, I've had the chapbook since WorldCon in August and should have read it sooner, but I am a notoriously slow reader and, more to the point, an absent-minded and disorganized shelver of books.
