CBR14Bingo: Question (each story answers the question of the story with a twist ending)
This is a collection of Robert Bloch short stories that I got from somewhere I’ve forgotten as a stripped paperback. This was an easy train read for the 3 hour journey I was on this weekend. The stories are mainly pulp horror with twist endings. I wouldn’t say any of them were unjustly forgotten in favor of Bloch’s more famous work, Psycho. They read more like they were written with the knowledge he was getting paid per word. Readable with some good thrills in there, but not groundbreaking stuff. Because it is so rote, there are also a lot of stereotypes and sexism throughout, so that made for reading where I was thinking about historical racism and sexism in America for chunks of the train ride, which wasn’t the most relaxing or escapist reading.
My favorite stories were “Lucy Comes to Stay” and “Girl From Mars.” They’re also the shortest in the collection, so maybe Bloch was forced to be more innovative within a shorter space, or to keep things moving. I found that the longer stories in the collection tended to drag and be more paint by numbers or non-original. “Lucy Comes to Stay” is about a woman in the midst of a complete breakdown and it nails the sense of paranoia and dissociation from reality. “Girl From Mars” is a nasty little story about a man who thinks he’s taking advantage of a woman when he is very much not. The rest of the stories kind of blend together.
Overall, not really recommended to buy but I don’t regret reading it as a part of SF/F/Horror history. I’d also never read Bloch before so it was interesting to get a sense of his short story work, and I never really regret reading some twist ending short stories, even if I can see the twist coming a mile away.
