Getting into Death

by Thomas M. Disch

Contents:
Slaves (1967)
The Happy Story (1971)
The Asian Shore (1970)
The Persistence of Desire (1974)
Quincunx (1969)
Displaying the Flag (1974)
The Beginning of April or the End of March (1971)
The Planet Arcadia (1971)
The Invasion of the Giant Stupid Dinosaurs (1969)
A Kiss Goodbye (1974)
[X] Yes (1969)
Feathers from the Wings of an Angel (1971)
Let Us Quickly Hasten to the Gate of Ivory (1970)
The Colors (1968)
The Master of the Milford Altarpiece (1968)
The Complete Short Stories (1974)
Getting into Death (1974)

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories

206 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Poet and cynic, Thomas M. Disch brought to the sf of the New Wave a camp sensibility and a sardonicism that too much sf had lacked. His sf novels include Camp Concentration, with its colony of prisoners mutated into super-intelligence by the bacteria that will in due course kill them horribly, and On Wings of Song, in which many of the brightest and best have left their bodies for what may be genuine, or entirely illusory, astral flight and his hero has to survive until his lover comes back to him; both are stunningly original books and both are among sf's more accomplishedly bitter-sweet works.

In later years, Disch had turned to ironically moralized horror novels like The Businessman, The MD, The Priest and The Sub in which the nightmare of American suburbia is satirized through the terrible things that happen when the magical gives people the chance to do what they really really want. Perhaps Thomas M. Disch's best known work, though, is The Brave Little Toaster, a reworking of the Brothers Grimm's "Town Musicians of Bremen" featuring wornout domestic appliances -- what was written as a satire on sentimentality became a successful children's animated musical.

Reviews

[Dat-Dangk Vemucci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Appetizingly droll stories with venomous stingers.

'The Asian Shore' is about a professor taking a research trip (or is it more of a sabbatical) to Turkey for his thesis on entropy in architecture. However, while he is there he finds himself increasingly mistaken for a local, and is accosted by a woman who believes he is her husband. A really creepy story with mysterious implications.

'Displaying the Flag' is another story about the frailness/arbitrariness of identity, this time about a gay man who gets some sort of sci-fi conversion therapy to "be normal" but after it is successful he feels an urge for social stigma and shame so starts secretly attending a sports bar where the patrons are far-right chuds. Pretty hilarious story and one of the best in the book.

'The Invasion of the Giant Stupid Dinosaurs' is also pretty hilarious, Disch basically retells the crater scene from 'War of the Worlds' with his own barbed interpretation of the invaders' motivations. "Never ascribe to malice what might just be stupidity" etc..

'A Kiss Goodbye' - told with dialogue only, tells a sad story of a woman visiting an old acquaintance after a head trauma, hoping he can provide her with some insight into her past. The date goes poorly, he is boorish and there is something unpleasant and unsaid in their shared past. Horribly sad, good story though

'Feathers from the Wings of an Angel: A Prize Story' is one of many stories where you can't tell if Disch is ever being earnest or if his layers of irony are really one flat plane of contempt for the reader, the characters, the world.

'Let Us Quickly Hasten to the Gate of Ivory' - an adult brother and sister get lost in an enormous cemetery trying to find their mothers tombstone. Very creepy story, with effective typography experimentation throughout. One of my favourites.
'The Complete Short Stories' is absolutely brilliant, a collection of microfiction which functions as a mysterious whole.

[John Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a short story guy, but most of these absolutely whipped. Barely science fiction for the most part, but uniformly headache inducing levels of intelligence displayed throughout. When that intelligence wraps around sometimes solid, it's top tier. Some stories either lose steam or never quite get going, but are always interesting.

Favourites:

The beginning of April or the End of March
Getting into death
Displaying the Flag
Let us quickly hasten to the gate of ivory
The Master of the Milford Altarpiece (for the Chip Delaney biographical touch)

[Philip Demers]

"Displaying the Flag" is great fun.

[Michael Gushue · Rating 5 out of 5]

His best collection