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Extrêmes
Une femme délaissée prend racine dans le jardin de son compagnon... Un homme rescapé d'un accident d'avion se découvre le pouvoir de voler... Un thérapeute fasciné par les dessins obscènes d'une de ses patientes sent vaciller ses certitudes... Une jeune vendeuse épie à travers la cloison les ébats de sa voisine avec un amant mystérieux. Un jour, elle décide de séduire celui-ci... Un couple recourt à un masque en cuir SM pour pimenter sa vie sexuelle. Mais ce troisième partenaire acquiert peu à peu une inquiétante autonomie... Quand le sordide bascule dans le cauchemar, l'esprit enfante des monstres et les obsessions grandissent jusqu'à l'extrême. Seize tableaux des enfers de la folie, de la perversité et de l'autodestruction où l'on reconnaît la patte d'un maître de l'horreur moderne, entre Clive Barker et William S. Burroughs.
266 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
14 people are currently reading
431 people want to read
About the author
Kathe Koja
130 books932 followersKathe Koja is a writer, director and independent producer of live and virtual events. Her work combines and plays with genres, from horror to YA to historical to weird, in books like THE CIPHER, VELOCITIES, BUDDHA BOY, UNDER THE POPPY, and CATHERINE THE GHOST.
Her ongoing project is the world of DARK FACTORY https://darkfactory.club/ continuing in DARK PARK, with DARK MATTER coming out in December 2025.
She's a Detroit native, animal rights supporter, supporter of democracy, and huge fan of Emily Bronte.
Her ongoing project is the world of DARK FACTORY https://darkfactory.club/ continuing in DARK PARK, with DARK MATTER coming out in December 2025.
She's a Detroit native, animal rights supporter, supporter of democracy, and huge fan of Emily Bronte.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 11, 2008
There can be little doubt anymore that Kathe Koja is America's finest living writer. From the moment her first short story was published close to ten years ago ("Illusions in Relief," reprinted here), the world heralded the coming of the first truly original writer since Clive Barker, and Koja went-- and still goes-- places Barker has never trod. 1991 saw the publication of more stories and the first novel, _The Cipher_, which still stands as the single finest surrealist work in the English language. After a slight slip which shall remain nameless, she returned to publish two of those rare novels that are perfect in every way, Skin and Strange Angels. And throughout, every once in a while she'd unleash another story upon the world in some small, out-of-the-way magazine, or some small-press collection of cutting-edge horror bought by the few thousand faithful who are aware of the genius that is the "new horror." Meanwhile, the rest of the world has overlooked Koja and her contemporaries... until now. Four Walls Eight Windows, one of the most prestigious and well-distributed of the literary presses, has signed both Kathe Koja and Lucius Shepard, among others. _Extremities_ is the first offering of what I can only half-jokingly call the new era of Four Walls Eight Windows, and it's a barnburner, all right.
That's not to say it doesn't slip now and again. When Koja's on, she's on, and when she's off, she's still pretty close to on, but there's a difference in tone to those stories where she's off. They don't grab and hold quite as well. It's more allowable in an eight or ten page story than it is in a two hundred page novel like Bad Brains (oops, there, I said it), but there's still a change, almost as if the air around the reader warms a few degrees and becomes more comfortable.
So what is it about "the new horror" that makes it markedly different horror of the Stephen King variety-- and, for that matter, everything that's come after, such as splatterpunk, cyberhorror, and all the other neat little catchphrases-- deals in the monster, wheter that monster is the panther stalking through Central Park, the many-eyed horror from outer space, or the soul of a psychopath. And whether you show the panther (as in the 1982 Cat People) or show what may be the shadow (as in the 1944 Cat People), you're still dealing in the monster. "The new horror" likes to deal more in the surreal-- the horror is in the absence of the monster, or perhaps the fear that you'll open the door and the monster won't be there. Surrealism, defined, is mainly composed of unrequited longing, something that many of the new surrealists have never grasped. Perhaps, then, the mantle needs to come down to the (do I need to say it again?) authors whose fiercely original stories and novels cause far more shuddering than the new, ponderous tomes by the old masters.
And that's what Koja's done best, since day one. "Illusions in Relief" is a short, quite deranged story about an artist whose work is rumored to be, in some odd way, faith-healing. And as the story unfolds, you see that it's not faith-healing, it's something else entirely; but _what_ that something else is is never explained. You don't know. And you don't care, because some part of you doesn't WANT to know, just like you didn't want to know what was really at the bottom of the funhole in _The Cipher_ (or whether the funhole even had a bottom). It's never explained, and it shouldn't be, because what scares humanity most is that very lack of explanation. Once you know that the monster in the corner is a bathrobe draped over a chair, it's no longer scary. And horror doesn't have to be supernatural, either; "The Ballad of the Spanish Civil Guard" covers the last twenty-four hours of the life of Federico Garcia Lorca, and a more horrific twnety-four hours may never have been spent by any human being.
Extremities is not yet out of print, but judging by the length of time it took Borders to order it for me, it's probably pretty close. I'd suggest you find a copy of this as soon as humanly possible, or it will become just as hard to find as all of Koja's other books.
That's not to say it doesn't slip now and again. When Koja's on, she's on, and when she's off, she's still pretty close to on, but there's a difference in tone to those stories where she's off. They don't grab and hold quite as well. It's more allowable in an eight or ten page story than it is in a two hundred page novel like Bad Brains (oops, there, I said it), but there's still a change, almost as if the air around the reader warms a few degrees and becomes more comfortable.
So what is it about "the new horror" that makes it markedly different horror of the Stephen King variety-- and, for that matter, everything that's come after, such as splatterpunk, cyberhorror, and all the other neat little catchphrases-- deals in the monster, wheter that monster is the panther stalking through Central Park, the many-eyed horror from outer space, or the soul of a psychopath. And whether you show the panther (as in the 1982 Cat People) or show what may be the shadow (as in the 1944 Cat People), you're still dealing in the monster. "The new horror" likes to deal more in the surreal-- the horror is in the absence of the monster, or perhaps the fear that you'll open the door and the monster won't be there. Surrealism, defined, is mainly composed of unrequited longing, something that many of the new surrealists have never grasped. Perhaps, then, the mantle needs to come down to the (do I need to say it again?) authors whose fiercely original stories and novels cause far more shuddering than the new, ponderous tomes by the old masters.
And that's what Koja's done best, since day one. "Illusions in Relief" is a short, quite deranged story about an artist whose work is rumored to be, in some odd way, faith-healing. And as the story unfolds, you see that it's not faith-healing, it's something else entirely; but _what_ that something else is is never explained. You don't know. And you don't care, because some part of you doesn't WANT to know, just like you didn't want to know what was really at the bottom of the funhole in _The Cipher_ (or whether the funhole even had a bottom). It's never explained, and it shouldn't be, because what scares humanity most is that very lack of explanation. Once you know that the monster in the corner is a bathrobe draped over a chair, it's no longer scary. And horror doesn't have to be supernatural, either; "The Ballad of the Spanish Civil Guard" covers the last twenty-four hours of the life of Federico Garcia Lorca, and a more horrific twnety-four hours may never have been spent by any human being.
Extremities is not yet out of print, but judging by the length of time it took Borders to order it for me, it's probably pretty close. I'd suggest you find a copy of this as soon as humanly possible, or it will become just as hard to find as all of Koja's other books.
September 27, 2013
Includes:
· "Arrangement for Invisible Voices"
· "The Neglected Garden"
· "Bird Superior"
· "Illusions in Belief"
· "Reckoning"
· "The Company of Storms"
· "Teratisms"
· "Angels in Love"
· "Waking the Prince"
· "Ballad of the Spanish Civil Guard"
· "Lady Lazarus"
· "The Disquieting Muse"
· "Queen of Angels"
· "Jubilee"
· "Pas de Deux"
· "Bondage"
Published in 1997, this is the only collection of Koja's short fiction (many other short pieces remain un'collected'), and the last book she published as an adult-oriented horror writer. (Since then she has written five young-adult/children's books).
I've said before, I find her decision to write children's books – especially under the same name – mysterious, as her fiction in general, the stories in this book not excepted, is decidedly Not For Children – and not anything you'd want a kid to pick up accidentally, unless you want to seriously scar their psyche!
However Koja is definitely my favorite horror writer of all time. Her writing style is both casual and lyrically evocative, her images bizarre and surreal – but simultaneously gritty and firmly grounded in reality. Koja loves (or loved?) to deal, thematically, with the angst of art – her characters tend to be artists, writers, performers, usually of the struggling sort – financially, in their relationships with others, and with the traumas of the creative process itself. Whether psychologically tortured or interacting with the supernatural, they always seem like people I might have known – real people, but in these stories, as the title indicates, brought to the extremities...
· "Arrangement for Invisible Voices"
· "The Neglected Garden"
· "Bird Superior"
· "Illusions in Belief"
· "Reckoning"
· "The Company of Storms"
· "Teratisms"
· "Angels in Love"
· "Waking the Prince"
· "Ballad of the Spanish Civil Guard"
· "Lady Lazarus"
· "The Disquieting Muse"
· "Queen of Angels"
· "Jubilee"
· "Pas de Deux"
· "Bondage"
Published in 1997, this is the only collection of Koja's short fiction (many other short pieces remain un'collected'), and the last book she published as an adult-oriented horror writer. (Since then she has written five young-adult/children's books).
I've said before, I find her decision to write children's books – especially under the same name – mysterious, as her fiction in general, the stories in this book not excepted, is decidedly Not For Children – and not anything you'd want a kid to pick up accidentally, unless you want to seriously scar their psyche!
However Koja is definitely my favorite horror writer of all time. Her writing style is both casual and lyrically evocative, her images bizarre and surreal – but simultaneously gritty and firmly grounded in reality. Koja loves (or loved?) to deal, thematically, with the angst of art – her characters tend to be artists, writers, performers, usually of the struggling sort – financially, in their relationships with others, and with the traumas of the creative process itself. Whether psychologically tortured or interacting with the supernatural, they always seem like people I might have known – real people, but in these stories, as the title indicates, brought to the extremities...
May 1, 2013
If you have been following my reviews for a while, then you probably know how much I love Kathe Koja. So you can only imagine how excited I was to find out she wrote a short story collection. I thought it was going to be a collection of YA stories, but then it talked about masturbation on the first page so I figured probably not.
A quote from the back cover praising Kathe Koja is by the San Francisco Chronicle: "Koja flashes from literary fiction to genre horror to artistic speculation so fast the reader has barely recovered from one attack when the next begins."
How perfect is that? That is exactly how I would describe her writing.
Some of these stories are science fiction/horror and others are sex, some are literary. I loved some, liked all, but a few were a bit disappointing. Sometimes I was left wanting more by the time the ending rolled around, but almost all of them were satisfying.
She really covers so much. It is as if Koja's brain has tendrils that reach out to the edge of the human mind and wrap around the most bizarre ideas and make them her own unique stories.
I hate that her books are so hard to find because I want to buy this. Some of these stories will definitely linger for a while.
One of my favorites from Kathe Koja.
A quote from the back cover praising Kathe Koja is by the San Francisco Chronicle: "Koja flashes from literary fiction to genre horror to artistic speculation so fast the reader has barely recovered from one attack when the next begins."
How perfect is that? That is exactly how I would describe her writing.
Some of these stories are science fiction/horror and others are sex, some are literary. I loved some, liked all, but a few were a bit disappointing. Sometimes I was left wanting more by the time the ending rolled around, but almost all of them were satisfying.
She really covers so much. It is as if Koja's brain has tendrils that reach out to the edge of the human mind and wrap around the most bizarre ideas and make them her own unique stories.
I hate that her books are so hard to find because I want to buy this. Some of these stories will definitely linger for a while.
One of my favorites from Kathe Koja.
April 13, 2023
Kathe Koja's strong suit is not short stories. While I found a couple I really liked (The Neglected Garden, Lady Lazarus, Angels in Love, etc...) they almost all suffered from the fact that they were short, and Koja didn't have enough time to explore things in a way she so clearly wanted to. A few stories didn't suffer this fate, but they were the ones that had one specific concept that drove them (Bird Superior, etc).
Her writing style was actually a detriment in this case, every other story was hard to follow, and halfway through I found myself starting over because I was just... so confused- which is not an issue I usually have with Koja's style. I think because of the short length and the clear want to expand on some storylines, some stories ended up hinting at things or alluded to going in directions they didn't.
Overall great book! A great collection of short stories still, my favorite personally is The Neglected Garden!
Her writing style was actually a detriment in this case, every other story was hard to follow, and halfway through I found myself starting over because I was just... so confused- which is not an issue I usually have with Koja's style. I think because of the short length and the clear want to expand on some storylines, some stories ended up hinting at things or alluded to going in directions they didn't.
Overall great book! A great collection of short stories still, my favorite personally is The Neglected Garden!
July 3, 2010
I'll write a real review since there a no/few reviews for this book.
First off it's a collection of stories, not sure if the blurb above says that or not.
I didn't like any of the stories. Well that's unfair to say, I only read three: Arrangement for Invisible Voices (man goes to a pig picking, but all of a sudden the pigs on the pit start squealing and screaming- everyone hears it but he is the only one who continues to hear it), Reckoning (wife comes back as the living dead- think vampire sans the blood sucking and weakness to daylight), Teratisms(can't remember).
So the premises are interesting, but the way they are constructed? not very. The author uses short choppy sentences at times. Honest to goodness, the image I got- some wannabe beatnik sitting in Starbucks drinking, I dunno, a venti soy chai latte, pecking away at his Mac Book. An imitation of hipness. I mean, who the hell exclaims Shitfire or Fuck a duck? The author is trying to go for some unedited grittiness, but it falls flat. Nothing flows. The characters make no sense, they are completely unrelatable. I didn't get a feeling for anything. I found no problem getting up, doing something else, and continuing hours later where I left off, without wondering 'no where was I' or 'what was happening'. As exciting as some of these stories could have been, I was never once at the edge of my seat, and that's a real shame.
First off it's a collection of stories, not sure if the blurb above says that or not.
I didn't like any of the stories. Well that's unfair to say, I only read three: Arrangement for Invisible Voices (man goes to a pig picking, but all of a sudden the pigs on the pit start squealing and screaming- everyone hears it but he is the only one who continues to hear it), Reckoning (wife comes back as the living dead- think vampire sans the blood sucking and weakness to daylight), Teratisms(can't remember).
So the premises are interesting, but the way they are constructed? not very. The author uses short choppy sentences at times. Honest to goodness, the image I got- some wannabe beatnik sitting in Starbucks drinking, I dunno, a venti soy chai latte, pecking away at his Mac Book. An imitation of hipness. I mean, who the hell exclaims Shitfire or Fuck a duck? The author is trying to go for some unedited grittiness, but it falls flat. Nothing flows. The characters make no sense, they are completely unrelatable. I didn't get a feeling for anything. I found no problem getting up, doing something else, and continuing hours later where I left off, without wondering 'no where was I' or 'what was happening'. As exciting as some of these stories could have been, I was never once at the edge of my seat, and that's a real shame.
August 21, 2018
Publisher's Weekly ripped this book a new a**hole back in '98 with a scathing, snarky, negative review. But that just proved to me how basic their review staff are: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1...
Overall, I found the collection to be fascinating, but it will be VERY hard to follow if you're not an experienced reader. Koja's prose is to be taken in slowly; one has to marinate themselves in it to feel the full effect. She's not a supermarket shelf fiction writer. Her prose is powerful and demands your brain to work. If you want to be lazy, go read someone else.
Highlights:
Bird Superior
Jubilee
The Neglected Garden
The Company of Storms
Overall, I found the collection to be fascinating, but it will be VERY hard to follow if you're not an experienced reader. Koja's prose is to be taken in slowly; one has to marinate themselves in it to feel the full effect. She's not a supermarket shelf fiction writer. Her prose is powerful and demands your brain to work. If you want to be lazy, go read someone else.
Highlights:
Bird Superior
Jubilee
The Neglected Garden
The Company of Storms
May 5, 2015
I had always heard good things about Kathe Koja and counted myself lucky when I stumbled across this book at a second hand bookstore. Unfortunately, this book was just not for me. She tends to get a little wordy to the point where the sentences stop making sense. There are a few stand out stories but most of the time it's just gibberish.
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September 10, 20162nd koja book i haven't been able to finish...
February 5, 2024
I love Koja but this collection wasn't my favorite.
There are some creature features told through Koja's poetic purple prose. A few medical stories. Some open ended surrealistic stories. There's even a fairy tale. But I found them difficult to get through, often meandering into depth of emotion and going on tangents. Her signature edgy writing is here in spades, but it doesn't hold the same vibrancy as her novels, where she can build to a climax. These stories often felt like they were part of something bigger and could've gone on for longer.
Her story "Pas de deux" is one of her best shorts and I enjoyed reading it again.
There are some creature features told through Koja's poetic purple prose. A few medical stories. Some open ended surrealistic stories. There's even a fairy tale. But I found them difficult to get through, often meandering into depth of emotion and going on tangents. Her signature edgy writing is here in spades, but it doesn't hold the same vibrancy as her novels, where she can build to a climax. These stories often felt like they were part of something bigger and could've gone on for longer.
Her story "Pas de deux" is one of her best shorts and I enjoyed reading it again.
February 20, 2024
4.5 stars
i swear her prose is like no one else's she's just so good. she puts you in someone's head, in a situation with such clear imagery; i had sets in my head for every one of these stories. in content they're pure koja, art, self-destruction, illness, fucked up relationships, sex. in tone, they're full of grime and obsession. the whole collection is a fucking delight. there were a few stories that didn't hit the level of the rest in here but it really doesn't diminish the strength of the collection as a whole. my favourites were "bird superior," "teratisms," "the disquieting muse," and "queen of angels."
i swear her prose is like no one else's she's just so good. she puts you in someone's head, in a situation with such clear imagery; i had sets in my head for every one of these stories. in content they're pure koja, art, self-destruction, illness, fucked up relationships, sex. in tone, they're full of grime and obsession. the whole collection is a fucking delight. there were a few stories that didn't hit the level of the rest in here but it really doesn't diminish the strength of the collection as a whole. my favourites were "bird superior," "teratisms," "the disquieting muse," and "queen of angels."
January 14, 2022
Des histoires fantastiques et alambiquées qui m'ont laissé de marbre pour la plupart.
January 1, 2025
A book forgotten on the shelf, not enjoyed at all when finally picked up. Can't figure out what's going on, to esoteric. DNF at page 71. Her novels are better than this.
February 28, 2020
Hard to read. Sometimes sentences so wordy you lose your place and have to re-read sentences, paragraphs, sometimes pages. Out of 16 stories, I found only 6 somewhat enjoyable. Readable. I probably will not read anything else by this author.
March 22, 2021
A great collection of stories from a literary master
June 13, 2008
this is the most memorable book of short stories i've ever read. pretty disturbing content.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews