'Nominated for the 2012 Aurealis, Australian Shadows, and Tin Duck awards, receiving an Honorable Mention from Ellen Datlow, and winning the 2012 Australian Shadows Award for Short Fiction (Birthday Suit), the collection Living with the Dead is a masterpiece of dark fiction. To mark the twenty year anniversary of his first publication, Dark Prints Press is honoured to collect and present a lifetime of work by author Martin Livings, one of Australia's very best dark fiction writers. Featuring a foreword by Kaaron Warren and 23 works of short fiction, including the best of Martin's dark fiction, rarities, and three new tales' (Amazon).
'The very first story, Martin Livings' "Lollo," unfolds its revelations slowly, with a science fictional twist on the Menacing Cursed Toy story. The nature documentary about scientists collecting specimens of animal species provides a wonderful foreshadowing of the probable motivations of the unseen aliens who planted the grotesque clown doll which begins to move, then to pursue the children and their babysitter through the house with Intent. And it is made even more frightening by the use of the False Resolution technique, in which the Menace appears to have been vanquished and the protagonist finally relaxes into apparent safety, only to discover that what she took as incontrovertable evidence that she had successfully destroyed the killer clown doll was premature, and what seems to be a happy ending suddenly turns instead into a Lady and the Tiger ending.'
Source: The Billion Light-Year Bookshelf (http://www.billionlightyearbookshelf.com/reviews/closeencountersurbankind.shtml).
Sighted: 2/6/11
