Finished Fr 8/24/13
5 Novellas (I didn't read all of them) This shows that Simmons can write in any genre that he chooses.
1) ENTROPHY'S BED AT MIDNIGHT An insurance adjuster contemplates the odds that he can do all that is necessary to protect his daughter. One of his cases: A guy is working on a dangerously slanted roof, and ties a line around his waist, tosses the rope over, and has his son tie the line to 'something solid'. He ties it to the rear bumper of their trunk, and later his wife drives away pulling the man to his death. The adjuster puts these in a binder called The Orange File. The story ends at an amusement park where he is in a car on a ride with his daughter, and wonders if this incident might end up in his Orange File.
2)DYING IN BANGKOK This was my favorite. Two friends on R & R during Vietnam war visit a brothel and witness a sex show involving a vampire. One of the friends becomes infected, and years later the other comes back to infect the still living vampire with AIDS. Very creepy horror story with an undercurrent of homosexual desire.
3)SLEEPING WITH TEETH WOMAN Didn't read it. Seemed similar, at least in setting, to BLACK HILLS.
4) FLASHBACK A future dystopic society in which people take a drug that allows them to focus on memory. A character who was on the detail to guard JFK when he was assassinated uses the drug to 'go back and change history'. However, this man was not there, and seems to be remembering someone else's life. Another character is in a gang and they are trying to gun somebody down, witness it, and then use it to 'flash' on.
5)THE GREAT LOVER I didn't read this one, and I probably should have. I got the feeling that Simmons felt that this one was the best of the bunch. Set in the trenches of WWI.
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