Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780440213734
ISBN number: 0440213738
Label: Dell
Manufacturer: Dell
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 240
Printing Date: February 10, 1997
Publishing house: Dell
Release Date: February 10, 1997
Sale Popularity Level: 793500
Studio: Dell
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Product Description:
In these twelve stories we enter the darkest corridors of America s hospitals. Meet a scientist who discovers how to predetermine and alter the sex of a pregnant woman s fetus, and proceeds to contemplate his own gender...and a surgeon whose primary practice is removing organs and limbs from unwilling patients to redistribute them to unfortunate victims in impoverished countries. Filled with dark surprises, these splendid tales invite us to glimpse the world of high-tech medicine from a disturbing new angle.
Amazon.com Review:
'There's a . . . detachment that happens as a physician when you're dealing with frightening, horrifying, or sad events that you maintain an objectivity that's required, and I do that also when I write.' When so many tales of the dark fantastic are told as if with exclamation marks, Dr. Michael Blumlein's sonorous, objective voice is refreshingly chilly. This collection of 12 elegantly crafted stories (first published in 1990) displays a range of subject matter defying categorization as science fiction, horror, or fantasy. The title story, nominated for a World Fantasy Award, is a provocative thought experiment about gender identity. Other topics include radical surgery with political intent, a child's flight into another realm, a technopunk romance, and various surreal excursions into minds obsessed with family secrets, hauntings, madness, poverty.
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Rated by buyers -
Once in a great while you stumble across a work of fiction that makes you reevaluate everything you think, everything you feel, even everything you think you know. Michael Blumlein's collection The Brains of Rats contains twelve such works. Nine of these stories were previously published, and three of them were new when this collection was released by Scream Press.
upon reading these twelve stories the very first question you will find yourself asking is: "what genre is this?" I can't answer that question. Blumlein can't answer it either. These stories are largely unclassifiable. They are truly Sui Genres, that is, they are their own category.
These stories defy comparison. While reading them one begins to think of Swift's most acerbic and caustic satire (think of A Modest Proposal), or Gibson's Cyberpunk (Mona Lisa Overdrive), or Saunders' Post Modern satire CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, or perhaps Lewis Carroll. But none of these are quite right. And yet, these stories call out toward all of these styles, and more. I guess the closest comparison is Roald Dahl (not the kid's books we all know, but his adult collections such as Someone Like You, and Switch B*tch), or perhaps the films of
Luis Bunel.
So, what are these stories about, you ask. Well, the title story concerns a doctor. He's male, but effeminate. He's married to a masculine woman who controls him. Sometimes he likes to cruise for men who will abuse him sexually. It seems that the doctor has discovered a way to insure that all children born from now on will be of a single sex. That is, he is going to choose which gender to eradicate. It never occurs to him that his decision (either one) will spell extinction for the human race. Along the way we get discussions of Jean D'Arc's sex, sexual deformities, and gonorrhea. This tale is presented in a paranoiac very first person style that draws the reader into the skewed psyche of this very unreliable narrator. It is a queasy, yet exhilarating experience.
A few of the other stories include:
Best Seller is about a writer who's down on his luck. To support his family he begins selling parts of his body to a rich old man. Told in the form of diary entries, this story always remains distanced. This distance sucks all emotion from the story. It is cold, calculated. Beautiful.
Tissue Ablation and Variant Regeneration: a Case Report is presented like a paper written for a medical journal. Blumlein is, in real life, a practicing MD. It shows in this story. With cold, dispassionate precision he recounts how a patient "Mr. Reagan", is dissected while awake and un-anesthetized. This is done so that portions of his body can be used to produce much needed goods for the third world. This story reads as the most vicious satire I have ever encountered. In this instance, Jonathan Swift aint got nothin' on our boy here. If you thought Network was angry satire, think again. If you think MAD magazine is satirical, well, not by these standards. Maybe you think South Park is strong satire? Have they ever dissected a live, conscious human on South Park? I don't think so. The point being made here is not a subtle one. This is clearly meant as redress for the foreign policy adventures of "Mr. Reagan's" administration. This story is powerful.
Drown Yourself is a sort of Cyberpunk whodunit? Kind of a `guess who's an android' tale. Nicely done, even if the idea isn't particularly new or novel.
Interview With C.W. is a surreal little gem. Impossible to get a hold on, this story just twists around in your mind. Like all those tubes on Star Trek, it goes nowhere, does nothing. But it does it nicely. Entertaining in a nightmare inducing way. In fact, this entire book is like a nightmare that has gone terribly out of control.
Freud would have loved Blumlein's work. He would have relished all the scarred psyche's, the out of control Id's, the unresolved sexual tension, and the (dare I say it?) Perversion. Somewhere, buried inside the plots and characters that inhabit these stories, is a moral. It is this: we hurt each other. We break each other. We leave scars, and other distinguishing marks. We bruise, and batter and break the minds and souls, even of those we love. Perhaps of those we love most of all.
Blumlein slips into and out of different writing styles effortlessly. He is a master of the written word. He is a genius (I think that word is much over used these days, but in this case it applies). Each of these stories will grab you by a vital organ (or, at least one you think is vital), and drag you along. You will hate Blumlein for forcing you to look at the delicate terrors he has presented (a decaying corpse, a horny android, a wet suit and a sex swing, and a man who is making himself a defacto leper are just a few that will haunt you). But, in the end you will be glad you took the journey. ... Read More
Rated by buyers 
-
This is an extremely hard book to categorize; it's quite disturbing, teeming with unsettling visions of madness and aberration. That said, it's also quite engrossing, containing stories that worm their way into your brain, lingering in memory for quite some time.
Blumlein has a medical background, which is very evident in the work presented here. "The Brains of Rats" features a geneticist who holds the fate of the world in his hands. "Tissue Ablation" and "Best Seller" both deal with organ harvesting, but veer off in wildly different directions. "The Thing Itself" is a tragic story of love between a doctor and nurse, so full of physical and mental anguish you'll feel exhausted after finishing.
But Blumlein's talent goes beyond this, as demonstrated by the other stories in this collection. Highlights include "Wet Suit", an intriguing look at fetishism, "Keeping House", which demonstrates that cleanliness is not always subsequent to godliness, "Domino Master", a moving look at child abuse, and "The Promise of Warmth", which would have made a memorable "Twilight Zone" episode (the story did in fact very first appear in the late, lamented Twilight Zone magazine).
The estimable Harlan Ellison said of The Brains of Rats, "This is not a book for everyone. Only those who delight in splendid, original thinking and rich, pyrotechnical language need apply...Mr. Blumlein carves enigmas and fabulous dark surprises from the magic mountain of his imagination." I wholeheartedly agree.
Rated by buyers -
My dad picked this up at random from an MPH warehouse sale in Kuala Lumpur. I don't think he actually read any of the stories...I don't think he knew *I* read any of the stories, or he'd probably have given it away. The general impression one gets from these stories is like the Corinthian character in Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics: creepy but really cool.
Rated by buyers -
I'd never heard of michael blumlein before I read The Brains of Rats. I picked a copy up at a local library - and i've never been so fascinated. Blumlein has a wonderful writing style and his stories are some of the most bizarre pieces of fiction ever. This is one of the best authors of dark fiction that I've ever found.
Rated by buyers -
The short stories in Michael Blumlein's "The Brains of Rats" are very difficult to classify by genre. In another sense, they're quite easy to identify; they're all very well written and fascinating. Though the book's spine identifies the collection as "horror," that label applies only to some of the stories. The title story, for example, deals with the questions of gender and gender identity. My personal favorite story is the second, a little opus entitled "Tissue Ablation and Variant Regeneration: A Case Report."
Written in a clinical manner, this story is heavy in medical terminology and describes an operation on a conscious albeit paralyzed man. Blumlein's style here is both complex and powerful. Though the writing seems to endeavor to give maximum attention to the clinical nature of the operation, there is a subtext of the feelings of the man on the table; it is almost impossible not to empathize with the patient, to feel his agony to at least some degree.
The stories in "The Brains of Rats" are extraordinarily diverse, from relatively benign fantasy at times to the significantly darker aspects of "Tissue Ablation." Almost without exception, they are fascinating and engrossing. This book is highly recommended for those who enjoy well-written, short fiction of a speculative nature.
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