Message-ID: <1273@utah-gr.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Dec-84 08:54:19 EST
Article-I.D.: utah-gr.1273
Posted: Wed Dec 12 08:54:19 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Dec-84 02:53:52 EST
Organization: CS Dept., University of Utah
Lines: 72

Michael Bishop is not known for being a horror writer, but he has
managed to produce (according to the blurb) 'a bloodcurdling novel of
satanism, illicit lust and supernatural horror' called WHO MADE STEVIE
CRYE? (Arkham House, 1984; 309 pp.).  Some blurbs leave more unsaid
than others, and while this blurb is accurate in what it says, it is so
incomplete and misleading as to be virtually useless in telling you why
you should read this book.  And you should read this book -- I think
it's definitely the best novel Bishop has produced to date.

Stevenson Crye is a woman in her thirties whose husband has died and
left her to support their two children.  Stevie earns a meager living
by free-lancing articles for newspapers and magazines in the area
around her home town in Georgia.  One day her fancy daisy-wheel
electric typewriter breaks down; when she learns that it will cost $52
to replace the cable on her ribbon carrier, plus $23 for a service call
if she won't make the 80 mile round trip to the service center, she
screams in fury and frustration.  A friend suggests a tiny shop in a
nearby town that will fix it for $10.67, so she decides to give it a
try (bad news, as any horror fan can tell you).  The young man who
'fixes' her typewriter bears a remarkable resemblance to John
Hinckley...  When Stevie brings the typewriter home, she discovers that
it is possessed: it will type out things that no one ever typed into
it.  Its taste in subject matter runs to gruesome nightmares,
nightmares that Stevie begins to experience in her sleep and then even
when she's awake...  Has her typewriter been taken over by the ghost of
her husband Ted?  Are demons from hell trying to destroy her mind?  Has
the psychopathic typewriter repairman installed an RS-232 interface?

	'Stop!' she commanded the machine.

	The Exceleriter paused briefly, paragraphed, and rattled off
	another two lines of type.  Then it stopped.

	That the runaway Exceleriter had obeyed her impulsive command
	Stevie found amazing.  Why should it listen to her?  If it
	chose to obey, it did so primarily to demonstrate the paradox
	that IT was in control.  Its halting on her rattled say-so only
	served to heighten her feelings of inadequacy and
	victimization. ...

	Shivering, Stevie approached her desk.  She removed the taped
	pages from the typewriter to see what it had written. ...

	This chapter -- if you could call it a chapter -- ended rather
	abruptly.  Its final words were:

		'"Stop!" she commanded the machine.

		'The Exceleriter paused briefly, paragraphed, and
		rattled off another two lines of type.  Then it stopped.'

If you guessed that this book is somewhat less than serious about
partaking of the horror genre, you're quite right.  (Actually when I
finished STEVIE I was laughing so hard my lungs hurt.) Bishop's writing
has more in common with Gene Wolfe and Philip Dick than with Stephen
King, and the book abounds in nice touches.  The characters are well
drawn and consistent, especially Stevie, a woman totally out of
sympathy with the stereotypically tearful and danger-prone virgins who
populate more ordinary horror novels.

This Arkham edition is illustrated by J K Potter with large numbers of
wonderfully revolting 'photographs', and has an amusing jacket by
Glennray Tutor; not a bad deal for $15.95.  I remember with fondness a
short story called 'Built Up Logically' (which I believe had a
companion piece called (naturally) 'Built Down Logically'; I've lost my
copies, can anyone tell me where to find these stories?) -- if you
liked that story, you'll really like WHO MADE STEVIE CRYE?.

I know, I know, look it up in the Library of Babel,

Donn Seeley    University of Utah CS Dept    donn@utah-cs.arpa
40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W    (801) 581-5668    decvax!utah-cs!donn