Robert Shearman's They Do the Same Things Different There was published by ChiZine Publications in September 2014.
Information about Robert Shearman:
Robert Shearman has worked as writer for television, radio and the stage. He was appointed resident dramatist at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter and has received several international awards for his theatrical work, including the Sunday Times Playwriting Award, the World Drama Trust Award and the Guinness Award for Ingenuity in Association with the Royal National Theatre. His plays have been regularly produced by Alan Ayckbourn, and on BBC Radio by Martin Jarvis. A selection of his plays have been collected in book form as Caustic Comedies.
However, he is probably best known as a writer for Doctor Who, reintroducing the Daleks for its BAFTA winning first series in an episode nominated for a Hugo Award. He has also written many popular audio dramas for the series for Big Finish.
His first collection of short stories, Tiny Deaths, was published by Comma Press in 2007. It won the World Fantasy Award for best collection, was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and nominated for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize. No Looking Backwas selected by the National Library Board of Singapore as part of the annual Read! Singapore campaign. The two series of The Chain Gang, his short story and drama project or BBC7, both won the Sony Award.
His second collection, Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, was published by Big Finish in 2009. It won the British Fantasy Award for best collection, the Edge Hill Short Story Readers Prize and the Shirley Jackson Award, celebrating outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. History Becomes You, from this third collection, Everyone's Just So So Special, was nominated for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Award.
Most recently, his best dark fiction was collected in Remember Why You Fear Me by ChiZine Publications.
He is currently writer in residence at Edinburgh Napier University.
Click here to visit the author's official website.
Information about They Do the Same Things Different There:
Robert Shearman visits worlds that are unsettling and strange. Sometimes they are just like ours - except landlocked countries may disappear overnight, marriages to camels are the norm, and the dead turn into musical instruments. Sometimes they are quite alien - where children carve their own tongues from trees, and magic shows are performed to amuse the troops in the war between demons and angels. There is horror, and dreams fulfilled and squandered, of true love. They do the same things different there.
A REVIEW OF ROBERT SHEARMAN'S THEY DO THE SAME THINGS DIFFERENT THERE
Robert Shearman's They Do the Same Things Different There was a nice surprise for me, because it contained excellent stories that highlight and emphasize the weirder side of speculative fiction in a wonderful way. It was interesting to read this collection, because I had previously read only a few stories by Robert Shearman and didn't really know how versatile a writer he is and what kind of stories he can write.
I think that the stories in this collection will please many fans of weird stories, because they contain plenty of weirdness and strange happenings. If you're like me and love well written quirky, imaginative and twisted stories, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the contents of this collection.
This collection contains the following stories:
- Luxembourg
- Restoration
- A Joke in Four Panels
- That Tiny Flutter of the Heart I Used to Call Love
- Sounding Brass Tinkling Cymbal
- Page Turner
- Taboo
- Peckish
- Dumb Lucy
- 72 Virgins
- Static
- The Constantinople Archives
- Your Long, Loving Arms
- Brand New Shiny Shiny
- Patches
- The Sixteenth Step
- Our Fallen Sons
- The All-New Adventures of Robin Hood
- Memories of Craving Long Gone
- Mond
- It Flows From the Mouth
- A Grand Day Out
- History Becomes You
- One Last Love Song
Robert Shearman seems to have an endless imagination, because his stories contain many kind of happenings and fascinating weirdness. His stories are wonderfully literary and fantastical with a pinch of poignancy and a dash of irresistible quirkiness on top of them.
These stories are definitely "something different" and that's why it's a bit difficult to categorize them, but it's possible to categorize them as weird fantasy and new weirdish speculative fiction. Readers can find traces of fantasy, science fiction, horror and even bizarro fiction in them.
Robert Shearman explores and examines the world and the characters through a skewed lens and lets surreal and unexpected happenings take place in his stories. One of the best things about this collection is that when you begin to read a story, you don't at first know what's going to happen in it, because the author has a nice way of surprising his readers.
There's something for almost everybody in this collection, but it's possible that some of the stories may not be to everybody's liking, because the author writes about all kinds of things from love and cannibalism to family life and bestiality. I think it's great that the author doesn't try to please everybody with his stories, but writes all kinds of new weirdish stories. (I have lots of respect for authors who have courage to write extraordinary stories and are willing to add unsettling and unpleasant elements to them, because there are too many authors who try too hard to please everybody with their stories and end up writing mediocre speculative fiction.)
Before I write more about the contents of this collection, I think it's good to mention that the unsettling elements in these stories are a bit different kind of unsettling elements than what you normally find in collections that contain weird stories and dark fiction, because Robert Shearman has his own kind of unsettling writing style. When talking about his writing style, it's appropriate to talk about new weirdish kind of unsettling writing style.
Here's a bit of information about some of the stories:
- The Sixteenth Step is a well written and atmospheric horror story. In this short story the author tells about a bed-and-breakfast house that has a bit of weirdness to it. He also writes interestingly about love.
- Peckish is a fantastic story about the Von Zieten family and a scandal concerning the whole family. It's an interesting story about family life and cannibalism, and it's a fascinating take on the well-known fairy tale called Hansel and Gretel.
- Taboo is one of the weirdest stories in this collection, because it's a story about a woman who's getting married to a camel. In this story the author explores what is considered to be acceptable by the society and its laws.
- A Grand Day Out is one of the best stories in this collection. It's a beautifully written, nostalgic and also slightly bittersweet story.
- That Tiny Flutter of the Heart I Used to Call Love is a disturbingly brilliant and emotional horror story about a brother and a sister who sacrifice and execute dolls. The author writes perfectly about Karen's feelings and what kind of an effect the childhood happenings have on her later life. This story is one of the best modern horror stories I've read this year.
- Sounding Brass Tinkling Cymbal is a brilliant piece of strange fiction. It tells of a boy who gets to choose his own tongue.
- A Joke in Four Panels is an interesting short story. I'm not going to write what it is about, but I'll mention that readers who are familiar with The Peanuts comics will probably get the most out of it.
Although I like all the stories in this collection, I have to mention that I consider That Tiny Flutter of the Heart I Used to Call Love to be the best of them. I've always liked this kind of weird and unsettling horror stories, so I was very impressed by it. It was so disturbing and well written a story that it truly stood out among the other stories. Based on this story alone I can say that Robert Shearman is an exceptionally good writer of dark fiction and I intend to read more of his dark fiction in the near future.
Peckish is another impressive story, because it was an interesting take on the old Hansel & Gretel fairy tale. It's something a bit different, because the author successfully combines fantasy and horror elements in it. It's a satisfyingly macabre, delightfully twisted and well written fairy tale for adults.
I've been fascinated by speculative fiction for a long time, because in my opinion it gives authors much more freedom to explore different - and especially difficult - themes and issues than mainstream fiction. They Do the Same Things Different There is an excellent example of how speculative fiction is a good tool to explore different themes, because the author explores several different themes and he does it well. No matter how odd the story is, he writes about the happenings in a bold and fluent way.
Robert Shearman writes surprisingly well and fluently about families, family members, children, wives, husbands and relationships between siblings etc. He has an ability to evoke emotional responses in the reader by writing about what happens to the characters, what they do to each other and how they interact with each other.
Some of the things that happen in these stories aren't pretty, but there's no need for the author to sugarcoat the happenings, because a bit of roughness makes the stories interesting and enhances the atmosphere in a wonderful way. I liked it very much that the author wasn't afraid of writing about unsettling things when necessary. That Tiny Flutter of the Heart I Used to Call Love is a perfect example of the author's ability to create an unsettling and unforgettable atmosphere (I think that it will quite difficult for readers to forget this story).
I recently read Helen Marshall's Gifts for the One Who Comes After, which was also published by ChiZine Publications. The stories in this collection reminded me a bit of Helen Marshall's stories, because there were similar kind of elements in them. I think that readers who have read Helen Marshall and like her stories will be delighted to read this collection. These stories also reminded me a bit of the stories written by J. R. Hamantaschen.
After reading this collection I can say that Robert Shearman is an author who clearly deserves more attention and should gain a larger readership. His stories are a unique combination of good prose, fantastical happenings and imaginative storytelling, so all who enjoy reading this kind of fiction should take a look at this collection. If you've never read anything like this before, don't be afraid to give this collection a chance to impress you, because you may find yourself fascinated by these quirky new weirdish stories.
If you enjoy reading weird and well written stories, I can highly recommend Robert Shearman's They Do the Same Things Different There, because it's a unique and mesmerizing collection of new weirdish speculative fiction.
Highly recommended to readers who want to read something out of the ordinary!