Nightmare At 20,000 Feet: Horror Stories By Richard Matheson
Apr 30th, 2009 by Best Deals
Nightmare At 20,000 Feet: Horror Stories By Richard Matheson
This classic horror collection showcases the early career of one of the fields most influential and innovative writers. Much of Richard Mathesons work has found its way into pop culture: the title story became a memorable episode of televisions The Twilight Zone, and horror aficionados reading Prey will immediately visualize Trilogy of Terrors Karen Black hunkered down with a butcher knife. But this collections power lies in its wide-ranging exploration of style and subject and the literary skill that Matheson demonstrated right from the start of his career. Many of his stories were decidedly unconventional when published (most in the 1950s and early 1960s), and still have the power to shock or to satisfy with their graceful inevitability. Matheson is not primarily a monster writer: rather, he examines how we create monsters from our own fears and frailties, and sometimes become the monsters ourselves. Nightmare at 20,000 Feet is a must-have collection for Matheson fans and readers who like their horror spare, precise, and chilling. –Roz Genessee
Customer Reviews & Opinions
Great selection of Matheson’s short stories
Who doesn’t remember William Shatner in the famous title story? The variety of stories included showcase Matheson’s ability to write tales of terror in many different styles. These stories age well. If you didn’t know better, you’d think many of them were written recently.My only disappointment with this book is that the back cover states the collection includes the story “Duel.” For whatever reason, that tale didn’t actually end up in this collection.
An excellent entry into Matheson’s work
The great brilliance of Richard Matheson’s work is not just his ability to use accessible language to gain our trust before he horrifies us; a trick Stephen King has used to a great extent, and one can see the influence in King’s early work. Indeed, King wrote the introduction to this collection, and Matheson dedicated this particular “greatest hits” to King.No, the great brilliance of Matheson is inherited by King and few others: the ability to make ordinary lives and fears into things of our nightmares. Scott’s frustration in THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN is of a man who cannot keep his job, support his family, who is physically smaller each day in a way that a frustrated man might understand. The struggle of an American man in modern life made real by science-fiction magic that is, in effect, beside the point. The point is the story, the struggle, the man, not the special effects. A lesson modern movies could learn.
In “Mad House,” the main character is understood by us because he IS us. He is the voice of frustration, of potential unfulfilled, of every man or woman who ever thought, “I coulda been a contender.” And like Marlon Brando’s character, that voice seeks someone else to blame.
The supernatural aspect of the story, therefore, is almost beside the point. He’s got us because it’s real. Just as “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” resonated with every white-knuckle flier who saw Shatner peering out of the plane in black and white and Lithgow freaking out in the 198X movie.
This collection does not have a weak story in it, and collects many of the best. It would serve as a good introduction to Matheson’s work, and I consider Matheson to be one of the required reads of genre fiction - possibly of American literature.
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Nightmare at 335 pages
The horrors conjured by Matheson - many of which spring from life’s mundane, everyday elements - are perfectly represented in this collection. Stephen King’s introduction says that Matheson came onto the scene “like a bolt of pure ozone lightning”, and it’s true - almost every story is a breathless, take-no-prisoners ride that reads quickly and delivers the goods.From paranoia to depression to lust, Matheson knows how to quickly set the mood and draw the reader in. Every story here accomplishes that.
I was only disappointed that the collection didn’t include “Duel”, as the back cover claims.