Dogs in the Moonlight
Jay Lake
Prime Books
2004
Fantasy Times Rating: 8.7
Although this came out last year, I just picked this collection up by chance and felt it was well worth reviewing.
Jay Lake’s collection of short stories, Dogs in the Moonlight is a compilation of reprints and new works drawn from Lake’s Texas roots. The stories are based on old myths and new ones from Texas which seems rich in legends and stories of aliens, ghosts and angels. The collection is organized by themes: Ghosts, Angels, Gods, Aliens. This works very well and offers a nice blend of thematic arcs that exemplifies Mr. Lake’s talents in story telling. Three stories, in particular, jumped off the pages, grabbed hold my brain and shook it mercilessly: Dogs in the Moonlight, The Goat Cutter, and Hitching to Aurora.
These three stories offer the perfect mix of eclectic myth and modern legend that will shock your system into an altered view of the world. During Dogs in the Moonlight, I thought over and over…no, freakin’ way….and, even though the ending was obvious, I didn’t WANT it to be obvious. I kept hoping the story would change even on the second reading. The Goat Cutter is an edgy, dark and almost lyrical in it’s remarkable prose. The story itself is almost too disturbing to consider in depth for my taste, although it is like viewing the macabre: you know you shouldn’t but you just have to. Hitching to Aurora is an enjoyable read that is a bit twisted in a funny sort of way.
Read this collection for the imagery and buy it for every time you think of the stories it tells.
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