aithful dogs, a low-rent afterlife for teenagers and a justice system that allows a prisoner's religious beliefs to determine his method of execution ... the 10 stories in Terry Bisson's third short-story collection are windows into the days of the Neanderthal, the End of Time and everything in between. In Greetings & Other Stories, Bisson veers from laugh-out-loud humor to grief and heartbreak, and from catastrophe to unexpected cheer.
At first glance a disparate assortment of tales, the stories in Greetings & Other Stories are bound together not only by their author's distinctive style but by their ominous undertones. In the brisk and darkly hilarious "Openclose," an unlucky driver from a security-conscious future finds himself having a fight with his car—and then with the "Ashcroft van" it summons to deal with him. "Come Dance With Me," meanwhile, is the story of Amaranth, one of a growing number of teens who believes that by following the suicide instructions on a particular Web site she can go straight to heaven. Also Paradise-bound—or so he hopes—is a vicious child-killer by the name of Bud White, in "The Old Rugged Cross."
In the title story of this collection, "Greetings," two 70-year-old American men receive their much-dreaded government draft notices. But Tom and Cliff are not headed for war. Rather, the Brigade they are being compelled to join has a single purpose: To march healthy older men off to a premature death as a political offering to the gods of international relations.
A many-hued portrait of Death
Most of the stories in Greetings at least skirt the topic of death, while a few walk right up to the abyss, settling in for a good look. Each glimpse offers a very different take on the subject, however. "Greetings" rings the most individual changes on this theme. Ted and Cliff initially see death as frightening and undesirable, even as they accept their civic duty to die. They resort to trying to control how—as opposed to when—they are to give up their lives. At the last minute they are confronted with tragedy and loss, finding themselves faced with a future of helplessness and dependence. It is an ironic, even nasty, twist: Two healthy men forced to plan suicide against their will must in the end decide whether a potentially long and miserable existence is a better choice.
Bisson's novella "Dear Abbey," on the other hand, is at least superficially about life and hope: Its heroes visit Earth's future in a series of timejumps that take them further and further from the present. What they find is a human race that has successfully overcome the self-destructive tendencies of its childhood, giving up war and destruction of the planet, finally settling into a placid and extremely long collective adulthood. Even in this apparently bright vision, though, the undercurrents are disturbing: Humans have surrendered to "management" by an artificially created entity who ensures the safety of Earth's environment. In time, they also give up all creative endeavor and basic curiosity.
Many author collections have at least one weak link—a story that is less delightful than the rest—but Bisson is not most authors. Greetings & Other Stories is, in fact, an outstanding book. Beautifully written, scary and amusing by turns, this clutch of tales promises to be one fans remember for years to come.
