Standing, it looked to Chemayev that the stones beneath his feet were miles away, the surface of a lumpy planet seen from space. A shadowy floater cluttered his vision. The white leaves each had a doubled image, and March's features, rising form the pale seamy ground of his skin, made no sense as a face--like landmarks on a map without referents.

This collection came into my possession two years at a library sale in Louisville. Soon after I read Only Partly Here the opening piece, a ghost story of Ground Zero which remains the best fiction I've read concerning September 11th. Maybe as divine punishment, I then put down the book and nearly forgot it until the other day. Somewhat stranded in the house with a foot of fresh snow outdoors I picked up the book and read Eternity, a disturbing piece which concludes the tome about Putin's Kleptocracy serving as a bastion of damnation for all of Mother Russia's sins. Reeling from that I flipped back to Shepard's second story about air strike which ruptures the ground in Iraq and opens a passage to Jahannam (Hell in Islam)and read through the collection sequentially. These are philosophically charged stories addressing colonialism, addiction, the War on Terror and the psychology of incarceration. I'm not sure if I am simply over-smitten with the displayed themes to compensate for the enhanced (over-written?) dialogue which predominates. It is debatable whether I care. There was a touch of sadness when I discovered last night Shepard passed away last year. I suspect this won't be my last encounter with such frenetic and New Weird work.
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This collection of psychological horror novelas hits a metaphysical, metafiction dream state that makes me want to call Lucius Shepard the Borges of horror. This book came out in 2005, and I've poked at it over a period of years - not because it was bad, but because each novella seemed complete and not to be followed up quickly or eaten like chocolate chips. Shepard approached hot current event topics, quickly. He was certainly one of the first to set a story at ground zero. His story, "A Walk in the Garden" blew me away - it's depiction of not-the-Iraq-wars and an odd and vindictive Garden of Eden was very visual, stunning and emotional. Many of the stories approach religion, traditional or as a construct of a human power structure. More thought provoking than scary, this collection is definitely worth a read. ( )