Brains of Rats

by Michael Blumlein

Book Overview

When Michael Blumlein's debut collection The Brains of Rats (1990) first appeared, it marked the arrival of a major new talent, earning widespread acclaim from mainstream critics as well as genre... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0440213738
• ISBN13: 9780440213734
• Release Date: February 1997
• Publisher: Dell Publishing Company
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.9" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful stories

Michael Blumlein is a world class neurologist at UCSF. His stories are deeply disturbing and draw on his deep medical background. Some of his stories are politically based, but not all. Just give him a try. You'll be glad you did.

As Simple as the Brains of Rats

Once in a great while you stumble across a work of fiction that makes you reevaluate everything you think, everything you feel, even everything you think you know. Michael Blumlein's collection The Brains of Rats contains twelve such works. Nine of these stories were previously published, and three of them were new when this collection was released by Scream Press. upon reading these twelve stories the first question you will find yourself asking is: "what genre is this?" I can't answer that question. Blumlein can't answer it either. These stories are largely unclassifiable. They are truly Sui Genres, that is, they are their own category. These stories defy comparison. While reading them one begins to think of Swift's most acerbic and caustic satire (think of A Modest Proposal), or Gibson's Cyberpunk (Mona Lisa Overdrive), or Saunders' Post Modern satire CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, or perhaps Lewis Carroll. But none of these are quite right. And yet, these stories call out toward all of these styles, and more. I guess the closest comparison is Roald Dahl (not the kid's books we all know, but his adult collections such as Someone Like You, and Switch B*tch), or perhaps the films of Luis Bunel. So, what are these stories about, you ask. Well, the title story concerns a doctor. He's male, but effeminate. He's married to a masculine woman who controls him. Sometimes he likes to cruise for men who will abuse him sexually. It seems that the doctor has discovered a way to insure that all children born from now on will be of a single sex. That is, he is going to choose which gender to eradicate. It never occurs to him that his decision (either one) will spell extinction for the human race. Along the way we get discussions of Jean D'Arc's sex, sexual deformities, and gonorrhea. This tale is presented in a paranoiac first person style that draws the reader into the skewed psyche of this very unreliable narrator. It is a queasy, yet exhilarating experience. A few of the other stories include: Best Seller is about a writer who's down on his luck. To support his family he begins selling parts of his body to a rich old man. Told in the form of diary entries, this story always remains distanced. This distance sucks all emotion from the story. It is cold, calculated. Beautiful. Tissue Ablation and Variant Regeneration: a Case Report is presented like a paper written for a medical journal. Blumlein is, in real life, a practicing MD. It shows in this story. With cold, dispassionate precision he recounts how a patient "Mr. Reagan", is dissected while awake and un-anesthetized. This is done so that portions of his body can be used to produce much needed goods for the third world. This story reads as the most vicious satire I have ever encountered. In this instance, Jonathan Swift aint got nothin' on our boy here. If you thought Network was angry satire, think again. If you think MAD magazine is satirical, well, not by these standards. Maybe you think South

Disturbing in a highly entertaining way

My dad picked this up at random from an MPH warehouse sale in Kuala Lumpur. I don't think he actually read any of the stories...I don't think he knew *I* read any of the stories, or he'd probably have given it away. The general impression one gets from these stories is like the Corinthian character in Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics: creepy but really cool.

Amazing

I'd never heard of michael blumlein before I read The Brains of Rats. I picked a copy up at a local library - and i've never been so fascinated. Blumlein has a wonderful writing style and his stories are some of the most bizarre pieces of fiction ever. This is one of the best authors of dark fiction that I've ever found.

Astonishing

The short stories in Michael Blumlein's "The Brains of Rats" are very difficult to classify by genre. In another sense, they're quite easy to identify; they're all very well written and fascinating. Though the book's spine identifies the collection as "horror," that label applies only to some of the stories. The title story, for example, deals with the questions of gender and gender identity. My personal favorite story is the second, a little opus entitled "Tissue Ablation and Variant Regeneration: A Case Report."Written in a clinical manner, this story is heavy in medical terminology and describes an operation on a conscious albeit paralyzed man. Blumlein's style here is both complex and powerful. Though the writing seems to attempt to give maximum attention to the clinical nature of the operation, there is a subtext of the feelings of the man on the table; it is almost impossible not to empathize with the patient, to feel his agony to at least some degree.The stories in "The Brains of Rats" are extraordinarily diverse, from relatively benign fantasy at times to the significantly darker aspects of "Tissue Ablation." Almost without exception, they are fascinating and engrossing. This book is highly recommended for those who enjoy well-written, short fiction of a speculative nature.