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Knife Fight and Other Struggles
A young man at loose ends finds he cannot look away from his new lover's alien gaze. A young woman out of time seeks her old lover in the cold spaces between the stars. The fleeing worshippers of an ancient and jealous deity seek solace in an unsuspecting New World congregation. In a suburban nursery, a demon with a grudge and a lonely exorcist face off for what could be the last time. And when a big city mayor who delineates his mandate by the slash of a blade faces an unexpected challenger, it turns into a struggle that threatens to consume everything. In Knife Fight and Other Struggles, David Nickle follows his award-winning debut collection Monstrous Affections with a new set of dark tales that span space, time, and genre.
243 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2014
About the author
David Nickle
60 books174 followersDavid Nickle is the author of several novels and numerous short stories. His latest novel is VOLK: A Novel of Radiant Abomination. His novel Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism (to which VOLK is a sequel) was a finalist for the Aurora Award, the Sunburst Award and the Compton Crook Award. His story collection Monstrous Affections won the 2009 Black Quill Reader's Choice Award. He's a past winner of the Bram Stoker Award and Aurora Award. He lives and works in Toronto.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 9, 2014
Since the remarkable
Irregular Verbs and Other Stories
by Matthew Johnson, I've been eager to read more short stories. I was lucky enough to find Knife Fight and Other Struggles by David Nickle, already known for several horror books such as Eutopia, The 'Geisters and Monstrous Affections. Knife Struggles and Other Stories is a collection of twelve short stories that will creep you out. Some of them flirt with supernatural or science-fiction, all are definitely in the horror range. However, no effusion of blood, guts, or anything gory in these stories. This is what makes this collection so special: the horror is subtly crafted, evil goes inconspicuous till the situation tips over and there! you find yourself trapped. "How could this go so wrong?" I have asked myself repeatedly while reading this book. Indeed, most of David Nickle's stories begin in the most innocent, familiar manner... till it takes an unexpected terrifying turn.
But let's start with the most astonishing of those stories. David Nickle is a journalist, a city-hall reporter to be exact, in Toronto. This has to get you worried when you read the story Knife Fight, which depicts the struggle for power in politics. In this story, the Mayor is a knife master: he's the ever-victorious organizer of somewhat tribal duels set in the city-hall garage (I knew it!). It's hardly surprising that when his nemesis shows up, it's a journalist. A bit of an allegory, isn't it?
Another critical story is Wylde's Kingdom, a violent satire of entertainment and greed for fame. It portrays the producer of the trashiest show in which an enhanced human performs shocking feats, such as killing the last specimen of a soon-extinct specie. The show is being broadcasted even though the world is about to end: cataclysms are ravaging Earth. The story shows a humanity so totally engrossed in entertainment, so utterly passive in front of the screen, that it's not able to actually worry and act for its own survival:
Failing yourself is actually a recurrent theme through Knife Fight and Other Struggles, and my favourite one in the book: people losing their soul or their life, as the unintended result of their own action. In Looker, the protagonist only wanted to relieve his loneliness, right? In Drakeela must die, the kids only wanted to play, didn't they? In Knife Fight and Other Struggles, many times the horror comes from a poor decision with disproportionate consequences. This is how the book gets really, really creepy: it often sounds so plausible.
Even more so when you realize that many times, poor decisions are triggered by love. “Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows.” says Paulo Coelho. Well, David Nicke will open your eyes: in his stories, most characters' tragic fate is sealed by love. Love Mean Forever questions if you should depart from the ability to love, if in some twisted way this allowed you to conform to your ideal of love. In the excellent Summer Worms (an absolute must-read if you liked The Troop by Nick Cutter), a man gets so blinded by love – or hope to be loved - that he won't acknowledge danger. Or sometimes, love is a tool through which evil reaches you: in The Exorcist, love is almost a means of transportation. Evil is not even required, actually: love is enough to create disaster, like in the (hilarious) Nothing Book of the Dead in which a Granny is desperate to help her grandson before and after death.
I found the stories of Knife Fight and Other Struggles truly scary because of their simplicity. There are no gory scenes, disgusting monsters, lurking ghosts or sadistic psychopaths or any other common tropes of horror stories. The horror rises from our being human: our need to love and to be loved, our will to help and unfortunately our short-sighted judgements. It also comes from the sheer disproportion there sometimes is between our mistakes and their consequences. Many stories made me feel really uneasy only because they were so easy to believe, like Drakeela must die. Others took me by surprise, like The Summer Worms, my second favourite, which artfully sinks into horror after beginning almost like a naive pastoral love story. David Nickle takes you off-guard again and again: luring you into the most trivial settings – a friendly picnic, a casual discussion on the beach, a Christmas gift to encourage your grandson's creativity – and very soon close the trap on you. Snap! you lost your body. Or your soul. Or both.
Knife Fight and Other Struggles is a must-read for all horror fans out there who want to read something truly original. Scaredy-cats: stay away!
MapleBooks.ca: review of Canadian speculative fiction
But let's start with the most astonishing of those stories. David Nickle is a journalist, a city-hall reporter to be exact, in Toronto. This has to get you worried when you read the story Knife Fight, which depicts the struggle for power in politics. In this story, the Mayor is a knife master: he's the ever-victorious organizer of somewhat tribal duels set in the city-hall garage (I knew it!). It's hardly surprising that when his nemesis shows up, it's a journalist. A bit of an allegory, isn't it?
Another critical story is Wylde's Kingdom, a violent satire of entertainment and greed for fame. It portrays the producer of the trashiest show in which an enhanced human performs shocking feats, such as killing the last specimen of a soon-extinct specie. The show is being broadcasted even though the world is about to end: cataclysms are ravaging Earth. The story shows a humanity so totally engrossed in entertainment, so utterly passive in front of the screen, that it's not able to actually worry and act for its own survival:
“For those fleeting moments in front of your screen, you morons actually start to give at least a vicarious fuck about someone’s survival, if not your own.”
Failing yourself is actually a recurrent theme through Knife Fight and Other Struggles, and my favourite one in the book: people losing their soul or their life, as the unintended result of their own action. In Looker, the protagonist only wanted to relieve his loneliness, right? In Drakeela must die, the kids only wanted to play, didn't they? In Knife Fight and Other Struggles, many times the horror comes from a poor decision with disproportionate consequences. This is how the book gets really, really creepy: it often sounds so plausible.
Even more so when you realize that many times, poor decisions are triggered by love. “Love is a trap. When it appears, we see only its light, not its shadows.” says Paulo Coelho. Well, David Nicke will open your eyes: in his stories, most characters' tragic fate is sealed by love. Love Mean Forever questions if you should depart from the ability to love, if in some twisted way this allowed you to conform to your ideal of love. In the excellent Summer Worms (an absolute must-read if you liked The Troop by Nick Cutter), a man gets so blinded by love – or hope to be loved - that he won't acknowledge danger. Or sometimes, love is a tool through which evil reaches you: in The Exorcist, love is almost a means of transportation. Evil is not even required, actually: love is enough to create disaster, like in the (hilarious) Nothing Book of the Dead in which a Granny is desperate to help her grandson before and after death.
I found the stories of Knife Fight and Other Struggles truly scary because of their simplicity. There are no gory scenes, disgusting monsters, lurking ghosts or sadistic psychopaths or any other common tropes of horror stories. The horror rises from our being human: our need to love and to be loved, our will to help and unfortunately our short-sighted judgements. It also comes from the sheer disproportion there sometimes is between our mistakes and their consequences. Many stories made me feel really uneasy only because they were so easy to believe, like Drakeela must die. Others took me by surprise, like The Summer Worms, my second favourite, which artfully sinks into horror after beginning almost like a naive pastoral love story. David Nickle takes you off-guard again and again: luring you into the most trivial settings – a friendly picnic, a casual discussion on the beach, a Christmas gift to encourage your grandson's creativity – and very soon close the trap on you. Snap! you lost your body. Or your soul. Or both.
Knife Fight and Other Struggles is a must-read for all horror fans out there who want to read something truly original. Scaredy-cats: stay away!
MapleBooks.ca: review of Canadian speculative fiction
December 5, 2015
A wicked little short story collection. I paused for a nap while reading this and dreamt I was the demon from "The Exorcist: A Love Story". To be clear, it wasn't a nightmare. Nickle draws you close to his characters, even when they are less than sympathetic, making the horror all the more unsettling. "The Summer Worms" and "Drakeela Must Die" I found particularly horrifying/satisfying. Loveliest of all: the collection ends with a teaser for a sequel to the wonderful Eutopia which is so goddamned exciting I don't know what to do with myself. Set to be released in 2016, but I can't find more solid info. 2016 is less than a month away, is all I'm saying.
February 22, 2015
How do you categorize David Nickle? Horror? Dark fantasy? New weird? Old weird? His books are all of these things and so much more. So much more, in fact, that no one genre can contain him. What the world really needs is a David Nickle genre section in the bookstore. The problem is no one who entered such a mysterious section would ever return. Every now and then we’d hear their voices calling out from the shadows at the back of the aisles. But what are they saying. WHAT ARE THEY SAYING? Only David Nickle knows.
September 4, 2023
A good story collection
July 23, 2017
READ THE ORIGINAL REVIEW ON MY BLOG: http://thebookaddictsblog.blogspot.pt...
I got this ebook from Netgalley in return of an honest review.
If you're thinking of reading this book, just prepare for a serious roller coaster of horrifying stories.
In the beginning, there's an introduction by Peter Watts that really sets the tone for the whole book. In it, Watts explains right from the start that the short stories in this book aren't exactly straight-up horror... and he's entirely right! They would be less terrifying if they were. They are the kind of horror that crawls under your skin and just lingers, keeping you up at night thinking about them. All of them cast a new light on things and really give you another perspective to look at reality, and that terrified me most of all. They are bold and fast and rude and don't leave you indifferent. Every one of them gave me something to think about and really meditate on what I would do if I ever found myself in those situations, and let me tell you that some of them were completely insane and crazy!
My favourite stories have to be 'The Nothing Book of the Dead' and 'Drakeela Must Die', which were also the two shortest stories. I really wanted more and if the author ever writes a full book based on those two (doubtful, but one can dream) I will read them for sure!
Also, at the very end we get a prelude to 'Volk', a book that is coming out in 2016 and that I will get my hands on as soon as possible! That story, entitled 'Orlok' said everything it wanted, leaving us there believing that all of that actually happened. Again, what a fearless and thought provoking piece of literature.
I highly recommend this book if you like being shocked and provoked with every turn of a page. Just read it, but know what you're getting into, because you won't be able to forget about it anytime soon!
I got this ebook from Netgalley in return of an honest review.
If you're thinking of reading this book, just prepare for a serious roller coaster of horrifying stories.
In the beginning, there's an introduction by Peter Watts that really sets the tone for the whole book. In it, Watts explains right from the start that the short stories in this book aren't exactly straight-up horror... and he's entirely right! They would be less terrifying if they were. They are the kind of horror that crawls under your skin and just lingers, keeping you up at night thinking about them. All of them cast a new light on things and really give you another perspective to look at reality, and that terrified me most of all. They are bold and fast and rude and don't leave you indifferent. Every one of them gave me something to think about and really meditate on what I would do if I ever found myself in those situations, and let me tell you that some of them were completely insane and crazy!
My favourite stories have to be 'The Nothing Book of the Dead' and 'Drakeela Must Die', which were also the two shortest stories. I really wanted more and if the author ever writes a full book based on those two (doubtful, but one can dream) I will read them for sure!
Also, at the very end we get a prelude to 'Volk', a book that is coming out in 2016 and that I will get my hands on as soon as possible! That story, entitled 'Orlok' said everything it wanted, leaving us there believing that all of that actually happened. Again, what a fearless and thought provoking piece of literature.
I highly recommend this book if you like being shocked and provoked with every turn of a page. Just read it, but know what you're getting into, because you won't be able to forget about it anytime soon!
April 6, 2015
The more open-ended pieces here ("Looker", "The Exorcist…", "The Radejastians", "Knife Fight", "Nothing Book of the Dead") are IMO stronger than any of the stories from Nickle's earlier collection Monstrous Affections. The language is much tighter, the narratives more disturbingly ambiguous, and the perspectives so much more twisted (and often hilariously so). I'd compare them favorably with some of my favorite off-kilter dark/fantastic short stories.
The title story, for example, starts out in a deceptively unassuming fashion; then it pushes into absurd and hilarious territory. That last sentence is priceless.
There are also a handful of rather conventional stories, mostly written in the 90s, that didn't do much for me at all. But this collection is totally worth picking up for the stronger pieces.
The title story, for example, starts out in a deceptively unassuming fashion; then it pushes into absurd and hilarious territory. That last sentence is priceless.
There are also a handful of rather conventional stories, mostly written in the 90s, that didn't do much for me at all. But this collection is totally worth picking up for the stronger pieces.
November 12, 2014
Nickle wrote one of my favorite horror novels ever – Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism, and isn't that the best title? – so I was excited to read this book of short stories. His horror is mostly not the realistic kind – the collection includes demons, aliens, space ships, witches, and things more indescribable – but he always has the right emotional weight to make it seem truly horrifying. My favorite stories were The Nothing Book of the Dead, where a grandmother keeps correcting her grandson's writings, even after he's buried the book in her coffin; and The Radejastians, in which a group of immigrants find themselves unable to escape from the Old Religion (and it's really Old).
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.
October 21, 2014
REVIEW: KNIFE FIGHT AND OTHER STRUGGLES by David Nickel
A 13-entry collection of the literary and subtly horrific, stories in which you may find yourself stepping back and re-reading passages: "Did I really just read that?" all the while rethinking your view of reality.
January 10, 2015
ChiZine publishes reliably excellent creepy weird horror, and this is no exception. If you like stories that make your skin crawl, that jar you and haunt you, you can count on David Nickle to provide them.
January 1, 2015
Another great short story collection
For a full review, please go to www.examiner.com/review/knife-fight-a... and follow me on Twitter @josenher
For a full review, please go to www.examiner.com/review/knife-fight-a... and follow me on Twitter @josenher
November 19, 2015
Loving everything David Nickle writes!
September 3, 2018
Short stories always make me feel like I should think about the story more than I did regardless of how much actual pondering I did. With the exception of "Orlok" (which I consider more of a teaser for the novel "Volk") I rated all the stories on a scale of five to one. Fives were a fun ride and ended in true what-did-I-just-read moments; fours were fun; threes worth a read; twos were decent and the one was too much for me to care for the journey. All in all the collection is great.
5
Drakella Must Die
Looker
The Summer Worms
The Exorcist: A Love Story
4
Love Means Forever
The Nothing Book of the Dead
3
The Radejastians
Oops
2
Knife Fight
Black Hen a la Ford
Basements
1
Wylde's Kingdom
5
Drakella Must Die
Looker
The Summer Worms
The Exorcist: A Love Story
4
Love Means Forever
The Nothing Book of the Dead
3
The Radejastians
Oops
2
Knife Fight
Black Hen a la Ford
Basements
1
Wylde's Kingdom
February 25, 2019
This guy is a hidden gem. Not every story in this collection connects, but when they do - Damn. And even with the stories that don't, you have to really admire the risks he takes and his approach to the horror genre. He is a very good writer with prose that is way above average for this genre and he stands out by bringing a fresh perspective to the horror field.
December 5, 2017
I found this collection to be a little uneven ranging from excellent (Knife Fight) to ho hum (Orlok). Part of the problem for me may have been that I had already read many of the better stories previously. I still recommend Nickle's short stories.
Read
February 26, 2024bleh
Read
June 23, 2015These stories were quirky and stylized. Sometimes convoluted and could have used more clarity and editing in places.
Subjects and content were unique and the crux's of the stories were great, however the execution could have been better pulled off.
Subjects and content were unique and the crux's of the stories were great, however the execution could have been better pulled off.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews