There are only five stories in Lovedeath, but all are at least novelette-length, a couple being novellas, and one practically a novel. More importantly, each is sharp, distinct, and with a strong eye to character and story. The collection kicks off with a downer of a tale written in Simmons' smooth, effervescent voice. “Entropy's Bed at Midnight” tells of an insurance adjuster who has suffered a little more fate than the average person. From Vietnam to parenthood, the exigencies of life have dogged him, giving him a cynical view of the world. Save for one fine moment.
One of the best pieces of fiction, long or short, Simmons has written, “Dying in Bangkok” is about an American soldier in the Vietnam War who goes on a little r&r in Bangkok. Witnessing a ritual so macabre yet so pleasurably tempting, he returns decades later to experience it for himself, but with his own agenda. This is one of those horror stories you cringe reading but can't turn the pages fast enough to find out what happens. And as a man, perhaps the story will linger a little longer in my mind than a woman's. “Sleeping with Teeth Women” is a stab at Native American legend featuring a teenage boy who, in the throes of teenage lust, overcommits himself to an arranged marriage. In the process of getting through a gauntlet of his own devising, he discovers his own truth. Written in a fine authorial voice, Simmons unfolds the boy's story in highly satisfying fashion. Later extended into a novel, the story “Flashback” briefly but tangibly explores memory as a drug. Similar to the film Strange Days, flashback is a street drug that allows users to recall with perfect memory any moment of their past. Split into multiple points of view from one family, the effect of the drug is described against a backdrop of cyberpunk-ish crime and LA riots street chaos. (For the record, this story, while possible to be expanded to stronger effect, remains better than the eponymous novel.)
Closing the collection is the almost-novel “The Great Lover”. An homage to the British war poets of WWI, it's a visceral, edgy story of the brutality of trench warfare. Epistolary, the story is told through the diary of a minor British officer fighting in the bloodiest battle of WWI, the Somme. Poetry not enough to escape the pure animal nature of war, the officer begins to have visions of a woman, visions which threaten to both strengthen him in battle and break his sanity. Loaded with savagery and horrors, Simmons proves himself good at producing war imagery but perhaps revels in the imagery at the expense of characterization. Most often the main character's thoughts do not go more personal than I don't want to die. As a result, the story's gravitas is based more on external rather than internal factors. War may be killing and death, but it is the individual's existence in situ which makes it human. As it stands, the tale is more romantic (as ironic as the blood and guts make that seem) than psychological, which is perhaps fitting for a story about a poet...
In the end, Lovedeath is Simmons' best collection. “The End of Gravity” may be his best individual short story, but the sum of the five stories contained in Lovedeath achieves more than Worlds Enough & Time. There are scenes and images which etch their way on the mind and won't be rubbed out, for better and worse. Representing the fruits of a particularly inspired piece of Simmons' oeuvre, the selections were all written within a short time—a strong burst of creativity. Low in quantity but high in quality, it should be read by fans of Simmons and anyone looking to see what the author can do in short form.
The following are the five stories contained in Lovedeath:
Entropy's Bed at Midnight
Dying in Bangkok
Sleeping with Teeth Women
Flashback
The Great Lover
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