Richard Christian Matheson - Scars

[dem bones]

Richard Christian Matheson - Scars And Other Distinguishing Marks (Tor, July 1988)

Stephen King -Foreword
Dennis Etchison - Intoductin

Third Wind
The Good Always Come Back
Sentences
Unknown Drives
Third Exposure
Obsolete
Red
Beholder
Dead End
Commuters
Graduation
Conversation Piece
Echoes
Incorperation
Hell
Break-Up
Mr. Right
Cancelled
Mugger
The Dark Ones
Holiday
Vampire
Intruder
Dust
Goosebumps

Mobius (with Richard Matheson)
Where There's A Will (screenplay 'Amazing Stories' Magic Saturday)


Richard Christian Matheson was offering his unique take on flash fiction before most of us (himself included, probably) knew such a thing existed. In all the great late-eighties US horror anthologies - my current obsession - there'd be Matheson junior, coming on like he's his generation's Frederic Brown, but darker, so much darker. Rereading Groupies in Gelb's Shock Rock yesterday, I was kind of taken aback by the astonishing length of the piece - an audacious five pages - and wondered if he'd gone all long-winded on us. Not a bit of it, even if some of the stories in Scars run to a hitherto unimaginable ten sides. Red (three pages) is his masterpiece - it ain't just me who thinks that - and to give any kind of synopsis would be well out of order. Third Wind, Mr. Right and the wonderful Vampire have stayed in my memory since first we met and refuse to skedaddle off out of it.

Includes:

Mr. Right: A psychiatrist patiently listens to her client, Mrs. Schubert's tales of the abuse and degradation she's suffered at the hands of her domineering husband. And makes sure she gets his phone number ....

Vampire: An ambulance-chasers eye view of a car smash. in The Transylvanian Library (Borgo Press, 1993), Greg Cox astutely describes tackling Vampire as "Sort. Of. Like. Reading. By. A. Strobe. Light."

Conversation Piece: Q and A session with a man who's given nineteen years to medical research as a paid volunteer. "I never liked work much. Maybe that's why selling parts of my body was so easy for me." Even so, it's hardly a lucrative line of work and the sacrifices are considerable .....

Mugger: Community spirited Marky and Eddie also like to do their bit for medical research. They relieve tramps and wino's .... of their eyes.

Third Wind: Jogging horror! Success-fixated attorney Michael's Nike's pound the tarmac on his daily twenty mile run. The idea, he knows, in life as in running, is to never give up, never slow down - that's what sorts the winners from the losers. Besides, practice enough and its like your legs don't know how to stop ...

Intruder: As luckless junkie Relling discovers to his cost, the Holographic Stalk System 6000 is the last word in anti-burglar security ... provided the circuits have been correctly installed.

[andydecker]

In all the great late-eighties US horror anthologies - my current obsession - there'd be Matheson junior, coming on like he's his generation's Frederic Brown, but darker, so much darker

And then he just ... stopped.

Does anybody know or have read why he stopped publishing or what he did instead? Maybe he wrote pseudonym adult western for all I know, but as a writer he seemed to vanish from the earth.

Which was kind of sad.

[carolinec]

I'm sure I've got some more recent Matheson Jnr stories in various collections I have here - but not able to put my hands on them just yet. I'll look some out for you. When is it you're thinking he stopped publishing? Mine might be old collections, of course.

[dem bones]

That screenplay for Amazing Stories is the clue. He's written for several TV series' and tried his hand at producing. There's a novel, Created By (Bantam, 1993) and a collaboration with his father Pride (Gauntlet, 2003) which, from what I can work out, seems to be three versions of the same story. Dystopia (Gauntlet, 2000) collects 60 of his shorts in a 'definitive' collection.

Here's his homepage:

www.richardchristianmatheson.com

[carolinec]

You beat me to it, Dem. I haven't looked very far, but I do have one of his short stories (from 2006) in the Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18 - it's called Making Cabinets and is a grim little piece about the aftermath of living with a serial killer. I think I might have a couple more recent ones somewhere - I have a feeling he's got something in an issue of Postscripts, though I may be wrong.

The bio in the Mammoth Book .. suggested that he's doing a lot of screenplays now (including for Stephen King's TV Nightmares and Dreamscapes). So, I looked him up on IMDB (Internet Movie Database). Here's the entry showing what he's been involved in as writer/producer:
www.imdb.com/name/nm1075295/
He's obviously following in his father's footsteps - I have fond memories of Matheson Snr's involvement in The Twilight Zone.

Also, here's his bibliography in Fantastic Fiction - clearly not up to date as it doesn't include the story I've mentioned above:
www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/richard-christian-matheson/

[dem bones]

Mammoth Years Best Horror 18 has lain forgotten on the shelf since I read the stories by the three authors most interest to me - had some fun at the launch, too! Must give Making Cabinets a quick once over at the very least. I've got too many anthologies on the go at the same time!

[carolinec]

admin said:

I've got too many anthologies on the go at the same time!

That's what happens to me too. I dip in and out of several of them, and never actually get around to finishing any of them off!

[dem bones]

Four more, and all of them winners!

Graduation: A freshman's chatty letters home to his parents reveal that things are not going too swimmingly at college, what with all those accidental deaths among students who've upset him in some small way or another. Life's cruel. Turns out that the sweet-natured Susie just wasn't right for him, and now nineteen kids who owed him have tragically perished in a dormitory fire without first honouring their gambling debts. On the plus side, he's doing well in his Philosophy classes.

Timed Exposure: An actress meets the dishy Gregory at a swinging party in Malibu and decides that he's the man for her. As he drives her home a travelling carnival pitches up in the market place. They have their fortune told by the mechanical doll in the coin arcade, win a goldfish and gurn for the camera in a photo-booth. When twenty minutes pass and still no photo's, the couple head for the house of mirrors, leaving a little boy to discover the disturbing prints ....

Goosebumps: Horror fan Andy thoroughly enjoys the Nightfall anthology, in particular the final story, Edworthy's Fate .... until it gives him a case of goosebumps like he's never contemplated ...

Unknown Drives: Holidaying Dan and Kerry have the fatal misfortune to find themselves driving behind an old farmer in a cattle truck with idiosyncratic ideas as to what constitutes sport.