5 of 5 stars

Here are two short novellas from Kate Wilhelm. She remains amazing. She writes fluidly with great depth and psychological exploration. I feel her characters and the mood. Her work is psychedelic and mind blowing. It’s as though her books inhabit your mind in a fog…you don’t read her works, you experience them. And then they’re finished and you sit back and wonder what just happened but you feel changed from having partaken. I’ve felt that with each of her works I’ve read so far.

The first piece is called “The Plastic Abyss, and it was phenomenological. I felt disjointed, like the characters, and wondered whether I was here or there, and was it earlier or later? This is one of those pieces that just sweeps over you and you’re left with a feeling after as opposed to a series of answers or finality.

I also really enjoyed “Stranger in the House”. It started off slowly and I initially thought that I wasn’t going to like it. But Wilhelm’s writing skill just wraps you up and takes you for a ride. This piece was part psychological, part horror, and part sci-fi. Again, just wonderful prose.

If you haven’t read Kate Wilhelm, these two stories are a great start. If you have, read more of her. I am!