Best of R. A. Lafferty

by R.A. Lafferty

Paperback, 2021

Status

Available

Call number

PS3562.A28 B47

Genres

Science Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Tor Trade (2021), Edition: Reprint, 288 pages

Description

"Acclaimed as one of the most original voices in modern literature, a winner of the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement, Raphael Aloysius Lafferty (1914-2002) was an American original, a teller of acute, indescribably loopy tall tales whose work has been compared to that of Avram Davidson, Flannery O'Connor, Flann O'Brien, and Gene Wolfe. The Best of R. A. Lafferty presents 22 of his best flights of offbeat imagination, ranging from classics like "Nine Hundred Grandmothers" (basis for the later novel) and "The Primary Education of the Cameroi," to his Hugo Award-winning "Eurema's Dam." Introduced by Neil Gaiman, the volume also contains story introductions and afterwords by, among many others, Michael Dirda, Samuel R. Delany, John Scalzi, Connie Willis, Jeff VanderMeer, Kelly Robson, Harlan Ellison, Michael Swanwick, Robert Silverberg, Neil Gaiman, and Patton Oswalt"--… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member nmele

Way back when many of the stories collected in this anthology were published in magazines and anthologies, I used to search the contents tables for stories carrying Lafferty's name. They were always strange and wonderful in every way possible, from his characters' names to his language to his plots

and endings. This is a stellar collection of Lafferty's short fiction, I hope it spurs readers to discover or rediscover his longer works as well!

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LibraryThing member MaowangVater

Raphael Aloysius Lafferty plays with words like François Rabelais, but unlike his French renaissance precursor, he also tells infuriatingly clever stories. This is a collection of some of his best short works including those of the tall tale variety, those of the shaggy dog story variety, some of

the magic realism variety, and some of the pure fantasy variety, some of the science fiction variety, and many of the implied social criticism variety. And like fellow authors J.R.R. Tolkien and Flannery O’Connor, underlying all of them is his religious faith.

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LibraryThing member grahzny

I love Lafferty so much. No one has a voice quite like his.

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