Howard Who?: Stories

By Howard Waldrop

Book Overview

"If this is your first taste of Howard, I envy you."--From the Introduction by George R.R. Martin

Acclaimed cult author Waldrop's stories are sophisticated, magical recombinations of the stuff our pop-culture dreams are made of. Open this book and encounter jazz singers, robotic cartoon ducks, nosferatu, angry gorillas, and, of course, the dodo.

The first paperback (and twentieth anniversary) edition of a landmark debut collection. Waldrop's capacious, encyclopedic knowledge of superheroes, baseball players, world wars, long-dead film stars, Mexican wrestlers, pulp serials, and fairy tales is put to good use in these sophisticated re-combinations of oddball television shows, radio plays, scientific expeditions, extinct species, knock-knock jokes, and questions like these:

* What if the dodo wasn't extinct after all?
* What if sumo wrestlers could defeat their opponents with the power of the mind?
* What if Izaak Walton and John Bunyan went fishing for Leviathan in the Slough of Despond?

Never published in paperback, long out of print, and extremely collectible, Howard Who? was Waldrop's seminal debut collection. If you haven't read Waldrop before, you're in for a treat.

"The best Waldrops tend to mix the humorous and wistful.... Italo Calvino once said that he was "known as an author who changes greatly from one book to the next. And in these very changes you recognize him as himself." Much the same could be said of Howard Waldrop. You never know what he'll come up with next, but somehow it's always a Waldrop story. Read the work of this wonderful writer, a man who has devoted his life to his art -- and to fishing."
--Michael Dirda, Washington Post

"A charming collection."
--Los Angeles Times

"Back in print after so many years, Howard Who? remains a terrific collection of short stories. There is nobody else alive writing stories as magnificently strange, deliriously inventive, and utterly wonderful as Howard Waldrop."
--Metrobeat

Table of Contents

Introduction by George R. R. Martin.
The Ugly Chickens
Der Untergang des Abendlandesmenschen
Ike at the Mike
Dr. Hudson's Secret Gorilla
. . . the World, as we Know't
Green Brother
Mary Margaret Road-Grader
"Save A Place in the Lifeboat for Me
Horror, We Got
Man-Mountain Gentian
God's Hooks
Heirs of the Perisphere

Praise for Howard Waldrop:

"Clever, humorous, idiosyncratic, oddball, personal, wild, and crazy."
--Library Journal

"Wise and funny."
--Publishers Weekly

"An authentic master of gonzo sf and fantasy."
--Booklist

"Erudite and gonzo."
--Science Fiction Weekly

"Waldrop subtly mutates the past, extrapolating the changes into some of the most insightful, and frequently amusing, stories being written today, in or out of the science fiction genre."
--The Houston Post/Sun

"The man's a national treasure "
--Locus

"The resident Weird Mind of his generation, he writes like a honkytonk angel."
--Washington Post Book World

About the Author:

Howard Waldrop, born in Mississippi and now living in Austin, Texas, is an American iconoclast. His highly original books include Them Bones and A Dozen Tough Jobs, and the collections All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past, Night of the Cooters, and Going Home Again. He won the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards for his novelette "

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1931520186
• ISBN13: 9781931520188
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: Small Beer Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Waldrop Rules!

One of the most eclectic writers in the Sf/F genre one can find. No Waldrop story is like any other story, or like any other Waldrop story for that matter. If you haven't read Waldrop before, have you got a treat coming!

Heirs...

First let me confess I have not read this book, not yet... You see I read Heirs of the Perisphere years ago when it was first published * ahem * in Playboy (Nothing risque in the writing, just well written.). More memorable than the girl, I still remember passages today - must have been close to twenty years ago. Mr Waldrop... Genius. Years ahead of his time. Great writer. I highly recommend.

Outstanding Stories? Definitely

The title does not lie. This is a collection of 12 outstanding stories. Each story is a tiny gem, a short 13-25 page story that makes a large impact.Waldrop's stories have to be read to be believed. He is able to turn the mundane into the spectacular. Take 'Man Mountain Gentian' about sumo wrestlers with telekinetic powers. Or 'Heirs of the Perisphere' about intelligent Disney robots that are mistakenly activated years after humanity mysteriously disappeared. 'Mary Margaret Road-Grader' is a fascinating story about Native American Tractor pulls. World-Fantasy-Award winning story 'The Ugly Chickens' is about a possible rediscovery of the supposedly extinct Dodo. 'God's Hooks': a story about a fishing expedition for Leviathan and the consequences thereof.There is not a bad story in this collection. Waldrop is a towering talent in the speculative fiction scene. Unfortunately most of his works are out-of-print. He's written a lot of stories but it takes an effort to track them down. Trust me, it's worth it. Highly recommended.

Horton Hears A Waldrop!

The problem with books likes this is that publishers always try to squeeze them into some kind of recognizable category. In this case, the usual well-worn descriptions of "fantasy" or "science fiction" were avoided, but only in favor of the ambiguous genre of "speculative fiction." It's still a rough fit for Waldrop. This guy has an imagination that defies imagination. All of these are true short stories, worthy of any contemporary analysis. "Ike At The Mike" is *the* best alternative history story I've ever read. "The Ugly Chickens" is nothing short of brilliant and startling in its examination of lost possibilities. "Heirs Of The Perisphere" is heartrending in its utter simplicity. Perhaps the best recommendation of all, I met Waldrop in San Antonio in 1988, and I was duely impressed by his genuine humility and straightforwardness. He wrote this on the title page of my copy: "Thanks for finding the book. Hope you enjoy it." I pass that recommendation on to you.