Dirty Work

by Pat Cadigan

Overview

Dirty Work? In a manner of speaking, perhaps, but certainly not along the lines of de Sade or Henry Miller.

"Dirty" maybe because within this remarkable volume of short stories (a follow-up to her award-winning collection Patterns) author Pat Cadigan unflinchingly explores the implications of technology on modern and near-future societies, humorously challenges our perceptions of reality, and chillingly strips away our civilized facades to confront the bestial nature of our souls.

With stories like "Home By the Sea," "Dispatches from the Revolution," "No Prisoners," "50 Ways to Improve Your Orgasm," and "Naming Names," Pat Cadigan exhibits an enviable ability to tackle a variety of themes, moods, and perspectives. And makes it all seem easy.

Featuring 18 stunning fictions (including the previously unpublished "Lost Girls" written especially for this book)-as well as intriguing author introduction to each story-Dirty Work is a thought provoking, often funny, never compromising collection by one of America's most gifted authors.

It doesn't get any better than this.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780575120235
Publisher:	Orion
Publication date:	11/14/2011
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	500 KB

About the Author

Pat Cadigan was born in 1953 in Schenectady, New York and grew up in Massachusetts, attending the University of Massachusetts. She moved to England in 1996. Her other books include Synners, Fools (both of which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award) and Patterns.
Pat Cadigan (1953 -)Pat Cadigan was born in Schenectady, NY, and grew up in Fitchburg, MA. Attending the University of Massachusetts on a scholarship, she eventually transferred to the University of Kansas where she received her degree. Since embarking on her career as a fiction writer in 1987, her Hugo and Nebula Award-nominated short stories have appeared in such magazines as Omni, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine as well as numerous anthologies. Her first collection, Patterns, was honoured the Locus Award in 1990, and she won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1992 and 1995 for her novels Synners and Fools. Pat Cadigan moved to the UK in 1996 and now lives in London.

Editorial Reviews

Cadigan's ( Patterns ) third collection of short stories shows once again her astonishing range, economy of language, perceptiveness, and uncommon emotional power. Here are tales that span Cadigan's career, including her second professional sale, ``Second Comings--Reasonable Rates,'' a biting look at a world where people can't let go of their departed loved ones, and ``Lost Girls,'' original to this book, in which Tinkerbell presents her view of gender politics in Never-Never Land. Cadigan is at home in various genres, producing an exemplary tale of murder in an alien embassy (``True Faces''), an hallucinatory trip into the wild fears of a new mother (`The Coming of the Doll'') and the totally uncategorizable, wonderfully weird ``Mother's Milt,'' which suggests a unique solution to the problem of repeat offenders. This collection features some of Cadigan's strongest work--``Dispatches from the Revolution,'' ``Naming Names,'' the eponymous ``Dirty Work,'' ``New Life for Old''--but it also reveals a troubling repetition of perspective. So many of her stories center on a woman (daughter, wife, mother) with a brutish, violent, boorish, unsympathetic or just plain dull man (husband, father, son, etc.) that, after a while, her themes become a bit monotonous. Cadigan's wit and sensitivity by and large overcome this minor flaw, however, and she continues to produce some of the best short stories in the science fiction field. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly