Meeting in Infinity

Book excerpt: After receiving the Nebula Award in 1983 for his stunning nouvelle "Another Orphan, " John Kessel has written a group of stories that for sheer imaginative audacity defy conventional classification. In "The Pure Product" an amoral time-traveler embarks upon a harrowing joyride through the Midwest; "The Big Dream" is a 1920s hardboiled detective thriller in the Los Angeles of Raymond Chandler; while Faustfeathers" involves a head-on collision between Christopher Marlowe and the Marx Brothers. Dark visions both satiric and tragic, from the author of Good News from Outer Space: "The Pure Product, " "Mrs Schummel Exits A Winner, " "The Big Dream, " "The Lecturer, " "Hearts Do Not in Eyes Shine, " "Faustfeathers, " "A Clean Escape, " "Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!, " "Man, " "Invaders, " "Judgment Call, " "Buddha Nostril Bird, " "Another Orphan, " and "Buffalo."