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Tem Steve
The Man on the Ceiling (Discoveries)
 List Price: $14.95 DescriptionTwo interwoven memoirs of love, loss, and family with a haunted, frightening edge.In 2000, American Fantasy Press published an unassuming chapbook titled The Man on the Ceiling. Inside was a dark, surreal, discomfiting story of the horrors that can befall a family. It was so powerful that it won the Bram Stoker Award, International Horror Guild Award, and World Fantasy Award--the only work ever to win all three. Now, Melanie Tem and Steve Rasnic Tem have re-imagined the story, expanding on the ideas to create a compelling work that examines how people find a family, how they hold a family together despite incomprehensible tragedy, and how, in the end, they find love. Loosely autobiographical, The Man on the Ceiling has the feel of a family portrait painted by Salvador Dali, where story and reality blend to find the one thing that neither can offer alone: truth. Customer ReviewsInteresting approach to narrative, not always successfulThis is an odd little book: a biographical, explorative discussion of the imagination, of the story we build in our lives to explain various anxieties. The un-marked balance between fact and fiction occasionally distracted me, despite the book's assertion that everything is "truth". The self-involved nature of the book (the authors writing about their imaginations) sometimes distracted me too. But, most of the time, I found it a compelling form of narrative, fascinatingly interstitial. It is definitely worth reading for those who want to explore the many shapes a novel can take, the many aspects it can tug into itself. Genre lines are refreshingly absent. Horror and Love, Life and Story It seems some people just didn't get this book. I suppose I understand their confusion. Its a very experimental book in how it combines autobiography and story all the while doing this as a collaboration. Its impressive considering how difficult a challenge this must have been. I liked it. There were some deep insights in this book and they avoided giving easy answers or simple stories. Its not exactly a novel, but I wouldn't go so far to say the label doesn't apply. There are many stories within the book. More importantly, its about the process of making stories out of life experience and making sense of life experience through story. There is a cleverness to this book, but it didn't seem pretentious to me. What the authors set out to do necessitated cleverness. I enjoyed how smoothly they mixed nonfiction and fiction. I was satisfied enough with this book that I give it an overall good review. It was worth the money spent. It wasn't perfect, but its hard to imagine any two authors collaborating to create something better. I've never read anything that compares to this book and so reviewing it is difficult. Fortunately, I had no expectations going in and so I was able to judge it on its own merits. However, if someone buys it hoping for a normal novel, then they'd be dissapointed. There is something specific that I appreciated the most. Horror is too often limited to the perspective of the individual. This book is about how closely related are love and fear. Its a hard book to get a grasp of, but I think it will grow on me more and more. I immediately read back through the book after finishing it. I'm sure its a book I will return to many times. A novel approach, but definitely not a novel The is more a book of memoirs of dreams and fears and memories. Only these memoirs are really not interconnected in any chronological order. It is well written and some entries are disturbingly emotional, but there is no "overall" story here. I thought this was a novel when I commenced my reading, but was soon to find out this is the farthest you can get from the structure of a novel. And I really hate when the authors repeatedly tell you "that everything we are about to tell you is true". After the 5th or 6th time it loses its ironic charm. So if you are looking for a nice story to read, look elsewhere. But if you are looking for an interesting book of mementos both real and imagined, check it out. Its a quick read, I finished it in a day and a half.....so at least its got that going for it..... Promising premise is destroyed by lack of plot and of storytelling. I couldn't finish this book, and don't recommend it Expanded from their novella of the same name, the Tems combine memoir, magic, and family myth in order to describe their household--in particular, the aftermath of their's son's death. I have not read the original novella, and was unable to finish this book: my review is based on the first 200 pages and the factors that made me close the book for good. This novel is a collection of thoughts and memories both real and imagined, unaided by plot. Without a plot, the writing is slow and unfocused. The novel tells, but does not show, and the absence of stories contradicts the novel's premise and makes for a dry, unconvincing book. I tried to enjoy this novel, but did not, and I have no desire to complete it. I don't recommend it. The Man on the Ceiling is a rambling slew of thoughts and fragmentary memories without a plot to guide them. It is part factual and part imagined, but the difference between the two is intended to be immaterial because, as the Tems continually repeat, everything in the book is true, regardless of its accuracy. This concept intrigued me, and I enjoy books which break down predictable writing formulae--but I found The Man on the Ceiling unreadable. To be more accurate, the book is readable: the language is straight forward and, though the alternating speakers becomes confusing, the text is easy to follow. However, without anything resembling a plot, the book lacks direction and the reader is never compelled to continue. Worst of all, for all that the Tems talk about telling stories to create the truth, they do remarkably little storytelling. The stories are infrequent, brief, and plainly penned; thoughts and theories and explanations are much more common. More often than not, stories are cut short to explain what they "mean." This is a book of telling, and very little showing. And that, ultimately, is why I gave up on it. I read 200 pages, pushing through despite the absence of a plot, hoping that something would intrigue me. The reading was slow: I was never eager to get to the next page, and each time I put the book down I had no desire to pick it back up. At the 200 page mark, a brief, largely summarized story concludes "...he was screaming *because* he understood how alone he was..." (202, emphasis mine), and I admitted to myself that the book would continue, undirected by plot, telling but not showing, and that I had no interest in continuing with it. Does the novel make a miraculous improvement in the final 150 pages? I don't know, but even if it does, 200 pages it too long to wait to see it. I picked up this book on the basis of a reader's glowing review, and so it feels strange to report that I dislike the book too much to complete it. Judging by the Amazon reviews, readers are split between those who love the book and those who hate it. As such, the interested reader may still want to pick up this novel--in case they're one of the first group. Personally, I was entirely disappointed by The Man on the Ceiling. The prose is readable, and the concept is promising, but the execution fails entirely. A full novel's length is too long for a book to continue without some direction or forward movement; above all, a book about stories and truths must contain *stories*, and The Man on the Ceiling does not. I couldn't bring myself to finish this book, and I don't recommend it. I missed something... Like the reviewer above, I was comforted by the Neil Gaiman blurb on the front, I love Neil's works and thought that his comment on the front might equal endorsement of a good story. However, after reading this book, I feel as if I may have missed something in the text that would have made me enjoy the book, but I don't want to put myself through reading it again just to find out what I could have missed. I can't put my finger on whatever it is that I did not like, but it could have something to do with the comparisons of fear and parenting, and since I have no children I am unable to relate? I wish I could be more helpful, but the bottom line is that I would not recommend this book.
The Hydrocephalic Ward
 List Price: Price: $9.95 DescriptionThe Hydrocephalic Ward by Steve Rasnic Tem collects fifty new and previously published poems. Introduction by Steve Rasnic Tem. Poems included are "Snapping Turtles," "Nightcrawlers," "When You Think of Them," "Skin," "Time Machines," "Directions for Killing the Automated House," "The Dreaming Machine Dreams of its Creators," "Poe's Grave," "Werewolf, Manhattan," and forty other poems.
Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens: Issue 5
 List Price: $3.00 DescriptionIncludes work by Carlton Mellick III, Steve Rasnic Tem, Kris Saknussemm, D. Harlan Wilson, Kevin L. Donihe, Mo Ali, Andersen Prunty, David Holub, Francis Crot, and polycarp kusch."Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens is not the eclectic mish-mash of 'odd' stories that it may come across as. The perfect bound, full colour cover presentation places it at the more professional end of the small press fringe, and the content, though varied, comes together to lend the publication a unique and recognisable identity. The quality of the writing is high and, for the most part, beautifully executed. This magazine is a hidden treasure that deserves to be discovered by anyone after cerebral entertainment." - HorrorScope Tem Steve News
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