A Couple of Richard Matheson Short Stories…


I don’t have many ‘Bookish Resolutions’ for the New Year but one of the ones that I do have is to read more short stories by a greater number of writers. That’s not to say my Clark Ashton-Smith reading is going to stop any time soon, far from it, but I have other collections on my shelves and they deserve a read too 😉 After finishing ‘Brothers of the Wind’ the other day, I needed a little ‘palette cleanser’ before leaping into more fantasy reading. It’s been a long time since I last read any Richard Matheson so I grabbed my of ‘The Best of Richard Matheson’ for a read. I thought I’d revisit ‘Duel’ (I love the movie and enjoyed the story last time I picked it up) but before that…

I was glancing over the contents page and saw that ‘Counterfeit Bills’ was only three pages long. I’m all about the quick reads, these days, so gave it a go and was pleasantly surprised by this tale of a Mr William O. Cook and his mission to make life more enjoyable for himself by assigning mundane tasks to clones, of himself, while he goes out drinking and making the acquaintance of ladies. You see, I’ve always seen Richard Matheson as a writer of unsettling tales, that really make you think after you finish them, so it made for a real change to see him write three pages of regular (not particularly original) sci-fi, just so he could use a sweet little pun right at the end. I really liked it, you think you’re reading one thing and then all it takes is that final line and you realise that you’ve actually been reading a joke the whole time. And it’s a funny one as well, well… if you like ‘Dad jokes’ that is. I do so of course I laughed. If you see ‘Counterfeit Bills’ anywhere, do give it a read. It’s five minutes out of your day and time well spent 😉

And then it was onto ‘Duel’, a tale of road rage taken to extremes on the backroads of America. It’s been a while since I read this last so it was almost like coming into it fresh but a large part of that feeling also comes from the way Matheson sets things up and then lets them play out. By keeping the truck driver deliberately anonymous, it’s not only about what’s happening but also about the growing terror that Mann feels as he can’t rationalise this behaviour. Multiply this over twenty seven pages and that’s a lot of tension built up and Matheson lets it go at just the right time. It’s a brilliant finale and even after multiple re-reads, I still found myself letting out a breath that I didn’t realise I’d been holding. There’s not a lot more to say about ‘Duel’  as it’s a simple tale (guy in a car gets targeted by an unknown truck driver with some kind of grudge, that’s it) but very effectively told by Matheson. The film is superb anyway but you could seriously do a lot worse than give this story a read whenever you get a chance.

Both of these tales can be found in ‘The Best of Richard Matheson’ and I’ll be looking at more of these short stories in the near future.

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