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Tenth of december book review5/19/2023 Escape From Spiderhead hinges on the testing of drugs on prisoners - drugs with names such as VerbaLuceTM, ChatEaseTM, VeriTalkTM and DarkenfloxxTM - and the potential for abuse. Saunders often extrapolates from the present to a not-so-distant Orwellian future. Saunders ratchets up the suspense of the short story through the almost unbearable technique of slowing down to focus on each decision the characters make, the motivations behind those decisions and their consequences. The volume’s opening Victory Lap jumps into the souls of the story’s cast: an enthusiastic teenage girl who opens the door of her family’s house to an abductor the abductor and the neighbor boy, the beloved only child of strict, protective parents who accidentally witnesses what is going on. Saunders can make a conventional plot grip the reader by getting deep into the minds and voices of his characters. They’re less frantic and clever, but no less compelling. Those familiar with Saunders’ fiction will find the 10 stories in his latest collection, Tenth of December, more tender and touching than those in his earlier collections. They’re darkly funny and horrifying visions of worlds just skewed enough from ours to create a sense of vertigo and dread. George Saunders writes stories that would be creepy if they weren’t so compassionate - and vice versa.
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