 I will open this by urging you to remember the name, S.G. Murphy as theirs is a name you will be hearing in the future....and I mean in 50 or 60 years, ranked along-side the masters. I don't believe I have ever read a more assured debut. I knew going in the kid had something special, listening to John Skipp gush several times over the last two years as he does in his 100% the truth intro here but my God, I was not ready...  The Worst That Could Happen delivers eight dirty and dystopian slices of a certain style of overcrowded-dark-more-than-light science fiction garnished with elements of horror and dark drama. High action caloric count and more than a heaping helping of nightmare fuel imagery. All of them populated by the fractured, the seedy and the downright diabolical. The slim collection opens with "The Madness of Moray Moon" wherein a group of former gang members under the lead of God's hitman arrive at their destination to get a handle on a revolutionary problem only to realize that maybe it's the setting that is the real problem. In "Tracking" a renegade cyborgian assassin is set upon by a pair of hunters and the chase proves to be the easiest part of the adventure. "The Partisan" is almost biblical in its revelation-esque imagery and drab beauty. As most of these stories, it involves killers for hire but with a very special and, um, possibly divine power. "Desertion" is my favorite of the bunch. I was so excited to reach out the the author to see if I guessed correctly on the outcome and was thrilled to be told I had. I'm not telling you fuckers anything about it. Just strap in and read it...trust me! "Cobra Roja" is that action-drenched late 80's USA network movie that you always wanted to see but they never made because networks are assholes like that. "In The Hinterlands" tells the tale of a group of drug-reliant surveyors who find out that green is not always good. "Love & Death Vs The Mole People" is an epic battle tale chewed up in a B-movie mouth and spat back into the waiting maw of early Lansdale. The book closes with "Full Fathom Five" a short tale that not only gives the book its title but crosses the T that ends a wonderfully grim and gloriously depraved futuristic tract. Murphy writes like a person who has been bleeding words since birth, maybe they have but the deft and sturdy writing presented here is awesome. I mean that in the definitive way and not "Whoa, dude, awesome!" though it is that as well. Lemme throw out one of my Bodenly metaphors that might not connect with everyone but if you get it you'll really get it: In the 1984 classic The Terminator, there is a scene after the cops have taken in Sarah Connor and Reese, the man who came from the future to prevent her assassination...Reese is interrogated and the police shrink is showing the chief the footage of said grilling. Reese is spouting off about his--to them--improbable future and about weaponry and conditions and the shrink says "This is brilliant, how it doesn't require a shred of proof but is so convincing..." The Worst That Could Happen felt like that to me. Even at its most fantastic and seemingly far-fetched there was enough humanism and realism for me to not eject myself from reading. I ought to also allow that I am not a fan of sci-fi, not at all...aside from an occasional story here or there. So the fact that I am raving this little book means more than you could know. Buy this.! Buy it for your friends and even enemies! Buy it! The Worst That Could Happen is available from Fungasm Press (John Skipp's imprint of Eraserhead Press) and on Amazon    Comments are closed.
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