This one ... well it may sound shallow, but it came from the title. Mannequin Man and the Plastic Bitch ... sounds like a line from a song. It has a musical lilt to it, something heavy perhaps, thrumming bass and smashing drums. Now what the hell can that be about?
It stayed with me for a long time until I decided to go literal! This is a love story about two people who shouldn’t be able to love, an action story, a tale with what I hope is a strong moral core. It also introduces The Baker, a wacky inventor about whom I hope to find out more in future tales. He doesn’t playa big part here — it’s his memory and his legacy that the Mannequin Man is interested in — but I feel he has many more stories to tell from this strange, near-future world.
And there’s another interesting aspect to having little control over my own ideas. There’s a definite new trend in my later work, especially the two original novella herein: near-future, almost fantastical. “Hell” and “Mannequin Man ... “ could easily be set in the same world (in fact as I was writing them, that’s just what I imagined). And a new novella I’ve just completed for a Cemetery Dance anthology, “In the Valley, Where Belladonna Grows,” is equally fantastical.
Not intentional. It just happened that way.
Why? Where do these stories come from? No idea.
And still, however different the worlds may be, the Ruin is always there. The ills of society, perhaps. The inevitable future. The slide into chaos and decay which humanity faces as a race. Cynical and pessimistic, maybe ... but what better places to tell stories about the triumph of the human spirit?
I hope you enjoy reading these tales as much as I enjoyed writing them. Please, let me know what you think.
And take care.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction by Jack Ketchum
From Bad Flesh
Hell
The First Law
The Origin of Truth
Mannequin Man and the Plastic Bitch
Story Notes