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A review by jdintr
The Peripatetic Coffin and Other Stories by Ethan Rutherford
4.0
In the title story, Rutherford raises the CSS Hunley and illumines its dark interior almost as vividly as the expedition that raised the real hulk from the floor of Charleston Harbor ten or so years ago.
I laughed six times in the first half of the story, and then I settled into the horror of the craft's doomed, one-way trip to sink the USS Housatonic.
Rutherford is great at shifting from funny to horrified. At one point, characters joke about pirates, then they're running from them. The levity, the tension, they're managed well, and they keep the reader guessing.
I also loved how no details in the stories were wasted. Even the slightest, off-hand remarks are echoed later in the text. The stories are tightly built, efficient, brilliant.
The stories aren't just united by a reference to water. They're all about waiting and dreading and knowing when it's time to turn back. In the final story, "dirwhals!" a futuristic take-off on Moby Dick, Rutherford empties his bag of tricks and constructs many of his most delicious sentences.
I laughed six times in the first half of the story, and then I settled into the horror of the craft's doomed, one-way trip to sink the USS Housatonic.
Rutherford is great at shifting from funny to horrified. At one point, characters joke about pirates, then they're running from them. The levity, the tension, they're managed well, and they keep the reader guessing.
I also loved how no details in the stories were wasted. Even the slightest, off-hand remarks are echoed later in the text. The stories are tightly built, efficient, brilliant.
The stories aren't just united by a reference to water. They're all about waiting and dreading and knowing when it's time to turn back. In the final story, "dirwhals!" a futuristic take-off on Moby Dick, Rutherford empties his bag of tricks and constructs many of his most delicious sentences.