A review by gengelcox
Delta Sly Honey by Lucius Shepard

5.0

It’s a story about crazy, especially how war—and in this particular case the Vietnam war—can drive people insane. It’s also a fantasy/magic realism story about vengeance and destiny, and it’s also a little bit of horror, because war is horrible. Shepard was quite good at being able to blend genres like this, and to do it with a very literary style. The first sentence, for example, is over 100 words long, and yet it doesn’t matter, because you follow it all. The viewpoint character is an MP who feels sorry for this poor grunt farm boy who has a weird tic for being able to be very verbose when he takes up the microphone, but otherwise is the whipping boy for a mean sergeant. In others’ hands, the viewpoint character might have just been an observer, but Shepard has him act at several points in the story that makes changes happen. All in all, it’s an unsettling piece that manages to portray both the odd camaraderie of that ugly war and all the unnatural things that war makes men do. Recommended.