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Who Made Stevie Crye?
Book by Bishop, Michael
309 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1984
About the author
Michael Bishop
308 books94 followersMichael Lawson Bishop was an award-winning American writer. Over four decades & thirty books, he created a body of work that stands among the most admired in modern sf & fantasy literature.
Bishop received a bachelor's from the Univ. of Georgia in 1967, going on to complete a master's in English. He taught English at the US Air Force Academy Preparatory School in Colorado Springs from 1968-72 & then at the Univ. of Georgia. He also taught a course in science fiction at the US Air Force Academy in 1971. He left teaching in 1974 to become a full-time writer.
Bishop won the Nebula in 1981 for The Quickening (Best Novelette) & in 1982 for No Enemy But Time (Best Novel). He's also received four Locus Awards & his work has been nominated for numerous Hugos. He & British author Ian Watson collaborated on a novel set in the universe of one of Bishop’s earlier works. He's also written two mystery novels with Paul Di Filippo, under the joint pseudonym Philip Lawson. His work has been translated into over a dozen languages.
Bishop has published more than 125 pieces of short fiction which have been gathered in seven collections. His stories have appeared in Playboy, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, the Missouri Review, the Indiana Review, the Chattahoochee Review, the Georgia Review, Omni & Interzone.
In addition to fiction, Bishop has published poetry gathered in two collections & won the 1979 Rhysling Award for his poem For the Lady of a Physicist. He's also had essays & reviews published in the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Omni Magazine & the NY Review of Science Fiction. A collection of his nonfiction, A Reverie for Mister Ray, was issued in 2005 by PS Publishing. He's written introductions to books by Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, James Tiptree, Jr., Pamela Sargent, Gardner Dozois, Lucius Shepard, Mary Shelley, Andy Duncan, Paul Di Filippo, Bruce Holland Rogers & Rhys Hughes. He's edited six anthologies, including the Locus Award-winning Light Years & Dark & A Cross of Centuries: 25 Imaginative Tales about the Christ, published by Thunder’s Mouth Press shortly before the company closed.
In recent years, Bishop has returned to teaching & is writer-in-residence at LaGrange College located near his home in Pine Mountain, GA. He & his wife, Jeri, have a daughter & two grandchildren. His son, Christopher James Bishop, was one of the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre on 4/16/07.
Bishop received a bachelor's from the Univ. of Georgia in 1967, going on to complete a master's in English. He taught English at the US Air Force Academy Preparatory School in Colorado Springs from 1968-72 & then at the Univ. of Georgia. He also taught a course in science fiction at the US Air Force Academy in 1971. He left teaching in 1974 to become a full-time writer.
Bishop won the Nebula in 1981 for The Quickening (Best Novelette) & in 1982 for No Enemy But Time (Best Novel). He's also received four Locus Awards & his work has been nominated for numerous Hugos. He & British author Ian Watson collaborated on a novel set in the universe of one of Bishop’s earlier works. He's also written two mystery novels with Paul Di Filippo, under the joint pseudonym Philip Lawson. His work has been translated into over a dozen languages.
Bishop has published more than 125 pieces of short fiction which have been gathered in seven collections. His stories have appeared in Playboy, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, the Missouri Review, the Indiana Review, the Chattahoochee Review, the Georgia Review, Omni & Interzone.
In addition to fiction, Bishop has published poetry gathered in two collections & won the 1979 Rhysling Award for his poem For the Lady of a Physicist. He's also had essays & reviews published in the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, Omni Magazine & the NY Review of Science Fiction. A collection of his nonfiction, A Reverie for Mister Ray, was issued in 2005 by PS Publishing. He's written introductions to books by Philip K. Dick, Theodore Sturgeon, James Tiptree, Jr., Pamela Sargent, Gardner Dozois, Lucius Shepard, Mary Shelley, Andy Duncan, Paul Di Filippo, Bruce Holland Rogers & Rhys Hughes. He's edited six anthologies, including the Locus Award-winning Light Years & Dark & A Cross of Centuries: 25 Imaginative Tales about the Christ, published by Thunder’s Mouth Press shortly before the company closed.
In recent years, Bishop has returned to teaching & is writer-in-residence at LaGrange College located near his home in Pine Mountain, GA. He & his wife, Jeri, have a daughter & two grandchildren. His son, Christopher James Bishop, was one of the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre on 4/16/07.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 11, 2011
Who Made Stevie Crye? is perhaps one of the creepiest novels I've read in a long time. Stevie Crye is a young widow raising two children while trying to make it as a writer. Life was tough before, but when her typewriter becomes possessed, things get really out of control.
There are so many bizarre elements to this amazing piece of metaficton. One is never really sure where reality ends and the work of the hijacked typewriter begins. Has the typewriter taken over her life? Is her life now just whatever this entity creates? With some of the creepiest illustrations ever, thanks to Jeffrey K. Potter, this book is chilling all the way to the end.
There are so many bizarre elements to this amazing piece of metaficton. One is never really sure where reality ends and the work of the hijacked typewriter begins. Has the typewriter taken over her life? Is her life now just whatever this entity creates? With some of the creepiest illustrations ever, thanks to Jeffrey K. Potter, this book is chilling all the way to the end.
April 13, 2024
This stays more to the fantasy side of things, but that’s not a criticism. The horror sequences, while sparse, are effectively ghoulish and imaginative. The photo-illustrations are a neat concept and nicely complement the nightmare quality of the horror sections. The eventual turn to meta-narrative stuff (Who’s *really* writing things??) is clever but wraps up a little too conventionally for my liking. Still, the fact that this manages to pull off meta stuff about writing without coming across cutesy or otherwise irritating is a miracle in and of itself so I can’t really complain. Plus this takes place in southeast and makes good use of the location and culture (the inclusion of, quite literally, a Magic Black Character notwithstanding) so I have to give it a thumbs up on principle.
July 4, 2010
finally got around to reading this after first discovering it on the jones and newman 100 best horror stories of all time list about ten years ago.
great list, by the way... led me to The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories, and The Cellar, among others. really, really, really good list, for the most part. you can check it out here if you want:
http://home.comcast.net/~netaylor1/jo...
but as for this book... it's kinda stinky. which is sad, because i have a lot of respect for michael bishop. No Enemy But Time was pretty good, if i remember right. and he wrote a book about philip k. dick (Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas), so obviously he has good taste. and this actually is a pretty disturbing book... for a while. until it suddenly just gets really boring. i think about the time when i finally realized that we were gonna be doing the "who is writing this book, the typewriter or the lady? and is it real or a dream or what?" for the whole damn thing. that and the monkey. got tired of the monkey. though i really liked the whole sucking-blood-from-the-finger thing.
great list, by the way... led me to The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, The King in Yellow and Other Horror Stories, and The Cellar, among others. really, really, really good list, for the most part. you can check it out here if you want:
http://home.comcast.net/~netaylor1/jo...
but as for this book... it's kinda stinky. which is sad, because i have a lot of respect for michael bishop. No Enemy But Time was pretty good, if i remember right. and he wrote a book about philip k. dick (Philip K. Dick is Dead, Alas), so obviously he has good taste. and this actually is a pretty disturbing book... for a while. until it suddenly just gets really boring. i think about the time when i finally realized that we were gonna be doing the "who is writing this book, the typewriter or the lady? and is it real or a dream or what?" for the whole damn thing. that and the monkey. got tired of the monkey. though i really liked the whole sucking-blood-from-the-finger thing.
May 16, 2021
This book is listed and reviewed in Stephen Jones and Kim Newman's book: Horror: 100 Best Books. It was first published by Arkham House. Given this pedigree, I had high expectations.
It's one of the strangest books I've ever read. It's truly unclassifiable. It's meta-fictional, playful, and humorous. I found it a bit tedious and mundane, at first, but it became increasingly inventive and fantastical after the first 50 pages or so.
This is the first book I've read by Michael Bishop. I've looked at his bibliography, and it's quite impressive. There's a lot to choose from, so I may be back for more someday.
It's one of the strangest books I've ever read. It's truly unclassifiable. It's meta-fictional, playful, and humorous. I found it a bit tedious and mundane, at first, but it became increasingly inventive and fantastical after the first 50 pages or so.
This is the first book I've read by Michael Bishop. I've looked at his bibliography, and it's quite impressive. There's a lot to choose from, so I may be back for more someday.
December 21, 2022
If you can find this book, get it! One of my favorite comedy/horror novels! They really need to make this into an ebook so more people can read it.
January 11, 2008
Very strange but very good book.
February 23, 2024
En apprenant la mort de Michael Bishop, j'ai réalisé que j'avais beaucoup apprécié tout ce que j'ai pu lire de lui (le génial « Requiem pour Philip K. Dick », plus quelques nouvelles ici et là), sans jamais vraiment creuser plus loin - voilà comment je me suis retrouvé à lire « La machine infernale », roman fantastique/horreur publié en 1985 et jamais réédité, sur lequel je ne serais probablement jamais tombé » par hasard, et ç'aurait été sacrément dommage. « What made Stevie Crye » (titre original, malheureusement intraduisible, et beaucoup plus signifiant que la version française) est un OVNI littéraire, ça semble évident évident dès la quatrième de couverture (je vous renvoie au lien Noosfère) ; et pourtant, les premiers chapitres sont étrangement traditionnels, pour ne pas dire typiques des romans d' »horreur » US de l'époque – au point qu'on finit par se demander si Bishop n'est pas en train de pasticher le style et les intrigues d'un certain Stephen King... Et on finit par réaliser que c'est très exactement le cas, sauf que Bishop ne se contente pas d'imiter, mais dynamite méthodiquement sa propre construction. D'abord en la faisant glisser progressivement dans une dé-réalisation onirique qui évoque (en avance) le Lynch des années 90 - ou Philip K. Dick ; à ce stade, le lecteur peut avoir l'impression qu'on est juste passé d'un fantastique volontairement « standart » à un autre (celui qui joue sur la nature fuyante de la réalité et/ou de sa perception), certes un peu plus audacieux mais pas non plus très surprenant. C'est compter sans la perversité de l'auteur, qui à partir de là se joue de nous et de nos attentes, pour nous débarquer sur des rivages imprévisibles, quelque part entre post-modernisme et new-weird. Autant le dire tout de suite, les amateurs de récits cadrés - avec un début, un milieu et une fin clairs et nets et délimités – risquent de ne pas apprécier, voire se sentir floués ; personnellement, j'ai adoré me faire mener en bateau par Michael Bishop - et réaliser petit à petit les implications du titre original.
August 3, 2018
What an unusual and surprising book! It's listed in both the 100 best fantasy (pringle) and the 100 best horror (jones) books, and I was expecting more horror but ended up with more fantasy--and a parody of Stephen King, really--and a rich soupcon of postmodern metafiction (a la My Little Blue Dress or, more closely, the film version of Adaptation.
I thought it was terrific, though not quite moving enough to push it to 5 star status. But really, really interesting, and just my cup of tea. (I was relieved it wasn't too horrific--I like horror, but light horror only ... anything dwelling on gruesome torture of people is not for me).
Do stay for the author's afterword, it's delightful.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
I thought it was terrific, though not quite moving enough to push it to 5 star status. But really, really interesting, and just my cup of tea. (I was relieved it wasn't too horrific--I like horror, but light horror only ... anything dwelling on gruesome torture of people is not for me).
Do stay for the author's afterword, it's delightful.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
September 29, 2017
Forgotten how much I'd loved this
Being some twenty-five plus years since I read this, I found the old paperback in my garage while cleaning in preparation for a husband returning home from the hospital with leukemia. A little too close to home, I put it away. As weeks turned to months, I found it available on Kindle and guiltily read it while I listened to him in the next room. We are all so brief, so fragile. We owe it to ourselves to indulge in some meta storytelling that celebrates this while simultaneously wrenching control of the narrative to an end that is more satisfying.
Being some twenty-five plus years since I read this, I found the old paperback in my garage while cleaning in preparation for a husband returning home from the hospital with leukemia. A little too close to home, I put it away. As weeks turned to months, I found it available on Kindle and guiltily read it while I listened to him in the next room. We are all so brief, so fragile. We owe it to ourselves to indulge in some meta storytelling that celebrates this while simultaneously wrenching control of the narrative to an end that is more satisfying.
November 20, 2017
Entertaining, not terribly frightening.
January 11, 2021
Starting dragging after about 80 pages.
February 15, 2021
Ridiculously goofy dialogue. From what I could tell the story wasn’t going anywhere anyway. Couldn’t make it very far. Total waste of a great title.
June 18, 2015
I had to pick this up fir a dream symbology class this year. I was not excited to read it, and put off evem cracking it open.
However, once I did start the book (about a week before finals), I was done within a week.
It's a psychological mind-f*ck, that has you wondering whether Stevie is hallucinating or not. A strange, but rather interesting read for those interested in oneirology or symbolism in general.
I'd never read horror before this.
However, once I did start the book (about a week before finals), I was done within a week.
It's a psychological mind-f*ck, that has you wondering whether Stevie is hallucinating or not. A strange, but rather interesting read for those interested in oneirology or symbolism in general.
I'd never read horror before this.
October 24, 2011
Disturbing horror-fantasy in a mundane setting.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews