It is rare to encounter a writer whose work can be so neatly divided into two halves. George Saunders is known as a satirist with an interest in consumerism and the technology of the near future, but occasionally he will publish moving, sometimes brutal social realist tales. Early stories such as ‘Christmas’ were like strange, dirty artefacts among the glossier SF-tinged material.
Tenth of December is such a strong collection because the wackiness is mostly kept at bay. These are stories about people who are trying to do the right thing in an ungrateful world, and there is less of the shrill goofiness that comprised much of his previous collection, In Persuasion Nation.
But there is still a spectrum: near the crazier end is ‘Escape from Spiderhead’, about a drug that administers a feeling of immediate love (‘Can we stop war? We can sure as heck slow it down!’).
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