The Shrinking Man
The basis of The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), whose closing monologue Matheson wrote and which remains 1950s SF cinema's philosophical peak; the novel established the 'domestic catastrophe' mode he made his own.
Book Entry · Horror
What is Koko about?
Four veterans of a Vietnam platoon reunite at the Memorial's dedication and compare letters: across South-East Asia, bodies are surfacing with regimental cards in their mouths reading KOKO, and the dead men's itineraries point to someone from their unit — someone shaped by what happened at the village of Ia Thuc, the atrocity the novel circles with documentary patience. The hunt runs from Washington to Singapore and Bangkok to Manhattan's West Side, but Straub's real territory is memory itself: every man's account of Ia Thuc differs, and the killer's interior chapters are among horror's most disquieting writing without a single supernatural element. The first Blue Rose book, and the deepest.
Why it matters
World Fantasy Award winner: the novel that fused horror with the literary war novel and crime fiction, founding the Blue Rose trilogy and the psychological-thriller wing of modern horror.
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Behold the Man
Nebula winner and the New Wave's most notorious provocation: time-travel paradox as theology, handled with a seriousness that outlasted the scandal.