Scales by Lewis Shiner
Title: Scales
Author: Lewis Shiner
In: Alien Sex (Ellen Datlow)
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Lust, Science fiction
Dates read: 17th December 2019
Pace: Slow
Format: Short story
Publisher: ROC
Year: 1990
5th sentence, 74th page: I woke up to Richard moaning.
When a woman finds out that her husband is having an affair, she takes their young daughter and leaves. But what if the woman who has her hooks in him is more than she seems? Who will she save?
This story started out simple enough. Woman thinks husband is drifting from her. Starts to believe that he’s having an affair. Then it starts to get weird, dark and twisted. And their daughter is pulled into the crazy. It very quickly becomes quite an uncomfortable story and anything but normal.
There seems to be a trend in the literature and common belief that it is men that are unfaithful. I’m not entirely sure, because I know people of both genders who have done the dirty. But it does highlight the questions “why are men unfaithful?” and “why do marriages end?”. It does this in a pretty intense way, but at least it asks the questions and makes you stop and think.
Compared to the other stories in the Alien Sex collection, this one is way less twisted and dark. It could almost pass for normal if there wasn’t one little bit of “otherworldly” presence. For this reason I probably enjoyed it a little bit more than some of the other stories in this collection. Because I didn’t finish it and immediately feel insanely uncomfortable.
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