I read "Perpetua," the last story in Kit Reed's pessimistic short story collection, in a different anthology (Al Sarrantonio's Flights). It thrilled me; the story was full of velocity, detailed and well-imagined, tagged with the kind of twist that seems inevitable only afterwards. I bought Dogs of Truth from Amazon that night, and found "Perpetua" in it, and very little else.

Though Reed's targets are fairly fresh, her extrapolation is stale and rote. On meeting any character with a faddish ideology, the reader can rest easy: those yuppies are going to get their poetic justice! "The Shop of Little Horrors," for example, introduces a wealthy, self-involved couple who are childfree--in fact, they're downright misopedistic. Guess what chases them around the city? Guess what's hiding in wait when they come home?

Reed never makes a point she can't make twice, and if she can make a point twice, she won't make it just once. A snippet from one story that spoils an interesting conceit, "The Zombie Prince:"
"--You are my first.

'First what?' First what, she wonders."

Then, one paragraph later:

"--Does the word 'undead' mean anything to you?

'No!' It doesn't."
I don't mean to bash all the stories. "Perpetua," as mentioned, is superb, and "High Rise High" has fun with a sprawling cast. "Captive Kong" actually pushes a few buttons (one nonwhite character is consistently called a "gorilla"). "Grand Opening" has a sweet and funny character story, albeit one buried in needless descriptions of extravagance.

But the book and most of its stories could stand to be cut by half or more. "Old Soldiers" describes a loud and incoherent patient in nursing home; during the story, he shouts "Who killed Vic?" eight times, and "I killed Vic!" four. The exercise of determining the character's name is left for the reader. ( )