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The Shrinking Man (S.F. Masterworks)
by: Richard Matheson

Off The Bookshelf's Price: £6.99

Prices subject to change.

Used Price: £1.00
Collectible Price: £49.95
Third Party New Price: £2.75

Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780575074637
ISBN: 0575074639
Label: Gollancz
Manufacturer: Gollancz
Number Of Pages: 208
Publication Date: January 09, 2003
Publisher: Gollancz
Studio: Gollancz
Sales Rank: 59712

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Mission Of Gravity (Gollancz SF collector's edition)

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- A stimulating book
A stimulating book. Very entertaining at times but it also seemed tedious to me. I wouldn't say it was a masterpiece but it has some good parts that makes you apprciate it. Another book with a good concept of a man who shrinks. Great Ending!

Rating:

- A sensitive and original story. Typical Matheson hero.
A few years ago I read Matheson's 'I Am Legend' and loved it. Recently I was looking in a charity shop for a book to read whilst waiting for the train and after nearly giving up found this Matheson book. The illustration of a man being chased by a giant spider on the cover nearly put me off but when I saw that the story was written by Matheson I snapped it up. The story has many similarities to I Am Legend; the main character is a thirty-something year old virile male with a head for science and practicality. In both stories he is thrown into an untenable situation where the difficulty of survival stops his philosphising from being self-destructive as he must keep thinking practically. The main characters are almost hyperbolically masculine, ... Read More:

Rating:

- Size isn't Everything
Scott Carey had been living out on the West Coast but it was time to move East where his brother had some work for him. But Scott is the sort of person that the universe seems to enjoy screwing over.
A final day out on his boat ends with his being coated by a strange glittering spray. At first it barely seemed anything to worry about. A slight stinging sensation soon forgotten. But all too soon Scott finds that he's gradually but relentlessly shrinking at a seventh of an inch a day.
Frightened and upset by this strange condition Scott tries hiding away - there's not enough money for the doctors and despite all the tests they could do, they were unable to create an antidote to the poison in his veins. Meanwhile he's still shrinking. As Scott ... Read More:

Rating:

- Fifties paranoia from a different angle
‘The Shrinking Man’ can be seen superficially as the very basic tale of a man who shrinks one seventh of an inch a day, with all that may entail. The novel, however is far more than it may at first appear.
What makes this novel more than a sensationalist pulp-fiction work is that Matheson concentrates on the psychological and social implications which first make themselves felt when Scott realises that his wife is taller than he is.
We then embarks on a gradual process of emasculation, exploring not only Scott’s reactions to the shrinking of his body but the changing attitudes of his wife, daughter and the outside world.
Matheson cleverly exploits symbolically and metaphorically issues central to male pride and the integrity of one’s ... Read More:

Rating:

- Better than the film
OK, I'm assuming that everyone's seen the film here, not too unlikely as it was made over 40 years ago. Films made from books can either ignore the book almost completely and usually end up being terrible (a la 'Damnation Alley') though ocasionally this produces a good film (cf 'Blade Runner' - very different from the book 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep', but still a good film.) Or they can actually try to be faithful to the book, which usually produces a good film, but can fail (cf 'Dune' - but that book was pretty unfilmable, at least in 3 hours. I understand the mini-series was better.) In this case, the film was reasonably faithful to the book and was quite good for a 50s SciFi movie.

The book differs in some ways, of course, for example ... Read More:

Books : The Shrinking Man (S.F. Masterworks)