I love Edward Lee’s work. His extreme horror fiction is a little “wet” for some readers, but when Lee gets too “dry” and academic that’s when the trouble starts.
Unfortunately the first tale in The Quest for Sex, Truth & Reality, “The Goddess of the New Dark Age ,” falls into Lee’s bone dry category. It’s reminiscent of some of Lee’s work in The Ushers, a collection of philosophical musings about the afterlife and the netherworld, rather than the character-driven tales of terror and suspense which are Lee’s specialty.
Things get slightly more interesting in the second story, “The Seeker,” which combines allegorical prose with B-horror movie gross outs.
The final tale, “Pay Me,” is described by Lee in the afterward as “socio-philosophical pornography,” which is as apt a description as any for this strange story. Things get extreme here–way out there–but it somehow doesn’t pack the emotional or visceral punch of Lee’s other hardcore tales, like The Bighead or his Micah Hayes stories.
The Quest for Sex, Truth & Reality isn’t Lee’s best work, but true fans will surely find some fun here, and for a price of $2.49 you don’t feel ripped off.