Bible Stories for Adults

Starred review from February 15, 1996
Morrow's "Towing Jehovah" (1994), which has just won the 1995 World Fantasy Award for best novel, wickedly satirizes orthodox religion by recounting the journey of an oil tanker towing God's immense, decaying corpse to its final resting place at the North Pole. The stories in Morrow's new collection run in a similar vein, deliciously skewering not only Judeo-Christian mythology but other sacred cows of modern society, from capitalism to New Age spiritualism. In the Nebula-winning "Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge," Morrow presents a prostitute who is rescued by the ark's crew from a flood but who shouldn't have survived, for she inevitably helps revive the evils God meant to destroy. "The Confessions of Ebenezer Scrooge" delightfully exposes the flaws of corporate charity when Marley's ghost returns with another round of rebukes for a disconcerted Scrooge. In Bible stories numbers 20 ("The Tower" ) and 31 ("The Covenant" ), respectively, Morrow gives us God's own amendment, in His own words, to the Tower of Babel story and describes a computer's reconstruction of Moses' tablets. Morrow's brand of mordant wit invites comparison with such master satirists as Vonnegut and even Swift, and he deserves to share an audience with them that sprawls beyond the bounds of genre fandom. Not to be missed. ((Reviewed Feb. 15, 1996))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1996, American Library Association.)