A review by iffer
Nightmare Range: The Collected Sueno and Bascom Short Stories by Martin Limón

4.0

4 stars if I had been reading these as short stories. The setting of the 1970s on and near American army bases sets this collection apart. Probably due to his service in Korean for a decade Martin Limon's stories ring true, including the dark humor and portrayal of the absurd that are often found in books about war. Reading this as a complete collection rather than serialized, Limon's improvement as a writer, and the nuance of the characters was more evident. Although the setting and the human elements were still the stars of the story, the mysteries became a bit more twisty as well. Although there were a few times in which I was irritated at the whole, "Korea is foreign!" type statements, and reminder in just about every story that Sueno and Bascom had to take their shoes off before entering people's homes and that Koreans "love their kimchee," Limon likely wrote it this way because it's realistically how a GI would've thought and/or behaved at the time.