The Seven Deadly Hotels by Bruce Holland Rogers is a different story altogether. Reading it I couldn’t escape the suspicion the author must have had one hell of a bad trip to Europe once. The title an obvious play on the seven deadly sins this story has seven repetitions. In each of them an unwary traveller finds himself in a strange hotel in various places across Europe, where they are being driven (or tricked?) into doing things they normally would not consider.
I must admit the story felt a bit forced until the title and the and the stories connected in my mind. I have not had a very religious upbringing so it took me a while. Guess I should have paid closer attention to the lessons that covered Dante.
The boy watched as I ate lavender colored cakes, pistachio-powdered biscuits, and little horns of flavored cream so scrumptious that I could not resist going around the lobby, from basket to basket, eating every last one of them.
In a number of somewhat surreal scenes Rogers depicts each of the seven sins. Above his interpretation of gluttony. Apparently it is not all that hard to bring the bad in people, as each of our travellers finds out. The darker sides of human nature is is fascinating material for a writer and here too it makes for a good story.
This is part of the BookSpot Central Short Fiction Round Table spotlight on stories that will be included in Best American Fantasy 2008 edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer and forthcoming from Prime Books. Please see the intro to the spotlight.
