In his foreword to Ringing Changes, R. A. Lafferty refers to his stories this way: "These stories are intended to be entertainments, even the several of them that leak a little blood out of them. They are amusements.

Be entertained then, be amused! and the superior ones among you will even be delighted in several places."

It is clearly evident when reading these that Lafferty is playing and putting on a show intended to entertain. I felt like there was a jester in my living room frolicing around and giggling while I tried to pay attention to the story.

After a couple hours I realized that I should only read R. A. Lafferty in fairly small doses. But it was too late. The best way for me to describe his writing is "trippy", like he's smoking some magic pipe that I'm not. Tripping on another plane that doesn't really intersect with mine. These stories in Ringing Changes come from 1966-1984, but mainly from 70-75. To me they had that "out there" Dangerous Visions feel of the era. You either connect with Lafferty's style or you don't, and generally speaking I'd say I don't. I had read many of these stories before, I realized, and got a kick out of re-reading "Old Foot Forgot", but Lafferty wears thin on me quickly.

"In Outraged Stone" is one I had not read before. It is mighty bizarre and may best be described as a human frog-alien (The 'Oganta') blood drinking body melding orgy, although I think it is about psychologists intended to record, decipher and dissect the Oganta's dreams, but end up going native in a big big way. Here's a taste, a quite mild taste, compared to most of it:

"Come here, Prince" Bonta Chrysalis cried suddenly, and one of the big Oganta leapt into her arms and wrapped long froggy legs around her till Bonta herself could hardly be seen. But she'd made her choice. She's taken one of the grinning gape-faced Oganta for her subject (subject for her study, and willing subject for her real whims) and she would not fail in this. ( )