Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law & Order SVU is a 2013 weird fiction novella by Carmen Maria Machado, told in the form of 272 capsule synopses for the first 12 seasons of the police procedural, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. It was first published in The American Reader, in May 2013.
Contents
Synopsis
As Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson investigate standard cases of horrific depravity and cruelty, they gradually find themselves enmeshed in a mysterious situation involving alien abductions, ghosts with bells for eyes, and—perhaps most disturbingly—the appearance of Abler and Henson, two doppelgängers who are living Stabler and Benson's lives better than Stabler and Benson are.
Reception
The Huffington Post included it on a list of "the 10 Best Short Stories You've Never Read", describing it as "funny, disturbing, canny, and inventive", and "engaging, strange, and wholly original." At National Public Radio, K. Tempest Bradford compared it to "Lovecraft meets Dick Wolf", stating that it is her "favorite" of Machado's work, while Strange Horizons called it a "highlight of the year".