Year’s Best Weird Fiction, Vol. 2, edited by Kathe Koja & Michael Kelly
“He didn’t even know he was dead. I had just shot this guy in the head and he’s still standing there giving me shit.”
Skein and Bone, by V.H. Leslie
The fourteen dark and weird stories in this first collection are as finely crafted as you’d expect from her background, and as mysteriously suggestive as any cryptic design.
Wylding Hall, by Elizabeth Hand
A Folk Rock Frightener in England Elizabeth Hand, a prize-winning New York-born author who lives in Maine, has produced one of the best English mystery tales for many a day. “It began as a riff on Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca,” she has said elsewhere, and the riff developed into a mesmerizing original composition with, as it […]
Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer
A Suspenseful, Eerie Page-Turner Jeff VanderMeer’s star has been rising for some years now, and if Annihilation, the first book of The Southern Reach Trilogy is any indication, this series will satisfy long-time readers and earn him many new ones. The story unfolds as a group of four women scientists travel into “Area X” a […]
The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman
Delightful, Enchanting and Scary Do you remember what it feels like to be a child, able to believe in the possibility of magic? This book transported me back to, once again, believing in the delightful world of make believe … or is it? The story starts off with a death and a funeral, in which […]
Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow
If You’re Not Doing Anything Wrong… Marcus Yallow is a 17-year old geek genius living in a near-future San Francisco where kids are monitored constantly by cyber-security on their school-issued laptops, radio frequency ID chips in their library books, and gait recognition software in the halls. Marcus delights in getting around the system with harmless […]
Brown Girl in the Ring, by Nalo Hopkinson
Serving the Spirits In this near future, post-apocalyptic Toronto, the wealthy live in the suburbs. In the inner city, government and social structures have disintegrated after a series of riots. “The ones who couldn’t or wouldn’t get out,” use a system of barter, and live under the shadow of crime-lord Rudy and his posse. Ti-Jeanne, […]
The short stories of Kelly Link
Nobody writes cooler stories than Kelly Link. Link’s stories draw from fairy tales, myth, pop culture, experimental, horror, gothic, and detective fiction, the tabloids, dreams, nightmares, and half a dozen other things. But this is not merely pulp fiction—wham, bam, thrill and chill. Link uses the tools of pulp fiction to deal with literary concerns: […]
Waking the Moon, by Elizabeth Hand
The Moon with a Knife-Sharp Edge Three unwitting college students stand between the reawakening of a dark goddess and the Benandanti, a secret society of magicians who have been running the world for thousands of years. Waking the Moon, which won a Mythopoeic Award and a James Tiptree, Jr. Award, is part horror, part coming […]
Silently and Very Fast, by Catherynne M. Valente
A Beautiful View of The Singularity Imagine if you could go anywhere, do anything, and never be alone. Would it bother you if your closest companion and co-creator was a machine? You might think so, but then again you might change your mind after reading this gorgeous, evocative novel, narrated by Elefsis, the machine in […]