Song for the Unraveling of the World - Evenson, Brian Review & Synopsis

Synopsis A newborn's absent face appears on the back of someone else's head, a filmmaker goes to gruesome lengths to achieve the silence he's after for his final scene, and a therapist begins, impossibly, to appear in a troubled patient's room late at night. In these stories of doubt, delusion, and paranoia, no belief, no claim to objectivity, is immune to the distortions of human perception. Here, self-deception is a means of justifying our most inhuman impulses-whether we know it or not. Review Brian Evenson is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes and has been a finalist for the Edgar Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He is also the winner of the International Horror Guild Award and the American Library Association's award for Best Horror Novel, and his work has been named in Time Out New York's top books. "These stories are carefully calibrated exercises in ambiguity in which Evenson (Windeye) leaves it unclear how much of the off-kilterness exists outside of the deep-seated pathologies that motivate his characters." -Publishers Weekly, starred review "Evenson's little nightmares are deftly crafted, stylistically daring, and surprisingly emotional." -Kirkus Reviews "Missing persons, paranoia and psychosis . . . the kind of writer who leads you into the labyrinth, then abandons you there. It's hard to believe a guy can be so frightening, so consistently." -The New York Times "Evenson is one of our best living writers-regardless of genre . . . Song is a skillfully crafted, cleverly executed, and extremely entertaining collection." -NPR "Evenson renders the world as a place of infinite and paralyzing delusion. . . . In an Evenson story, a house isn't inescapable because of its lack of doors and windows; it's inescapable because it was built by an impressionable mind." -Los Angeles Review of Books "To read Evenson is to be privy to a precise, vivid, brilliant unpicking of the everyday-and its others." -China Mi�ville "You've heard of "postmodern' stories-well, Evenson's stories are post-everything. They are post-human, post-reason, post-apocalyptic. . . . in an Evenson story, there are two horrible things that can happen to you. You can either fail to survive, or survive." -The New York Times "[A] collection of short stories that deal with art, paranoia and the dark urges that haunt even the most normal people." -Los Angeles Times "Brian Evenson is one of my favorite living horror writers, and this collection is him at his eerie and disquieting best." -Carmen Maria Machado "Evenson . . . lures readers into each twisted tale by starting not at the beginning, but . . . somewhere else, creating a sense of disorientation and unease. As each tale unspools and each surreal world clarifies into a malformed sort of logic, the creeps set firmly in. . . . Readers of literary horror will not want to miss this one." -Library Journal "Evenson's uncanny but accessible fiction can remind you of Edgar Allan Poe or "The Twilight Zone' . . . an inspired, thoroughly entertaining book." -Star Tribune "I'm not convinced Brian Evenson is entirely human. His literary horror fiction is just too good, too immersive, and too alien for a mere mortal. This book has everything one comes to expect from Evenson-brief glimpses of dark worlds where no one is completely sure where they are, who they are, or what is real." -The A. V. Club "Evenson at his most intense and discomfiting . . . he makes our skin rise and crawl with the intimation that all, although outwardly normal, is certainly not. Why else are we paying attention so closely?" -Los Angeles Review of Books "Evenson is our most impressive explorer of the cracks in things that let in not the light, as Leonard Cohen would have it, but fever, chaos, and darkness." -Vulture "Song puts Evenson's staggering ventriloquism on display, incorporating elements of science fiction, horror, fantasy, translation, poetry, and myth, often within a single story." -Epiphany "[Evenson's] latest collection offers readers a fantastic overview of his strengths as a writer, from tales of bizarre obsessions to forays into nightmarish bodies and worlds." -Vol. 1 Brooklyn "Evenson goes to great lengths to undermine, to deterritorialize, to estrange us from our linguistic and ontological habitats. He breaks the iron grip of realism and peels back the monstrous underbelly of life." - Black Warrior Review "These are stories to tell in the dark for adults, ones that creep up your spine in the middle of the night, urging you to turn the light on again just one more time, lest something be watching you." -The Michigan Daily "Evenson's latest collection, Song for the Unraveling of the World, is more unassailable proof of why this consummate writers' writer deserves a much larger readership to scare senseless." -Brazos Bookstore "Mind-blowing, soul-wrecking literature of the highest order, the result of plain old damn good storytelling by an artist at the pinnacle of his career." -Ink Heist "Evenson understands both the precision of language and the gut-level appeal of the grindhouse, and the best of his work skates along the border between the two, combining aspects of both. . . . [A] perfect introduction to Evenson's work for those who are looking to experience it for the first time." -Tor "In Song for the Unraveling of the World, Brian Evenson explores what it's like to be unsettled in one's own home and skin. . . . Evenson leaves readers feeling most disturbed and empathetic." -The Arkansas International "Brian Evenson's bold and unique short fictions-equal parts surrealism, ontology, and dread-consistently lead the reader to truly shocking discoveries that are as disturbing as they are oddly beautiful. Song for the Unraveling of the World is a map of our paranoia- and anxiety-riddled, existentially challenged, pre-apocalyptic times." -Paul Tremblay "Terrifying, full of paranoia and delusion and at the same time haunting and beautiful." -The Bibliophile Librarian "[Evenson's stories] take us into intriguing if uncomfortable spaces where we've never been. Evenson's stories can't quite be said to occupy the genres that they play with, but genres occupy the stories, and he ties them into elegant little knots." -Locus "Evenson recalls Poe, as he finds the most frightening way to open another box of horrors." -Brooklyn Rail "Song for the Unraveling of the World is a truly and deeply amazing collection of horror that has every right to be shelved in the same section of the bookstore as Clive Barker and David Foster Wallace, Ursula Leguin and Louise Erdrich. He is that freaking good." -Postcards from a Dying World "Evenson walks the literary vs genre tightrope, uses minimalist prose to great effect, and has a sharp eye for application of conventions." -Signal Horizon Praise for Brian Evenson "Some of the stories here evoke Kafka, some Poe, some Beckett, some Roald Dahl, and one, a demonic teddy-bear chiller called "BearHeart-TM,' even Stephen King, but Evenson's deadpan style always estranges them a bit from their models: He tells his odd tales oddly, as if his mouth were dry and the words won't come out right." -New York Times Sunday Book Review "Evenson's fiction is equal parts obsessive, experimental, and violent. It can be soul-shaking." -New Yorker "Evenson's stories, small masterworks of literary horror, are elegantly tense. They operate in psychological territory, never relying on grossness or slasher silliness to convey their scariness. . . . For the Stephen King fan in the house: an author as capable, if a touch less prolific." -Kirkus Reviews "Admirers of Evenson (Windeye; Altmann's Tongue) applaud the edge he maintains between the unexplained and the intimate. This latest collection continues to explore that line, and for how much is left obscured, an eerie emotional echo remains. . . . Evenson's journey along the boundaries of short fiction make for an eye-opening dissection of the form." -Publishers Weekly "You never realize how deep his fiction has wormed its way into your brain until hours, days, even weeks later, when you're lying in the dark and Evenson's images come flooding back, unbidden. A Collapse of Horses will stay with you for a long time . . . whether you want it to or not." -Chicago Review of Books "While each piece in A Collapse of Horses stands alone as a tale that combines 'literary' and 'horror' elements in novel ways that blur genre distinctions, the collection intensifies as recurring motifs flow through the various narratives, settings, and fictional psyches: bodily and mental disintegration, the ambiguities of human physicality and consciousness, and the permeable borders between self and other." -Los Angeles Review of Books "A Collapse of Horses is a perennially dusty, dark, haunted house of atmospheric dilemmas whose plots continually reverse a reader's expectations." -The Collagist "Evenson is interested in philosophy and semiotics, the impossibility of ever truly knowing or naming the world, and our fundamental, helpless dependence on what our senses tell us. . . . . [His stories] are a wonderful feat of the uncanny." -Los Angeles Review Song for the Unraveling of the World From a modern master of the form, a new short story collection that dexterously walks the tightrope between literary fiction, sci-fi, and horror. From a modern master of the form, a new short story collection that dexterously walks the tightrope between literary fiction, sci-fi, and horror." The Warren X doesn’t have a name. He thought he had one—or many—but that might be the result of the failing memories of the personalities imprinted within him. Or maybe he really is called X. He’s also not as human as he believes himself to be. But when he discovers the existence of another—above ground, outside the protection of the Warren—X must learn what it means to be human, or face the destruction of their two species. The Warren is a new novella from Brian Evenson. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. But when he discovers the existence of another—above ground, outside the protection of the Warren—X must learn what it means to be human, or face the destruction of their two species. The Warren is a new novella from Brian Evenson." Solution As climate change wreaks havoc on the earth and the fate of humanity grows dire, a scientist makes a plan to save humanity that would shame the devil. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. As climate change wreaks havoc on the earth and the fate of humanity grows dire, a scientist makes a plan to save humanity that would shame the devil." Immobility When you open your eyes things already seem to be happening without you. You don't know who you are and you don't remember where you've been. You know the world has changed, that a catastrophe has destroyed what used to exist before, but you can't remember exactly what did exist before. And you're paralyzed from the waist down apparently, but you don't remember that either. A man claiming to be your friend tells you your services are required. Something crucial has been stolen, but what he tells you about it doesn't quite add up. You've got to get it back or something bad is going to happen. And you've got to get it back fast, so they can freeze you again before your own time runs out. Before you know it, you're being carried through a ruined landscape on the backs of two men in hazard suits who don't seem anything like you at all, heading toward something you don't understand that may well end up being the death of you. Welcome to the life of Josef Horkai.... At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. From the award-winning author Brian Evenson comes Immobility, a far-future thriller that looks at a post-human world struggling to stay human When you open your eyes things already seem to be happening without you." The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell "Here is how monstrous humans are." A sentient, murderous prosthetic leg; shadowy creatures lurking behind a shimmering wall; brutal barrow men--of all the terrors that populate The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell, perhaps the most alarming are the beings who decimated the habitable Earth: humans. In this new short story collection, Brian Evenson envisions a chilling future beyond the Anthropocene that forces excruciating decisions about survival and self-sacrifice in the face of toxic air and a natural world torn between revenge and regeneration. Combining psychological and ecological horror, each tale thrums with Evenson's award-winning literary craftsmanship, dark humor, and thrilling suspense. "Here is how monstrous humans are." The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six From Hugo Award-Winning Editor Neil Clarke, the Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year Collected in a Single Paperback Volume Keeping up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more—a task that can be accomplished by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to present the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, a yearly anthology compiled by Hugo and World Fantasy Award–winning editor Neil Clarke, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers. The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Clarke, publisher and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed and award-winning magazine Clarkesworld, has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year’s writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome “sensawunda” that the genre has to offer. ... by Kacen Callender; Best Novella, “The Butcher's Table,” by Nathan Ballingrud; Best Short Fiction, “Read After Burning,” by Maria Dahvana Headley; Best Collection, Song for the Unraveling of the World : Stories, by Brian Evenson ; ..." The Best Horror of the Year The first three volumes of The Best Horror of the Year have been widely praised for their quality, variety, and comprehensiveness. With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect—and enjoy. Reminiscent of Dan Simmons ' brilliant epic novel The Terror in its depiction of the cold and bleakness of the Arctic winter, Dark Matter is a smaller, more intimate story , told in one voice. But the increasing claustrophobia, ..." Who We're Reading When We're Reading Murakami How did a loner destined for a niche domestic audience become one of the most famous writers alive? A "fascinating" look at the "business of bringing a best-selling novelist to a global audience" (The Atlantic)―and a “rigorous” exploration of the role of translators and editors in the creation of literary culture (The Paris Review). Thirty years ago, when Haruki Murakami’s works were first being translated, they were part of a series of pocket-size English-learning guides released only in Japan. Today his books can be read in fifty languages and have won prizes and sold millions of copies globally. How did a loner destined for a niche domestic audience become one of the most famous writers alive? This book tells one key part of the story. Its cast includes an expat trained in art history who never intended to become a translator; a Chinese American ex-academic who never planned to work as an editor; and other publishing professionals in New York, London, and Tokyo who together introduced a pop-inflected, unexpected Japanese voice to the wider literary world. David Karashima synthesizes research, correspondence, and interviews with dozens of individuals—including Murakami himself—to examine how countless behind-the-scenes choices over the course of many years worked to build an internationally celebrated author’s persona and oeuvre. His careful look inside the making of the “Murakami Industry" uncovers larger questions: What role do translators and editors play in framing their writers’ texts? What does it mean to translate and edit “for a market”? How does Japanese culture get packaged and exported for the West? “When a work of fiction touches someone, it becomes contagious, swimming into new worlds through the lives and ... — BRIAN EVENSON , author of Song for the Unraveling of the World and Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk ..." Imaginary Museums In this collection of compact fictions, Nicolette Polek transports us to a gently unsettling realm inhabited by disheveled landlords, a fugitive bride, a seamstress who forgets what people look like, and two rival falconers from neighboring towns. They find themselves in bathhouses, sports bars, grocery stores, and forests in search of exits, pink tennis balls, licorice, and independence. Yet all of her beautifully strange characters are possessed by a familiar and human longing for connection: to their homes, families, God, and themselves. ... these wonderfully subtle, often laconic stories suddenly catch the light and cast it in unexpected, profoundly revealing directions. A quirky, startling debut.” — Brian Evenson , author of Song for the Unraveling of the World “There ..." The Splendid City A genre-blending story of modern witchcraft, a police state and WTF characters, for fans of Alice Hoffman and Madeline Miller. -- In the state of Liberty, water is rationed at alarming prices, free speech is hardly without a cost, and Texas has just declared itself its own country. In this society, paranoia is well-suited because eyes and ears are all around, and they are judging. Always judging. This terrifying (and yet somehow vaguely familiar) terrain is explored via Eleanor – a young woman eagerly learning about the gifts of her magic through the support of her coven. But being a white witch is not as easy as they portray it in the books, and she’s already been placed under ‘house arrest’ with a letch named Stan, a co-worker who wronged her in the past and now exists in the form of a cat. A talking cat who loves craft beers, picket lines, and duping and ‘shooting’ people. Eleanor has no time for Stan and his shenanigans, because she finds herself helping another coven locate a missing witch which she thinks is mysteriously linked to the shortage of water in Liberty. Brian Evenson , author of Song for the Unraveling of the World “The Splendid City is a splendid read indeed! How can anyone resist talking cats? I know I can't. This novel is so much fun and yet there is a deeper, darker story here ..." Where Black Stars Rise "Where Black Stars Rise boldly pushes the limits of what a comic can do. ...It's a gorgeous work. I loved it." —Trung Le Nguyen, author of The Magic Fish Nadia Shammas and Marie Enger's Where Black Stars Rise is an eldritch horror graphic novel that explores mental illness and diaspora, set in modern-day Brooklyn. Dr. Amal Robardin, a Lebanese immigrant and a therapist in training, finds herself out of her depth when her first client, Yasmin, a schizophrenic, is visited by a nightly malevolent presence that seems all too real. Yasmin becomes obsessed with Robert Chambers’ classic horror story collection The King in Yellow. Messages she finds in the book lead Yasmin to disappear, seeking answers she can’t find in therapy. Amal attempts to retrace her patient’s last steps—and accidentally slips through dimensions, ending up in Carcosa, realm of the King in Yellow. Determined to find her way out, Amal enlists the help of a mysterious guide. Can Amal save Yasmin? Or are they both trapped forever? “Strange is the night where black stars rise, and strange moons circle through the skies. But stranger still is lost Carcosa...” —From The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. - BRIAN EVENSON , AUTHOR OF SONG FOR THE UNRAVELING OF THE WORLD " A disorienting and compelling tale of unmasking and unreality . A triumphant performance of The King in Yellow . Encore ! " -JONATHAN SIMS , AUTHOR OF THIRTEEN STOREYS ..." The Valiant Little Tailor The classic Grimms' fairy tale of the valiant little tailor, as you’ve never heard it before Once upon a time, there lived a valiant little tailor who killed seven flies with one blow—but who is this narrator who has abruptly inserted himself into the story, claiming authorship? He’s indignant: the fairy tale, borne carelessly along by the popular imagination, subjected to the transformations of oral tradition, was collected in a lamentable state by the Brothers Grimm, and he intends to restore the tale and its giant-slaying, unicorn-fighting, boar-hunting star to their original magnificence. But the true hero of the story remains to be seen: Is it the tailor, the narrator, or someone else entirely? In this explosive retelling of the classic tale, Éric Chevillard enlists the reader in a dizzying game of crack-the-whip, with new directions and delights in every paragraph. At once irreverent and deeply sincere, this book is a mischievous, multifarious celebration of the power of stories and those who tell them. Brian Evenson , author of Song for the Unraveling of the World “ This novel, superbly translated by Jordan Stump, is vintage Chevillard. A fairy tale for our time, it is engagingly playful, telling a story we thought we knew, ..." Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #4 Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #4 is a curated selection of novellas by editor Ann VanderMeer This collection includes: Mandelbrot the Magnificent by Liz Ziemska The Warren by Brian Evenson "Liz Ziemska has fashioned a beautiful story about one famous survivor and the magic and mathematics he’s brought to the world."—Karen Joy Fowler on Mandelbrot the Magnificent "A creepy, mind-bending quest of identity and mystery, told with a master's skill. No one explores inner landscapes quite like Brian Evenson."—Jeff VanderMeer on The Warren At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. Tor.com Publishing Editorial Spotlight #4 is a curated selection of novellas by editor Ann VanderMeer This collection includes: Mandelbrot the Magnificent by Liz Ziemska The Warren by Brian Evenson Liz Ziemska’s Mandelbrot the Magnificent ..." The Cabin The collection showcases the breadth of talent writing in the horror genre today, with contributions from a wide range of genre luminaries including Laird Barron, Indrapramit Das, Shaun Hamill, Daniel M. Lavery, Matthew Lyons, T. Kingfisher ..." The Salt Grows Heavy A sensuous and strange horror novella full of creeping dread and delicious gore, twisting mermaid myths into something sharp, dangerous, and hungry, for fans of Christina Henry, Carmen Maria Machado and Eric LaRocca. After the murder of her husband and the fall of his empire, a mermaid and her plague doctor companion escape into the wilderness. Deep in the woods, they stumble across a village where children hunt each other for sport, sacrificing one of their own at the behest of three surgeons they call "the saints." These saints play god with their magic, harvesting the best bits of the children for themselves and piecing the sacrifices back together again. To save the children from their fates, the plague doctor must confront their past, and the mermaid must embrace the darkest parts of her true nature. PAUL TREMBLAY , AUTHOR OF THE CABIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD AND A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS " Cassandra Khaw's writing is ... BRIAN EVENSON , AUTHOR OF THE GLASSY , BURNING FLOOR OF HELL AND SONG FOR THE UNRAVELING OF THE WORLD PRAISE FOR ..." Tiny Nightmares A collection of horror–inspired flash fiction, featuring over 40 new stories from literary, horror, and emerging writers—edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto, the twisted minds behind Tiny Crimes: Very Short Tales of Mystery and Murder. In this playful, inventive collection, leading literary and horror writers spin chilling tales in only a few pages. Each slim, fast–moving story brings to life the kind of monsters readers love to fear, from brokenhearted vampires to Uber–taking serial killers and mind–reading witches. But what also makes Tiny Nightmares so bloodcurdling—and unforgettable—are the real–world horrors that writers such as Samantha Hunt, Brian Evenson, Jac Jemc, Stephen Graham Jones, Lilliam Rivera, Kevin Brockmeier, and Rion Amilcar Scott weave into their fictions, exploring how global warming, racism, social media addiction, and homelessness are just as frightening as, say, a vampire’s fangs sinking into your neck. Our advice? Read with the hall light on and the bedroom door open just a crack. Featuring new stories from Samantha Hunt, Jac Jemc, Stephen Graham Jones, Rion Amilcar Scott, and more! BRIAN EVENSON has published over a dozen books of fiction, most recently Song for the Unraveling of the World . His novel Last Days was a 2010 ALA/RUSA-recommended book, and his novel The Open Curtain was a finalist for an Edgar Award." Future Dreams Experience five stunning science fiction visions of the future. From pay-to-play immortality to simulated reality, from crowdsourced AI to multiverse theory, these novellas have everything you could ask for. Featuring: The Burning Light by Bradley P. Beaulieu and Rob Ziegler The Warren by Brian Evenson Proof of Concept by Gwyneth Jones Everything Belongs to the Future by Laurie Penny Patchwerk by David Tallerman At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. Featuring: The Burning Light by Bradley P. Beaulieu and Rob Ziegler Disgraced government operative Colonel Chu is exiled to the flooded relic of New York City." Wax "A subtly existential collection in which each story defracts, complicates, compliments, and magnifies the others. Intense and satisfying, and very painfully human" -Brian Evenson, author of The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell and Song for the Unraveling of the World "Short-titled and tightly tense, each story in this Padraig Hogan collection builds into a much larger Wax of human catastrophe. It's also sincerity, and it's sincere pessimism, such as in "Fingers" and "Flowers"; personal favourites, yet also metonyms for so many characters ripped from their sockets. Fans of the grim are recommended to make sure they're ready." -Pascale Potvin, Editor-in-Chief of Wrongdoing Magazine "In these stories the material world sometimes seems in rebellion against the hapless protagonists. Buildings and rooms don't seem the places of comfort they were intended to be. Shirts are hard to button. The natural world is in on the plot too, and the fallen angels-smug bureaucrats we should have expected them to be-have come to bargain for souls that seem no longer worth the trouble it takes to carry their extra weight. These are hard, sharply crafted tales for weird and troubled times. Padraig Hogan's voice cuts and delights throughout-alternately empathetic and unpitying, this work offers no refuge but in what serious and considerable pleasure-and even joy-remains to us in sharing words and the mind pictures they make of these humans and their alternately painful and comic earthly predicaments." -Anthony McCann, author of Thing Music and Shadowlands: Fear and Freedom at the Oregon Standoff Padraig Hogan's voice cuts and delights throughout-alternately empathetic and unpitying, this work offers no refuge but in what serious and considerable pleasure-and even joy-remains to us in sharing words and the mind pictures they make of ..." Shadows & Tall Trees 8 SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD-WINNER (Vol. 7) WORLD FANTASY AWARD FINALIST (Vol. 6) "A smart, soulful, illuminating investigation ... of our moment's most interesting and necessary projects, of opening up horror literature to every sort of formal interrogation. It is a beautiful and courageous series." - Peter Straub, author of Ghost Story "A smart, soulful, illuminating investigation ... of our moment's most interesting and necessary projects, of opening up horror literature to every sort of formal interrogation. It is a beautiful and courageous series." - Peter Straub" Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2020 Edition A collection of some of the best original science fiction and fantasy short fiction published on Tor.com in 2020. Includes stories by: Charlie Jane Anders G. V. Anderson Gregory Norman Bossert Jeremy Packert Burke Katharine Duckett Brian Evenson Carolyn Ives Gilman Maria Dahvana Headley Stephen Graham Jones Justin C. Key Naomi Kritzer Rich Larson Yoon Ha Lee S. Qiouyi Lu Usman T. Malik Melissa Marr Maureen McHugh Tamsyn Muir Sarah Pinsker C. L. Polk Matthew Pridham M. Rickert Zin E. Rocklyn Rachel Swirsky Lavie Tidhar Carrie Vaughn Fran Wilde Claire Wrenwood At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. Includes stories by: Charlie Jane Anders G. V. Anderson Gregory Norman Bossert Jeremy Packert Burke Katharine Duckett Brian Evenson Carolyn Ives Gilman Maria Dahvana Headley Stephen Graham Jones Justin C. Key Naomi Kritzer Rich Larson Yoon ..." Come Join Us By the Fire Season 2 Come Join Us by the Fire Season 2 is the second installment of Nightfire's audio-only horror anthology, featuring a wide collection of short stories from emerging voices in the horror genre as well as longtime fan favorites. The collection showcases the breadth of talent writing in the horror genre today, with contributions from a wide range of genre luminaries including Laird Barron, Indrapramit Das, Shaun Hamill, Daniel M. Lavery, Matthew Lyons, T. Kingfisher, Seanan McGuire, Nibedita Sen, and Nightfire’s own Cassandra Khaw and Silvia Moreno-Garcia. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. The collection showcases the breadth of talent writing in the horror genre today, with contributions from a wide range of genre luminaries including Laird Barron, Indrapramit Das, Shaun Hamill, Daniel M. Lavery, Matthew Lyons, T. Kingfisher ..." Not Anywhere, Just Not Boy meets Girl, Boy marries Girl, and years later Boy mysteriously disappears in this Gordon Lish-style novel. People are disappearing. And when they return, they can't say where they've been: "I was nowhere.... And then one day I was back." At the heart of Not Anywhere, Just Not is a middle-aged couple who still consider themselves to be a boy and a girl, like they were when they first met. One day, like thousands of people around the world, the boy vanishes, and the girl is left to wait, wonder, and worry. Who is he? Who is she, now, approaching sixty? Who were they together? And who will they be when or if he reappears? This is a world where every morning the cat gets fed and the coffee gets made, but also one in which gigantic words fall from the sky, God stands outside in the cold without a hat, angels ride the subway, and dreams whisper from far away, like something loud trapped in a jar. Not Anywhere, Just Not is a mysterious wind rustling the lexicon of suburban living into strange new iterations. Between the banalities of the domestic sphere, impossibilities drift like dandelion fluff, making the familiar seem strange and the strange seem familiar. Ken Sparling confronts us with the small dramas of our lives and the language we struggle with to express them, bringing us to the precipice of accepted ideas and allowing us to see, with dread and wonder, what might be coming for us all. Not Anywhere, Just Not cracks open the small dramas of our lives to show the dread and wonder inside all of us. "Ken Sparling is a brilliant writer and this book, like all his books, is a beauty." Screams from the Dark A bone-chilling anthology from legendary horror editor, Ellen Datlow, Screams from the Dark contains twenty-nine all-original tales about monsters. A Bram Stoker Award Nominee! From werewolves and vampires, to demons and aliens, the monster is one of the most recognizable figures in horror. But what makes something, or someone, monstrous? Award-winning and up-and-coming authors like Richard Kadrey, Cassandra Khaw, Indrapramit Das, Priya Sharma, and more attempt to answer this question. These all-new stories range from traditional to modern, from mainstream to literary, from familiar monsters to the unknown ... and unimaginable. This chilling collection has something to please—and terrify—everyone, so lock your doors, hide under your covers, and try not to scream. Contributors include: Ian Rogers, Fran Wilde, Gemma Files, Daryl Gregory, Priya Sharma, Brian Hodge, Joyce Carol Oates, Indrapramit Das, Siobhan Carroll, Richard Kadrey, Norman Partridge, Garry Kilworth, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Chikodili Emelumadu, Glen Hirshberg, A. C. Wise, Stephen Graham Jones, Kaaron Warren, Livia Llewellyn, Carole Johnstone, Margo Lanagan, Joe R. Lansdale, Brian Evenson, Nathan Ballingrud, Cassandra Khaw, Laird Barron, Kristi DeMeester, Jeffrey Ford, and John Langan. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. BRIAN EVENSON is the author of a dozen works of fiction , most recently the collection The Glassy , Burning Floor of Hell . His collection Song for the Unraveling of the World won the Shirley Jackson Award and the World Fantasy Award ..." Nocturnals This spring 2019 edition of Bard College’s literary journal explores the fascination and mystery of night through stories, poems, essays, and memoirs. Scheherazade famously spun stories for a thousand and one nights in order to sustain her life. In recognition of how vital it is to voice our own stories, the stellar works collected here—including entries by Sallie Tisdale, Rick Moody, Joyce Carol Oates, and many others—address our myriad experiences from dusk to daybreak. In this volume, readers will encounter the monster of Kowloon, which relies on the imaginations of children in order to exist. Three men embark on a hallucinatory journey into the snowy pitch-dark night of the soul. Purgatory can be found here, along with ghosts, alternative universes, an East Village bar that doubles as a portal to another life, and a personal chronicle of a visit to Burning Man in Black Rock Desert. Also included are the nightbird Nycticorax, musical nocturnes, night thoughts at solstice, wheeling galaxies, and the cosmos itself. The pioneering nocturnal photography of George Shiras is celebrated in these pages, and the dichotomous world of night versus day in equatorial Uganda is observed by an ethnographic eye. BRIAN EVENSON is the author of more than a dozen books of fiction. His latest book is Song for the Unraveling of the World (Coffee House Press). He teaches at CalArts and lives in Los Angeles. PETER GIZZI is the author of seven ..." Isolation: The horror anthology A chilling horror anthology of 18 stories about the terrifying fears of isolation, from the modern masters of horror. Featuring Tim Lebbon, Paul Tremblay, Joe R. Lansdale, M.R. Carey, Ken Liu and many more. Lost in the wilderness, or shunned from society, it remains one of our deepest held fears. This horror anthology calls on leading horror writers to confront the dark moments, the challenges that we must face alone: hikers lost in the woods; astronauts adrift in the silence of deep space; the quiet voice trapped in a crowd; the prisoner, with no hope of escape. Experience the chilling terrors of Isolation. Featuring Paul Tremblay, Joe R. Lansdale, Ken Liu, M.R. Carey, Jonathan Maberry, Tim Lebbon, Lisa Tuttle, Michael Marshall Smith, Ramsey Campbell, Nina Allan, Laird Barron, A.G. Slatter, Mark Morris, Alison Littlewood, Owl Goingback, Brian Evenson, Marian Womack, Gwendolyn Kiste, Lynda E. Rucker and Chikodili Emelumadu. BRIAN EVENSON is the author of a dozen books of fiction, most recently the story collection e Glassy Burning Floor of Hell (2021). His collection Song for the Unraveling of the World won the Shirley Jackson Award and the World Fantasy ..." Mutilation Song “An unnerving and surreal meditation on the demons that haunt us and on the nature(s) of evil. Compelling and unsettling” (Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World). Thomas hears voices, and the worst of these voices belongs to a demon called Dinn. In a series of increasingly horrific rants, the demon reframes Thomas’s declining mental health as a part of a secret training program, an occult procedure designed to cultivate the demons of tomorrow. In the distorted world depicted by Dinn, gateways to hell lie behind every door. Friends and family are the enemy. And the only way for Thomas to survive his training is to dedicate himself to the demon’s prescribed rituals of loneliness, ill health, and pain. Equal parts ferocious and seductive, Mutilation Song is a boundary-shattering horror novel that uses a hallucinatory narrator to explore the extremes of mental illness. “A fabulous nightmare of hypnotic logorrhea, strewn with visions worthy of a Clive Barker on acid.” —Nicolas Winter, Just a Word “Mutilation Song is without question a poison, but it is also a kind of scripture . . . You’re gonna love this one.” —Tony Burgess, author of Pontypool Changes Everything “Jason Hrivnak, who, with The Plight House, made a masterful entry into the literature of malaise, now gives us this new Song added to hell, this poetical call to damnation.” —Alain Nicolas, L’Humanité “Dazzling and suffocating, this violent plunge into the demonism of schizophrenia opens an entire world-in-a-book, a labyrinth of shifting voices, of truths to be deciphered . . . A truly great novel.” —La viduité Equal parts ferocious and seductive, Mutilation Song is a boundary-shattering horror novel that uses a hallucinatory narrator to explore the extremes of mental illness. “A fabulous nightmare of hypnotic logorrhea, strewn with visions ..." All the Things We Never See Distilled through the occluded lens of weird fiction, Michael Kelly's third collection of strange tales is a timely and cogent examination of grief, love, identity, abandonment, homelessness, and illness. All cut through with a curious, quiet menace and uncanny melancholy. Advance Praise for All the Things We Never See "The stories in Michael Kelly's All the Things We Never See balance on the delicate knife edge of the weird, taking place at the moment of incision, just before the blood rushes to the cut. Full of quiet menace and strangeness, with characters bound into odd relationships both to the world and themselves, relationships they themselves often fail to understand, this is weird fiction at is finest." -- Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World "Michael Kelly's sharp collection of uncanny stories will leave you questioning your relationships, your identity, and reality itself. These stories dig between your ribs and place a cold finger on your heart." -- Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World, and A Head Full of Ghosts "After having nurtured a sterling reputation as a curator of weird fiction, Michael Kelly here reminds us that he's one of its best practitioners, too. ALL THE THINGS WE NEVER SEE is eerie and unsettling in the best ways, subverting reality and turning it back on itself, questioning the very earth under your feet. In the end, you're left not scared so much as uncertain, even vulnerable--your throat exposed to unseen forces." -- Nathan Ballingrud, author of Wounds, and North American Lake Monsters "Like a cottonmouth sleeping under a silk sheet, there's something unsettling under the surface of Michael Kelly's stories--and once these tales sink their fangs into you, as they did into me, you'll find the venom is strangely addictive." -- Craig Davidson, author of The Saturday Night Ghost Club Michael Kelly is the former Series Editor for the Year's Best Weird Fiction. He's a Shirley Jackson Award-winner, and a World Fantasy Award nominee. His fiction has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including Black Static, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 21 & 24, Supernatural Tales, Postscripts, Weird Fiction Review, and has been previously collected in Scratching the Surface, and Undertow & Other Laments. Advance Praise for All the Things We Never See "The stories in Michael Kelly's All the Things We Never See balance on the delicate knife edge of the weird, taking place at the moment of incision, just before the blood rushes to the cut." Oh God, The Sun Goes "A highly original and engagingly odd book." - Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World An "indescribable marvel" (Jonathan Lethem) of a debut novel from a brilliant new voice The sun has disappeared from the sky. No one can explain where it has gone, but one wayward traveler is determined to try. As our unnamed narrator begins his odyssey across the parched landscapes of the American Southwest, he is drawn into a web of illusion and mystery, a shifting astral mindscape that shimmers with the aftermath of loss—and the promise of redemption. Oh God, the Sun Goes is a hallucinatory and deadpan picaresque that suddenly swerves into a love story of soaring poignance. Truly “the stuff that dreams are made of” – or maybe nightmares? Apocalyptic, mesmerizing, and utterly unique, Oh God, the Sun Goes introduces readers to a young and keenly inventive mind. 4 one of a kind illustrations within and on the outside a cool holographic foil stamp cover. Oh God, the Sun Goes is a hallucinatory and deadpan picaresque that suddenly swerves into a love story of soaring poignance. Truly “the stuff that dreams are made of” – or maybe nightmares?" The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018 Author Sheila Heti works with a group of high school students to select the year's best new fiction, journalism, poetry, essays, and comics aimed at readers age fifteen and up. Brian Evenson is the author of a dozen books of fiction, most recently A Collapse of Horses and The Warren. He is the recipient of three O. ... His new story collection, Song for the Unravelling of the World , will be published in 2019."