Unquiet
Things

I am just now diving into the books that I gathered for last summer’s reading {standouts thus far being Errantry by Elizabeth Hand and Revenge by Yoko Ogawa}, so I thought in the grand tradition of biting off more than I can chew, I will go ahead and make a list the other items I intended on reading this summer…but will probably not pull down from the shelf until Summer 2016.

If you are keen on short stories,and tales of the weird/fantasy/speculative fiction/magical realism/horror…then you I imagine you will find a few treasures here for your own shelf. And please feel free to share what you are reading this summer…or future summertimes!

The Vorrh by Brian Catling

“Next to the colonial town of Essenwald sits the Vorrh, a vast—perhaps endless—forest. It is a place of demons and angels, of warriors and priests. Sentient and magical, the Vorrh bends time and wipes  memory. Legend has it that the Garden of Eden still exists at its heart. Now, a renegade English soldier aims to be the first human to traverse its expanse.”

The Doll Collection: Seventeen Brand-New Tales of Dolls

“Master anthologist Ellen Datlow has assembled a list of beautiful and terrifying stories from bestselling and critically acclaimed authors such as Joyce Carol Oates, Seanan McGuire, Carrie Vaughn, Pat Cadigan, Tim Lebbon, Richard Kadrey, Genevieve Valentine, and Jeffrey Ford. The collection is illustrated with photographs of dolls taken by Datlow and other devoted doll collectors from the science fiction and fantasy field. The result is a star-studded collection exploring one of the most primal fears of readers of dark fiction everywhere, and one that every reader will want to add to their own collection.”

Japanese Gothic Tales by Izumi Kyoka

“Resisting the various forms of realism popular during the Meiji “enlightenment,” Izumi Kyoka (1873-1939) was among the most popular writers who continued to work in the old-fashioned genres of fantasy, mystery, and romance. Gothic Tales makes available for the first time a collection of stories by this highly influential writer, whose decadent romanticism led him to envision an idiosyncratic world–a fictive purgatory –precious and bizarre though always genuine despite its melodramatic formality. The four stories presented here are among Kyoka’s best-known works. “

Gifts for the One Who Comes After by Helen Marshall

“Ghost thumbs. Microscopic dogs. One very sad can of tomato soup . . . Helen Marshall’s Shirley Jackson Award-Nominee and second collection offers a series of twisted surrealities that explore the legacies we pass on to our children. A son seeks to reconnect with his father through a telescope that sees into the past. A young girl discovers what lies on the other side of her mother’s bellybutton. Death’s wife prepares for a very special funeral. In Gifts for the One Who Comes After, Marshall delivers eighteen tales of love and loss that cement her as a powerful voice in dark fantasy and the New Weird. Dazzling, disturbing, and deeply moving.”

Jagannath by Karin Tidbeck

“Enter the strange and wonderful world of Swedish sensation Karin Tidbeck with this feast of darkly fantastical stories. Whether through the falsified historical record of the uniquely weird Swedish creature known as the “Pyret” or the title story, “Jagannath,” about a biological ark in the far future, Tidbeck’s unique imagination will enthrall, amuse, and unsettle you.”

Short Dark Oracles by Sara Levine

“In her vivid hyper-real collection, Short Dark Oracles, Sara Levine paints her way into even sharper and more dangerous corners. The fictions are an impasto of primed primary colors, prose that cuts a swath in brilliant swatches of saturated power that pops, punches, turns every turn into a fat flat facet, hard as a side of diamond, steel still-lives, glittering, metallic, distilled. “

The Lord Came at Twilight by Daniel Mills

“In the foothills of the Green Mountains, a child grows up in an abandoned village, haunted by memories of his absent parents. In a wayside tavern, a murderous innkeeper raises a young girl among the ghosts of his past victims. Elsewhere the village of Whistler’s Gore is swept up in the tumult of religious fervor, while in rural Falmouth, the souls of the buried dead fall prey to a fungal infestation. This is New England as it was once envisioned by Hawthorne and Lovecraft, a twilit country of wild hills and barren farmland where madness and repression abound. The Lord Came At Twilight presents 14 stories of doubt and despair, haunter and haunted, the deranged and the devout.”

Nevers by Megan Martin

“Every character in Nevers is having a better time than the narrators.  And everyone, according to these narrators, is an asshole.  Megan Martin’s collection is comprised of shorts of almost uniform length and uniform theme.  Each is voiced by a narrator who has had enough.”

North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud

“Nathan Ballingrud’s Shirley Jackson Award winning debut collection is a shattering and luminous experience not to be missed by those who love to explore the darker parts of the human psyche. Monsters, real and imagined, external and internal, are the subject. They are us and we are them and Ballingrud’s intense focus makes these stories incredibly intense and irresistible.”