Before and Afterlives
Barzak mixes fantastical elements like aliens and mermaids with post-industrial settings, twisted ideas, sexuality and gender identity to stunning effect in Before and Afterlives.
Fantastically Dark Short Story Collections
You won’t find any chicken soup for your soul here, but the mystical creatures, aliens, natural and unnatural disasters, bizarre circumstances and troubling outcomes in these ten short story collections provide a different kind of salve—the kind that burns going on, but speeds the healing process. From the only slightly strange (Good Indian Girls) to the truly bizarre (The Miniature Wife) to the magical and mystical (Before and Afterlives, Fragile Things), these authors bring you cutting prose, flawed characters, and alienating landscapes that have more than a little bit to say about the world we live in.
Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
Neil Gaiman explores human frailty and weaknesses in this substantial collection of stories and poems.
Get in Trouble: Stories
These nine stories are fantastically dark and brooding. Kelly Link’s prose is fantastical but solid–you know there’s more bubbling under the surface, even if you can only glimpse it.
Good Indian Girls: Stories
This is a dark and at times, disturbing collection of 12 short stories. Sidhu uses fantastic elements to make the reader feel a sense of alienation—the same way most of his immigrant characters feel.
The Miniature Wife and Other Stories
The characters in The Miniature Wife are deeply flawed, ordinary people in bizarre situations. It’s fascinating to see how they react, how they grow, how they break under pressure.
St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
Orphans and abandoned children go on quests and get into trouble in this linguistically and structurally evocative collection.
The Tent
Atwood’s writing is razor sharp in this delightfully weird collection of flash fiction and poetry.