A Slice of the Dark and Other Stories
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
If you got a mysterious box that said, Do Not Open, would you open it? If your fingers revolted and wanted a different job, would you agree? If you came from a race of giants, or thought about becoming Death's lover, or couldn't get rid of a lover no matter how hard you tried, what would you do?
These stories contain unusual problems, like finding your world growing dark after eating a piece of cake—and maybe wanting more cake. It's not hard to find yourself one step outside the normal, as these characters do. The trick is to make it work.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Heuler (The Splendid City) serves up a full spread of eerie treats in this fantastical collection of 16 speculative shorts. In the title story, a piece of cake leads a man to discover that the world is full of lurking shadows that only he can see. For a second course, there's soup: "Bone Broth" follows a waitress who learns her boss is digging up giant bones from the empty lot next door. These tales veer capably from a Brothers Grimm fairy tale vibe ("The Living Wood") to suburban fabulism ("Do Not Open") to deeply philosophical horror-fantasy ("Ghost Mice"), with Heuler's matter-of-fact style grounding each story in a reality readers can recognize—until the creeping feeling that nothing is quite as it should be sets in. Heuler fans won't even mind the reprints: "The Restoration," about a woman tasked with seeding animals and plants throughout a climate-destroyed world; "The Constant Lover," in which a murder doesn't quite stick the first time; and the bittersweet flash story "Unraveling" are all worth another visit. This deliciously unsettling collection will leave readers craving just one more bite.
