Doll Seed

Michele Tracey Berger has a voice like no one else. —Julia Rios, Hugo Award Winning Editor

Doll Seed: Stories by Michele Tracy Berger is a dazzling debut collection of speculative short fiction. The stories span horror, fantasy, science fiction, and magical realism, but are always grounded in very real characters and beautifully rendered, distinctive communities. Often thematically centered on the lives of women and girls, especially women of color and their experiences of vulnerability and outsider status, these stories are often playful and always provocative.

Fifteen stories invite you to get comfortable in the dark, to consider freedom and sacrifice, trust and betrayal, otherness, and safety. Marisol, an aspiring jewelry artist is haunted by a fast-food icon. Chevella, a self-aware doll, finds herself in 1950s America playing a key role in the Civil Rights Movement. Lindsay, a Black girl in 1970s America “wins” an extraterrestrial in a national contest only to find her family's life upended. Chelsea and Jessa, two sisters, fight about what a strange child means for their family. A meat grinder appears in a magical forest and chaos ensues. All this and more.

...Off-key music boxes, a masterclass of atmospheric wonder and dread. —Jen Julian, author of Red Rabbit Ghost

This is Black Mirror with the emphasis on Black. —Vincent Tirado, author of We Came to Welcome You: A Novel of Suburban Horror