The Adventurists
and Other Stories
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"Flawless. . . . Readers of John Crowley, Ray Bradbury, and Sally Rooney alike will find a home."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Remember the girl you once knew, the theater kid? Now she’s become
the Queen, and you might need to rescue her. There’s the historic house,
where someone once saw a ghost and you almost fell in love. An
ornithopter hangs in the lobby of your corporate workplace: your
co-worker thinks he might be able to operate it. Once you found a tunnel
under your old high school, and couldn’t resist going to see where it
led.
Sometimes a door will open into a new world, sometimes
into the past. Putting on a costume might be the restart you are half
hoping for. There are things buried here. You might want to save them.
You might want to get out of the way.
Butner’s allusive and
elusive stories reach into the uncanny corners of life—where there are
no job losses, just HCAPs (Head Count Allocation Procedures), where a
tree might talk to just one person, where Death’s Fool is not to be
ignored.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Landscapes and memories alter, gentrify, and crumble in Butner's flawless debut collection, which wends ghosts, virtual futures, and the intricacies of friendship into 16 breathtaking, intimate stories. "Holderhaven" slowly unfurls a country house museum's ghostly mystery into a multifaceted examination of recreation's limits, who is allowed agency, and the impossible truth behind the legend. "Ash City Stomp," about an encounter with the devil, and "The Ornithopter," set in a high-technology future, both imbue their speculative setups with vital humanity. The delicate "Adventure" holds a mirror to the aging process while still honoring a vividly alive present, and in "Sunnyside," exes attend a successful artist friend's virtual-reality wake in a breathtaking commentary on the act of remembering. Butner pairs clean, elegant prose with keen and generous human insight, unique imagery, and a broad range of interests, treating Renaissance faires, 1980s counterculture, and rich small-town worlds with the same loving deliberation. Readers of John Crowley, Ray Bradbury, and Sally Rooney alike will find a home in this beautiful, grounded exploration of pasts and futures—and the people suspended between them.
