An unsettling bestiary of narratives for SF and horror readers with a taste for unease—and seafood.
Bizarre zoological phenomena feature in Ashley’s debut collection of eerie short stories.
These short narratives lean toward the macabre and largely fixate on the animal realm, in which odd mutations occur in somewhat dystopic futuristic settings. The title piece describes the Deep-Sea Atrium, a vast, multi-storied aquarium. Visitors behold rare, exotic, and sometimes monstrous maritime specimens in simulated abyssal depths (an angler fish “hangs in the water beneath a timid yellow light. Extendable jaw and elastic stomach full of shrimp and other tank debris”). The emotionally detached, college-dropout narrator, an Atrium guide in a troubled relationship, habitually steals from the premises—readers will sense that this cannot end well. One creature from the menagerie figures in another story, “Riding the Waves of Leviathan”—an immense sea beast that frequents a stretch the Atlantic coast, forcing the hard-drinking local fishermen to seek new employment as gold miners (faintly absurdist dream-logic is another recurring trait here). Their neglected children take to surfboards to master the waves the Leviathan stirs up in a sometimes fatal pastime. Another family bedeviled by water-dwellers, weird biology, and alcohol appears in “Last Stand of the Alligator Killers,” a story depicting a (literally) decaying household of swamp folk who grow scalier and less human while hopelessly fighting the amphibious encroachment of saurian “horn-tailed Joes” that have rudimentary intelligence. A sort of slime-mold “protist,” a subterranean species possessing sentience and near-human emotions, tries to co-exist with unusually accommodating Homo sapiens in “Skin,” but the social arrangement is heartbreakingly fragile. Many of the yarns have ambiguously open endings, but they are rarely less effective for leaving things not tidied up; the animal-free “An Execution” is narrated by a bereaved father in an America in which relatives of homicide victims have the right to ritually slay the guilty party in eye-for-an-eye manner (this provides dubious closure). These tales raise shudders of the existential dread variety rather than ‘Halloween-boo!’ scares, despite such Lovecraftian mainstays as tentacles, ichthyic environments, and creature-metamorphoses; one suspects the author has bigger fish to fry.
An unsettling bestiary of narratives for SF and horror readers with a taste for unease—and seafood.Pub Date: May 3, 2024
ISBN: 9781950413768
Page Count: 172
Publisher: Press 53
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A touching novel about loss with a magical and mystical flourish.
A young man helps the living and dead meet one last time under the full moon.
Japanese bestseller Tsujimura’s quiet novel follows a mysterious teenager known as the go-between, who can set up meetings between the living and the dead. An introverted woman wants to meet the television star with whom she has a parasocial relationship. A cynical eldest son hopes to visit his mother about their family business. A devastated high schooler fears she is responsible for her friend’s tragic death. And, finally, a middle-aged workaholic finally feels ready to find out if his fiancée, who disappeared seven years ago, is dead. Each character has a uniquely personal reason for seeking out the deceased, including closure and forgiveness, as well as selfishness and fear. Imbued with magic and the perfect amount of gravitas, there are many rules around these meetings: Only the living can make requests and they can only have one meeting per lifetime. Additionally, the dead can deny a meeting—and, most importantly, once the dead person has met with a living person, they will be gone forever. With secrets shared, confessions made, and regrets cemented, these meetings lead to joy and sorrow in equal measure. In the final chapter, all of these visits—and their importance in the go-between’s life—begin to gracefully converge. As we learn the go-between’s identity, we watch him struggle with the magnitude and gravity of his work. At one point, he asks: “When a life was lost, who did it belong to? What were those left behind meant to do with the incomprehensible, inescapable loss?” Though the story can be repetitive, Tsujimura raises poignant and powerful questions about what the living owe not only the dead, but each other; and how we make peace with others and ourselves in the wake of overwhelming grief.
A touching novel about loss with a magical and mystical flourish.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9781668099834
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.
In this long-awaited fifth installment of Shannon’s Bone Season series, the threat to the clairvoyant community spreads like a plague across Europe.
After extending her fight against the Republic of Scion to Paris, Paige Mahoney, leader of London’s clairvoyant underworld and a spy for the resistance movement, finds herself further outside her comfort zone when she wakes up in a foreign place with no recollection of getting there. More disturbing than her last definitive memory, in which her ally-turned-lover Arcturus seems to betray her, is that her dreamscape—the very soul of her clairvoyance—has been altered, as if there’s a veil shrouding both her memories and abilities. Paige manages to escape and learns she’s been missing and presumed dead for six months. Even more shocking is that she’s somehow outside of Scion’s borders, in the free world where clairvoyants are accepted citizens. She gets in touch with other resistance fighters and journeys to Italy to reconnect with the Domino Programme intelligence network. In stark contrast to the potential of life in the free world is the reality that Scion continues to stretch its influence, with Norway recently falling and Italy a likely next target. Paige is enlisted to discover how Scion is bending free-world political leaders to its will, but before Paige can commit to her mission, she has her own mystery to solve: Where in the world is Arcturus? Paige’s loyalty to Arcturus is tested as she decides how much to trust in their connection and how much information to reveal to the Domino Programme about the Rephaite—the race of immortals from the Netherworld, Arcturus’ people—and their connection to the founding of Scion, as well as the presence of clairvoyant abilities on Earth. While the book is impressively multilayered, the matter-of-fact way in which details from the past are sprinkled throughout will have readers constantly flipping to the glossary. As the series’ scope and the implications of the war against Scion expand, Shannon’s narrative style reads more action-thriller than fantasy. Paige’s powers as a dreamwalker are rarely used here, but when clairvoyance is at play, the story shines.
Though it falters a bit under its own weight, this series still has plenty of fight left.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781639733965
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
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