Magical Realism Short Stories

This collection of eight stories paints a vivid image of people who don't do what you might expect them to living on the fringes in America. Not stories of triumph over adversity but something completely other. Described in language that is brilliantly sardonic, Woods' characters return repeatedly to places where they don't belong - often the places where they were born. In the background are the endless American wars and occupations and too many early deaths of friends and family. This is fiction that is fresh and of the moment, even as it is timeless.

There’s a little bit of everyone’s flavor in this listen, from steampunk love to horrific barters, dinopunk cowboys, and basilisk handlers. This short story collection begs to be heard by those who want their listening experiences to be a bit like a charcuterie board: a literary variety of the best Danielle Davis has to offer. So grab your flashlight and step with her into the darkness tonight!

Un gruppo di viaggiatori che, per un complesso di circostanze diverse, hanno perso la parola si ritrovano in un castello. L'unico mezzo che hanno per comunicare è rappresentato da un mazzo di tarocchi. Un romanzo affascinante composto da tante storie intrecciate.

A family gift of reading the spirits in flames has taken everything from her, but can it give her everything she needs? In The Stars Will Guide Us Back, 13 short stories encapsulating the elements of speculative fiction and magical realism travel the themes of mental health, loss, mortality, self-confidence, and finding hope through difficult circumstances. Explore the immersive worlds within, along with a range of peculiar, distinct, and queer characters.

“In villages where women bore most of the weight of a constricted life, witches flew by night on broomsticks,” said Italo Calvino of the way imagination bridges the gap between everyday existence and an idealized alternative. The 15 stories of Animal Wife are each about girls and women who cross this threshold seeking liberation from family responsibilities, from societal expectations, from their own minds.

Semi-autobiographical in nature, these 14 stories span the period from the author's childhood to the present. We are introduced, in a series of beautifully imagined and crafted cameos, to the author's family, friends, and various other people who left a lasting impression on him. In other stories we revisit Bond's beloved Garhwal hills and the small towns and villages that he has returned to time and again in his fiction.

I need answers only my father can provide. Separated from birth, we’ve only recently connected. Still, I have no one else to turn to. The Deltites are hunting me and they’re close now. We’ll fight our final battle soon. Needing more information, I force him to tell me a story about the beginning, my beginning. He sheds new light on my mom, on my grandfather Sicheii, and on how I started down this path. He spins a tale about love, a recent murder, and mysterious strangers who come to town looking for a medicine man, my grandfather.

The fate of seven kingdoms is at stake during an epic card game. A runner flees her broken marriage and barrels straight into her high school reunion. A housebroken husband trades his beloved beagle for a sad, gray donkey. And, a brother and sister chase a ghost down a long and lonesome highway into the haunted forest of their past. Young men and the difficult women who save them, old men, and the dream girls who keep them up at night - join these eight heroes in unearthing the startling truth of what rests under the world.

A man who receives life-changing financial advice from the talking fruit in his breakfast bowl...a girl whose thoughts incinerate her family over and over again...a house that wants nothing more than to please its occupants, and will do anything at all to make sure they’re happy. From enchanting to troubling to downright disturbing, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things explores the notion that sometimes even the most promising of magic can go askew, through an array of characters whose outcomes can be horrifying, hilarious, or heartbreaking.

And what if in each universe there reigned other Black woman gods? One million versions of god, and one million saints to watch over us? And what if this Black woman god were placed here on earth? These are just a few of the questions Anastacia-Reneé asks in this daring and mind-bending hybrid collection. Hers is a universe of striking variety—monsters, nontraditional saints, witches, zombies, the couple in the apartment next door, the wise elders from down the block, and gods watching over us all—as well as community and connectedness.

To some this is may seem like a symbolic story of the karmic stagnation of the Human Collective, which is saved by the wisdom and guidance of an over soul, by using the primordial elements of pure creation and the loving union of the Divine Female and Male Principles. Actually, this is just another story of astral space sex, twin flames, tuxedo tee shirts, and one more apocalypse diverted by multidimensional intergalactic sperm.

Keenan, a guide at Daylight Chasers, is hired to lead Isabella through a day that "nearly" never ends. As the top agent, he excels at calming the excitable and inspiring the timid, as they journey across the globe one time zone at a time. Despite his years of experience, Keenan soon realizes that he is going to need a lot more than his familiar script when it comes to Isabella's expedition.

More absurd, horrifying, and downright inexplicable shorts from the author of The Man Who Stands in Line. Included are such soon-to-be classics as Buzz-Saw Bob, the sport of pendulum watching, yet another secret to ultimate success, the art of gasping, a neighbor who is definitely not Mr. Rogers, and Buddha's morning commute. I legally can't promise that this book will transform you into the demiurge you were meant to be. All I can say is that no medical studies have proven otherwise, and the FDA moves very slowly.

Three sons send their father to Valhalla in his old jalopy. A rusted robot waits on the stone wall by a child’s bus stop. An undertaker is one coin short at the river Styx. And in the bookending stories “Anything But Pure” and “Receding,” a soldier seeks to unbury stories once lost to a winter of war. Fathers and the daughters they find, girls and the dogs they've loved, and a woman from Kansas with a cyclone in her heart — each discovers what happens when people go too far, love too hard, and take too much on their way Out of the Woods.

Scion Thantosa is the heir of ancient protectors called Infinites. He'll choose his path in a fight that has endangered human and Amalgams races: Rippers, Iclings, Spiritans, Robomancers, and Technopires to name a few. He is armed with a mean swing from shiny new Cyborg arms, destructive magic granted by ever-glowing Dragonstones, ill-timed smack talk, and an awesome green hairdo given by the two hottest elves this side of the North Pole.

Seven compelling stories of obsession, loss, redemption and hope are brought together in this unsettling and original anthology. From ethereal speculation to rekindling forgotten love, these beautifully crafted tales explore human nature in all its diversity. Sometimes disturbing, sometimes inspirational, they all have a metaphorical richness that will take you into an uncanny world that straddles the line between the real and the imagined.

This magical realist short tale was inspired by the Latin American myth of El Sombrerón, the nighttime guardian of peace and justice. El Sombrerón arrives in a sleepy town to find that a young girl has stolen a golden necklace. El Sombrerón must convince the girl to return the necklace so she can avoid El Sombrerón’s justice…and before the sun rises.

It was a beautiful morning. Despite the ancient oracle's strange warning, Lydia set sail. She was experienced. She had done this plenty of times before. The oracle offered her a lucky talisman. Lydia took it. Now, it seems both their luck has run out. She is stuck on an island with a charm whose magic is spent. Will it ever return, or is she doomed to spend the rest of her life marooned in the middle of nowhere?

Scant years after the Civil War, a mysterious family confronts the legacy that has pursued them across centuries, out of slavery, and finally to the idyllic peace of the town of Rosetree. The shattering consequences of this confrontation echo backwards and forwards in time, even to the present day.

Shattered is one of four short stories in this compilation. Between them, they explore paranormal and ghostly activities, a paddlesteamer wreck and its implications, near drowning and a mystery stranger. The stories explore relationships and reactions between the characters and are infused with atmospheric sound effects.