A body turns up atop a train car; it’s not the body you’re expecting. This is a brutal story with some interesting twists.
Author: Michael Hartford
“Dragon Song” by Maria Haskins
A Viking who fought Grendel’s mother beside Beowulf searches for her own kidnapped son. Haskins weaves together Viking and related stories with a few interesting twists; an elegiac mood hangs over this…
“Down to Niflhel Deep” by Maria Haskins
A dog takes a perilous journey into the underworld in search of a lost girl. This is the second of Haskins’ stories I’ve read from this collection that have a dog as…
“Long As I Can See the Light” by Maria Haskins
Forty years after an apparent alien invasion has converted the Earth into a factory for space ships and humans into drones for building them, a man who avoided the initial invasion meets…
“The Impossible Man” by J.G. Ballard
A young man loses his leg in a car accident, and is pressed into a campaign to encourage “regenerative surgery” for an increasingly elderly population despite his misgivings. This has some interesting…
“The Dummy” by Benjamin Percy
The only girl – who doesn’t feel much like a girl to herself – on a high school wrestling team gets some unexpected help against her bully. This is another disturbing little…
“Dial Tone” by Benjamin Percy
A call center, a cell tower, a brutal murder, and birds falling from the sky coalesce in this unnerving little story. This one has some disturbing and haunting images, and a strange…
“Nondisclosure Agreement” by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh
A young man with literary aspirations goes to work for a mail order catalog company who’s owner has publishing aspirations; it isn’t good for anyone. A better “New Yorker” story than many…
“Suicide Woods” by Benjamin Percy
A new member unsettles and disrupts the normal flow for a group of survivors of suicide attempts, with disastrous consequences. The story is told from a collective point of view, the group…
“The Mud Man” by Benjamin Percy
A mud man grows in the garden where an accountant’s discarded fingernail falls, and slowly comes to replace the original with its efficiency and kindness. This story would pair well with Robert…