[Comments] Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu

[lostcheerio]

Future Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu This short story collection has either won or been shortlisted for every prize last year, including winning the Shirley Jackson award for short fiction. And it's published by Tin House, which means its aesthetic is darkly burgeoning outside the publishing mainstream. So what will we find in this bunch of stories? A girl growing wings on her legs, a bug-infested house that becomes an impossible, Kafkaesque nightmare, a group of children stealing a haunted doll, a runaway bride who encounters a sea monster, a vendor selling toy boxes that control the passage of time, and an insomniac seduced by the Sandman. "The strange and wonderful define Kim Fu’s story collection, where the line between fantasy and reality fades in and out, elusive and beckoning." —The New York Times Book Review "Bold. . . . profound. . . . surreal and clever. Fu brings magical realism to exciting heights." —TIME "A lovely, new collection of eclectic tales." —The Washington Post Read an Excerpt! Like all good things, the first one is free! Check out this excerpt published on Tor.com, the story "Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867" which is the first piece from the collection. (Scroll down the page to find it.) Kim Fu is a Seattle writer. Her previous books are the novels For Today I Am a Boy and The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore. She even wrote a poetry collection called How Festive the Ambulance. In an interview, she said this about writing this short story collection: "Early on, I asked a friend who read some of my first drafts what stuck out in their mind, and they most vividly remembered the literal monsters: the girl with wings, the sea monster, the cloaked supernatural figures, the plague of insects. This friend is a visual artist, and they said they envisioned the book like an illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages, with flourishes and miniature illustrations of these creatures. I liked the idea of the book as a kind of monster compendium or book of fables, an encyclopedia of monsters, of the present and near future. Uniquely modern monsters." (Read the whole interview in Ligeia Magazine here.) The future, death, technology, sexuality, answering the tough "what if" questions -- this is what magical realism looks like now. A literary monster manual? Let the stat blocks flow.

[bananabadger]

Awesome. I've been wanting to read this one. I'm in!

[Fillyjonk]

Me, too, bb. I am excited for this one.

I am going to take a hit off the first free story this weekend, so who will pls join me as an early monster adopter? BBMonday with opinions and impressions.

[bananabadger]

 

I love how it took that sharp turn from unicorn intimacies to the man and his musical.
And the fact that he had been working on it his entire life!
And that it was a bad musical!
Just...delightful!

[bananabadger]

About half-way done. Who else is enjoying this?

[Fillyjonk]

I read the free one. Have not bought the book yet. I mean to do it this weekend.

I liked the free sample. I could see it being adapted as a duo for forensics competitions and getting a lot of trophies. I thought it was clever to format it that way, pure dialogue, which had the effect of removing the human-ness which was kinda the point.

 

I was a ways in before I realized the operator person was human, and I felt this was clever and by design. Like, I thought the narrator was talking to AI and as I realized it was two people, and they were so human with each other — the mother the garden, this was all lovely to me.

[Fillyjonk]

OCTOBER IS LATE -- I blame IRON DM. Which you should be following it is GREAT this year. Huge field of talent has come to play and they BROUGHT IT in round zero. LINKS IN MY SIG.

For October, here is a fun one. Come talk about Shirley Jackson!

Also, if anyone has NOVEMBER SUGGESTIONS, send them to me and lostcheerio or post them in the new sticky thread.

[Sprite]

I finally got to this book (audio) in my TBR list. Each of the stories was excellent, even though not my usual go-to read (that's the wonder of a book club, right?) I was genuinely disappointed that I had finished (and no more stories) when I got to the end.
Lightspeed Magazine's review here.

[bananabadger]

Originally Posted by Sprite

I finally got to this book (audio) in my TBR list. Each of the stories was excellent, even though not my usual go-to read (that's the wonder of a book club, right?) I was genuinely disappointed that I had finished (and no more stories) when I got to the end.
Lightspeed Magazine's review here.

Which story was your favorite? Looking back on them, I think the one about the new generation growing up without a sense of taste (as in buds) was my favorite.

[Sprite]

Originally Posted by bananabadger

Which story was your favorite? Looking back on them, I think the one about the new generation growing up without a sense of taste (as in buds) was my favorite.

I agree the one where humans lose their sense of taste, the next generation adjusts, and the previous generation obsesses over the past and what they've lost - that was a favorite.

I also liked the one where a couple buys a 3d printer that clones their bodies and transfers their consciousness when they die - as long as the death is sudden... and murdering each other is how they keep their marriage fresh.

[bananabadger]

"alive" even ... yeah that was a good one too!
I liked that some of her shorts became a sort of whudunit, but not entirely--more of a gradual reveal than a revelation, like the 3D story, or the one about the mountain climber's wake.