Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Free fiction - "Supply Limited, Act Now" by Helen Marshall

Helen Marshall is one the rising stars of speculative fiction and there are plenty of things proving that. An excellent debut short story collection, “Hair Side, Flesh Side” (ChiZine Publications), named one of the top ten books of 2012 by January Magazine, nominated for Aurora Award, long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize and winning the British Fantasy Sydney J. Bonds Award. Two volumes of poetry, “Skeleton Leaves”, nominated for a Rhysling Award and winner of the Aurora Award, and “The Sex Lives of Monsters”, nominated for a Rhysling Award and a Bram Stoker Award and winner of the Elgin Chapbook Award. And from this month a second short story collection, “Gifts for the One Who Comes After”, also released by ChiZine Publications, that promises to consolidate Helen Marshall’s position within the genre:  Ghost thumbs. Microscopic dogs. One very sad can of tomato soup. Helen Marshall's second collection offers a series of twisted surrealities that explore the legacies we pass on to our children. A son seeks to reconnect with his father through a telescope that sees into the past. A young girl discovers what lies on the other side of her mother's bellybutton. Death's wife prepares for a very special funeral. In Gifts for the One Who Comes After, Marshall delivers eighteen tales of love and loss that cement her as a powerful voice in dark fantasy and the New Weird. Dazzling, disturbing, and deeply moving. To celebrate the release of Helen Marshall’s new short story collection, which Kaaron Warren highly recommends (Gifts for the One Who Comes After is in turns chilling, heart-wrenching and uplifting. Marshall has a way with words that makes even the most peculiar seem possible, and the stories here are each so layered with character and meaning, they are like perfect, condensed novels.), SF Signal offers us the chance to read one story from “Gifts for the One Who Comes After”, “Supply Limited, Act Now”, for free on their website.

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