Short Story Collections Featuring Fantastical Creatures

Short story collections are making a comeback, thanks to the e-reader. Here are some examples of collections for fans of animals, myth, fantasy, supernatural fiction and fables.

Unnatural Creatures (no reviews yet – it was just released today, currently priced at $8.89) – From Amazon:

Unnatural Creatures is a collection of short stories about the fantastical things that exist only in our minds—collected and introduced by beloved New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman. The sixteen stories gathered by Gaiman, winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, range from the whimsical to the terrifying. The magical creatures range from werewolves to sunbirds to beings never before classified. E. Nesbit, Diana Wynne Jones, Gahan Wilson, and other literary luminaries contribute to the anthology.

Sales of Unnatural Creatures benefit 826DC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students in their creative and expository writing, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.

PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY says: In this striking anthology of 16 stories of strange and incredible creatures (most previously published), Gaiman and Headley have included several classic tales, such as Frank R. Stockton’s delightful “The Griffin and the Minor Canon” (1885), which concerns the unlikely friendship between a monster and a minister; Saki’s mordant werewolf tale “Gabriel-Ernest” (1909); and Anthony Boucher’s astonishingly silly “The Compleat Werewolf” (1942). There are also fine stories from such major contemporary fantasy writers as Peter S. Beagle, Samuel Delany, Diana Wynne Jones, and Gaiman himself. Particularly pleasurable are the stories by newer writers, such as Nalo Hopkinson’s “The Smile on the Face,” which demonstrates the benefits of channeling one’s inner hamadryad; E. Lily Yu’s “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees,” an animal fable with a sting in its tale; and Nnedi Okorafor’s original story “Ozioma the Wicked,” which concerns “a nasty little girl whose pure heart had turned black,” but who nonetheless saves her village from a monstrous snake. Teens with a yen for the fantastic would be hard pressed to find a better place to start. The collection benefits literacy nonprofit 826DC.

 

Irregular Creatures (4.5/5 stars, currently priced at 99 cents) – From Amazon:

beasties, mythological mutants, and overall “irregular creatures” – including flying cats, mermaids, Bigfoot, giant chickens, and mystic hobo hermaphrodites. Features 45,000 words of horror, fantasy, science-fiction and humor. The collection features the following nine tales:

DOG-MAN AND CAT-BIRD (A FLYING CAT STORY)
Joe’s got job woes and family problems, and it’s made all the more complicated by a cat who dies on his porch one night – or, so Joe believes. The cat is not only dead, but it appears to be some kind of improbable mutant: a cat with wings. The cat initially complicates Joe’s life as he hides it from his family, but he soon learns that more may be at stake than he realized. Little does he know, a battle for good and evil, between Heaven and Hell, is about to be fought in his garage.

A RADIOACTIVE MONKEY
That bartender you really like, well, she just whipped up a potent cocktail called a “Radioactive Monkey.” Would you drink it? (Hint: you shouldn’t.) Jonny Stoops, however, decided to take the plunge. (Hint: it doesn’t end well.)

PRODUCT PLACEMENT
Imagine one morning you wake up and you discover that the world is now home to products you don’t recognize but everyone else does. Flix candy bars? Jack Kenny whiskey? Burrito Hut? Donnie’s never heard of these brands, but those around him say such products are beloved and have been here for years. Donnie’s quest to discover the truth – and prove he’s not nuts – reveals a marketing and advertising scheme not of this dimension.

THIS GUY
“Every day, I catch him before he makes it to the China Skillet… I drag him into the alleyway, and I beat him with a tire iron. Sometimes, I stab him with a kitchen knife. I do this every day. I think it’s starting to affect me.” Every day is the same for the protagonist: get up, drive to work, and on the way there, beat some zombie to death. Next day? Zombie’s back. It would take a toll on one’s sanity, wouldn’t it?

MISTER MHU’S PUSSY SHOW
Nolan seeks untold pleasures, but never finds them: not until now, when he becomes swiftly obsessed with Tasanee, a Bangkok dancer at a hole-in-the-wall club. He is driven to pursue her at any cost, but what he finds at the end of his obsession is not pleasure, but pain.

LETHE AND MNEMOSYNE
Old age wreaks havoc on the body and mind, and in this flash fiction that has been never more apparent than when a senile old man’s children exhort him to remember the means by which he controlled the giant chicken wreaking havoc back home.

THE AUCTION
Benjamin’s father shows his son the secret behind his job: he is a buyer and seller of very forbidden things, magical things, objects of a fantastical purview. He takes his son to “The Auction,” a place where anything can be bought and sold: mythological creatures, insane machines, haunted and horrific artifacts. Benjamin is led astray by a religious man with pious words but sinister intent. When Benjamin encounters a sickly mermaid on the auction block, can the boy step in and avert disaster?

BEWARE OF OWNER
A short story of how father teaches son: Dad teaches the boy that you don’t need to beware of a dog, but you damn well better beware of owner.

DO-OVERS AND TAKE-BACKS
Taye and Beau are two characters from two different worlds: the first a boy in the city projects, the second a rich man with a hollow life and an estranged family. But a bizarre figure steps in as catalyst – an inhuman “Rag-Man” appears and draws connections between the two characters that could not have existed before.

 

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