Yay for weird short story collections! Daisuke Shen’s debut collection is full of uncanny oddities. Here are some of my favorites:
The Pasture – This opening story truly kicks the door down. A group of awful young boys commit mild terror. They encounter a strange pasture of women, and it does not end well. Such a vivid story.
Damien and Melissa is a moving story about a long-distance couple who attempt to maintain their relationship through cyborgs.
Home Video is incredibly unsettling, centering around a weird, nameless place, from which our narrator is trying to escape. Wonderfully odd.
I especially enjoyed The Aquarium, which is a “choose your own adventure” story set in a seemingly deserted aquarium.
Machine Translation is another moving story of an inventor, trying to juggle parenting her two boys and creating something great.
This is such a strong collection, and I hope it gets a lot of attention.
Vague Prophecies and Predictions is out now! Please consider buying it directly from Clash Books.
California Reading 