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These Strange & Magic Things: Short Stories
For fans of the weird and enchanting, Peter M Ball returns for a third collection of speculative fiction stories that dance along the borders between horror, fantasy, and science fiction. These Strange and Magic Things brings together fifteen tales that showcase why he’s among the finest writers of the strange and fantastic working in Australia right now.
Love is the Roar of a Chainsaw, Cutting Flesh in the Night — Their zombie survival kit started as a private joke, but now Nat and Vince take it a bit too seriously. An ill-conceived comment unravels their relationship, but when the worst actually happens, Vince needs to make an important choice.
The Things You Do When the War Breaks Out — A trip to the moon goes wrong when dinosaurs attack the anti-grav train in transit. On the plus side, T. and his dad can stay with T’s sister on the lunar surface. On the downside, T’s dad is obsessed with the Jurassic beasts from the dark side of the moon, and he’s not been stable for a long time…
The Mike And Carly Story, Without The Gossip — High school is hard enough for regularly people, but when Mike learns he’s a werewolf, everything gets far more complicated. Not least the fact that he likes Carly, and turning into a werewolf seems to have invited the possibility that she might like him back.
Counting Down —Phil says he can catch a bullet, but nobody believes him when he says it. Not even his best friend, Mattie, who once glimpsed the bats living inside Phil’s head and knows he's not normal. Mattie should know better than to go along with Phil's crazy ideas, but right now he’s get other things on his mind...things that could lead to a fatal mistake.
Local Heroes — Hit man to the supernatural, Keith Murphy, comes up against a demon who draws power from the wrestling ring and the fans who come to watch the show. He’s too tough to gun down and impervious to magic, which means Keith’s only got one option if he wants to make the hit. He’s got to step up, play by the rules of the ring, and accept the possibility he might just be the hero that the Gold Coast needs.
With ten more stories to enchant and thrill you, These Strange and Magic Things spins magic, horror, and pop culture together into an unforgettable collection of tales featuring rogue jinn, uncanny rock bands, magic bees, flying crocodiles, laundromat ghosts, haunted coins, cyberpunk gangs, and lost loves
Love is the Roar of a Chainsaw, Cutting Flesh in the Night — Their zombie survival kit started as a private joke, but now Nat and Vince take it a bit too seriously. An ill-conceived comment unravels their relationship, but when the worst actually happens, Vince needs to make an important choice.
The Things You Do When the War Breaks Out — A trip to the moon goes wrong when dinosaurs attack the anti-grav train in transit. On the plus side, T. and his dad can stay with T’s sister on the lunar surface. On the downside, T’s dad is obsessed with the Jurassic beasts from the dark side of the moon, and he’s not been stable for a long time…
The Mike And Carly Story, Without The Gossip — High school is hard enough for regularly people, but when Mike learns he’s a werewolf, everything gets far more complicated. Not least the fact that he likes Carly, and turning into a werewolf seems to have invited the possibility that she might like him back.
Counting Down —Phil says he can catch a bullet, but nobody believes him when he says it. Not even his best friend, Mattie, who once glimpsed the bats living inside Phil’s head and knows he's not normal. Mattie should know better than to go along with Phil's crazy ideas, but right now he’s get other things on his mind...things that could lead to a fatal mistake.
Local Heroes — Hit man to the supernatural, Keith Murphy, comes up against a demon who draws power from the wrestling ring and the fans who come to watch the show. He’s too tough to gun down and impervious to magic, which means Keith’s only got one option if he wants to make the hit. He’s got to step up, play by the rules of the ring, and accept the possibility he might just be the hero that the Gold Coast needs.
With ten more stories to enchant and thrill you, These Strange and Magic Things spins magic, horror, and pop culture together into an unforgettable collection of tales featuring rogue jinn, uncanny rock bands, magic bees, flying crocodiles, laundromat ghosts, haunted coins, cyberpunk gangs, and lost loves
- GenresScience FictionFantasy
214 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 15, 2020
NB: free ARC received in exchange for an honest review
Another fine collection from Peter M. Ball. I previously described one of the stories herein as "melancholy", and I think that's a good word to describe a lot of the works included in this collection. Note that by this I don't mean "miserable" or even "sad", necessarily. But there is often a sense of yearning, or a bittersweet feel, to the stories told in these electronic pages. They're about people striving for something, in some way, and having to cope with the consequences of their ambitions, and/or with the possibility that they will not really get what they want. And of course, this being Peter M. Ball, often the things they are striving for, or dealing with, are decidedly out of the ordinary: you've got haunted laundromats and pornography-powered djinni and a black market for distilled daylight, just for a start,
If you're a fan of 'modern weird', this is well worth your time.
Another fine collection from Peter M. Ball. I previously described one of the stories herein as "melancholy", and I think that's a good word to describe a lot of the works included in this collection. Note that by this I don't mean "miserable" or even "sad", necessarily. But there is often a sense of yearning, or a bittersweet feel, to the stories told in these electronic pages. They're about people striving for something, in some way, and having to cope with the consequences of their ambitions, and/or with the possibility that they will not really get what they want. And of course, this being Peter M. Ball, often the things they are striving for, or dealing with, are decidedly out of the ordinary: you've got haunted laundromats and pornography-powered djinni and a black market for distilled daylight, just for a start,
If you're a fan of 'modern weird', this is well worth your time.
April 1, 2024
Surreal and quirky fantasy set in a Gold coast setting (most of them) I love the way Ball writes.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews