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Stealing God And Other Stories
Stealing God And Other Stories: A young woman in an abandoned house brings ruin to every man she meets. A wise-cracking hitman is recruited by an angel of God to kill the oldest vampire on Earth. A son travels into the past to find the mother he lost. In these and other tales, Hugo and Nebula nominee Bruce McAllister invites you into a universe where nothing is more important than what it means to be human.
262 pages, Paperback
Published June 17, 2022
About the author
Bruce McAllister
161 books163 followersBruce McAllister is an American writer best known for his science fiction, fantasy and literary fiction. His short fiction, which he began publishing as a teenager ("The Faces Outside," 9TH ANNUAL OF THE YEAR'S BEST SF), has appeared over the years in genre magazines, original anthologies, “year’s best” anthologies, literary quarterlies and college readers; won a National Endowment for the Arts writing award; and been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus and Shirley Jackson awards. He has published three novels--HUMANITY PRIMe, the "esp in war" Vietnam novel DREAM BABY, and THE VILLAGE SANG TO THE SEA: A MEMOIR OF MAGIC, which Michael Bishop has called "an eloquent ode to the universal mysteries of both place and coming of age." He has edited and co-edited (with Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss) science fiction and fantasy anthologies; and has served on James Tiptree, Philip K. Dick and Nebula juries. In high school he sent a questionnaire about literary symbolism to l50 of the world's most famous writers, half of whom responded. (See Sara Funk Butler's 2011 article on their responses at the PARIS REVIEW blog.) Bruce grew up in a Navy family with marine-science and anthropology/archeology interests, lived as a child on both American coasts and in Italy (where he first fell in love with fantasy and science fiction), and, after a career in university, is now a full-time writer and writing coach living in southern California.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 29, 2022
STEALING GOD AND OTHER STORIES is among the best single-author collections of short fiction I’ve read in years. You don’t just read these stories, you feel them.
Usually, in reviewing a collection, I’d select a few favorites and the reasons behind my choices. While I set out to do the same here, I quickly bogged down: I found myself covering pretty much the entire Table of Contents in my notes. Some collections start strong and sag a bit in the middle, before carrying the reader to a memorable finish. In McAllister’s case, there is no saggy middle. He delivers from the get-go, with prose and concepts so consistently powerful and haunting, there is no letup. Indeed, you might well feel the need to sit back and take a deep breath as you reflect on the tale you’ve just read, while anticipating the unknown wonders to come. And trust me on this, there are wonders galore!
You might not have had the same life experiences as McAllister and the characters he so vividly portrays, but I cannot imagine any reader coming away from this collection without experiencing a deep sense of affinity, if not outright common ground. These stories burrow under your skin and nestle in your psyche. Yet even at his most terrifying, McAllister manages to touch and move the reader, a feat that can only be attributed to extraordinary skill, innate talent and, I suspect, a healthy strain of divine mysticism that surely courses through his veins.
Prior to this collection, I’d read a handful of these stories in magazines such as Fantasy & Science Fiction and Asimov’s. But to reacquaint myself with them now, alongside the ones I hadn’t previously read, is too appreciate them in a whole new light. While each story stands on its own, it is the collective impact that will bowl you over.
In his introduction to STEALING GOD, the supremely pithy and prolific Paul Di Filippo writes, “What a rich tapestry of terrifying, traumatic, tender, and tantalizing tales!” To these I add a few more descriptors: insightful, true, creepy, yearning, sensitive, poetic, atmospheric, and richly rewarding. McAllister never fails to make the reader feel, imparting a sense of longing for a time and place you can’t quite identify, but so desperately want to return to.
Literary. Genre. Fantasy. Horror. Magical realism. Memoir. Spiritual. You can pigeonhole McAllister’s fiction any way you like, but in the end his work defies categorization.
Yeah, I know I’m gushing here, but if you’ve read Bruce McCallister’s novels, especially THE VILLAGE SANG TO THE SEA, you know where I’m coming from in my praise for this collection. Odds are, you’ll note the seeds (and fruits) of that remarkable novel within many of these tales, making STEALING GOD AND OTHER STORIES the perfect companion piece to that longer work.
It is a cliché to say, I know, but if there is a such a thing as a writer’s writer, that author’s name is Bruce McAllister. Readers will be awed. Writers, aspiring or established, will be inspired.
Usually, in reviewing a collection, I’d select a few favorites and the reasons behind my choices. While I set out to do the same here, I quickly bogged down: I found myself covering pretty much the entire Table of Contents in my notes. Some collections start strong and sag a bit in the middle, before carrying the reader to a memorable finish. In McAllister’s case, there is no saggy middle. He delivers from the get-go, with prose and concepts so consistently powerful and haunting, there is no letup. Indeed, you might well feel the need to sit back and take a deep breath as you reflect on the tale you’ve just read, while anticipating the unknown wonders to come. And trust me on this, there are wonders galore!
You might not have had the same life experiences as McAllister and the characters he so vividly portrays, but I cannot imagine any reader coming away from this collection without experiencing a deep sense of affinity, if not outright common ground. These stories burrow under your skin and nestle in your psyche. Yet even at his most terrifying, McAllister manages to touch and move the reader, a feat that can only be attributed to extraordinary skill, innate talent and, I suspect, a healthy strain of divine mysticism that surely courses through his veins.
Prior to this collection, I’d read a handful of these stories in magazines such as Fantasy & Science Fiction and Asimov’s. But to reacquaint myself with them now, alongside the ones I hadn’t previously read, is too appreciate them in a whole new light. While each story stands on its own, it is the collective impact that will bowl you over.
In his introduction to STEALING GOD, the supremely pithy and prolific Paul Di Filippo writes, “What a rich tapestry of terrifying, traumatic, tender, and tantalizing tales!” To these I add a few more descriptors: insightful, true, creepy, yearning, sensitive, poetic, atmospheric, and richly rewarding. McAllister never fails to make the reader feel, imparting a sense of longing for a time and place you can’t quite identify, but so desperately want to return to.
Literary. Genre. Fantasy. Horror. Magical realism. Memoir. Spiritual. You can pigeonhole McAllister’s fiction any way you like, but in the end his work defies categorization.
Yeah, I know I’m gushing here, but if you’ve read Bruce McCallister’s novels, especially THE VILLAGE SANG TO THE SEA, you know where I’m coming from in my praise for this collection. Odds are, you’ll note the seeds (and fruits) of that remarkable novel within many of these tales, making STEALING GOD AND OTHER STORIES the perfect companion piece to that longer work.
It is a cliché to say, I know, but if there is a such a thing as a writer’s writer, that author’s name is Bruce McAllister. Readers will be awed. Writers, aspiring or established, will be inspired.
Displaying 1 of 1 review