Dark Comedy Short Stories

SF 소설가 곽재식의 소설은 당연히 SF적인 내용을 담고 있습니다. 이 단편집만 해도 초공간 도약 항법도 나오고, 인공지능도 몇 가지 나오고, 외계인과의 퍼스트 컨택트도 나옵니다.

Sie lieben sich, sie hassen und sie töten sich – mit Alpenveilchen, Christrosen oder Eisenhut denn gegen alle(s) ist ein tödliches Kraut gewachsen, egal, ob ausgediente Ehemänner, alte Widersacher, verhasste Haustiere oder nervende Nachbarn. Wenn böse Menschen die hohe Kunst der botanischen Giftmischerei zelebrieren, wird es mörderisch spannend – bis zum letzten Blatt.

After a failed petition to change his career, Bill, the local pottery maker and town drunk, is coerced by his neighbors and king to join an expedition to hunt down and slay a mighty dragon that plagues their village.

Set in Taiwan and the Silicon Valley, a collection of linked stories that explore the meaning of success and the purpose of existence, centered on the short life and long shadow of an engineering genius who descends deeper into despair while rising higher on the professional ladder. The...

It’s bad enough that its venom-dripping chelicerae can slice through flesh like warm butter. Worse? It’s right there under the bunk. It’s a fact now. To make it through the night, the children must obey the rules: don’t get out of bed, stay out of the shadows, and don’t wake the beast. But as the threats multiply, so do the rules of survival. And with the safety of dawn still hours away, the fun is just beginning.

There is a distinct surreal quality to some (including "Exposure" and "And Now Let's Have Some Fun"), a strong sense of irony (as in "You Too Can Graduate in Three Years with an Advanced Degree in Contextual Semiotics"), and moments of awkward and therefore very real grapplings with sex and romance (most especially in "The Rescues" and the title story, "Welcome Thieves").

In search of the ferocious truth, some would call trying to channel the spirit of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson a fool’s errand. But these are desperate times. So settle in for this trilogy of uppers, downers, screamers, laughers from John Bruni (Tales of Questionable Taste), Kent Hill (Hercules with a Shotgun) and Kevin Candela (Weedeaters: The Complete Acropalypse) as they bring you just what the doctor ordered.

"Stranger's Thing" by Robert Bevan: Four friends get more than they bargained for when they break into a seemingly abandoned research lab. "The Shingling" by Steve Wetherell: Johnny Terry, a recovering meth addict, is excited to start his new life as the caretaker at the Underpass Motel. Unfortunately, the Underpass is haunted by the ghosts of dead porn stars. "The Haunting of Whore House" by Robert Bevan: Lucy and her brother, Junkie, find out that moving was only the beginning of their troubles when they encounter the ghost of a little boy in the woods. Plus three more!

Tales from the Eerie Canal weaves the sinister mystery of Edgar Allan Poe with the dark humor of Edward Gorey. No canal. No Lake Erie. Just a stream of the disturbing splashed with bits of the absurd.

Our moon is something special. It illuminates the magical things that could otherwise hide from view. Here there be witches and werewolves. A horror-comedy collection from the author of Demons and Other Inconveniences, What Tangled Webs, and Mortimer Grim.

Kate and Michael, twenty-something housemates working at the same Trader Joe’s supermarket, are thoroughly screwed when people start turning into zombies at their house party in the Oakland hills. The zombie plague is a sexually transmitted disease, turning its victims into shambling, horny, voracious killers.

For sheer unpredictable brilliance, Gogol may come to mind, but no author alive today takes a listener as far as Helen DeWitt into the funniest, most yonder dimensions of possibility. Her jumping-off points might be statistics, romance, the art world’s piranha tank, games of chance and games of skill, the travails of publishing, or success.

Death. It’s a part of life and something we all must accept. Whether it be our own demise or losing a loved one, the experience of death is both sobering and surreal. My Dad Is Dead is a group of related short stories that explore that dichotomy through the eyes of a kid. In George Verongos’ second book, he turns childhood memories into “fictionally enhanced” tales (he made us say that, he’s trying to make it a thing).

Tony Hunt, author of 'Geordie Boy - small events in a child's life', has taken a darker turn with this collection of short stories, centred around the volunteers who work in a Lake District charity shop. The five stories are linked in parallel; each story standing alone, but as you listen to each one, a fuller picture appears of the strains and stresses that afflict people who have retired to the Lakes to seek serenity, but instead find themselves at the mercy of events.

This is a humorous, episodic novel of dark fantasy and science fiction, composed of the four novellas Amy and the Ankylosaurus, Helen and the Evil Elves of the Elder Gods, Sithe in the City, and Dragon vs Dinosaur. It begins when Magnus creates a device to open portals to other quantum universes so he can show his ex-girlfriend, Amy, real dinosaurs. This goes awry when Amy goes through the portal and he has to rescue her, accompanied by his fellow scientist Helen, Amy's best friend.

One obnoxious English teacher. Twelve tales of his death. Norton Edwards, English department head, is the reigning despot in Canterbury High. This year, his colleagues have had enough. This year, they're getting rid of Mr. Edwards. In this collection of darkly tongue-in-cheek stories, Mr. Edwards dies, tale after tale.

During the 2020 pandemic, a man began driving for Uber in a small college town. Little did he know the deep truths he would discover about himself, the profound insights into the human condition…. Actually, that’s bullshit. What he really discovered was a cash cow: drunk kids with too much money and a darth of local drivers. But all is not easy money and smooth tones vibin’ in the background. These kids are crazy, and crazy kids mean crazy stories.

It was, maybe, the first job I'd ever had where people were happy to see me. An odd feeling indeed, to wield this kind of power. To be this kind of force. As near to magical as any mortal should stride. A technician of unspeakable joy. Braving the neon mountains to return with blue raspberry concentrate. Tearing out sundae cone fangs from the mouths of snow beasts. And so on.

Tender, nostalgic, romantic, funny, absurd, magically real, speculative, ironic, nightmarish, entertaining and elegantly rendered…these stories span a century of Man’s consciousness. Once, a man might be a Gatsby chasing his girl half-way around the world, the captain of a football World Cup winning side, a raging Picasso bull in a mythical maze refusing to yield lover or art till his last mortality-defiant egotistic gasp. He zigzags over #TimesUp, political correctness, game theory, oh...and...the women in his life.

Das Beste aus 20 Jahren vom Shootingstar der deutschen Literatur: Geschichten über die schwäbische Heimat, das Berliner Exil und das ferne Amerika. Komisch und melancholisch. Vielschichtig und pointiert. Für den literarischen Genuss und den großen Lesespaß. "Seine Geschichten zu lesen ist ganz einfach immer wieder ein sehr großes Vergnügen." Horst Evers. Gerade als seine Mutter den Führerschein macht, lässt der Gemeinderat eine Fußgängerampel aufstellen, mit fatalen Folgen für Mensch und Tier.