Consistently one of my favorite short story writers.” — Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble
"Landscapes and memories alter, gentrify, and crumble in Butner’s flawless debut collection, which wends ghosts, virtual futures, and the intricacies of friendship into 16 breathtaking, intimate stories. . . . Readers of John Crowley, Ray Bradbury, and Sally Rooney alike will find a home in this beautiful, grounded exploration of pasts and futures—and the people suspended between them."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The collection opens with ‘Adventure,’ with a long-overdue visit to an old friend and a tale told about a stranger, which may be just fantasy, but, setting the tone for the collection, the reality is not entirely clear-cut. . . . All in all, a worthwhile collection.” — Booklist
“A resemblance to George Saunders’ and Carmen Maria Machado’s work, though Butner has his own thematic obsessions. . . . In his best stories, Butner effectively merges the strange setups with a bracing mix of humor and dread.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Grounded by concrete pop culture details, each strange narrative makes what’s familiar seem eerie.” — Foreword Reviews (starred review)
“At last, one of the contemporary masters of the uncanny and darkly humorous, Richard Butner, has his stories in one place where we can get at them. With a toe (just a toe) in the literary pool, and the rest of him splashing happily in the spec fic/sci-fi/surreal swimming hole, Butner’s tales deal in the deadly habits of nostalgia, and the surprises waiting for the wistful and the obsessive whose march forward obliges a look backward. Linkean, Barthelmean, Saundersean . . . hm, okay, these guys do NOT lend themselves to sonorous adjectivization but, nonetheless, they’ll have to welcome a new storyteller beside them on the shelf.”—Wilton Barnhardt, author of Emma Who Saved My Life and Lookaway, Lookaway
“A Richard Butner story is an invitation to discovery alongside his characters. It’s a left turn off of reality’s highway and into its old business district: defiantly shabby, casually weird, and occasionally surreal, perfect in every grounding detail. Every story zigs when you expect it to zag. You only think you know where they are going, but it turns out you are on the same adventure as the protagonist, discovering as you go that the world is stranger than it was the minute before, and the minute before that. Well worth the journey.”—Sarah Pinsker, author of We Are Satellites
"Richard Butner's stories are funny, scary, personal, dispassionate, satirical, and heartfelt, if those incompatible adjectives can be assembled to describe the same work. He writes about the subtle losses we suffer (often without noticing) as we get older, about love and loyalty, about how the past is never completely past and can come sweeping back over you at the slightest opportunity like a tidal wave, so you'd better be ready lest you drown."—John Kessel, author of Pride and Prometheus
Reviews of Richard Butner's stories
“Captivating and gripping.”—Bookotron
“In the face of even the most absurd scenario, Butner’s writing remains cool and understated; he treats the bizarre as if it were commonplace, eventually convincing the reader that nothing is too far from the real. Indeed, many of the stories’ most bizarre moments are simply exaggerations of the inanities of our world, thrust into the forefront of the plot as a sort of social criticism. . . . Butner picks up the absurdities of high-speed America and throws them back in its face, reveling in the wild, wonderful mess he creates.”—New Pages Review
"A powerful story of obsession.”—Lois Tilton, Locus
“The saddest ghost story you’ll read this year.”—Charlie Jane Anders, Gizmodo
"Haunting and heartbreaking.”—iHorror.com
“Wry, caustic, calculated, impulsive…. Gems of gorgeous weirdness.”—Asimovs
“Finely wrought fiction that earns its effects. Evocative and passionate, meaningful and filled with wonders.”— SF Site
“Butner’s meticulous prose lays a cool surface over some twisty terrain. Understated and profound, deft and smooth, these stories sneak up on you and then don’t let go. Boxes within boxes, wheels within wheels.”—Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“In the work of writers who have truly burrowed in, often I’ve a sense of there being not many stories but one continuous, ongoing story, ever growing, ever increasing, turning this way and that in shifting light—which is how I feel about Richard Butner’s.”—James Sallis, author of Sarah Jane
“Richard Butner writes gorgeous, heartfelt stories that are completely his own, each propelled by an inner logic that may or may not match consensus reality, each ringing utterly true. He is unafraid of tough questions and even tougher answers. His characters sweat, grieve, exult, and struggle for understanding, and even when they terrify, they never fail to touch me.”—Lewis Shiner, author of Outside the Gates of Eden
2021-11-30
An assortment of speculative short stories filled with ghosts, time leaps, and alternate realities.
Butner has a knack for a quirky, eye-catching premise. “Holderhaven” turns on the discovery of a hidden staircase in a historic manor. “Horses Blow Up Dog City” imagines a dystopian future in which a puppeteer becomes a pop-culture celebrity. In “Give Up,” a man attempts to summit Mount Everest via a virtual reality, while the narrator of “Delta Function” finds himself witnessing the New Wave band he played in back in college. The stories’ arch tone, offbeat scenarios, and folkloric elements bear a resemblance to George Saunders' and Carmen Maria Machado's work, though Butner has his own thematic obsessions. Earnest but frustrated struggles to recover the past is a big one, not just in time-travel yarns like “Delta Function,” but “The Master Key,” in which two friends return to their high school, or the opening “Adventure,” in which a reunion of two friends becomes oddly upended by the appearance of a man in a jester suit. In his best stories, Butner effectively merges the strange setups with a bracing mix of humor and dread. “The Ornithopter,” for instance, takes place in an office whose staff has been rapidly whittled down to a handful of people, one of whom is a hardcore Star Trek geek. (“The metaphor they’re working inside of might be the Nostromo, the spaceship from Alien, not the USS Enterprise,” the hero notes.) And “Give Up” conjures the horrifying sense that a glitchy fake Everest might be as challenging as the real thing. But too often, these stories don’t rise to their promise, occluded with plot or dense prose that smothers the wit and insight Butner strives to bring to them.
Clever, high-concept stories that sometimes lack in the telling.
