A SLICE OF THE DARK
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KAREN HEULER
If you got a mysterious box that said, Do Not Open, would you open it? If your fingers revolted and wanted a different job, would you agree? If you came from a race of giants, or thought about becoming Death’s lover, or couldn’t get rid of a lover no matter how hard you tried, what would you do?
These stories contain unusual problems, like finding your world growing dark after eating a piece of cake—and maybe wanting more cake. It’s not hard to find yourself one step outside the normal, as these characters do. The trick is to make it work.
Read "Ghost Mice" from the collection on the author's site.
- November 2022 978-1-933846-22-4
- Cover art by Artemis Swenson
- trade paperback
- Order below, or buy print or ebooks of this title from these dealers.
If you got a mysterious box that said, Do Not Open, would you open it? If your fingers revolted and wanted a different job, would you agree? If you came from a race of giants, or thought about becoming Death’s lover, or couldn’t get rid of a lover no matter how hard you tried, what would you do?
These stories contain unusual problems, like finding your world growing dark after eating a piece of cake—and maybe wanting more cake. It’s not hard to find yourself one step outside the normal, as these characters do. The trick is to make it work.
Read "Ghost Mice" from the collection on the author's site.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
• A Slice of the Dark • Bone Broth • Unraveling • Unquiet Dreams • Ghost Mice • Teeth • The Mechanical Nature of Love • The Woeful Effigies • The Living Wood • Do Not Open • Spineless • The Dream Thief • The Restoration • The Constant Lover • The Afterlife of Books • The Fingers of Regina Durette
***
"Heuler serves up a full spread of eerie treats in this fantastical collection of 16 speculative shorts. In the title story, a piece of cake leads a man to discover that the world is full of lurking shadows that only he can see. For a second course, there’s soup: 'Bone Broth' follows a waitress who learns her boss is digging up giant bones from the empty lot next door. These tales veer capably from a Brothers Grimm fairy tale vibe ('The Living Wood') to suburban fabulism ('Do Not Open') to deeply philosophical horror-fantasy ('Ghost Mice'), with Heuler’s matter-of-fact style grounding each story in a reality readers can recognize—until the creeping feeling that nothing is quite as it should be sets in. Heuler fans won’t even mind the reprints: 'The Restoration,' about a woman tasked with seeding animals and plants throughout a climate-destroyed world; 'The Constant Lover,' in which a murder doesn’t quite stick the first time; and the bittersweet flash story 'Unraveling' are all worth another visit. This deliciously unsettling collection will leave readers craving just one more bite."
— Publishers Weekly
"To say that Karen Heuler’s new collection, A Slice of the Dark and Other Stories, is deeply unsettling reveals only a tiny fraction: it is also musical, gorgeous, and uncomfortable. I wasn’t familiar with Hueler’s work before this, which feels like a huge miss on my part--and yours, if you haven’t delved into her catalog and are a fan of the New Weird; of work that tangles inscrutable nature and human foible, à la Jeff VanderMeer; and the magical matter-of-factness of Kelly Link. This oversight is easy to remedy, however, as this excellent collection contains both new and
previously published stories, and gives a taste of her range and obsessions. I’m loath to pigeonhole Heuler as a ‘‘women’s’’ writer, because gendering fiction is patently unfair and inaccurate. However, almost all the protagonists in these stories wrestle with issues most familiar to the female-identified, or with human issues viewed through a socialized-as-female lens. . . . A Slice of the Dark was truly excellent. It does exactly what this sort of slipstreamy New Weird should do. It reminds us that even in the most mundane-seeming of people, places, and things, stuff is already bizarre and a bit sinister, if you only remember to really look at it."
— Locus Magazine
"This collection brims with wonder, with weirdness, with the strangeness we all carry within us. These tales will enchant and confound, each one a mesmerizing work from an outstanding writer."
— Louisa Morgan, author of The Great Witch of Brittany
"A Slice of the Dark is a surreal smorgasbord of stories, a buffet of uncanny delicacies. Both dark and mordantly funny, these tales will linger on your tongue. Be warned that the world may never taste quite the same to you again. Bon appetit!"
— Susan Palwick, author of All Worlds are Real and The Necessary Beggar
"The stories in Karen Heuler’s remarkable collection are as exquisitely crafted as they are unnerving, both passing glimpses of and deep dives into a world where a discovery lies around every dark corner and the shadows are filled with revelation. Each character’s journey leads to something terrible, inevitable, and exhilaratingly new; each story will leave the reader wondering, what could follow that? And then something does, inevitably, dreadfully, wonderfully. I already want more."
— F. Brett Cox, author of The End of All Our Exploring
"Deliciously dark, paranoiac stories of brutal beauty, hunger and heartbreak, lost connections and lost body parts, loudly echoing some of Shirley Jackson's best. Don't miss these excellent tales."
— Matthew Kressel, Nebula Award-nominated author of King of Shards and Queen of Static
"Karen Heuler’s aptly titled A Slice of the Dark is a masterful and compelling collection of weird, addictive stories. The book serves up one meditative tale after another about fascinating, damaged characters placed in offbeat scenarios. What happens when a mysterious package arrives with the warning label 'Do Not Open'? When a woman born with an extra thumb discovers the mysterious properties—and fantastical origins--of a very special bone broth? When succubi purportedly stalk the empty corridors of a sleep clinic? When strangers haunt your apartment and those strangers turn out to be . . . you? In Heuler’s capable hands, the dark has never been more brilliant. A must-read."
— Mercurio D. Rivera, World Fantasy & Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated author of Wergen: The Alien Love War
"Heuler's voice is refreshingly original . . . remarkably inventive and brimming with ideas not found anywhere else in contemporary fantasy fiction."
— Publishers Weekly on The Clockworm
• A Slice of the Dark • Bone Broth • Unraveling • Unquiet Dreams • Ghost Mice • Teeth • The Mechanical Nature of Love • The Woeful Effigies • The Living Wood • Do Not Open • Spineless • The Dream Thief • The Restoration • The Constant Lover • The Afterlife of Books • The Fingers of Regina Durette
***
"Heuler serves up a full spread of eerie treats in this fantastical collection of 16 speculative shorts. In the title story, a piece of cake leads a man to discover that the world is full of lurking shadows that only he can see. For a second course, there’s soup: 'Bone Broth' follows a waitress who learns her boss is digging up giant bones from the empty lot next door. These tales veer capably from a Brothers Grimm fairy tale vibe ('The Living Wood') to suburban fabulism ('Do Not Open') to deeply philosophical horror-fantasy ('Ghost Mice'), with Heuler’s matter-of-fact style grounding each story in a reality readers can recognize—until the creeping feeling that nothing is quite as it should be sets in. Heuler fans won’t even mind the reprints: 'The Restoration,' about a woman tasked with seeding animals and plants throughout a climate-destroyed world; 'The Constant Lover,' in which a murder doesn’t quite stick the first time; and the bittersweet flash story 'Unraveling' are all worth another visit. This deliciously unsettling collection will leave readers craving just one more bite."
— Publishers Weekly
"To say that Karen Heuler’s new collection, A Slice of the Dark and Other Stories, is deeply unsettling reveals only a tiny fraction: it is also musical, gorgeous, and uncomfortable. I wasn’t familiar with Hueler’s work before this, which feels like a huge miss on my part--and yours, if you haven’t delved into her catalog and are a fan of the New Weird; of work that tangles inscrutable nature and human foible, à la Jeff VanderMeer; and the magical matter-of-factness of Kelly Link. This oversight is easy to remedy, however, as this excellent collection contains both new and
previously published stories, and gives a taste of her range and obsessions. I’m loath to pigeonhole Heuler as a ‘‘women’s’’ writer, because gendering fiction is patently unfair and inaccurate. However, almost all the protagonists in these stories wrestle with issues most familiar to the female-identified, or with human issues viewed through a socialized-as-female lens. . . . A Slice of the Dark was truly excellent. It does exactly what this sort of slipstreamy New Weird should do. It reminds us that even in the most mundane-seeming of people, places, and things, stuff is already bizarre and a bit sinister, if you only remember to really look at it."
— Locus Magazine
"This collection brims with wonder, with weirdness, with the strangeness we all carry within us. These tales will enchant and confound, each one a mesmerizing work from an outstanding writer."
— Louisa Morgan, author of The Great Witch of Brittany
"A Slice of the Dark is a surreal smorgasbord of stories, a buffet of uncanny delicacies. Both dark and mordantly funny, these tales will linger on your tongue. Be warned that the world may never taste quite the same to you again. Bon appetit!"
— Susan Palwick, author of All Worlds are Real and The Necessary Beggar
"The stories in Karen Heuler’s remarkable collection are as exquisitely crafted as they are unnerving, both passing glimpses of and deep dives into a world where a discovery lies around every dark corner and the shadows are filled with revelation. Each character’s journey leads to something terrible, inevitable, and exhilaratingly new; each story will leave the reader wondering, what could follow that? And then something does, inevitably, dreadfully, wonderfully. I already want more."
— F. Brett Cox, author of The End of All Our Exploring
"Deliciously dark, paranoiac stories of brutal beauty, hunger and heartbreak, lost connections and lost body parts, loudly echoing some of Shirley Jackson's best. Don't miss these excellent tales."
— Matthew Kressel, Nebula Award-nominated author of King of Shards and Queen of Static
"Karen Heuler’s aptly titled A Slice of the Dark is a masterful and compelling collection of weird, addictive stories. The book serves up one meditative tale after another about fascinating, damaged characters placed in offbeat scenarios. What happens when a mysterious package arrives with the warning label 'Do Not Open'? When a woman born with an extra thumb discovers the mysterious properties—and fantastical origins--of a very special bone broth? When succubi purportedly stalk the empty corridors of a sleep clinic? When strangers haunt your apartment and those strangers turn out to be . . . you? In Heuler’s capable hands, the dark has never been more brilliant. A must-read."
— Mercurio D. Rivera, World Fantasy & Arthur C. Clarke Award-nominated author of Wergen: The Alien Love War
"Heuler's voice is refreshingly original . . . remarkably inventive and brimming with ideas not found anywhere else in contemporary fantasy fiction."
— Publishers Weekly on The Clockworm
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR