BLACK HOLE HEART AND OTHER STORIES
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KT1-25
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K.A.TERYNA
Translated by Alex Shvartsman
The world is not how we perceive it.
A blizzard may be the fury of a whale god. Intelligent bees watch our every move. Monsters lurk in the metro underpasses while others haunt our dreams. Are we asleep in frozen sarcophagi, en route to a new planet? Should we swallow jellyfish, drink colors, or repaint the sky?
This book has the answers. But in return, it might steal your heart.
Black Hole Heart and Other Stories contains 13 speculative tales by the award-winning author and illustrator K.A.Teryna, translated from Russian.
Translated by Alex Shvartsman
- October, 2025 978-1-958880-29-6
- trade paperback, 5.5 x 8.5
- Order copies below; or order ebook copies from these dealers. (more ebook and print venues forthcoming)
- Cover art and design by K.A. Teryna
The world is not how we perceive it.
A blizzard may be the fury of a whale god. Intelligent bees watch our every move. Monsters lurk in the metro underpasses while others haunt our dreams. Are we asleep in frozen sarcophagi, en route to a new planet? Should we swallow jellyfish, drink colors, or repaint the sky?
This book has the answers. But in return, it might steal your heart.
Black Hole Heart and Other Stories contains 13 speculative tales by the award-winning author and illustrator K.A.Teryna, translated from Russian.
5 available
“A singular talent, with writing fresh and strange.”
— Lavie Tidhar
"What is most impressive here is the range of these glittering stories, from cyberpunk to folklore, generation starship to dream invasion. Again and again, I laughed in astonishment at turns of phrase and twists of the mundane into the surreal. With her brooding sense of the absurd, K.A.Teryna will teach you a new way to embrace the fantastic. I needed to read these stories — you do too!"
— James Patrick Kelly winner of the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards
"K.A.Teryna's kaleidoscopic vision spans nations, worlds, and genres, delivering stories that range from sharp-eyed science fiction to dreamy myth, and all of it alive with a fiercely beating heart."
— Stephanie Feldman, author of Saturnalia and The Night Parade and Other Stories
"An engaging, eclectic set of stories. Some feel like Russian folk tales made new. Some feel like space opera, some like cyberpunk. Some are just plain weird and feel like some of the experimental writing from the 1960s. Teryna has an interesting and vivid imagination, creating worlds and populating them with strange and captivating characters, people and otherwise. I can’t tell you what these stories are like in the original Russian, but Shvartsman does a great job in capturing the beauty and the strangeness of language. If I did not know ahead of time, I would not have guessed these were not the original versions. Stories of longing and loneliness and desire and, sometimes, successes. Unusual worlds. Whale gods. Interstellar space ships. Removal and retrieval of pain. Ghosts and spirits and dreams. A Russian cat, from Leningrad! Virtual Moscows. Cyber Jellyfish. Heir to the throne? Smiles. Golems. Bees. A nice glass of red. I haven’t read much short fiction lately, but Black Hole Heart and Other Stories is a reason to perhaps change that. These are not frivolous throw-away stories to read for a quick laugh. There is a depth to them that comes back to you later. You sink into these stories and come up for air later. When you do come up, there is a different feel to the atmosphere. It’s a little richer, a little thicker and a little darker."
— Amazing Stories
“The stories in Black Hole Heart refuse to be labeled. They burst from the confines of the page, swirling and switching genre gears, leaving the reader wondering what’s coming next. In these pages, one finds old Russian folk tales, golems, plotting cats, children old beyond their years, generation ships, and more. Teryna balances stories about inner lives and outer space with a deftness that explains why every one of these stories has found a home in a prestigious magazine or anthology . . . Translated by Alex Shvartsman with the kind of care and dedication that allows the stories to blossom and live in our minds long after they’re read, these glimpses of sometimes-dark, sometimes-hilarious worlds solidify Teryna’s place on the global speculative fiction scene . . . A heady mix of genres, ideas, and worlds, Black Hole Heart will make you want to seek out every story Teryna has written and look out for whatever comes next.”
— Strange Horizons
"Teryna’s speculative fiction (mostly science fiction, but not all) is character-based while still exploring larger ideas of how technology improves and disrupts our lives and our greater need for community. I particularly enjoyed 'Lajos and His Bees,' 'Madame Felides Elopes,' 'The Chartreuse Sky,' 'Songs of the Snow Whale,' and the title story."
—Anthony R. Cardno, editor of The Many Tortures of Anthony Cardno
"Dazzling and surreal."
— The Times of London
— Lavie Tidhar
"What is most impressive here is the range of these glittering stories, from cyberpunk to folklore, generation starship to dream invasion. Again and again, I laughed in astonishment at turns of phrase and twists of the mundane into the surreal. With her brooding sense of the absurd, K.A.Teryna will teach you a new way to embrace the fantastic. I needed to read these stories — you do too!"
— James Patrick Kelly winner of the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards
"K.A.Teryna's kaleidoscopic vision spans nations, worlds, and genres, delivering stories that range from sharp-eyed science fiction to dreamy myth, and all of it alive with a fiercely beating heart."
— Stephanie Feldman, author of Saturnalia and The Night Parade and Other Stories
"An engaging, eclectic set of stories. Some feel like Russian folk tales made new. Some feel like space opera, some like cyberpunk. Some are just plain weird and feel like some of the experimental writing from the 1960s. Teryna has an interesting and vivid imagination, creating worlds and populating them with strange and captivating characters, people and otherwise. I can’t tell you what these stories are like in the original Russian, but Shvartsman does a great job in capturing the beauty and the strangeness of language. If I did not know ahead of time, I would not have guessed these were not the original versions. Stories of longing and loneliness and desire and, sometimes, successes. Unusual worlds. Whale gods. Interstellar space ships. Removal and retrieval of pain. Ghosts and spirits and dreams. A Russian cat, from Leningrad! Virtual Moscows. Cyber Jellyfish. Heir to the throne? Smiles. Golems. Bees. A nice glass of red. I haven’t read much short fiction lately, but Black Hole Heart and Other Stories is a reason to perhaps change that. These are not frivolous throw-away stories to read for a quick laugh. There is a depth to them that comes back to you later. You sink into these stories and come up for air later. When you do come up, there is a different feel to the atmosphere. It’s a little richer, a little thicker and a little darker."
— Amazing Stories
“The stories in Black Hole Heart refuse to be labeled. They burst from the confines of the page, swirling and switching genre gears, leaving the reader wondering what’s coming next. In these pages, one finds old Russian folk tales, golems, plotting cats, children old beyond their years, generation ships, and more. Teryna balances stories about inner lives and outer space with a deftness that explains why every one of these stories has found a home in a prestigious magazine or anthology . . . Translated by Alex Shvartsman with the kind of care and dedication that allows the stories to blossom and live in our minds long after they’re read, these glimpses of sometimes-dark, sometimes-hilarious worlds solidify Teryna’s place on the global speculative fiction scene . . . A heady mix of genres, ideas, and worlds, Black Hole Heart will make you want to seek out every story Teryna has written and look out for whatever comes next.”
— Strange Horizons
"Teryna’s speculative fiction (mostly science fiction, but not all) is character-based while still exploring larger ideas of how technology improves and disrupts our lives and our greater need for community. I particularly enjoyed 'Lajos and His Bees,' 'Madame Felides Elopes,' 'The Chartreuse Sky,' 'Songs of the Snow Whale,' and the title story."
—Anthony R. Cardno, editor of The Many Tortures of Anthony Cardno
"Dazzling and surreal."
— The Times of London
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR