by Joey Comeau
“Okay,” Tony said, and he took hold of Martin’s head again and forced him down under the water. He put all his weight into it, driving Martin’s face into the sand and rocks of the beach. The salt stung inside Martin’s nose, but he couldn’t struggle with Tony on him. He thought about his mother coming home to an empty apartment and he couldn’t help it, he took a deep lungful of water. It felt terrifying. He couldn’t stop. He breathed in salt water and the stirred-up sand filled his lungs.
Above him, it sounded like Tony was singing something again and he could hear the waves, too, sort of, but it was all fading. He thought about his mother’s face, smiling, and he held that picture in his mind for the rest of his life.
EPILOGUE
Martin,
My apartment here in Toronto is right above a dumpling place, in Chinatown. Already I’ve seen cockroaches scurrying from the light every time I enter a room. I can hear them whispering when they think I’m asleep. They don’t know what to do with me. For now they appear content to wait and see how I behave. If they need to, I have no doubt they will kill me without hesitation. I’ve started leaving more crumbs and food out on the counter at night, a shameless attempt to purchase their friendship.
There’s a garbage worker strike, and so the city smells worse than ever. It is the worst time for me to have moved here, and Chinatown is the worst part of the city to have chosen, but it is still better than Halifax. And, eventually those garbage men will go back to work, won’t they? Or has the government already decided to leave the city to rot, to fill it with garbage, higher and higher until the whole of the metropolitan Toronto area is an open-air dump?
When you come home from camp, we can make an adventure of it. We’ll build ourselves protective suits of thick fabric, defence against the roaming gangs of giant mutated rats. Or we can join them, if you’d like. I’ve always felt more comfortable among rats than among people. We can live in the dark alleys and in the muck beneath the streets. During the day you’ll dress in your human clothes and go to school, and I’ll head off to work on a movie or a commercial. Then at night we will throw our disguises down an open manhole and we will be wild and dangerous and we will be together.
Love,
Your mother.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOEY COMEAU is best known for writing the text of the webcomic A Softer World, and for his novels Lockpick Pornography and Overqualified.
THE INNER CITY
KAREN HEULER
Anything is possible: people breed dogs with humans to create a servant class; beneath one great city lies another city, running it surreptitiously; an employee finds that her hair has been stolen by someone intent on getting her job; strange fish fall from trees and birds talk too much; a boy tries to figure out what he can get when the Rapture leaves good stuff behind. Everything is familiar; everything is different. Behind it all, is there some strange kind of design or merely just the chance to adapt? In Karen Heuler’s stories, characters cope with the strange without thinking it’s strange, sometimes invested in what’s going on, sometimes trapped by it, but always finding their own way in.
AVAILABLE NOW
978-1-927469-34-7
GOLDENLAND PAST DARK
CHANDLER KLANG SMITH
A hostile stranger is hunting Dr. Show’s ramshackle travelling circus across 1960s America. His target: the ringmaster himself. The troupe’s unravelling hopes fall on their latest and most promising recruit, Webern Bell, a sixteen-year-old hunchbacked midget devoted obsessively to perfecting the surreal clown performances that come to him in his dreams. But as they travel through a landscape of abandoned amusement parks and rural ghost towns, Webern’s bizarre past starts to pursue him, as well.
AVAILABLE NOW
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THE WARRIOR WHO CARRIED LIFE
GEOFF RYMAN
Only men are allowed into the wells of vision. But Cara’s mother defies this edict and is killed, but not before returning with a vision of terrible and wonderful things that are to come . . . and all because of five-year-old Cara. Years later, evil destroys the rest of Cara’s family. In a rage, Cara uses magic to transform herself into a male warrior. But she finds that to defeat her enemies, she must break the cycle of violence, not continue it. As Cara’s mother’s vision of destiny is fulfilled, the wonderful follows the terrible, and a quest for revenge becomes a quest for eternal life.
AVAILABLE NOW
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THE ’GEISTERS
DAVID NICKLE
When Ann LeSage was a little girl, she had an invisible friend—a poltergeist, that spoke to her with flying knives and howling winds. She called it the Insect. And with a little professional help, she contained it. But the nightmare never truly ended. As Ann grew from girl into young woman, the Insect grew with her, becoming a thing of murder. Now, as she embarks on a new life married to successful young lawyer Michael Voors, Ann believes that she finally has the Insect under control. But there are others vying to take that control away from her. They may not know exactly what they’re dealing with, but they know they want it. They are the ’Geisters. And in pursuing their own perverse dream, they risk spawning the most terrible nightmare of all.
AVAILABLE NOW
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THE MONA LISA SACRIFICE
BOOK ONE OF THE BOOK OF CROSS
PETER ROMAN
For thousands of years, Cross has wandered the earth, a mortal soul trapped in the undying body left behind by Christ. But now he must play the part of reluctant hero, as an angel comes to him for help finding the Mona Lisa—the real Mona Lisa that inspired the painting. Cross’s quest takes him into a secret world within our own, populated by characters just as strange and wondrous as he is. He’s haunted by memories of Penelope, the only woman he truly loved, and he wants to avenge her death at the hands of his ancient enemy, Judas. The angel promises to deliver Judas to Cross, but nothing is ever what it seems, and when a group of renegade angels looking for a new holy war show up, things truly go to hell.
AVAILABLE NOW
978-1-771481-46-5
ZOMBIE VERSUS FAIRY FEATURING ALBINOS
JAMES MARSHALL
In a PERFECT world where everyone DESTROYS everything and eats HUMAN FLESH, one ZOMBIE has had enough: BUCK BURGER. When he rebels at the natural DISORDER, his marriage starts DETERIORATING and a doctor prescribes him an ANTI-DEPRESSANT. Buck meets a beautiful GREEN-HAIRED pharmacist fairy named FAIRY_26 and quickly becomes a pawn in a COLD WAR between zombies and SUPERNATURAL CREATURES. Does sixteen-year-old SPIRITUAL LEADER and pirate GUY BOY MAN make an appearance? Of course! Are there MIND-CONTROLLING ALBINOS? Obviously! Is there hot ZOMBIE-ON-FAIRY action? Maybe! WHY AREN’T YOU READING THIS YET?
AVAILABLE NOW
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IMAGINARIUM 2013
THE BEST CANADIAN SPECULATIVE WRITING
EDITED BY SANDRA KASTURI & SAMANTHA BEIKO
INTRODUCTION BY TANYA HUFF
COVER ART BY GMB CHOMICHUK
A yearly anthology from ChiZine Publications, gathering the best Canadian fiction and poetry in the speculative genres (SF, fantasy, horror, magic realism) published in the previous year. Imaginarium 2012 (edited by Sandra Kasturi and Halli Villegas, with a provocative introduction by Steven Erikson) was nominated for a Prix Aurora Award.
AVAILABLE NOW
978-1-771481-50-2
CELESTIAL INVENTORIES
STEVE RASNIC TEM
Celestial Inventories features twenty-two stories collected from rare chapbooks, anthologies, and obscure magazines, along with a new story written specifically for this volume. All represent the slipstream segment of Steve Rasnic Tem’s large body of tales: imaginative, difficult-to-pigeonhole works of the fantastic crossing conventional boundaries between science fiction, fantasy, horror, literary fiction, bizarro, magic realism, and the new weird. Sever
al of these stories have previously appeared in Best of the Year compilations and have been the recipients of major F & SF nominations and awards.
AVAILABLE AUGUST 2O13
978-1-771481-48-9
TELL MY SORROWS TO THE STONES
CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN
A circus clown willing to give anything to be funny. A spectral gunslinger who must teach a young boy to defend the ones he loves. A lonely widower making a farewell tour of the places that meant the world to his late wife. A faded Hollywood actress out to deprive her ex-husband of his prize possession. A grieving mother who will wait by the railroad tracks for a ghostly train that always has room for one more. A young West Virginia miner whose only hope of survival is a bedtime story. These are just some of the characters to be found in Tell My Sorrows to the Stones.
AVAILABLE AUGUST 2O13
978-1-771481-54-0
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