by Andy Duncan
Acknowledgments
I am indebted to countless people for their assistance, inspiration and encouragement as I was working on these stories, including: my late parents, who raised me to read; everyone at Clarion West 1994, and all my Clarion and Clarion West students since; my students and teachers at N.C. State University, especially John Kessel, who grew me from a bean; my students and teachers at the University of Alabama; my students and colleagues at Frostburg State University; all the editors who have published my fiction, especially Gardner Dozois, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and Ellen Datlow; my fellow workshoppers at the Sycamore Hill Writers Conference; everyone at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts; everyone who has read my work, shown up to my readings, and boosted my signal on social media through the years; and, above all, my wife, Sydney.
Publication History
“An Agent of Utopia” and “Joe Diabo’s Farewell” are published here for the first time.
“Beluthahatchie,” Asimov’s, 1997
“The Map to the Homes of the Stars,” Dying for It, 1997
“The Pottawatomie Giant,” SciFiction, 2000
“Senator Bilbo,” Starlight 3, 2001
“The Big Rock Candy Mountain,” Conjunctions 39, 2002
“Daddy Mention and the Monday Skull,” Mojo: Conjure Stories, 2003
“Zora and the Zombie,” SciFiction, 2004
“Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse,” Eclipse One, 2007
“Slow as a Bullet,” Eclipse Four, 2011
“Close Encounters,” The Pottawatomie Giant, 2012
About the Author
Andy Duncan’s short fiction has been honored with a Nebula Award, a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and three World Fantasy Awards. A native of Batesburg, S.C., Duncan has been a newspaper reporter, a trucking-magazine editor, a bookseller, a student-media adviser, and, since 2008, a member of the writing faculty at Frostburg State University in the mountains of western Maryland, where he lives with his wife, Sydney.
Praise for Andy Duncan’s stories
“Mesmerizing.” ~ Ed Park, Los Angeles Times
“Duncan shows an hallucinatory grasp of idiom, of place-setting tact, an actor’s clarity at the rendering of voice.”
~ John Clute, Washington Post Book World
“There’s no good name for what Andy Duncan does. . . . Duncan’s imagination runs through that fertile ground previously tilled by artists such as Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson and Poe.”
~ Mark Hughes Cobb, The Tuscaloosa News
“Duncan’s short stories are marvels of setting and diction.”
~ Michael Berry, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
“Virtually unclassifiable . . . as powerful as any from Richard Powers or Rick Moody, T. C. Boyle or Steve Erickson . . . a bizarre blend of Faulkner and Hemingway with touches of Tennessee Williams and Kurt Vonnegut.”
~ Gary S. Potter, Charleston Post and Courier
“You’re likely to be laughing one moment, in awe the next and perhaps horrified before the tale is done. Few authors can pull off such delicate tonal balances in a short story, although William Faulkner achieved it more than once . . . Will satisfy any reader brave enough to handle the strange places Duncan visits, the places between disturbing fantasy and ruthless reality.”
~ John Mark Eberhart, The Kansas City Star
“Stunningly beautiful.” ~ Sean Melican, BookPage
“Duncan is often most comfortable when working in the rich tradition of the American folk tale, crafting shrewd and funny stories of the intersection between the modern world and folk traditions and superstitions, particularly those of Appalachia and the American South, but . . . he also has other strings to his bow, and a surprising depth of range as a stylist. . . . Whichever critical pigeonhole you try to push Andy Duncan into, he remains one of the best and most original writers in the business.” ~ Gardner Dozois
“Wonderful.” ~ Nancy Kress · “Wonderfully demented.” ~ Michael Swanwick · “Excellent.” ~ Rich Horton · “Superlative.” ~ Paula Guran · “Superb.”
~ Jonathan Strahan · Brilliant.” ~ Mary Anne Mohanraj · “Genius.” ~ Nick Gevers · “Irresistible.” ~ Ernest Hogan · “Knockout.” ~ Tim Pratt · “Powerful.” ~ Fiona Kelleghan · “Amazing.” ~ Patrick O’Leary · “Unique.” ~ Steven H. Silver
“Duncan has amassed a record of superior work out of all proportion to mere number of pages gathered between boards. He feels like an essential, towering part of the fantastika landscape, his every story eagerly awaited.”
~ Asimov’s Science Fiction
“Fantasist and folklorist, he takes premises that are not made up, or at least are not made up by Andy Duncan . . . and creates new and strange stories out of them, which nevertheless tell the truth about the way things happened.”
~ Christopher Cobb, Strange Horizons
“Duncan will get you to bust a gut laughing. He’ll make you teary, and put a shiver up your spine. But most importantly, his stories ask questions you might not know how to answer, and leave you looking inside yourself long after you’ve read the last line of his singing prose.”
~ Lara Elena Donnelly, author of Amberlough
“Andy Duncan’s unique voice shines through in his third collection. You’ve not read him yet? Go out now and buy An Agent of Utopia. You’ll thank me.”
~ Ellen Datlow, award-winning editor
“An Agent of Utopia is all the proof you’ll need to see that Andy Duncan is one of the very best short story writers in Science Fiction, Fantasy, or anywhere else. It’s a sure bet that you’re holding in your hand the best story collection of the year.” ~ Jeffrey Ford, author of A Natural History of Hell
“One of the most hilarious and poignant writers of short stories that we have. He effortlessly forges dreamlike and nightmarish tales with wit and wisdom that rivals Mark Twain.”
~ Christopher Barzak, author of Wonders of the Invisible World
“Andy Duncan is the Andy Duncan of Andy Duncanland, and we are all lucky to have access to that fabled locale via the portal between his brain and these pages. The stories in this collection drip with magic and mayhem and time and place and personhood, along with the most creative cussing this side of anywhere. Each one is a microcosm, a moment from our own history, real or imagined, passed along to us by a master storyteller.”
~ Sarah Pinsker, author of New Day
“Duncan gives us the oldest form of fantasy, the legend, or folk tale: not just the childish folk legend of fireside entertainment but the one that has taken on enough mythic resonance to seem real.”
~ Sherwood Smith, author of King’s Shield