Nowhereville: Weird Is Other People

The 19 unsettling, universally strong stories in this international anthology are connected by their urban settings and “weird” ethos, which editor Scott Gable defines as the “maybe state” between “the impossible of fantasy and the inevitable of science fiction.” Most of these tales could be classified as horror, but a few fall into other genres: Tariro Ndoro’s “The Cure” is a feminist tall tale, and Jeffrey Thomas’s “Vertices” offers up an alien invasion. All of the stories delve deeply into their geographical and cultural settings, and several manifest the city as a character in its own right, as with the postapocalyptic, psychedelic Portland, Ore., of Cody Goodfellow’s “The Sister City” and the human-rejecting Earth of Erica L. Satifka’s “Like Fleas on a Tired Dog’s Back.” Notably creepy tales include Stephen Graham Jones’s horrifying yet hilarious “My Lying Down Smiley Face,” and P. Djèli Clark’s eerie body horror piece, “Night Doctors.” Taken together, these stories create an uncanny, unpredictable hall of mirrors. These wonderfully strange takes on modern living are sure to resonate with fans of speculative fiction. (Dec.)