The Privilege of the Happy Ending

Hugo and Nebula award winner Johnson (The River Bank) returns with 14 dazzling speculative shorts. The collection opens with an altered photograph: Ukulele Squid Girl by Laura Christensen, which depicts a young girl with tentacles holding a ukulele. The first story, “Tool-Using Mimics,” provides a series of possible explanations for how such a girl came to be—is she the determined child of an octopus that grew into a small girl through sheer force of will? Or perhaps the result of the wayward desires of a fisherman’s wife? “Butterflies of Eastern Texas” brings unexpected color to the dull, repetitive life of a train conductor when he meets a passenger who involuntarily releases butterflies from her mouth every time she speaks. In “Ratatoskr,” a young girl learns about death when she spies the Norse squirrel god outside her window during a storm and gains the ability to see and communicate with squirrel ghosts. The devastating title tale follows another young girl and her cherished talking hen as they barely escape a swarm of monsters who devour anything with flesh. Johnson’s keen eye for the mysteries of human nature shines as her characters experience love, loss, growth, and betrayal, all made delightfully strange. These boundary-pushing, magic-infused tales are sure to wow.(Oct.)