This diverse collection, spanning Connolly's 30-year career, offers old-school fantasy and SF replete with twist endings and familiar tropes. “Step on a Crack,” “Flashback,” “Cockroaches,” “Ghosts” and “Errors” are short and snappy Twilight Zone
–esque gimmick stories. The novella “Great Heart Rising” mixes Native American folklore with a dash of science fictional spores. The Beowulf saga inspires the alien-slaying hijinks of “Daughters of Prime” and “The Others” as well as “Beerwulf” (a much better story than its title suggests), while Greek myth and Stephen King's Christine
inform the closing tale, “Strands.” From the cheerful vampire romp of “Buckeye and Spitball” and the unusual battle against grief in “On the Brink” to the noirish sci-fi of “Julie of the Shadows” and far-future threats of “Flow,” Connolly (Veins
) provides plenty of entertaining and satisfying reads. (Oct.)
