Sweetlust

Bakic (Mars) explores science and desire in this delightful and offbeat collection. In “Gretel,” a woman is determined to bring down a theme park called Sweetlust, which provides heteronormative sexual pleasure to women after syphilis has wiped out all men. The young woman narrator of “Blindness” went blind two years earlier after she masturbated for the first time. A series of doctors fail to help restore her sight, forcing her to rely on her sister for support. Though the concepts are provocative, some of the science fiction details are a bit too simplistic or vague. For instance, in “1740,” the main characters develop a time machine to stop climate change with crude mechanics, while “The Abduction,” about an encounter with extraterrestrials, is clouded by a lack of specifics. Bakic shines when deploying elements of folklore, such as in the twisted “Fellow’s Gully,” which follows a couple who receive a phone call from a woman asking to purchase a plot of land, which the couple never knew they owned. In “MCSB,” another highlight, an anxiety-filled bird researcher named Elis is entranced by a cuckoo’s call and by thoughts of his brother-in-law. When it works, this cabinet of curiosities is intriguingly bizarre. (Feb.)