Things That Never Happened
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Things That Never Happened

  • Author: Scott Edelman
  • Artist: Lynne Hansen
  • Page Count: 300
  • Pub. Date: September 22, 2020
  • ISBN: 978-1-58767-774-8
  • Status: In-Stock
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"Edelman's subtle surrealism and simple prose will keep readers engrossed." — Publishers Weekly

Things That Never Happened
by Scott Edelman

Also available as an eBook!

About the Book:
Eight-time Bram Stoker Award-nominated writer Scott Edelman's stories have been called “utterly uncompromising,” “smooth and inviting, colorful and vivid,” and “horror writing at its best”—and after reading his new collection Things That Never Happened, you'll come away agreeing his fiction is “captivating, alarming, astonishing.”

Stories in this collection include:
• "A Judgment Call for Judgment Day” — Journey back to a World War II battlefield where an angel and demon debate the worth of a soldier’s soul
• “Survival of the Fittest” — Travel to the Galapagos Islands with a haunted man who tries to exorcise his past
• “It’s Only a Story" — Celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein in a tale that gives a Stranger Things vibe to that long-ago night when Mary Shelley birthed The Creature
• And many more!

Gathering 13 of Edelman's eeriest tales from a 40-year career, Things That Never Happened truly—as has been said of his writing—“autopsies the mess of the beating human heart.”

Published as a trade paperback:
• Printed on 60# acid-free paper
• Featuring full color cover artwork
• Retail price $17

Edelman (Tell Me Like You Done Before) delivers a well-constructed collection of 13 realistic tales laced with modest but expertly deployed speculative elements. It's this slight touch of the unusual that gives Edelman's work its charm, as in the collection's standouts: “The Hunger of Empty Vessels,” about a man contending with the dissolution of his family while being stalked by a mysterious stranger, and “The Scariest Story I Know,” the haunting tale of a father telling his son a bedtime story after the death of the boy’s mother in an accident. Recurring themes include deteriorating marriages; abusive, dying, and unfit mothers; and characters with Alzheimer’s disease. Though Edelman's examinations of these heavy topics occasionally tends toward the sentimental and overwrought, when he gets them right his talent is undeniable, as in the powerful “That Perilous Stuff,” about a woman who returns home to care for her hoarder mother at the urging of her enabling brother. Edelman's subtle surrealism and simple prose will keep readers engrossed.
Publishers Weekly

A new collection of Edelman shorts is always a treat, and this might be my favorite group of his assembled stories. Although most involve supernatural elements or some fantastic element, in many cases that portion is an adjunct to the main story, which is about the protagonist. There may be ghosts or demons but it’s the humans who hold our attention.
— Don D'Ammassa

The stories were across the spectrum — eerie, poignant, creepy, chilling, weird and most of all well written and very readable... Stellar.  A must read for all fans of the genre.
— Cat After Dark

 

Scott Edelman has published nearly 100 short stories in magazines such as AnalogThe Twilight ZonePostscriptsAbsolute MagnitudeScience Fiction Review and Fantasy Book, and in anthologies such as You, HumanThe Solaris Book of New Science FictionCrossroadsMetaHorrorOnce Upon a GalaxyMoon ShotsMars ProbesForbidden Planets. His poetry has appeared in Asimov’sAmazingDreams and Nightmares, and others. His most recent short story collection is Tell Me What You Done Before (and Other Stories Written on the Shoulders of Giants), published November 2018 by Lethe Press. What Will Come After, a collection of his zombie fiction, and What We Still Talk About, a collection of his science fiction stories, were both published in 2010. He has been a Stoker Award finalist eight times, in the categories of both Short Story and Long Fiction. Additionally, What Will Come After was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award.

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