Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Sometime in the near future, a community will live in a replica Roman city built in the Australian bush. (If it was the poet you are thinking of, the story would have ended far more happily, and with fewer people having their throats bitten out.)

Hundreds of years ago, Fanny and Mary ran away from London with a debauched poet and his sister. (It included more monsters than you might think.) The document was lost, or destroyed, almost immediately. The otherworldly merely gives them a chance to find it, and makes these unflinching but touching stories even more evocative and irresistible.Thousands of years ago, Julia Agrippina wrote the true history of her family, the Caesars. McDermott's poignant stories defy genre labelling, being primarily about damaged people seeking solace, escape, or meaning. 'The supernatural lurks in the shadows of Kirstyn McDermott's first collection, an ambiguous or mundane presence that keeps these four quasi-horror stories feeling palpably real.

Once her words get under your skin, they are there to stay.' - Angela Slatter, British Fantasy Award-winning author of Sourdough and Other Stories 'Kirstyn McDermott's prose is darkly magical, insidious and insistent. Julia Agrippina's Secret Family BestiaryĪn intimate, unsettling collection from award-winning author Kirstyn McDermott.Ī creepy wooden dog that refuses to play dead.Ī gifted crisis counsellor and the mysterious, melancholy girl she cannot seem to reach.Ī once-successful fantasy author whose life has become a horror story - now with added unicorns.Īn isolated woman whose obsession with sex dolls takes a harrowing, unexpected turn.įour stories that will haunt you long after their final pages are turned.Yes, you do have to wear the damned toga. Immortal heroes really don't fancy teenage girls. Don't let your little brother make out with silver-eyed blondes. Women named Julia are stronger than they appear. The world is in greater danger than you ever suspected. (He didn't even know she had a thing for pointy teeth.)

(Shame about the manticores.)įurther in the future, the last man who guards the secret history of the world will discover that the past has a way of coming around to bite you. Thousands of years ago, Julia Agrippina wrote the true history of her family, the Caesars. A Crash Course in the History of Black Science Fiction.200 Significant SF Books by Women, 1984-2001.

Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts