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Book Reviewed by:A dazzling and daring debut story collection by PEN/Hemingway finalist, Kim Fu.
In the twelve unforgettable tales of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, the strange is made familiar and the familiar strange, such that a girl growing wings on her legs feels like an ordinary rite of passage, while a bug-infested house becomes an impossible, Kafkaesque nightmare. Each story builds a new world all its own: a group of children steal a haunted doll; a runaway bride encounters a sea monster; a vendor sells toy boxes that seemingly control the passage of time; an insomniac is seduced by the Sandman. These visions of modern life wrestle with themes of death and technological consequence, guilt and sexuality, and unmask the contradictions that exist within all of us.
Mesmerizing, electric, and wholly original, Kim Fu's Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century blurs the boundaries of the real and fantastic, offering intricate and surprising insights into human nature.
It's a versatile collection that shows the author's range. Some seasoned readers of speculative short fiction may feel that Fu isn't breaking a lot of new ground. She relies heavily on tropes, even if she is subverting them. But the ingenuity of each story's world and the author's stylized language — what one might call grotesque poetry — are twin engines that propel the reader through the darker and more absurd recesses of Fu's imagination...continued
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(Reviewed by Lisa Butts).
In one story from Kim Fu's collection Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, an insomniac character is visited by the Sandman and subsequently finds it much easier to fall asleep. There is no consensus among experts as to the origin of the Sandman in folklore, as it is believed to be part of a long history of stories passed from generation to generation and from culture to culture. In many versions of the story, the Sandman sprinkles sand into a child's eyes to make them fall asleep. This element is likely borrowed from Scandinavian folklore.
The earliest written work featuring the character is believed to be German Romantic author E.T.A. Hoffmann's short story "Der Sandmann," published in 1816. (Hoffmann is also known for his ...
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Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Ghost Variations
Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century is one of those rare collections that never suffers from which-one-was-that-again? syndrome. Every story here lights a flame in the memory, shining brighter as time goes by rather than dimming. Kim Fu writes with grace, wit, mischief, daring, and her own deep weird phosphorescent understanding.
