Leza Cantoral

A retelling of the fairytale The Little Mermaid through a twisted lens. A combination of teenage angst with some bizarre elements of alien abduction and ancient astronaut lore and climaxing with a rather disturbing (Mer)anthropophagy and rape sequence between a spaceman and a still fish-tailed mermaid which brings with it a dark, hybrid Genesis. There is some more high strangeness in the final scenes which ties the whole story up and pushes it into even more uncharted directions. Very entertaining, but not a tale for the uninitiated.… (más)

Wonderful collection of strange stories; weird erotica, cosmic acid-trip bizarro, mutagenic body horror, and fractured fairy-tales. Author Leza Cantoral takes us through a shifting kaleidoscope of moods; playful and hallucinatory, sad and wistful, to venomous and excoriating. Each story is told with wit, humor, emotion, and features a perfect sense of pace and brevity. Stylistically they run the gamut of gritty realism to a level of almost pure psychedelia, some featuring layers upon layers of speculative invention, a hallmark of bizarro fiction, and some having an almost diary-page, real-world ring of truth to them. The best of them bleed those boundaries; fantasy & metaphor fusing with the confessional into something really unique and powerful. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys modern twists on classic morality-plays, scathing cultural critiques, and wonderfully inventive short-stories.… (más)

One of my favorite anthologies I‰ÃƒÂ›Ã‚ªve read in a while. Deeply cathartic, sometimes emotionally devastating stories written in a great mix of styles and genres. Some faithfully referenced the poetry and biographical details of Sylvia Plath, others delved into the lyrics and moods of Lana Del Rey‰Ûªs music, and some forged their own paths. The best of them combined all of these elements into a synthesis greater than the sum of its parts. All of the stories were good, many were great. Tragedy Queens gets a strong recommendation from me… (más)