Matthew Johnson, little-known despite having been published in a variety of anthologies, here collects some of his deeply original short stories for the first time. In the brilliant Irregular Verbs, Johnson proves that short, well-executed speculative fiction has all the heart-wrenching power of any epic historical novel or contemporary literary fiction. In her introduction, author Helen Marshall describes Johnson as "one of the very best science-fiction and fantasy writers that you've never heard of," and just a story or two from Irregular Verbs proves her point.
This collection, which includes a variety of previously published stories as well as several new pieces, spans most sci-fi and fantasy subgenres--everything from superheroes and zombies to alternative histories, time travel and dragons. The title story takes place in a community so linguistically gifted that the residents are constantly inventing new dialects and whole languages in which they are able to share common experiences. When the protagonist's wife dies, he finds himself stranded, searching desperately for a way to preserve the language that the two of them shared. "The Dragon's Lesson" is a fable about greed, inflation and the dangers of being worth more dead than alive. In "Another Country," a Canadian immigration official deals with the issue of refugees arriving straight from the war-torn shores of ancient Rome.
Certain themes recur: what Johnson considers the quiet, endless tragedy of capitalism, the pain of a partner's death. Whatever the subject, Johnson's treatment is elegant and wise, and his stories are treasures to be savored. --Emma Page, bookseller at Wellesley Books in Wellesley, Mass.