The short story is thriving in the world of science fiction and fantasy, as collections by Karen Russell and Kelly Link demonstrate. Less well-known but similarly worthy is Dale Bailey (The Resurrection Man's Legacy). His second collection, The End of the End of Everything, shows why his stories have been recent finalists for the Nebula Award and the Bram Stoker Award.
In the title story--a rather violent twist on Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death"--Ben and Lois Divine are invited by Stan and his new wife to Cerulean Cliffs, an exclusive artists' colony. Inhabitants there indulge in suicide parties as the world teeters on the brink of extinction. The Earth has become "baked and fractured" from a "slow doom" called the "ruin" that will eventually consume all. "Troop 9" is a dark piece about girls in a scout troop going feral in the Adirondacks. Time travel is explored in "Mating Habits of the Late Cretaceous," wherein a couple visits a Jurassic Park-like world in hopes of saving their marriage.
Bailey can also write with a lighter hand. "The Creature Recants" is a humorous, tongue-in-cheek tale about the pitiful Creature from the Black Lagoon now in Hollywood struggling to make ends meet: " 'Don't expect too much,' Karloff had advised him over sushi...."
These quirky stories offer a variety of twists and turns in the science fiction fantasy genre, revealing Bailey as an inventive and innovative writer well worth watching. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher