Aaron's Reviews > In Those Fading Stars

A collection of wonderfully weird short fiction that answers the question, is this story horror or science fiction? With a resounding yes!

Short story collections, especially of the horrific variety, are my bread and butter. I think I’ve read at least one such collection every month this year. This offering from author Andrew Najberg is far and away the most unique collection I’ve read this year. The stories in these pages have premises as varied as robots conducting a séance to contact dead humans, a mother who just can’t understand her teenage daughter’s new fascination with dimension hopping and attempts to transmute herself into a silica based lifeform, and a shut in spontaneously finding himself the unwilling creator of diminutive creatures that see him as a god. The writing itself is obviously skillful, the stories are told deftly and lucidly even when describing the most bizarre material imaginable. There’s an admirable level of pathos packed in as well, the last story in this anthology almost made me cry. But the plots, the ideas themselves is where this book really shines, the stories were all so singular as to make for a memorable reading experience.

My personal favorites in this collection include: Do You Read?, May I Take Care of That For You? And, We Have No Spare Parts. I would gladly read anything else from this writer and hope this collection is just the beginning in an extensive career.