A Book of Endings by Deborah Biancotti
Paperback • 286pp • RRP AUS$27.95
ISBN 978-0-9804841-5-1
Shortlisted for the Aurealis Award and the William L. Crawford Award.
Locus Recommended Reading for 2009
Honourable Mention, Best Horror of the Year Vol 2 by Ellen Datlow
40 Books from 2009 That You Should Read – SF Signal
Six Suicides – Winner Best Short Fiction, Australian Shadows Award
Six Suicides and A Book of Endings – shortlisted for Ditmars
Table of Contents
| I. End of days Diamond Shell Number 3 Raw Place Hush Seven Ages of the Protagonist Silicon Cast Stone by Stone Pale Dark Soldier |
II. End of the World Coming Up for Air Watertight Lies The Distance Keeper Six Suicides Life’s Work The Tailor of Time King of All and the Metal Sentinels |
III. End of an Era Problems of Light and Dark The First and Final Game Stealing Free Summa Seltza Missive The Razor Salesman The Dying Light This Time, Longing |
The debut collection by Deborah Biancotti, was released at Continuum 5, Galaxies by Gaslight, in Melbourne, August 14-16, 2009.
Find out more about Deborah Biancotti at her website.
Reviews
Deborah Biancotti’s superb collection of short stories reminds me of the engaging work of Robert Aickman. She is a damned fine storyteller and her sheer originality, zest, energy and style fill the dark skyline of the modern world with luminous flares of mysterious force.
Graham Joyce
There’s wonder to the world, and a dark magic. And Deborah Biancotti wants to show it to you. Not just a series of short stories but an encyclopaedia of the uncanny, and a haunting reflection of how close the everyday is to madness. This is astonishing stuff – clever, humane, and more than a little profound.
Robert Shearman
A Book Of Endings, the long-awaited collection of stories by Deborah Biancotti, one of Australia’s best writers of short weird fiction (and I do mean weird) from Twelfth Planet Press, is a very tight and beautifully presented book.
Tansy Rayner Roberts, Not if You Were the Last Short Story on Earth
Justin Ackroyd lists A Book of Endings in his Picks for 2008-2009
A very auspicious first collection by Deborah Biancotti.
Jeff Vandermeer, Sofanauts 27
[O]ne of the major strengths of Biancotti’s writing (other than her beautiful use of prose), … is her ability to consistently surprise the reader. One can never, ever quite see what’s just around the bend in a Biancotti tale: tragedy, hope, death, redemption, or none (or all) of the above. Will the story contain any paranormal elements, or not? Impossible to tell. And the journey undertaken by the reader in order to find out makes for an engrossing, tense, entertaining trip every single time…
A Book of Endings is quite simply a brilliant collection
Chuck McKenzie, HorrorScope
Biancotti draws her main characters with deft strokes … A Book Of Endings is well worth seeking out if you’d like to read something fresh and different. I look forward to seeing what this author comes up with next.
Patrick Mahon, SFcrowsnest.co.uk