Tales of Distant Shadows

Collected here is a series of stories set in a variety of worlds and times, which dodge and weave like shifting dreams through the realms of magical realism, cosmic horror, mystery, science fiction, modern fantasy, and those in between:A young man illegally hops train cars on a mission while avoiding an angry railway officer; a rock band plays one last song as the world crumbles around them; a man visits a strange world hoping to restore lost memories; a young woman is offered a lucrative chance to play in a mysterious symphony orchestra; a soldier in Iraq is pursued in a sandstorm by an unseen sniper; a boy goes out at night searching for his runaway dog, amid strange urban legends; a family of prehistoric humans encounter an unsettling humanoid creature; a trading card game tournament becomes a high-stakes game of life or death; a 20th century laywoman gains immortality; a Lumberjack roams, post-apocalypse, hunting monstrous trees.
These ten tales are all different in setting and theme, but are all unified by one thought: that there are other possible worlds all around us if we dare to notice, in every direction. The shadows of these worlds are all the time cast into our own. Some are right next to us, some are stalking in the distance. Inspired by the natural strangeness of the world around us, as well as the works of authors like Haruki Murakami and Jack Vance, and filmmakers like David Lynch and John Carpenter, the stories presented here by Ryan Gibbons hope to be grand escapes in miniature, glimpses into strange little, often dark, thought-provoking worlds where truly anything might happen.