Monstrous Affections

Reviews / Votes

Praise for David Nickle "Bleak, stark and creepy, Stoker-winner Nickle's first collection will delight the literary horror reader. A jarring cover illustration by Erik Mohr prepares the reader for 13 terrifying tales of rural settings, complex and reticent characters and unexpected twists that question the fundamentals of reality. All are delivered with a certain grace, creating a sparse yet poetic tour of the horrors that exist just out of sight. Standout stories include "Janie and the Wind," where a battered, abandoned woman does what she needs to survive; "Other People's Kids," a disturbing examination of the razor-thin moment dividing childhood from maturity and the hand holding that razor; and "The Pit Heads," a phenomenal story about the cold remnants of a Canadian mining town and the true cost of beauty. This ambitious collection firmly establishes Nickle as a writer to watch."
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"People in these stories do terrible things out of the most tender motives. What make their affections monstrous are the ties that bind: a family learns what it means to stick together; a witch holds an entire town in amber; a footloose young man suffers when he tries to walk away from his wife. The stories work so well in part because of Nickle's facility with the language of the place he's created. He is comfortable writing in different voices, including that of a nearly illiterate young woman in the excellent "Janie and the Wind," and he knows the idiom of his semi-rural environment, where a house might stand "miles outside town, on an ugly flat scratch of land where the grass grew too high and you saw the neighbours by the smoke from their woodstoves in the winter." . . . As Michael Rowe writes in his introduction to Monstrous Affections: "It is impossible to experience horror-which is a destination, not a departure point-without first experiencing the security of a place, literal or conceptual, from which the ground will fall away, revealing a vast, awful blackness." In each of these three books, an archetypal Canadian literary setting becomes "an eternally rediscovered country" transformed by the imagination. In other words: yes, it's Canadian literature. And it's fantastic."
-Quill & Quire (starred review)

"The stories [in Knife Fight and Other Struggles] are sui generis in presentation, veering from the discombobulating nightmare that is "Basements" to the squid-laden eco-satire "Wylde's Kingdom" to the sci-fi love of "Loves Means Forever." When it comes to this book, only two things are certain; the stories never travel where you expect, and David Nickle is a monumental talent."
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Believe the hype: David Nickle is very good."
-The Globe and Mail

"David Nickle is my favorite kind of writer. His stories are dark, wildly imaginative, and deeply compassionate-even when they're laced with righteous anger. He's at the top of his game in this new book of short stories, and that's about as good as it gets."
-Nathan Ballingrud, author of North American Lake Monsters

"David Nickle is Canada's answer to Stephen King. His writing charms even as it slices like a blade between the ribs: sharp, subtle, and never less than devastating."
-Helen Marshall, author of Hair Side, Flesh Side and Gifts for the One Who Comes After

"Rasputin's Bastards is a testament to the fact Nickle can write anything."
-The Winnipeg Review

"Eutopia is the kind of book I'd recommend to literary snobs who badmouth the horror genre while completely ignoring the multitudes of splendid books on the shelves. Nickle comes from a different cut of cloth than a lot of current horror authors. He's created a unique world that's a far cry from any of the current trends in horror fiction. In fact, his style seems generations removed from all the apocalyptic zombie and vampire novels on the market. Thankfully, he understands that the most important ingredients are strong characters, originality, and a compelling story. That his novel is also dark, frightening, and beautifully written is just icing on the cake."
-Chris Hallock, All Things Horror

"Few writers do psychosexual horror as well as Toronto's David Nickle, and with The 'Geisters he's back with another tale of voluptuous terror and the supernatural."
-The Toronto Star

"David Nickle writes 'em damned weird and damned good and damned dark. He is bourbon-rough, poetic and vivid. Don't miss this one."
-Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother