Something you might want to check out for a little holiday reading. Eurasian Monsters is the seventh and final volume in the multiple award-nominated The Fox Spirit Books of Monsters anthology series.
Edited by Margret Helgadottir, the series has a pleasing diversity on many levels. Authors and artists from around the world have been invited to write stories based on their own folklore and culture.
Genres range through horror, fantasy, science fiction, post-apocalyptic, YA and crime.
Margret says, “The idea of the series is to feature creatures and monsters from around the world that have not received much spotlight in the western culture. Through the stories the reader also gets to know the countries and cultures covered, contemporary life and struggles that usually are unknown to us in the west.
“You’ll find stories with an underlying critique of aspects of society, be it poverty, illegal working or the life of immigrants, border conflicts, the relationship between east and west, or the tension between a traditional life and a modern society.
“All the seven books contain stories by new and established authors with a strong connection to the region or the continent we cover. The series contain stories by authors such as Cory Doctorow, Darcie Little Badger, Liliana Colanzi, Teresa P. Mira de Echeverria, Nnedi Okorafor, Tade Thompson, Ken Liu, Xia Jia, Aliette de Bodard, Usman T. Malik, K.A. Teryna, and Maria Galina.”
Eurasian Monsters, which is published in paperback on December 20, has seventeen short stories by authors from Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria, including several authors never published in English before.
Here’s the TOC:
K.A. Teryna: Morpheus
Marta Magdalena Lasik: Daemons of their time
Yevhen Lyr: Sleepless in Enerhodar
Karina Shainyan: Bagatazh
Vlad Arenev: Rapunzel
Haralambi Markov: Nine Tongues Tell Of
Maria Galina: The Visit
Alex Shvartsman: A Thousand Cuts
Daryna Stremetska: The Whitest Linen
Shawn Basey: Lysa Hora
Karolina Fedyk: Our Lady of Carrion Crows
Bogi Takács: Veruska and the Lúdvérc
Eldar Sattarov: Mountain Maid
Kat Hutchson: The Housekeeper
Natalia Osoianu: The Serpent
Alexander Bachilo: This is Moscow, Old Man!
Ekaterina Sedia: Sleeping Beauty of Elista