Red New Day & Other Microfictions

By Angela Slatter

Mechanised monkeys, betrayed brides, irritable gorgons, harpists playing instruments of bone, acts of vengeance, and furies eager to feast. 

 

Red New Day and Other Microfictions is a collection of vignettes from World Fantasy Award winner Angela Slatter, collected together for the very first time. Known as one of Australia's finest authors of dark fantasy and sinister horror, Slatter's myth-inspired morsels and terrifying short tales will remind you of the uncanny, wild, and beautiful things that can be found in small packages. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brain Jar Press
• Release date: Sep 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393960621

Angela Slatter

Specialising in dark fantasy and horror, Angela Slatter is the author of the Aurealis Award-winning The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales, the World Fantasy Award finalist Sourdough and Other Stories, Aurealis finalist Midnight and Moonshine (with Lisa L. Hannett), among others. She is the first Australian to win a British Fantasy Award, holds an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing, is a graduate of Clarion South and the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, and was an inaugural Queensland Writers Fellow.

Book preview

Red New Day & Other Microfictions

Red New Day & Other Microfictions

Angela Slatter

Brain Jar Press

Contents

Authors Note

A Monkey in the Hand

Bad Hair Day

Beggar-maid

Binoorie

Bone and Breath

Foresight

Circe

A Complex Elektra

Foundation

Hermione’s Farewell

Inheritance

Lantern

Red New Day

Seek

Sunday Drivers

The Impatient Dead

The Problem of Thorns

Things Best Left Alone

About the Author

For More By Angela Slatter

Thank You For Buying This Brain Jar Press Ebook

Dedicated to my mother, Betty Slatter, whose voice it was that led me to love stories.

Authors Note

These stories were all written as part of the Daily Cabal web project some years ago. They appear collected here for the first time.

A Monkey in the Hand

In retrospect, dear reader, it was a mistake.

I should have known. Mere days after I finished the mech-monkey, I found it dissecting its real-life counterpart. Pinned it to the table with my set of German-engineered scalpels, and taken it apart. The dirigible from Stepney Marsh was running late, so when I arrived home with a sack of new books, the deed was almost done. I should have disassembled it then, but I thought I saw something in its eyes, something human. A desire to know, to learn, to understand why it was different to the soft, furry mirror that wailed and squealed and gave up life so quickly.

All I could hear was my father’s voice, heavy with disappointment but no real surprise: Oh, Phineas. You’re so careless. Look at the mess you’ve made.

So I tidied up the sticky, stinking corpse and threw it down the chute. I listened as it clanged along the shaft, whirled around the spiral bits, thudded into the sharp bends, then came the faint whomp as the flames gobbled it up.

I was careful to clean all the bevelled and engraved edges of the mech-monkey, and under his glass nail (which I realised were too sharp by half). I checked his insides to make sure the clockwork mechanisms were all working, not misfiring in a way that might cause a psychotic episode. Turning him around, I opened the little hatch in his lower back where, each morning,