Horror Story and Other Horror Stories

by Robert Boyczuk

Love and loss are the two prevailing themes in this 93,000-word short story collection, featuring 19 of the author’s tales—five of which are original to this collection:

  • "When Fat Men Love Thin Women"
  • "The Death Artist"
  • "The Uncertainty Principle"
  • "Monster"
  • "The Love Clinic"

The rest of the stories appeared in such publications as On Spec, TransVersions, Prairie Fire, Northern Frights, Dark Planet, Descant, ChiZine, and the Tesseracts and Queer Fear anthology series.

Reviews - What's Being Said About Horror Story and Other Horror Stories

(A) memorable debut . . . (a)n edgy variety of sci-fi, horror, and speclit, Boyczuk's stories are succinct (and) uniformly excellent
– Rose Fox, Publishers Weekly
Boyczuk builds up his hauntings and often gruesome metaphors and imagery from the base of his stories' human relationships, which imbues his fiction with an uncanniness that mimics the feeling of being trapped in a maze-like dream. Readers need not worry, however. The horror here is very real—Boyczuk just wants you to have a little fun finding it.
– James Grainger, Rue Morgue Magazine
Boyczuk has a real knack for creepy, Twilight Zone-style atmospherics. The scary stuff is often made more threatening by being kept just out of sight, concealed in shadows or half hidden behind a window. (His)stories all have a twist — a turn of the screw — that breathes new life into some of the old forms and results in fiction as clever as it is entertaining.
– Alex Good, Quill & Quire
Robert Boyczuk is a supremely talented short-story writer.
– Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing
Boyczuk keeps his stories tight and fast-moving, drawing his characters with quick, bold strokes.
– Nancy Varian Berberick, Tangent
Bob's [stories are] spooky, memorable, deceptively 'simple' piece[s], built around scenarios that are truly original and genuinely scary. Bob has a real gift for inhabiting, rather than adopting, the outsider perspective; his work is about people—people like you, like me—the sort of people you wouldn't necessarily want to be, yet may well end up fearing you already are.
– Gemma Files, author of Kissing Carrion, The Worm In Every Heart and Words Written Backwards
Certain to outrage snowboarders and pro-lifers of all stripes. Infantovores, however, will find a powerful and articulate advocate in Robert Boyczuk.
– Peter Watts, author of Starfish and Blindsight