Unwelcome Bodies

Pain. Pleasure. The sensation of touch...we feel everything through our skin, that delicate membrane separating “I” from “other,” protecting the very essence of self. Until it breaks. Or changes. Or burns. What would you do if you were the one called on to save humanity, and the price you had to pay was becoming something other than human? Or if healing your body meant losing the only person you’ve ever loved? Wander through worlds where a woman craves even a poisonous touch...a man’s deformities become a society’s fashion...genetic regeneration keeps the fires of Hell away...and painted lovers risk everything to break the boundaries of their caste system down. Separate your mind from your flesh and come in. Welcome... Table of Contents “For the Plague Thereof Was Exceeding Great” “Big Sister/Little Sister” “Immortal Sin” “Flood” “The Call” “Captive Girl” “Last Bus” “The Last Stand of the Elephant Man” “Songs of Lament” “Firebird” “Brushstrokes” “Pelland handles difficult topics with assured storytelling chops, bringing us to the brink of tears, fear, desire, and beyond. Worth your time AND money AND sincere attention.” ―Steven Gould, author of Jumper “Her already-glowing reputation may still be just a hint of promising light on the horizon of those who like their fantastic fiction smart, imaginative, and driven by the mysteries of the human spirit, but each new story as brilliant as ‘Brushstrokes’ and ‘The Last Stand of the Elephant Man’ brings her inevitable future even closer. Trust me on this: Jennifer Pelland’s star has only just begun to rise.” ―Adam-Troy Castro, author of Emissaries From the Dead “Jennifer Pelland is a very good writer. She can evoke a setting, an environment, a mood in just a few sentences. And she does it so intensely that the reader really feels the fear of touching any potentially diseased subway riders; feels the thirst of a world without water; feels the aloneness that comes behind the metal mask.” ―Ian Randal Strock, SFScope.com “Jennifer Pelland is addicted to writing short stories. She’s written an essay about this addiction but you don’t need to read the essay to know it’s true. Each of the tales in this collection is a testament to her love of story-telling, and her imagination. She has a keen sense of irony, and a gift for juxtaposing images and events in a way which enables her to extract emotion at crucial moments from her characters and from the reader.” ―Sarah Hilary, theshortreview.com

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Pelland, Jennifer

Fantasy

Apex Pubns

Shock Totem presents the first in an ongoing series of special holiday issues. This issue, covering the Christmas season, features an eclectic mix of holiday-inspired horror from New York Times bestseller Kevin J. Anderson, K. Allen Wood, Mercedes M. Yardley, Robert J. Duperre, and more. Also anecdotal holiday recollections from Jack Ketchum, Jennifer Pelland, Mark Allan Gunnells, Nick Cato, and a host of others.  Celebrate the holidays with Shock Totem!

Shock Totem 4.5: Holiday Tales of the Macabre and Twisted - Christmas 2011

Literature & Fiction

Anderson, Kevin J.

Cato, Nick

Longo, Stacey

Totem, Shock

Yardley, Mercedes M.

Wilder, Leslianne

Duppere, Robert J.

Wood, K. Allen

Ketchum, Jack.

Genre Fiction

Shock Totem Publications

Celia's body is not her own, but even her conscious mind can barely tell the difference. Living on the cutting edge of biomechanical science was supposed to allow her to lead a normal life in a near-perfect copy of her physical self while awaiting a cure for a rare and deadly genetic disorder. But a bioandroid isn't a real person. Not according to the protesters outside Celia's house, her coworkers, or even her wife. Not according to her own evolving view of herself. As she begins to strip away the human affectations and inhibitions programmed into her new body, the chasm between the warm pains of flesh-and-blood life and the chilly comfort of the machine begins to deepen. Love, passion, reality, and memory war within Celia's body until she must decide whether to betray old friends or new ones in the choice between human and machine. *Don't forget to check out Jennifer's short fiction collection Unwelcome Bodies also from Apex Publications! "The novel is unrelenting, driven by Pelland's unflinching eye and her absolute willingness to shatter her very vulnerable, not very emotionally resilient protagonist. It's a powerful novel, certain to emerge as one of the best of the year. I'll be remembering it next award season." ―Adam-Troy Castro, SCI FI Magazine "I'm not sure anyone else could take material like posthuman politics, kinky sex and body modification, and explicit metaphors for the abortion debate and euthanasia, and turn it all into a heartrending love story, but Jennifer Pelland nails the dismount every time." ―NK Jemesin, Hugo-nominated author of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms "Jennifer Pelland's MACHINE is the kind of book that sticks in your soul. The story and characters sink under your skin and challenge the way you think and haunt you long afterwards. This is what science fiction is meant to be." ―Lyda Morehouse, author of Resurrection Code and Archangel Protocol "Science fiction, at its very best, fearlessly challenges readers and compels them to look at the world around them in a different light – and that is exactly what Jennifer Pelland’s brilliant debut novel Machine does in grand style." ―B&amp;N Bookclub "It's at times disturbing, at times heartbreaking and it always keeps the reader on their toes. The novel offers an awful lot of questions for the reader to mull over. So many in fact that a couple of days after I finished it, I still haven't been able to pick my next read. Not many books manage to do that." ―Val's Random Comments "Good science fiction makes you think. Pulp science fiction entertains you. Great science fiction, on the other hand, makes you think while entertaining you. Such is the case with Machine by Jennifer Pelland." ―Bibrary Book Lust

Machine

Science Fiction

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Books by Pelland, Jennifer