David Nickle - Monstrous Affections

Nobody writes a decent story by themselves.

These stories, decent and otherwise, wouldn’t exist without the wisdom of the members present and past of the Cecil Street Irregulars workshop and the Gibraltar Point sf workshop; without the guidance of ChiZine’s editors/publishers Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi most recently, and editors Don Hutchison, Michael Rowe and Robert Morrish earlier in the game. And they’d be no good without family. My parents Lawrence and Olga offered nothing but love and support in a long sequence of thumbs-up to these stories; if they wondered about the content, they — mostly — kept it to themselves. My brother Peter read, and reads, them dutifully. My long-lost cousin Joe tracked me down just last year, and unwittingly spurred me on to write “The Webley.”

It is true. Nobody writes a decent story by themselves.

“The Sloan Men” originally appeared in Northern Frights 2 , Mosaic Press, 1994

“Janie and the Wind” originally appeared in Cemetery Dance #38, Spring 2002

“Night of the Tar Baby” originally appeared in Northern Frights 5 , Mosaic Press, 1999

“Other People’s Kids” is original to this collection, 2009

“The Mayor Will Make a Brief Statement and Then Take Questions” originally appeared in ChiZine #33, July-September 2007

“The Pit-Heads” originally appeared in Northern Frights 4 , Mosaic Press, 1997

“Slide Trombone” is original to this collection, 2009

“The Inevitability of Earth” originally appeared as “Ground Bound” in On Spec , Spring 1999

“Swamp Witch and the Tea-Drinking Man” originally appeared in Tesseracts Eleven , Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, 2007

“The Delilah Party” originally appeared in Cemetery Dance #56, 2006

“Fly in Your Eye” originally appeared in Horrors: 365 Scary Stories , Barnes & Noble, 1997

“Polyphemus’ Cave” originally appeared in Queer Fear 2 , Arsenal Pulp Press, 2002

“The Webley” is original to this collection, 2009

All stories copyright © David Nickle.

David Nickle lives and works in Toronto, Ontario in the company of his partner Karen Fernandez, and not far from an old filling station where his grandfather John Nickle briefly pumped gasoline in the 1930s. David was born somewhat later, in 1964.

Since then, he has authored numerous short stories and one published novel, The Claus Effect , with Karl Schroeder — all while cultivating an unfortunate singing voice and a tragic affection for the music of Tom Waits.

He is not finished yet.

FIRST EDITION

Monstrous Affections © 2009 by David Nickle

Jacket artwork © 2009 by Erik Mohr

All Rights Reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Nickle, David, 1964-

Monstrous affections / David Nickle ; editors: Brett Alexander Savory & Sandra Kasturi ; graphic designer/cover artist: Erik Mohr.

ISBN 978-0-9812978-1-1 (bound).—ISBN 978-0-9812978-3-5 (pbk.)

I. Savory, Brett Alexander, 1973- II. Kasturi, Sandra, 1966- III. Title.

PS8577.I33M65 2009 C813’.54 C2009-903945-1

CHIZINE PUBLICATIONS

Toronto, Canada

www.chizinepub.com

savory@rogers.com

Edited by Sandra Kasturi

Copyedited and proofread by Brett Alexander Savory

Converted to mobipocket and epub by Christine http://finding-free-ebooks.blogspot.com/