Phantom Limbs

More about the book

Ghosts, deformed fairy tales, animal transformations, dystopic futures and twisted histories-these are the stuff of a Lanagan story. An adolescent Hansel is enslaved by wicked tramp Grinnan during the Black Plague; a middle aged woman in country Australia has a last chance to save her swan-winged brother; Hans Christian Andersen's tinderbox shows up as a battered Bic cigarette lighter in a world of blasted cities and morals; gangs of sheela-na-gigs ride the city train system, unnerving the populace with their strange singing. Phantom Limbs collects fourteen stories published in anthologies, magazines and small collections throughout the past decade, and adds one brand new story, 'The Tin Wife', to deliver an extended tour of the country of the weird.