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While the Black Stars Burn by [Lucy A. Snyder, Gary A. Braunbeck, Daniele Serra]

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Lucy A. Snyder

While the Black Stars Burn Kindle Edition

by Lucy A. Snyder (Author), Gary A. Braunbeck (Author), Daniele Serra (Illustrator) Format: Kindle Edition

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Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

Lucy Snyder's stories are the sort that carry you away to unusual places, usually dark ones, and this collection is a perfect example. As the follow-up to the Bram Stoker Award winning collection Soft Apocalypses, it contains plenty of darkly imaginative tales. Many of these stories, including the title piece, are heavily influenced by the work of H.P. Lovecraft and The King in Yellow mythos. They whisper madly among each other creating weird echoes. Like the black stars of theoretical astronomy they are dense entities born from polarization so strong that instead of collapsing into nothingness, a black hole, they instead form dark constellations burning dimly with spectral light.

Italian artist Daniele Serra has created a cover that perfectly reflects the breath-taking and layered tales within. He is a winner of the British Fantasy Award and has worked with companies such as DC Comics, Image Comics, Cemetery Dance, Weird Tales Magazine and PS Publishing.

Print length

166 pages
Language

English
Publication date

November 15, 2015
File size

530 KB
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Lucy A. Snyder
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Snyder (Soft Apocalypses) excels in her depictions of characters struggling desperately--and often futilely--to extricate themselves from terrifying snares set by loved ones. Readers will find her stories a cut above most other tales of interpersonal and supernatural horror.-- Publishers Weekly

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B017JH61A4
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Raw Dog Screaming Press (November 15, 2015)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 15, 2015
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 530 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 166 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #1,228,596 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #2,546 in Horror Short Stories
- #19,329 in Single Authors Short Stories
- #29,061 in Short Stories (Books)

Customer Reviews:
30 ratings

About the author

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Lucy A. Snyder

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Lucy A. Snyder is the five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of 14 books:

* Sister, Maiden, Monster

* Halloween Season

* Exposed Nerves

* Garden of Eldritch Delights

* While the Black Stars Burn

* Spellbent

* Shotgun Sorceress

* Switchblade Goddess

* Soft Apocalypses

* Orchid Carousals

* Sparks and Shadows

* Chimeric Machines

* Installing Linux on a Dead Badger

* Shooting Yourself in the Head For Fun and Profit: A Writer's Survival Guide

Her writing has been translated into French, Russian, Italian, Czech, and Japanese editions and has appeared in publications such as Apex Magazine, Nightmare Magazine, Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, Steampunk World, and Best Horror of the Year, Vol. 5.

She has an MFA in creative writing from Goddard College and lives in Ohio. You can follow her on Twitter at @LucyASnyder.

You can learn more at her website: www.lucysnyder.com

Customer reviews

5 star		70%
4 star		10%
3 star		3%
2 star		8%
1 star		9%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Shawn Deggans

Evil families, dark portals, and sympathetic characters make a great collection

Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2015

Verified Purchase

Lucy A. Snyder's fiction explores dark family heritage, gateways to other worlds, and a refreshing approach to relationships. The stories cover a wide genre range from dark fantasy, to horror, to a media tie-in. Both the "Abomination of Fensmere" and "The Girl With the Star-stained Soul" answer what it means to be a member of a family groomed for connecting to the Great Old Ones. These stories combine the Mythos of Lovecraft as well as the world of The King in Yellow. "Cthylla" is one of my favorites in the collection. The relationship of two young women are put to the test as they discover their lives are intertwined in a goddess worshiping cult that's almost as creepy as Scientology. Almost. "The Still-Life Drama of Passing Cars" and "Fable Fusion" were both co-written with Gary A. Braunbeck, but both are very different stories. "Passing Cars" has a distinctly classic Twilight Zone feel while "Fusion" is a Doctor Who media-tie in that perfectly captures the spirit of a great Doctor Who story where empathy wins out over conflict. However, my absolute favorite is "Spinwebs" because it perfectly captures the dark fairytale feel of my favorite type of dark fantasy. There's always a story in a collection you wish was a novel or novella, and for me that story was definitely "Spinwebs." Reading this collection has definitely put more of Snyder's books on my "to-read" pile.

9 people found this helpful

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Ian Welke

great mix of genres, great storytelling

Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2016

Verified Purchase

While The Black Stars Burn is a collection of stories of everything I want to read. Snyder jumps from genre to genre and combinations of genres, using scifi, horror, and fantasy within the same story. Her prose reads effortlessly as she seems as comfortable writing a story set on a spaceship as she does with a King In Yellow story.

All of the stories feel original and fresh, even the couple I’ve read before in other places. In addition to rereading those stories, it was fantastic to read “Abomination of Fensmere” and “The Girl With the Star Stained Soul” in the order they seem to be meant to appear in.

If I wasn’t already in awe of the rest of the collection, the final story is a Doctor Who story with two of my favorite companions from the old television series: Ace and Liz, who in reality were separated by decades of the show’s filming. I think that Liz in particular is an interesting choice since she was only briefly on the show, and is one of the earliest examples of a strong female character on television. Both characters are well utilized in Snyder’s story, as is the often underrated seventh Doctor.

From horror, to weird fantasy, to scifi, Snyder touches all the bases in this collection.

5 people found this helpful

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Doc Barton

Adventurous, disturbing, occasionally hilarious tales

Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2015

Verified Purchase

Snyder's horror is disturbing and creepy in the best sense of horror, yet contains a sense of wonder and some delightful laugh-out-loud moments. Meet the girl who confronts an elder god, to unexpected results; get a double frisson of disgust and then awe at a spider symbiosis; see the perils of hyperspace travel. What ties all these genre-ignoring tales together is a constant sense of humanity and awareness of larger themes weaving themselves through the background.

This is the best kind of short story collection: an entertaining book that leaves you thinking afterward. Snyder's writing is always good and occasionally great, and this collection is exceptional. A wise gift to yourself or the adventurous thinkers in your life.

3 people found this helpful

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Jack William Finley

"Finest kind"

Reviewed in the United States on December 4, 2015

Verified Purchase

The very best fiction is like the very best window shopping, it makes you feel apart of, connected to what’s on the other side of the glass, or the scene within the pages. While The Black Stars Burn is a kaleidoscopic cornucopia of tales crafted with passion and a delicate empathetic hand. It explores the most important questions of our own ordinary world by taking you on a journey to places that are anything but ordinary, a view through the looking glass at something so close and yet so far away. This is a Grand Tour of emotions, a quixotic dreamscape of the questions of the heart. You couldn’t ask for a better guide and I highly recommend you buy the ticket and take the ride.

3 people found this helpful

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Michael W Lucas

Fantastic views of family problems

Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2015

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Snyder combines heartfelt passion and excellent storytelling to create a themed collection of wonderful stories.

Snyder's won awards for her horror, yes, but this collection isn't just horror. It's a hard-hitting look at families that don't work out so well. And she looks at that through the lenses of horror, and fantasy, and science fiction, and even mainstream pieces.

Highly recommended.

5 people found this helpful

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Jarod K. Anderson

Wonderful. Beautiful storytelling and Great Variety

Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2016

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Wonderful. Beautiful storytelling and vivid, memorable monsters: supernatural monsters, human monsters, psychological monsters, and slippery monsters that resist definition. Great collection.

4 people found this helpful

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Lee Herman

Grab this book now

Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2016

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A remarkable collection of short stories, with an edge reminiscent of Harlan Ellison. It's been a long time since I've read such breadth from a single author. Highly recommended.

One person found this helpful

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Evzenie Reitmayerova

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2016

Verified Purchase

excellent short stories. horror, scifi, weird fiction. great ideas.

2 people found this helpful

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