David Nickle’s on quite a tear lately, with recent novels Eutopia, Rasputin’s Bastards, and The ‘Geisters proving him a talent of vast range, depth, and awesomesauce. Yet Nickle could have stopped with this collection, his publishing debut, and I’d still be in thrall to his every whim. In Monstrous Affections (which may have the greatest book cover ever conceived), we discover the wisdom of talking fish, the heroism of witches, the persistence of flies, and the ugliness of love. Rich characters

Oh, Canada, our literary neighbors to the North. If us Americans paid too much attention to you we might begin to feel a little embarrassed that we alone are not the sole creators of literary culture this side of the Europe (nevermind those Southerns who write in another language, we can shove them aside easy enough). It is a good thing we generally ignore your writers, we might start to feel some kind of envy. And then we might have to blow you up. That's what happens. Or just wreck your econom...

An excellent introduction to the weird and subtly scary collection of short-stories from Dave Nickle. I hesitated a long time before buying the book (a little because of the cover), but when I discovered Claude Lalumière's stuff, and more Chizine novels, I told myself it was time I try some fantastic-horror. So I plunged into Dave Nickle dark fantastic tales, and emerged a happy camper. I began each story with apprehension... and the darkness is never where you expect it to be. The first (and re...

Full Disclosure: Reviewer knows the authorI've never read any of David Nickle's collections before, but if this is a taste of his short fiction, I will read more. This is a compilation of his earlier works, some going as far back as the 1990s, so if you came to know his writing through such works as "Eutopia" or "Volk", you might not get what you're used to. I liked this collection overall, and while classified as horror I would consider many of the stories to be "dark fiction" (perhaps my defin...

I picked up David Nickle’s horror short collection Monstrous Affections mistakenly thinking he was another author whose work I read in another anthology. Basically I was in the mood for some good horror and wanted to try something other than my ‘go to’ Stephen King pile. While it was a case of mistaken author I’m glad to say the error was a fortuitous one as I enjoyed this collection. I thought that the first entry, The Sloan Men, was easily the best story in the lot and the one story indicative...

It started off great, but there are themes in the final stories that just feel like a straight white dude playing with identity in horror for fun. Spoilers below.I was horribly disappointed to read a story that begins with a clearly autistic-coded character that turns out (of course!) to be a raving murderer. Moreso when the one gay character in the collection is revealed to have been raped by his father as a response to his son's queerness. I'm sick of lazy writing and trauma porn revolving aro...

A mixed bag of short stories that range from creepy and evocative to generic and predictable. None of them really knocked me out. There was some shades of the best writing I've seen from Nickle though. Not nearly enough of it, but some.

Feels disjointed and thrown together. There are 2 or 3 stories in here worth the time and the rest are throw aways.

Pros: variety of stories, different lengths and wildly different subject matters, though provoking, unsettlingCons: several stories require some thought to understand, with one being beyond my comprehensionThis is a great collection of horror stories. There's variety in length and subject matter, with most having horrifying twist endings of some sort that make you rethink what you believed was happening in the story. Mr. Nickle brings in different mythologies, which was fun. And they all deal wi...

The first collection of stories from David Nickle mines the Canadian wilderness for some chills and intersperses them with tales of situations just a tick on the odd side of normal. Vampires trade artistic vision for blood, children are goaded into running rampant at a roadside amusement park by something bent on destruction, lessons in morality are taught with damnable consequences. While the stories are definitely of the "weird fiction" variety, they do not share in or mimic such established h...

A strong collection of weird fantasy/horror stories, marked with a vivid and lyrical prose style and evocative settings; a definite candidate for later rereading, as some of the tales are allusive and elusive on first read.

I had this book on my to-read list and on my laptop for way too long and finally I got myself to read it. Really mixed feelings about it, I liked some stories more than others, some of them being just simply brilliant. Others more gross than really scary to my tastes. But one thing is for sure - David Nickle knows how to freak you out. Slowly, gradually, step by step and then just - bam! And this is no light read, you must always switch on your brain to actually catch that moment when you notice...

Monstrous Affections is a varied and well written collection of thought provoking horror, David imbues most of his stories with a creeping dread and melancholic sadness. Some of the stories will require time for me to figure out while others were rather upfront with their meaning – I liked this as it required me to actively engage with the book. I’d recommend this to fans of more literary horror.

This was a delightfully creepy set of short stories from a Canadian author! Ranging from full on dark fantasy to everyday horror, each piece is both literary and unnerving. There are no jump scares, just slow dread and discomfort. Great for Halloween :D

I haven't read very many Canadian speculative fiction or horror stories, but if they're anything like this collection, I need to read more. There's a bleakness and a cutting realism in the background of this collection that grounds the stories. They feel like they're taking place in the in the everyday world--until there's a twist. Until the horror seeps through to the surface, revealing that it was lurking beneath, all along.My favorite stories in the collection include "The Sloan Men," "Janie

This review appeared in The New York Review of Science Fiction in June, 2011. Monstrous Affectionsby David NickleChizine Publications, 2011292 pp.$18.95 TPBISBN: 978-0-9812978-3-5Review by Ursula PflugDavid Nickle’s collection "Monstrous Affections" opens with a story about a bride’s first meeting with her mother-in-law. It turns out there’s something fearsomely strange about "The Sloan Men," except that part of their strangeness is an ability to wipe awareness of this troubling fact from their

Nicely crafted, surprisingly dark short stories. After the first few, I actually dreaded reading the rest of them. Could be I was just in a strange mood, but they struck me as terribly sad and relentless.

I really wish I had been in a book club for this collection. So many of the stories I'm gonna have to read again because I'm sure I missed things.The stories weren't the type I would tell by a campfire, but they are really sad/creepy.Just finished this too late at night, I know I wont be sleeping easy!The swamp witch was definitely my favorite! All the stories have their own style, so you're bound to prefer a few.The feeling the cover gives me absolutely is a good measure of the uncomfortable fe...

I think Nickle writes his best in short fiction and this is some of his best stuff.

Some of the stories were brilliant, others just left me confused. I had to put it down in the middle because i couldn't decide if i like the book or not, but after picking it up again i only needed 3 days to read the second half. I will definitly read another book from this author. Maybe i wasn't in the mood for his stories on the first attemp.