books

Eibonvale Press, 2014. The author's second short story collection. Hardcover and trade paperback. Cover artwork by David Rix. 34 stories. 512 pages. "Every once in a while – if you’re lucky – you’ll come across a short story collection that is so unique and stunning it’ll make you marvel at its contents. Alexander Zelenyj’s Songs for the Lost is such a collection. It’s an exceptionally good and original collection of speculative fiction stories that are marked by intelligent storytelling, supernatural elements and beautiful and eloquent literary prose." - Rising Shadow "Songs for the Lost is that perfect, excellent blend of literary and dark that I am always looking for and in my opinion, it is an absolute must-read for anyone who loves dark fiction. Highly recommended but not just for anyone. Prepare to be gut punched, and do not read this book while you're depressed. Once again, it's a small press that proves that literary and dark can indeed go hand in hand " - Oddly Weird Fiction "Complex and visionary writing...the book touched me with its beauty, its insanity, its soul, its melancholy...Songs for the Lost was one of the best books I have read recently." - Porta VIII "A most fascinating and evocative collection of hallucinatory fiction by an irrepressible talent. Not too many writers could pull off such an amazing compendium of imaginative richness spread out over such an expansive canvas but Alexander Zelenyj, obviously, can." - Adam Groves, the Bedlam Files "The stories are mind-blowing...Zelenyj brings together many themes, old and new, highly imaginative and faultlessly crafted, to produce a body of work that rises above the detail and produces an uneasy, supernatural, brilliantly characterized whole. Songs for the Lost has the feel of a writer who knows his craft, is not afraid to push boundaries, who is a superb wordsmith and a master of character development. Zelenyj's imagination towers above mere exposition, to produce an extensive collection of admirable, unexpected, superbly choreographed links that shouldn't be cohesive, yet are. The final result is overwhelming. It will take your breath away." - Trevor Denyer, Midnight Street Press "Zelenyj is of literary importance. You feel it in the sentences, in the scenes, in the way the stories dazzle yet linger, afterimages becoming insights and glimpses to ponder...Rising above standard genre fiction like a starburst flare over an exhausted battlefield, Songs for the Lost marks a milestone in fiction for its brilliant author, and a milestone in renewed vivacious hope and joy in readers. Wonderful stuff." - Gene Stewart, author of Alaya's Assignment, Island Bound, and Properly Whipped "This is a collection for the ages. 5/5." - Steve Stred, author of Mastodon and Incarnate "My first taste of Zelenyj's fiction was his 2009 collection, Experiments at 3 Billion A.M. and I found it nothing short of incredible. Now he's back with another mammoth collection of thirty-one tales and, remarkably, there's not a dull one in the lot - here's another impressive collection from an author not nearly enough people are reading. Don't miss this." - The Horror Fiction Review Contents: ● Three Billion and Six – An Introduction by David Rix ● Foreword by Brian A. Dixon ● The Fire That We Deserve ● Your Bone Spider Will Find You ● Dying Days of Treasure Spiders Everywhere ● Maria, Here Come the Death Angels! ● Always an Angelwitch Over Suicide Hill ● Or the Loneliness of Another Million Years ● Forevermore Yours, the Hatred Chord ● A Roman Plague ● A Valley for Dorothy ● Through Fogs Deep and Fires Long ● God-Eater ● Thank You, Baby-Stabber ● Chux and Bux and the Quest for Brussels Sprouts ● On Tour With the Deathray Bradburys ● Elopers to Sirius ● Tiny Bugles in a Dream of Giants ● But One Day All of This Will be Gone ● May we Again Live Without Walls ● If I Had Wings, Mister Moon ● Squeeze the Sun: Storm Days Brew ● Love Me, Too, Black Flower ● Song of the Dream Cats ● Roaring Dream of the Weeping Spider-Men ● An Angela Named Vengeance ● Two Blue Eggs in a Silver Dream ● Far Beneath Incomplete Constellations ● Motherlight go to Sleep ● Proteus in the Mountain ● Disciples of the Fire God ● Come on, Night! ● Black Lash of Lucifer ● Heaven a Million Hexes Away ● Garden the Sky, Jimmy ● Songs for the Lost