Wicked Wonders

Introduction by Karen Joy Fowler
Tachyon Publications, San Francisco, 2017.

A rebellious child identifies with wicked Maleficent instead of Sleeping Beauty. Best friends Anna and Corry share one last morning on Earth. A solitary woman inherits a penny arcade haunted by a beautiful stranger. A prep-school student requires more than luck when playing dice with a faerie. Ladies who lunch―dividing one last bite of dessert―delve into new dimensions of quantum politeness.

Whether on a habitat on Mars or in a boardinghouse in London, discover Ellen Klages’ wicked, wondrous adventures full of wit, empathy, and courage.

Finalist, Locus Award
Finalist, World Fantasy Award

Praise

Magical stories unfurl with marvelous subtlety in this delightful collection from Klages (The Green Glass Sea).

Publisher's Weekly, starred review

The stories here are beautifully written, entertaining, heartfelt, and thoroughly enjoyable. Klages is a talented storyteller with a knack for creating worlds and situations that morph into new, wondrous things.

Lit Reactor

In these 14 tales, Ellen Klages managed to shift my paradigms, to help me regain some of the magic lost in my passage out of childhood. Such is the power of the short story, when told by one skilled in the magic of words.

—Barnes and Noble

Reading Wicked Wonders is like looking through a box filled with heirloom jewelry and listening to their histories: each piece is special or significant in some way, and at least one story is likely to stay with you for one reason or another.

—Jana Nyman, Fantasy Literature

Witty, sly, wicked, and poignant.

Lightspeed

Klages writes from the emotional center of a tale rather than from the science fiction conceit . . . Klages’ mastery of the telling detail is evident.

Chicago Tribune

Enthusiasts of genre fiction — fantasy, science fiction, metafiction — will delight in these 14 strong tales. And given these strange days, Klages’ magical realms are a welcome respite in a world desperately in need of the empathy and imagination of children.

San Francisco Chronicle

Ellen Klages is a phenomenally skilled writer with the miraculous ability to immerse her readers into nostalgic years of childhoods passed. Her stories also have a clear feminist bent, with the focus on the lives of smart and strong willed women.

The Illustrated Page

All of these stories have a strange little bend in them but the magic isn’t overwhelming, they are ‘curiouser and curiouser’ still.

Bookstalker

Klages has a very unique way of telling a story that sneaks up on you and burrows under the layers of your subconscious, ready to pop up when you least expect it. She’s a great writer.

Fiction Fantastic

Wicked Wonders is marvelous. Klages has a unique world-view and her stories are both fresh and surprising. While reading this collection, I felt a range of emotions, from laughing to crying and everything in-between . . . Klages is the best “new-to-me” author discovery that I’ve made in a long time. I have a serious crush on her writing style.

Perpetually Booked