Whether walking from the big city to beyond Hope, or from a secret house in the hills to what's left of town, the characters in these stories are in transition from coping with the past and fears for the future. They find small but astonishing strengths when tried and tested in the story collection Small Rain and Other Nightmares.
In stories of near futures uncomfortably like our own, author Paula Johanson brings elements of magic realism and eco-gothic fiction to focus on home and heart. The title story, "Small Rain", was a finalist for the Aurora Award for Canadian speculative fiction. All but one of these stories have been published previously in magazines that won awards for those issues. Doublejoy Books is pleased to bring these stories together for the first time as a collection.
"Quiet little nightmares that sneak up on you when you're not looking. Paula Johanson is a master of the bucolic apocalypse."
-Peter Watts, author of Blindsight
"Reads like a spec fic Raymond Carver. Paula Johanson crafts small gems of stories that suggest to the reader much larger worlds."
-Ira Nayman, editor, Amazing Stories
"There's a lot of noise and flash in science fiction and fantasy and horror, perhaps something of an arms race as writers look for bigger ideas and wilder plots to drag in the reader. But off there, over to the side, sits Paula Johanson, deftly weaving subtle and quiet -- dare I say rural? -- moments from an everyday life that, thank goodness, doesn't exist for most, or at least some, of us. Even when faced with the most horrific circumstances she gives us gentle characters striving as hard as possible for peace and fellowship, and if you don't think that's the flashiest you can get in genre writing, then you haven't been paying attention."
-Derryl Murphy, author of Napier's Bones
