“Karen Russell’s Orange World, taken in its entirety, sets itself, as the Times alluded to, between wild and tame; between safety and danger. Or, as the title story explains the distinction, these stories are “where most of us live,” between “Green World, a fantasy realm of soft corners” and the bleak, infant decapitation dangers of Red World. This collection explores that middle space most of us live in of the Orange World with magical realism adding the salt of uniqueness into every story.

“In its 110-minute run-time, Over The Garden Wall joins the allegory of Dante’s Inferno with the narrative elements of a Bildungsroman to create a coming-of-age story fit for both children and adults about stepping into The Unknown, facing their deepest fears embodied in The Beast, and coming through to the other side, changed for the better, with help from those who love them.

Cocktails for Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, written by Kim Fu and published by Tin House, are as unique as the collections stories and include caviar and sleep aids. The collection itself is a blunderbuss blast of modern anxious, existential issues presented in twelve speculative fiction short stories that oscillate between genre, from sci-fi and fantasy into horror and even finding their way into a whodunit mystery and erotica.