Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu is … weird. But in the very best sense. As a matter of personal preference, I don’t tend to gravitate toward speculative fiction, unless it’s exceptionally well done. But Fu is no slouch and may have finally converted me. The stories included in this collection are literary gems, each one phenomenally well-crafted. They blend realism with a slight turn toward the strange, the creepy, and at times, the grotesque.

Occasionally, a writer offers the world a book so glorious that readers find it difficult to articulate just what, exactly, was so profoundly breathtaking about said book. This is my experience of Astra. Okay, so I didn’t love every story included in this linked short story collection (only ten of the eleven episodic chapters were my favourite.) I didn’t even really love the main character whose story is told eleven different ways, only one of which is from her point of view (brilliant!)