num_pages: 272
description: The nine stories in Kelly Link's second collection are the spitting image of those in her acclaimed debut, Stranger Things Happen: effervescent blends of quirky humor and pathos that transform stock themes of genre fiction into the stuff of delicate lyrical fantasy. In "Stone Animals," a house's haunting takes the unusual form of hordes of rabbits that camp out nightly on the front lawn. This proves just one of several benign but inexplicable phenomena that begin to pull apart the family that's just moved into the house. The title story beautifully captures the unpredictable potential of teenage lives through its account of a group of adolescent school friends whose experiences subtly parallel events in a surreal TV fantasy series. Zombies serve as the focus for a young man's anxieties about his future in "Some Zombie Contingency Plans" and offer suggestive counterpoint to the lives of two convenience store clerks who serve them in "The Hortlak." Not only does Link find fresh perspectives from which to explore familiar premises, she also forges ingenious connections between disparate images and narrative approaches to suggest a convincing alternate logic that shapes the worlds of her highly original fantasies.
language: English
title: Magic for Beginners
titlecomplete: Magic for Beginners
genres: Fiction, Magical Realism, Science Fiction Fantasy, Science Fiction, Short Story Collection, Anthologies, Urban Fantasy, Horror, Fantasy, Short Stories
ratings_count: 9579
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Hugo Award
category: Best Novella for "Magic for Beginners", awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Nebula Award
category: Best Novella for "Magic for Beginners", awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Locus Award
category: Best Collection and Best Novella for “Magic for Beginners”, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: World Fantasy Award
category: Best Collection and Best Novella for "Magic for Beginners", awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: British Science Fiction Association Award
category: Best Short Fiction for "Magic for Beginners", awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award
category: "Magic for Beginners", awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire
category: Nouvelle étrangère for "Magic for Beginners", awardedAt: 1325404800000
name: Premio Ignotus
category: Mejor cuento extranjero for "El bolso de las fadas"
publisher: Small Beer Press