Dick Award finalist* Locus Recommended Reading Here are 33 weird, wonderful stories concerning men, women, teleportation, wind-up cats, and brown paper bags. By turns whimsical and unsettling—frequently managing to be both—these short fictions describe family relationships, bad breakups, and travel to outer space.    Vukcevich's loopy, fun-house mirror take on everyday life belongs to the same absurdist school of work as that of George Saunders, David Sedaris, Ken Kalfus, and Victor Pelevin, although there is no one quite like him. Try one of these stories, it won't take you long, but it will turn your head inside out.Contents:By the Time We Get to Uranus (1998)The Barber's Theme (1995)Beatnicks with Banjoes (2001)Finally Fruit (1997)Pretending (2001)Mom's Little Friends (1992)No Comet (1994)There Is Danger (1993)Pink Smoke (2001)Season Finale (1995)The Sweater (2001)Home Remedy (1996)A Breath-Holding Contest (1991)Fancy Pants (2000)In the Refrigerator (2001)The Perfect Gift (1994)Message in a Fish (2001)Catch (1996)The Finger (1995)Rejoice (1999)My Mustache (1993)We Kill a Bicycle (1995)A Holiday Junket (1998)Giant Step (1994)Quite Contrary (1994)Doing Time (1992)The Next Best Thing (1998)Beastly Heat (1999)Ceremony (1991)Poop (2000)White Guys in Space (1996)Whisper (2001)Meet Me in the Moon Room (1998)

    His childhood was spent in the aircraft and ammunition factories until his power manifested. Now he is on the front lines, fighting the great war as one of the monstrous shapeshifting wizards that are all but extinct after decades of battle.Behind enemy lines, Teado’s special operations platoon plays a deadly game of cat and mouse, sabotaging and demoralizing the enemy. But food is scarce. The enemy has pushed their main forces back further and their requests for resupply have gone unanswered. They will make one last dangerous bid for survival and, maybe, change the course of the war forever.

    . . A fighter leads his band of virtual warriors, thieves, and wizards across a deadly computer-generated landscape . . . A company outsources grief for profit, their tagline: "Don't feel like having a bad day? Let someone else have it for you."