In these 11 stories—and the weird spaces in between—people of all kinds struggle to free themselves from conventions and constraints both personal and political. Places ranging from the farthest reaches of outer space to the creepy abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere become battlegrounds for change and growth—sometimes at a massive cost.
Tyranny takes many forms, some more subtle than others, and it is up to the reader to travel along with the characters, who improvise and create their own renditions of freedom.
“The Wildfires of Antarctica” is a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.
“The pitch-dark yet often comic stories in Tyrannia, the second collection and third book by Twin Cities writer Alan DeNiro, throw the reader headfirst into strange, menacing worlds whose contours only gradually become clear (or, perhaps, more complexly mysterious). We sometimes seem to be in a dystopian, totalitarian future, sometimes in a brutal present, sometimes in eerie borderlands.”
—Dylan Hicks, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Minnesotan DeNiro gives us large hunks of riveting weirdness in these 11 stories.”
—Mary Ann Grossman, St. Paul Pioneer Press
“Most of Tyrannia‘s rambunctious, immensely entertaining stories — seven of them science fiction — blend bizarre speculations with intermittent humor. When there isn’t humor, there’s weirdness — often extreme weirdness, funny in its own right. Fair warning: what I’m about to describe might not always make sense. That’s in the nature of this highly unconventional collection.”
—Will George, Bookslut
Buy from Small Beer Press (including DRM-free ebook)
Buy from local independent bookseller (Indiebound)