“Collections never get enough love and I don’t know why. Collections show you the breadth and depth of a writer. Through their variety, the author’s broad scope. Or the intensity of honed-in focus. Or miraculously a combination of both.
“Collections demonstrate the writer’s mastery of the craft because short forms can’t afford the occasional lags, drags, and kerfuffles we find – and can find acceptable — in novels. Instead their every writerly level must be seamless, while part of that hard-won blood, sweat, and tears seamlessness must be a feeling of effortlessness equal to that of a perfectly composed musical score, a perfectly performed ballet, or a perfect feast at a five star restaurant.
– Michaela Roessner, author of The Stars Compel
“Beyond Here Be Monsters is an abode of dark, dark parables. In these stories Gregory Frost demonstrates craft, intelligence, a sense of humor, and a willingness to cross genre borders without a visa.
“Trust me, you’ve never read anything like “Ill Met in Illium,” a secret history of the Trojan War—with vampires—told in Homeric verse. Nor “The Seals of New R’lyeh,” in which two petty criminals attempt to pull a heist in a New York City transformed by its new ruler, Cthulhu. In “The Dingus,” hard-boiled 40s-Bogart-movie boxer-turned-cab driver Meyers tries to find out how his protégé Kid Willette managed to get himself torn to pieces at Red’s Roadhouse.
“Frost is a master of the small details that make a character come to life, that take a story from merely entertaining to haunting. Plus, when he isn’t scaring you to death—and sometimes in the midst of it—he is very funny.”
—John Kessel, Nebula Award-winning author of Pride and Prometheus and The Dark Ride
“Greg Frost sets his fantastical stories in the equally strange realities of history. Other times, other cultures. But I always know that however it goes, I’m in for a good ride.”
—Maureen McHugh, author of China Mountain Zhang
“The overall tone [of these stories] is much darker than I expected them to be – vampires, werewolves, messages from the afterlife, and other unsettling and supernatural elements predominate. You might actually consider this a collection of horror stories rather than fantasy. They are mostly dark in tone as well as subject matter. There are no stories of princes and princesses, dragons or fairies, or any of the predominate trappings of contemporary fantasy. There are also no bad stories. Very much worth your time.”
—Don D’Ammassa, http://www.dondammassa.com