In this collection of curious but delightful short stories by S. K. Kruse, you never know who you're going to meet or where you're going to end up. You can be certain, however, that whether you follow Schrodinger's cat into the zeroth dimension or have drinks with a woman who's seen Gertrude Stein in the condensation on her window, you'll find yourself smack dab in the middle of some befuddling predicament of existence. Using humor and horror, satire and allegory, fabulism and realism, Tales from the Liminal takes you for an extraordinary ride, submerging you in spaces where anything is possible, especially transformation.

“An awe-inspiring, helter-skelter journey through mind-blowing SF, western dime novel, noir mystery, and near-future dystopian horror” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). The debut novel from Zack Parsons, editor of the Something Awful website and author of My Tank Is Fight!, is a mind-bending journey through time and genres. Beginning in 1874, with a blood-soaked western story of revenge, Liminal States follows a trio of characters through a 1950s noir detective story and twenty-first-century sci-fi horror. Their paths are tragically intertwined—and their choices have far-reaching consequences for the course of American history. It’s a remarkable mashup that “somehow manages to become a cohesive, thought-provoking whole . . . There’s no way a novel with this many moving parts should hold together, but it does, and even readers initially daunted by the jumble will soon be glad to go wherever Parsons takes them” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). “Parsons’s debut is a tour-de-force, a justifiably showy demonstration of the author’s chameleon-like ability to write in several genres all at once, and it emerges as one of the scariest and bleakest tales I can remember.” —Cory Doctorow

What destiny awaits them after the screaming? After abruptly departing from a train in a small town, a couple encounters a “weeping woman”—a professional mourner—sobbing inconsolably at a funeral. Mako changes afterward—she can’t stop crying! In another tale, having decided to die together, a couple enters Aokigahara, the infamous suicide forest. What is the shocking otherworldly torrent that they discover there? One of horror’s greatest talents, Junji Ito beckons readers to join him in an experience of ultimate terror with four transcendently terrifying tales. -- VIZ Media

Liminal is a self-contained tabletop roleplaying game about those on the boundary between the modern day United Kingdom and the Hidden World- the world of secret societies of magicians, a police division investigating Fortean crimes, fae courts, werewolf gangs, and haunted places where the walls between worlds are thin. The players portray Liminals - those who stand between the mortal and magical realms, with ties to each. Examples of Liminals include: A magician who acts as a warden to protect unaware mortals from supernatural menaces Someone of mysterious birth who is perhaps half Fae. In any case they are caught up in Faerie politics whether they like it or not A burglar who steals supernatural relics. A werewolf who still has many ties to ordinary people. A dhampir, striving to do good despite their vampiric infection. A mortal detective who knows some of the real strangeness out there. The magical world has a basis in British and Irish folklore and legends, along with ghost stories and modern day popular takes on the supernatural in fiction. Inspirations from fiction include the real world fantasy novels of Ben Aaranovitch, Jim Butcher, Emma Bull, Susanna Clarke, Harry Connolly, Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Benedict Jacka, and Helene Wecker. Made in the UK.

This book is a study of the short story, one of the widest taught genres in English literature, from an innovative methodological perspective. Both liminality and the short story are well-researched phenomena, but the combination of both is not frequent. This book discusses the relevance of the concept of liminality for the short story genre and for short story cycles, emphasizing theoretical perspectives, methodological relevance and applicability. Liminality as a concept of demarcation and mediation between different processual stages, spatial complexes, and inner states is of obvious importance in an age of global mobility, digital networking, and interethnic transnationality. Over the last decade, many symposia, exhibitions, art, and publications have been produced which thematize liminality, covering a wide range of disciplines including literary, geographical, psychological and ethnicity studies. Liminal structuring is an essential aspect of the aesthetic composition of short stories and the cultural messages they convey. On account of its very brevity and episodic structure, the generic liminality of the short story privileges the depiction of transitional situations and fleeting moments of crisis or decision. It also addresses the moral transgressions, heterotopic orders, and forms of ambivalent self-reflection negotiated within the short story's confines. This innovative collection focuses on both the liminality of the short story and on liminality in the short story.

Recent and current crises in health, ecology, society and spirituality have lent the whole arena of liminality a new urgency and relevancy. Those who traverse the great transitions are rediscovering new ways of interpreting life through the liminal lens, a way to make sense of the great voluntary and unchosen transitions that characterize modern life. This anthology provides a unique overview of liminality as it gathers a diverse coterie of authors, disciplines, and contexts to explore its many facets. Distinct in its interdisciplinary approach, The Liminal Loop serves as an important source book for general readers, teachers, students, artists, counselors, spiritual guides, and social transformers. From liminal poetry and musical traditions to the strange vertical world of the rock climber, The Liminal Loop explores the swirling chaos on the other side of critical thresholds and suggests a pathway through the daunting middle passages of the in-between. With what can only be described as courage, the many authors of this collection dare to look uncertainty in the eye, knowing that this is a necessary journey, and that it is better to travel with a common band of pilgrims than to go it alone.

Examining the fairies of medieval romance as liminal beings, this book draws on anthropological and philosophical studies of liminality to combine folkloristic insights into the nature of fairies with close readings of selected romance texts. Tracing different meanings and manifestations of liminality in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Orfeo, Sir Launfal, Thomas of Erceldoune and Robert Henryson’s Orpheus and Eurydice, the volume offers a comprehensive theory of liminality rooted in structuralist anthropology and poststructuralist theory. Arguing that romance fairies both embody and represent the liminal, The Liminality of Fairies posits and answers fundamental theoretical questions about the limits of representation and the relationship between romance hermeneutics and criticism. The interdisciplinary nature of the argument will appeal not just to medievalists and literary critics but also to anthropologists, folklorists as well as scholars working within the fields of cultural history and contemporary literary theory.