Very good short stories
5 stars
The title of the collection and the titles of some of the stories are goofy wordplay—and it’s this surface silliness that put me off from reading it, if I am honest—but the work itself is beautiful and perverse and provocative.
“Alien Stones” and “Death of Dr. Island” and “Toy Theatre” are dense and beguiling, the sort of stuff that I liked most about Book of the New Sun and Fifth Head.
(“Three fingers” is goofy but fun; “Befana” just hammy.)
