Fit for Consumption
Releasing Spring of 2021
by Steve Berman
In Berman's newest short story collection, the phrase "you are what you eat" is taken to heart; these are stories of men facing strange appetites within their own physicality, within a lover or, perhaps, a stranger's hungers. A young athlete attends an exclusive wrestling camp, but some of the campers are more focused on the unwelcome boys they claim lurk inside their bellies. A fixit man on a mission to retrieve a runaway finds himself forced into impersonating a pulp hero by her captor. Life as a pledge at a New Orleans fraternity is made all the worse when a magical--perhaps cursed?--flask that fills with whatever the bearer desires, yet also causes the drinker to desire the pledge. With stories inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and Ramsey Campbell, the menu has thirteen tales that range from the weird to the humour noir to the monstrous. No digestif is necessary.
Table of Contents
"In Summer Broken"
"Capturing Jove Lunge"
"The Balm of Sperrgebiet is the Krokodil"
"D is for Delicious"
"Passion, Like a Voice—That Buds"
"Unwelcome Boys" (a brand new novelette)
"He's so Tender"
"The Haferbräutigam"
"The Letter That Doomed Nosferatu"
"Poetaster"
"The Unsolved “Case of the Club Tarrare"
"His Mouth Will Taste of Chernobyl"
"Bottom of the Menu"
Paperback
Cover art by Jason Grim, design by Inkspiral
Trysts: A Triskaidecollection of Queer and Weird Stories
In his first collection Steve Berman has assembled thirteen of his most evocative stories, all of which revolve around the central theme of the "tryst." But these passionate hookups and romantic encounters range from the eerie to the horrifying to the wondrous. Trysts offers readers dark and quirky tales from a distinctive voice in gay fiction.
"Beach2"
"Stormed and Taken in Prague"
"His Paper Doll"
"The Resurrectionist"
"Path of Corruption"
"Vespers"
"Left Alone"
"Cries Beneath the Plaster"
"Finn's Night"
"Resemblances" (a Fallen Area story)
"Tea Time with Corn Dolly" (a Fallen Area story)
"The Anthvoke" (a Fallen Area story)
"Hair Like Fire, Blood Like Silk" (a Fallen Area novelette)
Paperback, 164 pages
If you would like the book autographed, please let us know!
Second Thoughts
by Steve Berman
In Berman's second collection of thirteen stories and essays, a scent of loneliness entices children to start eating away at a caretaker's historic house; a nursery rhyme tempts a young love; and a meek accountant finds himself abandoning the mundane life he knew to chase after monsters. If you enjoy your speculative fiction with a queer tint, these stories will do the trick.
"Bittersweet"
"Secrets of the Gwangi"
"Kiss"
"Always Listen to a Good Pair of Underwear"
"The High Cost of Tamarind"
"The Price of Glamour" (a Tupp & Lind Victorian fey novelette)
"Tearjerker" (a Fallen Area short story)
"Well Wishing"
"Caught by Skin"
"A Rotten Obligation"
"Hidden in Central Asia"
"Kinder"
"A Troll on a Mountain with a Girl"
Paperback, 212 pages