McSWEENEY’S 71: THE MONSTROUS AND THE TERRIBLE

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Our first-ever issue-length foray into horror, and featuring one of our biggest lineups in some time, our seventy-first issue is one for the ages. Guest-edited by Brian Evenson, McSweeney’s 71: The Monstrous and the Terrible is a hair-raising collection of fiction that will challenge the notion of what horror has been, and suggest what twenty-first-century horror is and can be. And it’s all packaged in a mind-bending, nesting-doll-like series of interlocking slipcases that must be seen to be believed.

There’s Stephen Graham Jones’s eerie take on the alien abduction story, Mariana Enríquez’s haunting tale of childhood hijinks gone awry, and Jeffrey Ford on a writer who loses control of his characters. Nick Antosca (cocreator of the award-winning TV series The Act) spins out a novelette about the hidden horrors of wine country. There’s Kristine Ong Muslim exploring environmental horror in the Philippines; a sharp-edged folk tale by Gabino Iglesias, and Diné writer Natanya Ann Pulley reimagining sci-fi horror from an Indigenous perspective. Hungarian writer Attila Veres proffers a dark take on the not-so-hidden sociopathy of multilevel marketing. And Erika T. Wurth explores the dark gaps leading to other worlds. If that weren’t enough: an excerpt from a new novel by Brandon Hobson; a chilling allegorical horror story by Senaa Ahmad; a Lovecraftian bildungsroman by Lincoln Michel; unsettling dream cities from Nick Mamatas; M. T. Anderson’s exceptionally weird take on babysitting; and, improbably, much more.

Featuring original stories by:
Mariana Enríquez
Nick Antosca
Kristine Ong Muslim
Attila Veres
Senaa Ahmad
M. T. Anderson
Erika T. Wurth
Jeffrey Ford
Sydney Emerson
Nicolas Russell
Lincoln Michel
Brandon Hobson
Nick Mamatas
Natanya Ann Pulley
Gabino Iglesias
Stephen Graham Jones

And letters by:
Megan McDowell
Luigi Musolino
Adrienne Raphel
Nicolas Richard
Joshua Rex
Rose Andersen
Claro

Praise for McSweeney’s 71: The Monstrous and the Terrible

“A bone chilling anthology […] Guest editor Brian Evenson stirs together a boiling cauldron of stories.”
— The Washington Post

“This anthology is not to be missed. […] [P]roves that good writing can go hand-in-hand with frights aplenty.”
— Rue Morgue

“If you like well-written tales which lean dark, I wholeheartedly recommend you spend some time with these pages.”
— Light Speed Magazine

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