Gay Terry’s Meeting the Dog Girls is a mixed bag of bizarre short stories in the vein of Kelly Link. But that maybe too glib a comparison. For one thing, Terry doesn’t stick strictly to contemporary settings; many of the stories seem to take place in dark, imaginary worlds that are almost, but not quite, recognizable realms of ancient legend, fairy tales, fables and fantasy. The mood is different, too - fanciful, yet dark. Similar to Latin American magical realism, but not quite that either. The fact that Terry’s work is so hard to pigeonhole is one of its strengths.

The best of these stories tend to be the shortest and most opaque, begging a second [and third] reading to unlock their mysteries. My personal favorite, “This Is Not a Pipe,” about a peculiar young woman and her bird companion living in a derelict old manse, was inspired by the surrealist paintings of Rene Magritte. In it Terry really manages to capture the oddness of his work with her imagery. At one point, the female protagonist is described as wearing a, “mousseline blouse and brocade pantaloons.” The entire story reads as if the author substituted the most obscure synonyms in the thesaurus as often as possible. But weirdly, it works. Other stories, like “The Line” and “The Prison of Kronos,” effectively depict dystopian visions of a subjugated underclass that are both chilling and resonant. And sprinkled throughout, there are satirical pieces with a contemporary setting, most enjoyably “The MacGuffin” in which a misanthropic New Yorker bonds with her neighbors when a Tom Otterness sculpture comes to life and takes up residence in her apartment, perhaps showing, in a literal sense, how populist public art can bring people together.

Terry is less successful when her meanings are too obviously stated. Stories with an overt message, like “Episcatory” (pro-environmental) and “Unto Others…” (anti-prejudice) tend toward sermonizing, diminishing their value as literature and detracting from the power of the underlying message. But, fortunately, the proselytizing is kept to a minimum.

This is a big and eclectic collection. While there are a few misses, it’s mostly enjoyable and thought-provoking. I’ll be very interested to see what the very fertile imagination of Gay Terry produces in the future. ( )

Review based on ARC.

Absolutely worth your time.

The words and images on the cover of this little treasure do not do justice to what is within. Terry's imagination and creativity are a welcome addition to my library.

Again, I find myself reading short stories -- a collection of things. I used to think that I wasn't really into short stories, but really, I think it was just too many bad sets in a row. Suddenly emerge writers who bring new light to the "genre."

Like Gaiman's Fragile Things, I found myself quickly turning pages of short little snippets that came to feel like personal friends. I both did not want each story to end and could not wait to get to the next one to see what else Terry had in store for me.

Terry's gift is in presenting the crazy, the abnormal, the other-worldly with subtlety and elegance.

I highly recommend. ( )

I, too, had high hopes for this collection that spanned different sections of speculative fiction genre. Overall, it was an uneven collection with a distracting lack of editing, but I enjoyed entertaining many of the ideas. ( )

The most I can say about this collection is that it has potential. The stories create fantastical worlds, some very similar to our own but slightly askew, but the story ends there in about a few pages. Gay Terry does a great job establishing these worlds, but the story fails in that as the world is being established the story abruptly ends. ( )

I confess I was also disappointed. Stories I (in general) liked were rife with typographical and grammatical errors. Others gave me the sense that I was supposed to think they were "important". This collection was desperately in need of an experienced editorial hand. ( )