The Adventurists: and Other Stories

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Includes a number of unpublished stories

New stories to be placed this year in run up to publication

Debut collection from a respected and well-connected author

Build our support from Raleigh, to NC, to SIBA, to national

Reviews

Consistently one of my favorite short story writers. Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

"Landscapes and memories alter, gentrify, and crumble in Butners flawless debut collection, which wends ghosts, virtual futures, and the intricacies of friendship into 16 breathtaking, intimate stories. . . . Readers of John Crowley, Ray Bradbury, and Sally Rooney alike will find a home in this beautiful, grounded exploration of pasts and futuresand the people suspended between them."Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The collection opens with Adventure, with a long-overdue visit to anold friend and a tale told about a stranger, which may be just fantasy, but, settingthe tone for thecollection, the reality is not entirely clear-cut. . . . All in all, a worthwhilecollection. Booklist

A resemblance to George Saunders and Carmen Maria Machados work, though Butner has his own thematic obsessions. . . . In his best stories, Butner effectively merges the strange setups with a bracing mix of humor and dread. Kirkus Reviews

Grounded by concrete pop culture details, each strange narrative makes whats familiar seem eerie. Foreword Reviews (starred review)

At last, one of the contemporary masters of the uncanny and darkly humorous, Richard Butner, has his stories in one place where we can get at them. With a toe (just a toe) in the literary pool, and the rest of him splashing happily in the spec fic/sci-fi/surreal swimming hole, Butners tales deal in the deadly habits of nostalgia, and the surprises waiting for the wistful and the obsessive whose march forward obliges a look backward. Linkean, Barthelmean, Saundersean . . . hm, okay, these guys do NOT lend themselves to sonorous adjectivization but, nonetheless, theyll have to welcome a new storyteller beside them on the shelf.Wilton Barnhardt, author of Emma Who Saved My Life and Lookaway, Lookaway

A Richard Butner story is an invitation to discovery alongside his characters. Its a left turn off of realitys highway and into its old business district: defiantly shabby, casually weird, and occasionally surreal, perfect in every grounding detail. Every story zigs when you expect it to zag. You only think you know where they are going, but it turns out you are on the same adventure as the protagonist, discovering as you go that the world is stranger than it was the minute before, and the minute before that. Well worth the journey.Sarah Pinsker, author of We Are Satellites

"Richard Butner's stories are funny, scary, personal, dispassionate, satirical, and heartfelt, if those incompatible adjectives can be assembled to describe the same work. He writes about the subtle losses we suffer (often without noticing) as we get older, about love and loyalty, about how the past is never completely past and can come sweeping back over you at the slightest opportunity like a tidal wave, so you'd better be ready lest you drown."John Kessel, author of Pride and Prometheus

Reviews of Richard Butner's stories

Captivating and gripping.Bookotron

In the face of even the most absurd scenario, Butners writing remains cool and understated; he treats the bizarre as if it were commonplace, eventually convincing the reader that nothing is too far from the real. Indeed, many of the stories most bizarre moments are simply exaggerations of the inanities of our world, thrust into the forefront of the plot as a sort of social criticism. . . . Butner picks up the absurdities of high-speed America and throws them back in its face, reveling in the wild, wonderful mess he creates.New Pages Review

"A powerful story of obsession.Lois Tilton, Locus

The saddest ghost story youll read this year.Charlie Jane Anders, Gizmodo

"Haunting and heartbreaking.iHorror.com

Wry, caustic, calculated, impulsive. Gems of gorgeous weirdness.Asimovs

Finely wrought fiction that earns its effects. Evocative and passionate, meaningful and filled with wonders. SF Site

Butners meticulous prose lays a cool surface over some twisty terrain. Understated and profound, deft and smooth, these stories sneak up on you and then dont let go. Boxes within boxes, wheels within wheels.Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

In the work of writers who have truly burrowed in, often Ive a sense of there being not many stories but one continuous, ongoing story, ever growing, ever increasing, turning this way and that in shifting lightwhich is how I feel about Richard Butners.James Sallis, author of Sarah Jane

Richard Butner writes gorgeous, heartfelt stories that are completely his own, each propelled by an inner logic that may or may not match consensus reality, each ringing utterly true. He is unafraid of tough questions and even tougher answers. His characters sweat, grieve, exult, and struggle for understanding, and even when they terrify, they never fail to touch me.Lewis Shiner, author of Outside the Gates of Eden

Author Bio

Richard Butner's fiction has appeared in Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, been shortlisted for the Speculative Literature Foundation's Fountain Award, and nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award. He has written for and performed with the Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern, Aggregate Theatre, Bare Theatre, the Nickel Shakespeare Girls, and Urban Garden Performing Arts. His nonfictionon topics ranging from computers to cocktails to architecturehas appeared in IBM Think Research, Wired, PC Magazine, The News & Observer, Teacher, The Independent Weekly, The North Carolina Review of Books, Triangle Alternative, and Southern Lifestyle. He lives in North Carolina, where he runs the annual Sycamore Hill Writers' Conference. He and Harry Houdini have used the same trapdoor.