First Words on Those Fantastic Lives

Awaiting the first round of feedback from a book, I imagine, is pretty stressful for most writers. It certainly was for me. Thankfully, though, I’ve received extremely generous first reviews. I’m attaching what some other writers had to say about my debut collection below. I’m very grateful to the time these authors spent with Those Fantastic Lives and for their support!

“Those Fantastic Lives is full of cinematic confections and concoctions. In deceptively buoyant prose that never sinks under the weight it carries, these stories are scary and funny and thrilling, sometimes all at the same time. I don't know if we should take this collection as a series of warnings, but being doomed has never been so enjoyable.”

-Josh Denslow, author of Not Everyone is Special

"Bradley Sides' debut collection, Those Fantastic Lives, is a treasure chest of dark wonder, one that brings to mind the best of Joe Hill and Ray Bradbury. It's perfect company for a stifling August night, or a rainy April morning, full of lovely places to get lost for a little while."

-Shaun Hamill, author of A Cosmology of Monsters

“Urgent and energetic, frequently exuberant and always entertaining, this debut collection of stories is indeed just what we need right now: a fantastic array of fantastic fiction, in both quality and content.”

-Fred Leebron, author of Six Figures and Welcome to Christiania

“These exquisite but unsettling stories examine the fraught relationship between fear, love, and hope. Individually, they show Sides’ skill at overlaying the real with the fantastic, contrasting innocence with malevolence. Together, they paint a picture of light driving out darkness, and love and hope—usually, but not always—overcoming fear.”

-Jen McConnell, author of Welcome, Anybody