Distant Ruptures

This collection of previously uncollected short works by CF (a.k.a. Christopher Forgues) offers a terrific introduction to the influential underground artist’s singular oeuvre. While the stories here draw from pulp thriller, fantasy, science fiction, crime thriller, and other easily recognizable genres, CF’s hallucinatory narratives defy conventional storytelling, instead guiding readers through otherworldly environments where goblins, warlocks, aliens, and talking animals engage in weird rituals or quests, frequently exploring themes of identity, transformation, consciousness. Stories like “Hearing Loss” and “Castor and Pollux” reveal the author’s knack for establishing what seem like richly imagined fantasy worlds in just one or two pages. Standout entries include “Dominion Ambulance,” which follows an ambulance driver and part-time cat burglar on a crime caper that steadily transforms into a horror story as it progresses, and “Crate Cauldron,” a frenzied, psychedelic reimagining of the myth of Pandora’s Box.