Black Feathers: Dark Avian Tales: An Anthology

A dazzling anthology of avian-themed fiction guaranteed to frighten and delight, edited by one of the most acclaimed horror anthologists in the genre. Birds are usually loved for their beauty and their song. They symbolize freedom, eternal life, the soul. There’s definitely a dark side to the avian. Birds of prey sometimes kill other birds (the shrike), destroy other birds’ eggs (blue jays), and even have been known to kill small animals (the kea sometimes eats live lambs). And who isn’t disgusted by birds that eat the dead―vultures awaiting their next meal as the life blood flows from the dying. One of our greatest fears is of being eaten by vultures before we’re quite dead. Is it any wonder that with so many interpretations of the avian, that the contributors herein are eager to be transformed or influenced by them? Included in Black Feathers are those obsessed by birds of one type or another. Do they want to become birds or just take on some of the “power” of birds? The presence or absence of birds portends the future. A grieving widow takes comfort in her majestic winged neighbors, who enable her to cope with a predatory relative. An isolated society of women relies on a bird to tell their fortunes. A silent young girl and her pet bird might be the only hope a detective has of tracking down a serial killer in a tourist town. A chatty parrot makes illegal deals with the dying. A troubled man lives in isolation with only one friend for company―a jackdaw. In each of these fictions, you will encounter the dark resonance between the human and avian. You see in yourself the savagery of a predator, the shrewd stalking of a hunter, and you are lured by birds that speak human language, that make beautiful music, that cypher numbers, and seem to have a moral center. You wade into this feathered nightmare, and brave the horror of death, trading your safety and sanity for that which we all seek―the promise of flight.

From School Library Journal

Datlow's latest collection could be the one to engage teens in the short story format. Fans of Edgar Allan Poe's work or Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (based on Daphne du Maurier's classic short story) will find these more contemporary tales equally compelling. With their uncanny ability to mimic human speech and their reputation as portents and swallowers of human souls, the cold-blooded avian descendants of dinosaurs figure in some bone-chilling fashion in each story. These entries are more psychologically unsettling than scary, and many will prompt teens to recognize their own primal tendencies. The volume as a whole is a creative writing teacher's dream, with its varied approaches to the format. While Joyce Carol Oates's beautifully written "Great Blue Heron" is more traditional, Nicholas Royle's "The Obscure Bird" is so spare that what is left out is more thought provoking than what's included, and Pat Cadigan's amusing "A Little Bird Told Me" waits until the last line to pack its psychological punch. Seanan McGuire's "The Mathematical Inevitability of Corvids," however, which focuses on a teenage girl with Asperger's syndrome who is goaded into violence, may not sit well with some readers. VERDICT Though it may require a sales pitch, this riveting anthology should amply reward those who love eerie fare.—Cary Frostick, formerly at Mary Riley Styles Public Library, Falls Church, VA

About the Author

Ellen Datlow is one of horror’s most acclaimed editors. Datlow was the fiction editor of OMNI for nearly twenty years and also edited the magazines Event Horizon and Sci Fiction. Her many bestselling anthologies include The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror series; Snow White, Blood Red; Lovecraft's Monsters; Naked City; and Darkness. She has won multiple Hugo, Locus, and Shirley Jackson awards and has received several lifetime achievement awards, including the Bram Stoker. Datlow lives in New York City.

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