The Grinding House

ACT Writing and Publishing Award winner 2006.

The american edition of The Grinding House was published as The Glass Woman in 2007. It contains one extra story.

The Grinding House, a superb collection of stories from Aurealis Award winning author, Kaaron Warren. Subtle depictions of future worlds, of stark contemporary settings and alternate realities are some of the wonders of Warren's imagination. From science fiction to fantasy and eerie, soul-shaking horror. Warren's words will reverberate in all of us.

What is there to enjoy in this collection? A profound vision of a future, perhaps dismal without hope, horror that makes your spine feel pierced by hundreds of rings, a smattering of bodily fluids, a few feminist themes, a clear and penetrating vision, the clarity of which is unearthly. Clever, sometimes funny, morbid and at times racy. You'll find all of this in Kaaron Warren's work.

"Kaaron Warren's voice is clear, original and sharp as a surgeon's scalpel. Her characters, no matter how bizarre their evolution or environment, reach out to us as people, their struggles becoming our own, and her stories, although often unrelenting, are shot through with an optimism and affection for our frail, striving species. Kaaron Warren's stories, filled with narrative energy, hum like power lines, and don't let you go until you've read the last word in the last sentence. Best of all, and so rare in the field, she writes science fiction for grown-ups." – Simon Brown

Contents:

• Fresh Young Widow
• The Glass Woman
• The Blue Stream
• The Hanging People
• Smoko
• A-Positive
• The Missing Children
• Al's Iso Bar
• The Left Behind
• Tiger Kill
• The Wrong Seat
• Skin Holes
• The Sameness of Birthdays
• The Speaker of Heaven
• The Smell of Mice
• The Grinding House
• Survival of the Last
• Salamander
• Working for the God of the Love of Money