Jackal, Jackal: Tales of the Dark and Fantastic

Nothing is what it seems in Ogundiran’s impressive debut collection of 18 horror and dark fantasy stories. Despite the wide range of settings, from modern Lagos, Paris, and Moscow to far-flung fantasy worlds, sentient forests, and harmattan-shrouded deserts, the recurring themes and motifs threaded throughout lend the whole a strong sense of cohesion. The stories often feel like modern parables or cautionary tales, exploring the dangers of knowledge and ignorance alike and the impermanence of bodies and identities. Characters find themselves transformed into animals (“Jackal, Jackal”), stone (“The Clockmaker and His Daughter”), salt (“Faêl”), and wood (“The Tale of Jaja and Canti”), or else replaced by sinister spirits (“Lagbaja”). Highlights include the rollicking and deeply affecting “Midnight in Moscow,” which riffs on the folktale of Baba Yaga; the righteously angry and powerful anticolonial epistolary tale “Here Sits His Ignominy”; and the truly horrifying yet startlingly funny “In the Smile Place,” which reads like a creepypasta. Fans of speculative shorts are in for a treat. Agent: Alexander Cochran, C&W Agency. (July)