IMPOSSIBLE ENCOUNTERS

 

 

 

A Mosaic-Novel

 Read an excerpt  

Six strangely related stories about six encounters that could or should have never happened. A post mortem encounter with a clerk who has a most bizarre offer; an elusive encounter with oneself, only decades older; a seemingly innocent encounter with a bookshop visitor who is desperately looking for an ordinary SF story; a memorable encounter with God in a train which, unfortunately, has to be forgotten; a dreamlike encounter with Devil in a Church as a first step on a road which doesn't lead to Hell; finally, a forbidden encounter of a dying author with one of his protagonists who brings an impossible book as a gift.

 

"[The stories] are fun to read, witty, and [...] quite beautifully written."
Locusmag.com

"Although the reader may not be aware of it as he or she progresses through the book, it becomes clear in retrospect that Zivkovic has consciously built towards his final story. His themes interlock neatly: the necessity of making vital decisions without adequate information; the importance of considering the possible results of those decisions; finding the proper response to the impossible or the transcendent; remembering that death comes to everyone; the mysteries and responsibilities of creativity. The interjection of the author into his own work, not only in the final story but, more subtly, in several of the earlier chapters, moves the book into the realm of post-modernism.."
The New York Review of Science Fiction, USA

 

 

Published in the UK (serialization in the magazine Interzone, February, May, July, September, October, November and December 2000), in Croatia by Izvori, 2001, in Spain by Minotauro, 2004, in the UK by PS Publishing, 2006, as a part of the mega-collection Impossible Stories, and in Turkey by Istiklal, 2007.

Stories from the book published in the USA (Year's Best Fantasy anthology, Harper-Collins, 2001), and in Poland (magazine Nowa Fantastyka, July 2000).

To be published in the USA by Aio Publishing, 2008.

A story from Impossible Stories ("The Train") was broadcasted by the radio BBC 4 on 29th September 2005.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
   
 

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