Matthew David Surridge

Reading Strange Matters celebrates of some of the best in fantasy from the twenty-first century. Two dozen essays discuss important books from the new millennium which mix wild imagination and literary sophistication.  

First published at Blackgate.com, these pieces collectively show at the breadth of modern fantasy. Texts examined include Jeff VanderMeer’s Ambergris books, Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence, Ali Smith’s Hotel World, Stella Gemmell’s The City, and Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84.

One essay, on Nalo Hopkinson’s Skin Folk, appears for the first time. See where speculative fiction’s going, and see some of the new worlds opening up in literature! The future’s being written right now — and you can read about the strange matter of that writing here.