In this book you will meet an Appalachian dragon, a phantom geocacher, a racist halfling, a torturer of paintings, a homicidal gator-man, the devil’s son-in-law, the King of the Tramps, the Wizard of the Blue Ridge, a chicken named Jesus Christ, and the first Haitian Zombie ever photographed, as well as Yuri Gagarin, Harry Houdini, Zora Neale Hurston, Flannery O’Connor, and Sun Records headliners the Prisonaires, live from the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville. The appearance of the Space Brother Bob Solomon is unconfirmed, but we can always hope. In other words, this is the second fiction collection from Andy Duncan, whom Gardner Dozois calls “a genre to himself.” It includes the World Fantasy Award-winning title story, the Theodore Sturgeon Award-winning novella “The Chief Designer,” and Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, and Shirley Jackson Award nominees, as well as extensive story notes and a new novelette, “Close Encounters.”