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Khaim Novellas
Shoggoths in Traffic and Other Stories
Traffic is piling up, and strange things are heading your way in this new collection by World Fantasy Award-winning author Tobias S. Buckell. In these twenty-four stories you'll find inhabitants of a small town who won't vaccinate against a zombie plague, a long sentry keeping motorists from stumbling into something ancient and evil, a man who puts stranded ghosts to rest, an ex-soldier traveling the seas who trades his life of hardship for a return to swords and blood, and many more tales of speculative fiction. Buckell's fertile imagination is on display in Shoggoths in Traffic and Other Stories as he comments on edgy issues of injustice and offers a thorny path to discover the human heart and all the strange things humans do. All the while, he keeps looking over your shoulder, waiting for rush hour to end.
322 pages, Paperback
First published November 9, 2021
22 people are currently reading
172 people want to read
About the author
Tobias S. Buckell
216 books463 followersBorn in the Caribbean, Tobias S. Buckell is a New York Times Bestselling author. His novels and over 50 short stories have been translated into 17 languages and he has been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Prometheus and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Author. He currently lives in Ohio.
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May 28, 2024Here's the author describing his story-picking ideas for this collection, @Scalzis:
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2021/11/1...
Excerpt: "It hurts me sometimes to love short stories. Each one represents days, sometimes weeks of my creative output. But making $500 on a piece of fiction that took two weeks to create, or sometimes longer, remains a poverty proposition. It certainly isn’t ever how I’ll make a living as a creative.
And yet…
And yet…
I keep doing it. ...
.
.
.
In short fiction ... I have the freedom to try anything in a story. It easier to escape expectations and branding in the short story. So unlike my novels, I’ve always played with the fantasy genre in my short fiction.
For this collection, as I looked at the 40 or 50 uncollected stories, I thought it would be fun to take all my fantasy stories and showcase them in a single book and create a mixtape to my love of fantasy. Second world fantasy, magical realism, urban fantasy, all of it.
I grew up in the Caribbean. My love of the fantastic came from an oral tradition of duppy stories, carnival, and Anansi folk tales. Of course I had fantasy stories in my blood. And Shoggoths in Traffic grew out of that love. [end excerpt]
Sounds like fun! I've liked his shorts that I've seen, and I like Caribbean culture (rum!). Though the Buckell stories that generally stick with me are the SF. Still, I'm open....
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2021/11/1...
Excerpt: "It hurts me sometimes to love short stories. Each one represents days, sometimes weeks of my creative output. But making $500 on a piece of fiction that took two weeks to create, or sometimes longer, remains a poverty proposition. It certainly isn’t ever how I’ll make a living as a creative.
And yet…
And yet…
I keep doing it. ...
.
.
.
In short fiction ... I have the freedom to try anything in a story. It easier to escape expectations and branding in the short story. So unlike my novels, I’ve always played with the fantasy genre in my short fiction.
For this collection, as I looked at the 40 or 50 uncollected stories, I thought it would be fun to take all my fantasy stories and showcase them in a single book and create a mixtape to my love of fantasy. Second world fantasy, magical realism, urban fantasy, all of it.
I grew up in the Caribbean. My love of the fantastic came from an oral tradition of duppy stories, carnival, and Anansi folk tales. Of course I had fantasy stories in my blood. And Shoggoths in Traffic grew out of that love. [end excerpt]
Sounds like fun! I've liked his shorts that I've seen, and I like Caribbean culture (rum!). Though the Buckell stories that generally stick with me are the SF. Still, I'm open....
December 28, 2021
Buckell is from the Caribbean, and some of these stories are set in St. Thomas. As he says in the afterword, he has “A Caribbean perspective, an immigrant's desire to braid the stories of the past and my present, an interest in examining the power structures in our modern world”. Many of the stories deal with power structures, especially capitalism and white supremacy.
The two most astonishing stories are the zombie stories that bookend this collection. “A Different Kind of Place” deals with a small town that rejects a vaccine against the zombie virus, because...well, it's political. We've seen what happens to rural towns who don't take a virus seriously and reject vaccination. The other story is “Zombie Capitalism”, where it's simply good business to ignore the zombies and keep things running.
What's astonishing about those stories? The first was published in 2018, the second in 2020 but written before the pandemic. As he says in the afterword, “I really wish these stories hadn't called it so well. I thought I was being too hard at the time. Sometimes, as a writer, you hate being right.”
All these stories are interesting and fun, while having some serious points to make. Many are second world fantasies, a favorite genre of his.
The two most astonishing stories are the zombie stories that bookend this collection. “A Different Kind of Place” deals with a small town that rejects a vaccine against the zombie virus, because...well, it's political. We've seen what happens to rural towns who don't take a virus seriously and reject vaccination. The other story is “Zombie Capitalism”, where it's simply good business to ignore the zombies and keep things running.
What's astonishing about those stories? The first was published in 2018, the second in 2020 but written before the pandemic. As he says in the afterword, “I really wish these stories hadn't called it so well. I thought I was being too hard at the time. Sometimes, as a writer, you hate being right.”
All these stories are interesting and fun, while having some serious points to make. Many are second world fantasies, a favorite genre of his.
February 6, 2022
It's an excellent collection with a little something for everyone. I have to say, the zombie storie opening this ("A Different Kind of Place") hit especially hard after I checked the copyright page and found it had been written before COVID came to town. Ouch.
January 18, 2023
These stories masterfully take fantasy elements and tropes and infuse them with modern perspective. They are all incredibly enjoyable and fun.
January 12, 2022
I listened to two stories from this collection by Tobias S. Buckell through the LeVar Burton Reads podcast. The Placement Agency was a fresh take on the "Hitler Dilemma"- what do you do with mass murderers from history when time travel is available and you have a chance to rewrite the past? The short story started out slowly but gained traction as you realize the true nature of the temporary job that is outside of time and space.
The title story, Shoggoths in Traffic, was an interesting mix of magical realism. The story begins with two co-workers from Michigan who steal a car from a criminal and plan to drive it to Miami for a significant payout but run into a problem in Indiana. Witnessing a hit and run, they are leery to help due to them driving a stolen vehicle, but try their best to get the motorcycle rider to the ER. That their navigation keeps glitching ties into the unlikely connection between magic and technology. I wasn't entirely sold on who the dude they were helping claimed to be, but it was a fun story nevertheless.
The title story, Shoggoths in Traffic, was an interesting mix of magical realism. The story begins with two co-workers from Michigan who steal a car from a criminal and plan to drive it to Miami for a significant payout but run into a problem in Indiana. Witnessing a hit and run, they are leery to help due to them driving a stolen vehicle, but try their best to get the motorcycle rider to the ER. That their navigation keeps glitching ties into the unlikely connection between magic and technology. I wasn't entirely sold on who the dude they were helping claimed to be, but it was a fun story nevertheless.
December 20, 2022
Uneven, but valuable, & recommended. Five stars for originality and creativity. Some stories are strong and clear. We're tempted to turn the book over and read it again (& likely will soon).
Three to three and half stars for stories that felt like they could have used another round of revisions. In places we had trouble following descriptions or narrative, whether in a visual sense or merely not sure which character was indicated by a pronoun.
But this isn't run-of-the-mill unsettling speculative fiction, derivative and predictable. These bring in much-needed material from a range of sources, including Africa and the Caribbean, which are already all around us yet underrepresented in the literature.
Call it diversifying spec fic, call it decolonizing literature, label it however you like, but what it is is needed, and if some of the stories are not as polished as they could be, that's part of the process of expanding the territory.
Three to three and half stars for stories that felt like they could have used another round of revisions. In places we had trouble following descriptions or narrative, whether in a visual sense or merely not sure which character was indicated by a pronoun.
But this isn't run-of-the-mill unsettling speculative fiction, derivative and predictable. These bring in much-needed material from a range of sources, including Africa and the Caribbean, which are already all around us yet underrepresented in the literature.
Call it diversifying spec fic, call it decolonizing literature, label it however you like, but what it is is needed, and if some of the stories are not as polished as they could be, that's part of the process of expanding the territory.
February 11, 2022
8 I really like short stories and after reading positive reviews about this one I added this collection to my TBR-stack. Now I have to look for more stories by this author, as I quite enjoyed this collection, but as I like SF more than fantasy/supernatural, it's possible I like his other stories even more.
Still, even for me there was a lot to enjoy in this well put together collection. This may be because I experienced a lot of stress during the days I read this book (not related to the book of course), but I found not many stories stuck around for long in my memory. It may also be that fantasy stories don't lend themselves to the kind of narrative twists that make them linger in my mind. I found the stories well written. Buckell has a clear writing style without superfuous flourishes. But it's too simple to say it's uncomplicated. He uses his imagery well and uses his prose in a way that makes the stories shine.
I liked the diversity on display here, with several zombie-stories, a couple of weird westerns, some super hero adjacent tales, some great second world fantasy and other kinds of stories. His stories range all across the fantasygenre and illuminate some darker corners as well. Not just as in neglected subgenres, but also in a perspective that is not the standard white American point of view. The author is from the Caribbean himself and as he says in the afterword, he has “A Caribbean perspective, an immigrant's desire to braid the stories of the past and my present, an interest in examining the power structures in our modern world”. I found this a welcome perspective, with stories written from the perspective of the colonized instead of the colonizer, and with some great things to say about the cost of magic and the lengths people will go to just survive.
Very insightful were the zombie stories at the start and at the end. I had to chuckle reading them, as in them people react to the zombie infestation the way some people reacted to the COVID pandemic (with predictable results). And then I found out he actually wrote them before the pandemic hit! He says in the afterword, “I really wish these stories hadn't called it so well. I thought I was being too hard at the time. Sometimes, as a writer, you hate being right.” He really had great insight in human nature and the motivations that drive us and our societies when times get thought. The same insight is on display in his other stories.
Really, if you like supernatural tales and second world fantasy in short story format you owe it to yourself to read this collection, but if you're not yet convinced, I'll list some of my favorite stories from this book:
- 'Shoggoths in Traffic' - a fun tale about some car thieves that try to make it to Florida, only to get caught up in magic. What if GPS on your phone makes you drive routes that are magical sigils? What would you call forth into the world on such a scale?
- 'Four Eyes' - a story with a caribbean feel. After inadvertently causing someone to die, a cab driver sees a ghost and has to call on someone to deal with the manifestation. One of the more gentle tales here.
- 'Sundown' and 'The Scar that Stains Red the Gulch' are both great 'weird westerns', that invoke the atmosphere of cowboy tales, coupled with the dread of weird fiction and both from an outsiders perspective ...
- 'Tides' is a beautiful second world fantasy story, about a world with very high tides, where a child is caught too far off the heightened houses to make it home before the water arrives ... A harsh, but fitting conclusion. This one did linger ...
- 'The Seafarer' is a bit of a sword and sorcery-story about a world getting choked in poisonous plants, the byproduct of magic. A former soldier searching for a new life at sea finds himself called upon to take up the sword again. Some great magic inventions here.
- 'When all was Brillig' had a great metaphor for depression and despair that comes from facing the world we live in and the rest we all desperately need.
- 'That Faraway Kingdom' has a great spin on Narnia.
- 'The suggestion' starts out ordinary but turns out to be about a superhero and a supervillain running into each other in a refugee camp somewhere in Africa.
All in all great stories! And looking back over them all, I found that even though I had to leave to the collection to bring them to mind, once I reminded myself of them they did stick in my mind. So, heartily recommended.
Still, even for me there was a lot to enjoy in this well put together collection. This may be because I experienced a lot of stress during the days I read this book (not related to the book of course), but I found not many stories stuck around for long in my memory. It may also be that fantasy stories don't lend themselves to the kind of narrative twists that make them linger in my mind. I found the stories well written. Buckell has a clear writing style without superfuous flourishes. But it's too simple to say it's uncomplicated. He uses his imagery well and uses his prose in a way that makes the stories shine.
I liked the diversity on display here, with several zombie-stories, a couple of weird westerns, some super hero adjacent tales, some great second world fantasy and other kinds of stories. His stories range all across the fantasygenre and illuminate some darker corners as well. Not just as in neglected subgenres, but also in a perspective that is not the standard white American point of view. The author is from the Caribbean himself and as he says in the afterword, he has “A Caribbean perspective, an immigrant's desire to braid the stories of the past and my present, an interest in examining the power structures in our modern world”. I found this a welcome perspective, with stories written from the perspective of the colonized instead of the colonizer, and with some great things to say about the cost of magic and the lengths people will go to just survive.
Very insightful were the zombie stories at the start and at the end. I had to chuckle reading them, as in them people react to the zombie infestation the way some people reacted to the COVID pandemic (with predictable results). And then I found out he actually wrote them before the pandemic hit! He says in the afterword, “I really wish these stories hadn't called it so well. I thought I was being too hard at the time. Sometimes, as a writer, you hate being right.” He really had great insight in human nature and the motivations that drive us and our societies when times get thought. The same insight is on display in his other stories.
Really, if you like supernatural tales and second world fantasy in short story format you owe it to yourself to read this collection, but if you're not yet convinced, I'll list some of my favorite stories from this book:
- 'Shoggoths in Traffic' - a fun tale about some car thieves that try to make it to Florida, only to get caught up in magic. What if GPS on your phone makes you drive routes that are magical sigils? What would you call forth into the world on such a scale?
- 'Four Eyes' - a story with a caribbean feel. After inadvertently causing someone to die, a cab driver sees a ghost and has to call on someone to deal with the manifestation. One of the more gentle tales here.
- 'Sundown' and 'The Scar that Stains Red the Gulch' are both great 'weird westerns', that invoke the atmosphere of cowboy tales, coupled with the dread of weird fiction and both from an outsiders perspective ...
- 'Tides' is a beautiful second world fantasy story, about a world with very high tides, where a child is caught too far off the heightened houses to make it home before the water arrives ... A harsh, but fitting conclusion. This one did linger ...
- 'The Seafarer' is a bit of a sword and sorcery-story about a world getting choked in poisonous plants, the byproduct of magic. A former soldier searching for a new life at sea finds himself called upon to take up the sword again. Some great magic inventions here.
- 'When all was Brillig' had a great metaphor for depression and despair that comes from facing the world we live in and the rest we all desperately need.
- 'That Faraway Kingdom' has a great spin on Narnia.
- 'The suggestion' starts out ordinary but turns out to be about a superhero and a supervillain running into each other in a refugee camp somewhere in Africa.
All in all great stories! And looking back over them all, I found that even though I had to leave to the collection to bring them to mind, once I reminded myself of them they did stick in my mind. So, heartily recommended.
April 21, 2023
I found this collection a bit uneven. Some of the stories are great - favorites were "Shoggoths in Traffic," "The Boneyard" (a really interesting take on finding a dragon), "The Scar that Stains the Gulch" (both this and "Sundown" are fun for American West settings and including characters of color), "The Placement Agency" (a really interesting time travel / alternate universe idea), "The Widow's Cut" (a fantasy adventure that I'd love to see expanded into something bigger, with great action) and "The Suggestion" (a really interesting superhero story) and "Spurn Babylon (a story about the legacy of slavery, with some really haunting imagery). There's a pair of modern zombie stories that, while defintely well-written, feel a bit uncomfortably prescient in light of the COVID-19 pandemic (according to the author's notes, they were written prior to it), "A Different Kind of Place" and "Zombie Capitalism" - of the two, I prefer the latter. I could also imagine more politically conservative people than me possibly being offended by one or both. There were several stories I was puzzled and frustrated by ("Tides," "The Seafarer," and "On the Eve of the Fall of Habesh") both because I felt that there wasn't enough context for what's going on in them and because I couldn't tell whether the first two (or all three of them) are meant to be occurring in the same universe or not, and the hints of possible connections between them felt distracting. "The Atheist and the Angel" has a really interesting premise (hardboiled detective type investigates supernatural crimes in the midst of the Biblical apocalypse), but I think it mostly gestured at interesting settings, characters, and implications in a way that felt frustrating, rather than really exploring them in a satisfying way. I haven't listed all of the stories, but none of the others made particular impressions on me one way or tthe other. So, a mixed bag, but definitely some inventive and worth-looking-into stuff in here. I'll certainly keep an eye out of more of Buckell's writing in the future.
March 19, 2023
Shoggoths in Traffic is a book that originally caught my eye because I needed an anthology for a reading challenge. Having finished it, I can happily say that I absolutely loved this collection. All of the stories were at least good, and I particularly liked these ones:
- A Different Kind of Place, about vaccination vs. the zombie apocalypse in a small town
- Shoggoths in Traffic, about wizards and suddenly recruited bystanders preventing the summoning on an interdimensional monster via GPS routed traffic
- Brickomancer, where witches and occultists do their best to maintain protective sigils even as rapidly gentrifying areas tear them down and paint them over
- The Placement Agency, where people from the far future have their own solution to the Hitler dilemma
- The Boneyard, about one person in a world where magic no longer exists and the choice they must make to leave it that way or revive it
- That Faraway Kingdom, about a family who must decide what to do about the interdimensional portal that appeared in the back of pantry
- The Alien from Verapaz, an examination of how a Superman-like cape would have been treated if he wasn't apparently white
- The Suggestion, about a how someone with inherited powers goes about, or shouldn't go about, correcting what they see as previous abuses of the power
- and Zombie Capitalism, where a woman questions why the zombie apocalypse is deliberately being allowed to continue (because it's good for major companies' profits)
Most of the stories in this collection are standalone, though a few (like Tides and On the Eve of the Fall of Habesh) seem to take place in the same universe, but are told from different perspectives.
I cannot recommend this collection enough; it is AWESOME.
- A Different Kind of Place, about vaccination vs. the zombie apocalypse in a small town
- Shoggoths in Traffic, about wizards and suddenly recruited bystanders preventing the summoning on an interdimensional monster via GPS routed traffic
- Brickomancer, where witches and occultists do their best to maintain protective sigils even as rapidly gentrifying areas tear them down and paint them over
- The Placement Agency, where people from the far future have their own solution to the Hitler dilemma
- The Boneyard, about one person in a world where magic no longer exists and the choice they must make to leave it that way or revive it
- That Faraway Kingdom, about a family who must decide what to do about the interdimensional portal that appeared in the back of pantry
- The Alien from Verapaz, an examination of how a Superman-like cape would have been treated if he wasn't apparently white
- The Suggestion, about a how someone with inherited powers goes about, or shouldn't go about, correcting what they see as previous abuses of the power
- and Zombie Capitalism, where a woman questions why the zombie apocalypse is deliberately being allowed to continue (because it's good for major companies' profits)
Most of the stories in this collection are standalone, though a few (like Tides and On the Eve of the Fall of Habesh) seem to take place in the same universe, but are told from different perspectives.
I cannot recommend this collection enough; it is AWESOME.
March 4, 2023
Started off fairly weak in my opinion, where the first few stories were very hit or miss for me. I especially enjoyed the ones in the middle that were more of a standard fantasy, but enjoyed all of the stories after the somewhat shaky start.
To pick out some highlights that scratch some different itches, I would mention "The Seafarer", "The Emperor and His Totally Amazing, Awesome Clothes" and "The Placement Agency".
To pick out some highlights that scratch some different itches, I would mention "The Seafarer", "The Emperor and His Totally Amazing, Awesome Clothes" and "The Placement Agency".
July 17, 2023
Some stories I absolutely loved, some I didn't care for at all and some I wished weren't even in the collection. I didn't feel any connection between the stories - the author went from people murdering each other in cold blood to a beautiful story about sisterly love. And I feel like a story collection should have at least some things in common. I would love to give this book a higher rating for the few stories I wished never ended but there were so little of them I just can't.
June 15, 2023
It’s a disappointingly mixed bag. Some of the stories (particularly two interlinked stories about a sea-land war in a soft-fantasy setting) stand out as having potential but the overall feeling is that the quality of the prose and the storytelling just isn’t nearly strong enough to effectively realize some of the admittedly engaging concepts put forth.
April 10, 2023
Some of these stories are fun fantasy reads, but the ones I really enjoyed were the "what ifs" or taking a common theme and turning it unexpectedly. And the social commentary ones... what if Superman landed just a little more south? Oof.
April 24, 2023
Good variety, well written, a balance of sociopolitics and humour and what-if and more.
More than the average number of new angles.
This is my second from this author and I'll look for more.
Maybe next time get a publisher that hires proofreaders.
More than the average number of new angles.
This is my second from this author and I'll look for more.
Maybe next time get a publisher that hires proofreaders.
February 3, 2025
Started off strong, but then the stories started getting repetitive. I skipped a few of the later ones set in the same milieus as previous ones. The stories I did read, though, were entertaining, so those get three stars.
July 1, 2022
Soooooo good. I can see why LeVar Burton keeps picking more of his stories to read.
July 24, 2022
Clever, thoughtful and entertaining.
February 15, 2023
Rated for Shoggoths in Traffic and for The Placement Agency, both read by LeVar Burton on his podcast. (But GR keeps NOT A BOOK-ing my reviews, so ugh.)
April 13, 2023
I don’t know. I just couldn’t get into it. The stories fee disjointed and hard to follow. I got wind of this author from LeVar Burton’s Short Story Podcast but I didn’t love these stories.
August 30, 2024
A very interesting sci-fi short story collection, which is unique among the genre.
March 4, 2022
An outstanding collection of short stories, a mixture of horror, fantasy and superheros. The first zombie story was written pre-covid and is scarily prescient. The wide variety of imaginative settings is impressive and Buckell is a master of short stories. Even when the topic is fairly, he does provide a bit of lighter material, which helps with the readability. He hasn't written many novels, the last one came out in 2017, but I may give them a try.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews