The Melancholy of Mechagirl

Science fiction and fantasy stories about Japan by the multiple-award winning author and New York Times best seller Catherynne M. Valente. A woman who dreams of machines. A paper lantern that falls in love. The most compelling video game you’ve never played and that nobody can ever play twice. This collection of Catherynne M. Valente’s stories and poems with Japanese themes includes the lauded novella “Silently and Very Fast,” the award-nominated “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time,” and “Ghosts of Gunkanjima”—which originally appeared in a book smaller than your palm, published in a limited edition of twenty-four. Also included are two new stories: the semiautobiographical, metafictional, and utterly magical “Ink, Water, Milk” and the cinematic, demon-haunted “Story No. 6.” A woman who dreams of machines. A paper lantern that falls in love. The most compelling video game you’ve never played and that nobody can ever play twice. This collection of Catherynne M. Valente’s stories and poems with Japanese themes includes the lauded novella “Silently and Very Fast,” the award-nominated “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time,” and “Ghosts of Gunkanjima”—which originally appeared in a book smaller than your palm, published in a limited edition of twenty-four. Also included are two new stories: the semiautobiographical, metafictional, and utterly magical “Ink, Water, Milk” and the cinematic, demon-haunted “Story No. 6.”

Catherynne M. Valente is a New York Times best-selling author of fantasy and science fiction novels, short stories, and poetry. She lives on a small island off the coast of Maine with her husband, two dogs, one enormous friendly cat and one less enormous, less friendly one, and six chickens. She has been nominated for or has won every major award in the science fiction/fantasy field, including the Hugo, World Fantasy, Locus James Tiptree Jr., Andrew Norton, and Mythopoeic awards.