Untamed

His forays in novels—most recently, Raising Stony Mayhall—have shown Daryl Gregory to be a master of speculative fiction. His stories don’t require gadgets and aliens; instead, he’s filled them with heart and character. Collected here for the first time are a number of prize-winning short stories; including the title story. Ever wonder what happened to Max after he left the land of the Wild Things and had to grow up? In “Unpossible,” Gregory explores what a mid-life crisis might look like for someone who’d had a truly fantastic childhood, and it’s not pretty. Then there’s the case of the physics genius with a love for quantum mechanics (“Dead Horse Point”) that leaves her catatonic for years at a time, and another (“Damascus”) that asks if religious visions might not just be a neurological disease. Gregory writes beautifully, whether the form is long or short.