The Girl Who Loved Animals: And Other Stories

by Bruce McAllister

From his first professional story written when he was 16, "The Faces Outside," to his most critically acclaimed work, the novelette Dream Baby--a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula awards--these 17... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1930846495
• ISBN13: 9781930846494
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Golden Gryphon Press
• Length: 306 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 7.2" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

The stories of The Girl Who Loved Animals speak to the human condition

An exceptional set of short stories makes The Girl Who Loved Animals and Other Stories a top pick for any science fiction collection, deserving of ongoing recommendation and acclaim. From a young woman dedicated to preserving animals, to a little girl's life psychically linked to two pandas, the stories of The Girl Who Loved Animals speak to the human condition, offering an outstanding menu of fine characters and poignant situations.

Superb collection by an underappreciated writer

Bruce McAllister is one of those writers whose work has never quite gotten the attention it deserves. If there was justice in the universe, he would be a lot more famous than he currently is. Most of his work is science fiction, but anyone who appreciates great writing should be reading his work. As someone who has read hundreds of short story collections, I can state unequivocally that THE GIRL WHO LOVED ANIMALS is one of the best that I have ever read. THE GIRL WHO LOVED ANIMALS is a collection of 17 stories spanning the 40+ years since McAllister began his writing career. He was certainly precocious; his first published story ("The Faces Outside", included in this collection) was sold at the tender age of 16, and was subsequently reprinted in The 9th Annual of the Year's Best SF (1964). This might make him the youngest writer to appear in a year's best collection. Since then, he has only improved his craft. While other, more prolific writers have garnered more attention, he has quietly continued to produce a thought-provoking body of work of astonishing emotional power. A common theme in several of McAllister's stories involves the intensity of the bond between parents and children. "The Ark" is set in a near-future where species extinction has increased exponentially; the larger zoos have become the last sanctuaries for the remaining endangered species. In this haunting story, a young girl's life seems to be linked to the survival of two pandas, and her father is faced with a horrifying decision to ensure their survival. The final few pages are devastating. Set in the same future, "The Girl Who Loved Animals" features the relationship between a mentally-challenged girl who rents her womb to ensure the survival of an endangered species and the social worker who is assigned to her. In protecting the girl, the older woman finds a chance of redemption for her tragically failed relationship with her real daughter. In "The Man Inside", a young boy discovers why his father has become catatonic when a computer prints a transcript of his thoughts. "World of the Wars" cleverly conflates a near-future Los Angeles being torn apart by racial tensions with a young boy's imagination of the planet Mars. Another fascinating set of stories deals with the Cold War/Vietnam War era. The Hugo and Nebula-nominated novelette "Dream Baby" is a searing first-person account of an Army nurse in Vietnam who is shattered by precognitive dreams predicting the deaths of soldiers whom she is unable to save. It was later expanded into a tour de force novel that is also a classic. "The Boy in Zaquitos" is narrated by a former CIA agent who was involved in a secret biological warfare program designed to destabilize third world countries in the 1960s and 1970s. McAllister did such a convincing job on this story that you find yourself believing that it might be true, which may be why some readers did not consider this story science fiction. The story has been selected to appe