Extremities — Kathe Koja

In the hypnotic, psychological landscape of Extremities, people pushed to the limits of endurance enter extreme states of mind and being. These stories shine an eerie light on the netherworld of artistic exploration and insanity; they probe obsession and vengeance and wander along the intersecting paths of the living and the dead. Frequently Koja's characters are betrayed by imagination - artists enslaved by their muses, women dominated by fantasy lovers, ordinary men bewitched by inner voices or inexplicably endowed with powers they cannot control. Koja's language is gorgeously descriptive: every sense is exquisitely evoked. These stories shiver with her simmering intensity.