"These exhilarating stories, quick and sharp and tender, breach the barrier that separates civilized and wild, human and non. Senses fuse, flesh is transfigured; characters come to themselves at moments of metamorphosis, modulating to new forms of life. Barbara Black's magic is the kind that illuminates." --John Gould, author of The End of Me "Barbara Black's debut collection, Music from a Strange Planet , offers tales of obsession and transformation in which the melding of character with the phenomenal world is nothing less than astounding. With a surgeon's exacting skill, she lays bare the often-strange music of the human heart." --M.A.C.

Farrant, author of One Good Thing: A Living Memoir "Be prepared. Be very prepared and preferably with your inner antennae on high alert as you enter into this translucent, transcendent, Kafkaesque world of illusions. Black goes beyond spider-like weaving as she spins her tales. Unusual, unorthodox, but always unique, they will stick to you." --Cathleen With, author of Having Faith in the Polar Girls' Prison "Innovative stories, told and written well. For a depth of engagement and content disproportionate to each tale's length, Music from a Strange Planet delivers a fascinating, thought-provoking playlist." --Bill Arnott, author of Gone Viking "Black's collection of stories straddle that murky divide between dreams and nightmares and the results are unsettling and enthralling." --Hollay Ghadery, author of Fuse "Prepare to be transported to cities, to other countries, to a crumbling present and then off to a Centre for Biogenetics on an unnamed planet in the future.

Other worlds unfold like wings in this marvellous book and beguile us. Reader, prepare to be enchanted." --Caroline Woodward, BC Bookworld.