Rabbit Test and Other Stories

Reviews

"Some of the most powerful stories in the brilliant, genre-spanning debut collection from Nebula Award winner Mills (The Wings upon Her Back) focus on the contentious relationships between generations... These speculative pieces resonate deeply with the current moment, teasing out the many possible ways climate disasters and fascistic politics may shape humanity’s future, all while keeping an eye to the communities that support each other behind the scenes... Even the shortest of these tales packs a powerful punch."

Publishers Weekly, Starred Review!

"In Rabbit Test and Other Stories, Samantha examines the human spirit with a sharp eye and a gentle heart. Her characters dare to love, hope and fight within systems that try to keep them in place. There are no easy answers here, but there’s always wonder."

Eugenia Triantafyllou, Hugo-nominated author of Loneliness Universe

"An incredible collection. If you've only read 'Rabbit Test,' you're in for an amazing journey. Mills's stories are equally human and trenchant, exploring the heart that beats inside worlds that cannot exist. And if you haven't read 'Rabbit Test,' what are you waiting for?"

John Wiswell, Nebula-winning author of SOMEONE YOU CAN BUILD A NEST IN

"Ready to visit new storyscapes? Samantha Mills lifts you out of your everyday and guides you toward futures so blindingly bright you couldn’t stand to look at them if she didn’t show you how. She takes you through scenes revealed as you travel them as stranger and stranger and stranger, step by step by step: Nutritious libraries. Slippery tides of dream-filled sea life. The weight of your sister’s body drags you back down that exoplanetary mountain, but Mills compels you onward and inward. She takes you there, and there, and there. Gaze steady-eyed at the subtle splendors surrounding you. Like you’re swimming, like you’re flying, you can float in her stories’ currents to destinations far beyond their endings, in every direction. To the Beyond. She takes you there."

Nisi Shawl, author of Everfair and the Otherwise Award-winning story collection Filter House

"Samantha Mills' work is like a stained-glass window: beautiful, intricately crafted, and ready to let the light into the dark places of our lives. In outer space, on Death's beloved doorstep, or in our own world's warped futures, her stories illuminate the places where the connections between us are stronger than the forces seeking to pull us to pieces."

Aimee Ogden, Two-time Nebula Award Finalist and author of What Any Dead Thing Wants

"Every entry in RABBIT TEST AND OTHER STORIES is a wildly imaginative gut-punch of emotion, razor-sharp in its prose and execution. Mills has crafted, diamond-like, a deft compression of worlds and time, multifaceted in its insights around power, systemic injustice, motherhood, trauma, bodily autonomy, and revolution. A collection to revisit again and again."

P. H. Low, Ignyte-, Locus-, and Rhysling-nominated author of These Deathless Shores

"Samantha Mills's stories have a palpable beauty and tenderness to them while also being sharp and sure as shivs. It is that edge honed by insight, that unexpected twist and turn of perspective, of phrase, and of the knife, that makes Mills's fiction stand out. A bold and burnished talent in the speculative fiction field."

Maria Haskins, author of Wolves & Girls and Six Dreams About the Train

"A diverse array of stories, each engaging and lively, brimming with heart and an urgent sense of purpose."

The Speculative Shelf

"[A]n interesting and varied set of sci-fi/fantasy stories...Samantha Mills has a excellent eye for neologisms and isn't afraid to deploy humour with sometimes devastating effect."

Terence Eden’s Blog