Supernatural narratives represent an important component of our storytelling heritage. These stories—including fairy tales, urban legends, penny dreadfuls and modern pulps, among many others—leave a resonant echo throughout popular culture. In These Strange Worlds, Daniel Powell’s first collection of dark short fiction, these influences collide in fourteen startling and entertaining stories. The lone survivor of a worldwide flu epidemic grows strangely attached to her parasitic partner. A malevolent London rental has a voracious appetite for rock stars, and it’s building one hell of a band. A wealthy oil trader is offered a glimpse into another dimension, but is the cost more than he can possibly bear? From Satanic salesmen to zombie Ponzi schemes; from murdering murals to alien invasions and other curious encounters along the way, These Strange Worlds takes readers on 14 excursions into the realm of the uncanny. A mixture of new and previously published short stories, Powell’s first collection embodies the spectrum of imaginative possibility that is the hallmark of compelling speculative fiction. “In Powell’s twisted stories, the bizarre thrives right alongside everyday ordinariness. Girls turn into crayons, zombies lure the living with irresistible Ponzi schemes, hotel suites turn macabre band managers. All the while, menace lurks in the most mundane things—in the smile of a genial salesman, in the unassuming hitchhiker on a lonely road, even in babies.” — Lavanya Karthik, Book Pleasures Review of THESE STRANGE WORLDS: FOURTEEN DARK TALES.