Shortlisted for the BSFA and BFS Awards
These stories explore place and landscape at different stages of decay, positioning them as fighting grounds for death and renewal. From dystopian Andalusia to Scotland or the Norfolk countryside, they bring together monstrous insects, ghostly lovers, soon-to-be extinct species, unexpected birds, and interstellar explorers, to form a coherent narrative about loss and absence.
"Lost Objects differs from other fictions of ecological collapse from those early days in its subtlety. In these stories, climatic change is not figured as dramatic upheaval, but slow creep.
The collection as a whole addresses humankind’s senseless despoliation of its home in subtle, profoundly affecting ways."
Timothy J Jarvis, LA Review of Books
5* "Hauntingly beautiful portraits of a changed world. If you enjoyed Annihilation (either the book or the film), these stories are very much in the same vein: uncanny, monstrous, and beautiful wilderness, and a strangeness that resists easy allegory or explanation. These stories creep under your skin and stick with you long after you turn the last page." Earthling on Amazon.com
5* "A luminous collection of beautiful and haunting short stories. In every story, the world and the people and creatures in it seem in the process of changing and transforming. Landscapes, animals and humans seem to shiver between dream and nightmare, between one state of being and another and the stories capture that uncertain state in all its dark glory.Dark, weird, and memorable speculative fiction." Maria Haskins on Amazon.com
5* "A day does not go by when the news does not feature global warming or a certain animal on the endangered list. This book contains 10 short stories exploring the impact of extinct creatures, a lack of food and changing climates,Regardless which story your read, you soon come to realise that every story is beautifully written. The descriptive style of this author made me feel that I was going on a discovery and as I followed each character I was instantly submerge in their story.Some of the stories that stood out for me were Black Isle: Based in Scotland, Dr Andrew Hay and his colleagues were scientist trying to restore nature. As I read this story I got the sense that there was something destructive was going to happen. The sense of foreboding especially when there was no bird song, had me wondering how far scientist were going to create their ideal world and one of the strangest things was the climate in Scotland. Constant sunshine and no rain.Love (Ghost) Story. The MC had a ghost that appeared every evening. Throughout this story I found myself asking myself questions. How did he die? Did she kill him? Was she a victim of domestic violence? Because of all these questions, I felt real sympathy for the MC, and I felt a sense of loss for her as I felt that even in death, the ghost caused her to stop living.The Ravisher, The Thief: Taking you to a mystical land, following Paloma who lived in a land were birds were heralded as gods. As to do some translating she learns a secret that has a big impact on the land. This story had a magical feel to it and I enjoyed reading about how the birds were trained and cared for. The story built up to an unexpected and tragic ending.As a new author to me this book was a great introduction to her work. As these were short stories of various length, it was perfect if you wanted a quick read as you could read a story in less than 1 hour.Another great find from Luna Publishing" Yvonne on Amazon.co.uk
"It is bracingly, distinctively different from any other collection I can think of. It is brave. It is out there. It offers us the promise of a writer who is coming fully into her talent, whose best work still lies ahead.
Womack’s stories feel fragile, almost friable. One has the sense of pulling thoughts fresh from the ground, still damp with earth. Marian Womack is not afraid to be tentative, to leave the raw edge of an idea – of a fear – open to scrutiny and thereby all the more powerful, all the more personal.
The stories in Lost Objects are fiercely political, yet they never run the danger of becoming propaganda. The world Womack shows us – a world on the brink of disastrous climate change, of mass extinctions, of universal surveillance and heightened unemployment – is also a world in which personal loss and internal struggle, private terror and human longing remain the driving forces of story. Womack’s personal iconography is powerful because it feels unique to her.
Womack’s stories have been billed as ‘eco-fiction’, and the themes
of climate change and ecological destruction are more urgently expressed in this short book than in any other I have recently read, yet it is Womack’s bravery in stating these themes in terms of poetry, of metaphysics, of personal loss that lifts them above polemic.
In reading Womack, the greatest sensation is that of having made an important discovery, of having stumbled upon the work of a writer – published by a relatively new independent press – that not many people have heard of yet, but should, and will.
In cases such as this, the overriding impulse is to rush out and tell others they simply have to read this book. This book, with its sharp edges and its thematic urgency and its painful admissions of weakness and of fear, is a collection that highlights everything that speculative fiction, of all possible modes of literature, excels at. Read Lost Objects, and remember you were there before the author was famous."
Nina Allan, Interzone 276 (July-August 2018).
Lost Objects
“An intriguing and illuminating first collection, chockfull of interesting ideas about the natural world and ourselves.”
Jeff VanderMeer, NYT Bestselling author of The Southern Reach trilogy
“Luminous and disturbing as the unearthly things they describe, Marian Womack’s gorgeously written tales map the shifting boundaries between waking life and dream, past and future and our own profoundly unsettled present. Reading them left me with goosebumps, and the craving for more stories by this supremely gifted new writer.”
Liz Hand
“The earth is in trouble and Marian Womack knows it. She tells us that the end, and what comes after, will be very weird indeed. These stories, where birds drop from the sky and giant butterflies haunt the imagination, fizz with a unique and strange originality.”
Gary Budden
“Marian Womack weaves together the lyricism of Angela Carter, the mad imagination of China Miéville, and the earthiness of Robert Macfarlane. This book--an aviary of the strange, a vital evocation of wild and fleeting spirits--marks the emergence of a fantastic new talent.”
Helen Marshall, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Gifts for the One Who Comes After
“These short story gems dance at the edge of the world, finding poetry in loss and devastation. Marian Womack is an artist with a unique and powerfully-wrought vision.”
Una MacCormack
