These dozen short stories are gently surreal, flirting with magic realism and science fiction but never getting too weird. Adolescent girls sprout wings on their legs; an insomniac woman has an encounter with the sandman made literal; and kids find a haunted doll from a house emptied by accidental deaths and a suicide. “#ClimbingNation” is the most realistic, comparing the (sometimes fabricated) memories of those who knew a deceased climber. More often, there is a speculative element. In “Twenty Hours,” a husband and wife take turns killing each other and reprinting a new version of their spouse on a 3D printer. The title invention in “Time Cubes” offers people a chance to jump forward or reel backwards through their lives. “Scissors” first appeared in the Kink anthology edited by R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell and isn’t the only story to blend sex and danger in a queasy way: I didn’t like how this and “June Bugs” undermine tenderness with violence. (And I objected to insects being used to prompt disgust in the latter; I had a similar problem with Claire Fuller’s latest novel.)

This collection was a mixed bag for me, but I’ll finish on a positive note with three favourite stories. The first and last bookend the collection nicely, imagining how technology and art might salve loss. “Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867” is a dialogue between a VR operator and a client whose only wish is to reclaim a peaceful moment with her late mother – except the company has a rule about no dead individuals known personally. Then, in “Do You Remember Candy,” all food has become tasteless and Allie spins a business opportunity out of performance art that employs adjacent senses to evoke lost flavours. And the purest fun was “Bridezilla,” about a runaway bride attacked by a nebulous sea monster. There are great setups here, but I wouldn’t say that any of the stories features a truly memorable character.

Kim Fu, a second-generation Chinese Canadian living in Seattle, uses they/them pronouns. I loved their gender-bending 2014 novel For Today I Am a Boy and have kept trying their work but nothing since has lived up to that debut work. Although I appreciated the playful resistance to the permanence of death, I can think of other speculative collections that have handled such a theme more successfully, such as There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes Jr. and The Man in the Banana Trees by Marguerite Sheffer. (Gift from my wish list)