A debut collection of stories from author Daisuke Shen, wherein divine beings and humans alike must rely on omens to navigate the unpredictable lives they find themselves inhabiting.

A couple employs exact clones of their partners, but then slowly begin losing their memories. Four boys with cruel intentions come across a field of statuesque women, unaware of the vengeance that awaits them. Paranoia leads a brilliant engineer into creating a language-processing machine that will tell her the truth of others' emotions.

Vague Predictions & Prophecies explores the myriad ways in which desire structures (and destroys) the self, language, and love, questioning the very nature of human connection. Through beautifully written prose, Shen invokes the surreal to create gigantic worlds packed inside deceptively small packages, emphasizing a resounding truth: that our fractured understandings of each other may yet be enough.

PRAISE

“Shen’s Vague Predictions & Prophecies is a rice cake on fire. Shen’s characters satisfy both expected and eccentric, terrestrial and astrological, humanoid and primal demands. Sharp in pungency and volatile like soy nuts in their composition, Shen’s recklessly unforgettable characters are wasabi-like in their delivery and psyche-stimulating in their inventions. Shen’s stories capture their suffering, distress, oddity, madness, futility, dejection, love, and misery with depths of empathy, sharp honesty, and clear foreshadowing. These stories ooze with nail polish, sandpaper, with horseradish roots.” – VI KHI NAO

Daisuke Shen is the author of the short story collection Vague Predictions & Prophecies (CLASH Books 2024), and the novella Funeral (KERNPUNKT Press 2023). They live in New York City. www.daisukeshen.com

OFFICIAL RELEASE

08.13.24

ISBN: 9781960988133