The Gone Away Place by Christopher Barzak
Because of a stupid fight with her high school boyfriend, Ellie Frame cut school one day to took sorrowful refuge in a nearby faux lighthouse, where she falls asleep. What wakes her is a series of devastating tornadoes that rip through her small rural Ohio town of Newfoundland, killing nearly a hundred people, including Ellie’s boyfriend Noah and several of her best friends. Not all the dead are gone, however; some remain behind, visible to many of the town’s residents and especially their loved ones as they hover “in the grey place” between life and death.
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I might say "formulaic" actually.
Your review made me curious, so I looked this book up. Sure enough: Tor. Tor seems to specialize in these…
It's a tightrope act for sure.
[…] Stuart (2 December 2015). “Roadside Picnic: Russian SF classic with parallels to Vandermeer’s Area X | Fantasy Lit…. fantasyliterature.com. Retrieved 8 […]
yes, I mean, there are certainly lots of good sci-fi/fantasy novellas out there, so they aren't impossible to do, but…