The image on the cover suits this book well. It shows a tiny snow globe, a strange and artificial world (in the globe it snows, inexplicably, on a seemingly island full of palm trees), in perfect clarity. The globe's real-world surroundings (curtains? a shelf? a window?) are blurred and obscured.

Like the globe, each of these stories contains the minute details of an unsettling world -- a world, perhaps, where a stray cat grows to man-size, or a dead woman is trapped in limbo, or a young woman discovers the secret to eternal life. Or it might be a world more familiar to us but still unsettling, a world where sullen teens wish their parents ill and fathers are not equally kind to all their children.

The stories are perplexing, but not unpleasantly so, reminding me of Haruki Murakami's often puzzling fiction. They are loosely interlinked: certain characters and families appear in several stories, or different characters happen upon the same event (a dinner party, a fatal car accident) and interpret it in their own way. Themes and ideas, from classic mythology and pop culture tie the stories together as well: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek, and Green Acres; Penelope, Artemis, Helios, Eos, and Hades.

The collection is framed by two stories about a pair of friends, Trudi and Charlene, whose world, despite the book's title, appears to be ending. In between, the stories gradually increase in emotional intensity and some of the last ones (The Bodies Vest, Temporal Anomaly) are more wrenching than disturbing.

(This book was recommended by Ms. Mimi Smartypants.)