In his confident debut, Greg Bechtel offers ten charged stories about the impossible-turned-possible—secrets, paranoia, sex, conspiracies, and magic—that the strangeness of the world around us. Boundary Problems vibrates on the edge of meaning, as carjackers, accidental gunrunners, small-town cabbies, and confused physics students struggle to wring meaning from the strange events that overtake them. Bechtel's worlds of mystery, physics, and magic constantly challenge his characters' pursuit of logical explanations. These compelling tales blur lines and push boundaries—into the surreal, into the playful, into the irresistibility of uncertainty.

Greg Bechtel’s occasionally prize-winning stories have appeared in several journals and anthologies, including The Fiddlehead, Prairie Fire, On Spec, Qwerty, and the Tesseracts anthologies of speculative fiction. Originally from Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Greg has lived at various times in Toronto, Deep River, Jamaica, Ottawa, Quebec City, and Fredericton while working (among other things) as a lifeguard, technical writer, mover, visual basic programmer, camp counsellor, semiconductor laser labtech, cab driver, tutor, and teacher. Currently, he lives and writes in Edmonton, where he teaches English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Alberta whenever they let him. Boundary Problems is his first book.

Greg Bechtel's profile page

• Short-listed, ReLit Award
• Winner, Alberta Trade Fiction Book of the Year
• Long-listed, Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize

"Each of Greg Bechtel's stories is a perfect little puzzle-box: one marvels at their perfect geometries while anticipating that dazzling moment where every piece slots flush. These finely-crafted, emotionally resonant tales will stay with me a long, long time."

Craig Davidson

“Bechtel displays a refreshing willingness to experiment with aspects of narratology, lending his collection a surface unfamiliarity that resembles the literary equivalent of quantum mechanics.”