In hyperbolic fashion, the preface to this volume reads, "There are times in the lives of us all in which we are at a loss for words. This volume attempts a partial solution." What follows are thirty things perhaps we shouldn't say, but find ourselves saying anyway. The book is pointedly funny.

In a coastal town on the Outer Carolina Banks, David Ribault and Merrill Poulnot are at odds, and David wonders if he loves her enough to commit to marriage. When a slick developer, Rawson Steele, arrives in town and starts buying up property, David isn't fooled by his smooth charm and is suspicious of Rawson's seemingly romantic conversations with Merrill. When David agrees to a 4:30 am meeting with Rawson, he hopes to confront him, but while he waits, the population of Kraven Island, including Steele, vanishes. Something just lifted everybody-Merrill, her fanatical father, and kid brother, and aII-out of this space and time and dropped them in a mysterious new place. The question is where.

Kit Reed is one of modern science fiction's most striking voices; her latest novel, "Thinner Than Thou", was acclaimed in both the mainstream and science fiction press. "Dogs of Truth" presents seventeen new or previously uncollected short stories by a writer "The New York Times Book Review" hails as "visionary." Three brand new stories are the centre piece of "Dogs of Truth". They tell of the "Grand Opening" of the world's largest mega-mall, study the relationship of a writer and his muse in "Getting it Back," and take a dark look at the child-free lifestyle in "The Shop of Little Horrors." Stories never-before published in book form include "High Rise High," about a student revolt at the ultimate "secure" high school; "Focus Group," where a star-struck fan and cutting edge biochips dictate what the rest of us see on TV; "Escape from Shark Island," where attachment parenting and the family bed are taken to extremes; and Precautions," in which germ-phobia reigns supreme.

In the tomorrow of Thinner Than Thou, the cult of the body has become the one true religion. The Dedicated Sisters are a religious order sworn to help anorexic, bulimic, and morbidly obese youth. Throughout the land, houses of worship have been replaced by the health clubs of the Crossed Triceps. And through hypnotically powerful evangelical infomercials, the Reverend Earl preaches the heaven of the Afterfat, where you will look like a Greek god and can eat anything you want. Just sign over your life savings and come to Sylphania, the most luxurious weight-loss spa in the world, where the Reverend himself will personally supervise your attainment of physical perfection.
But the glory of youth and thinness that America worships conceals a hidden world where teens train for the competitive eating circuit, where fat porn and obese strippers feed people's dark desires, and where an underground railroad of rebellious religions remember when people worshipped God instead of the Afterfat.
As Annie, an anorexic, and her friend Kelly, who is so massive she can barely walk, find out, the tender promises of the Dedicated Sisters are fulfilled by forced feedings and enforced starvation in hidden prisons.
As middle-aged Jeremy discovers, Sylphania is a concentration camp where failure to lose weight and tone up leads to brutal punishment.
The Rev. Earl's public sympathy for the overweight conceals a private contempt . . . and, beneath that, a terrible longing known only to a select few.
The inevitable decay of old age is the only thing keeping mankind from reaching perfection. Luckily, Reverend Earl has a plan that will take care of that . . . .