New Releases by Marie Brennan

Some people play roleplaying-games for the challenge; others play them for the story. Award-winning fantasy author and freelance game writer Marie Brennan is unabashedly in the latter camp. In these essays she looks at tabletop and live-action RPGs from a narrative perspective, exploring the ways the framework of a game can generate and support (or undermine) your tale. Whether you are a player or a game master, Dice Tales offers insights on every facet of RPG storytelling, including: * generating characters with rich narrative potential * scaling plot as PCs become more powerful * managing the interaction between rules and roleplay * campaign planning at different stages * the social dynamics of collaborative creation * and more!

Isabelle Trent, devenue célèbre, n''en a pas fini de déplaire à la bonne société du Scirland (qui doit beaucoup à l''Angleterre victorienne). Notre impétueuse naturaliste, après avoir transformé sa demeure en une sorte d''université pour jeunes femmes désireuses de s''instruire, entreprend de monter une expédition afin d''étudier les dragons du monde entier et, l''espère-t-elle, révolutionner leur taxonomie. Comble d''inconvenance, cette fois, Jake, le fils d''Isabelle et de son défunt mari, est du voyage. Le voilier Basilic débute son périple dans le Grand Nord où Isabelle étudie (en pantalon) les serpents de mer, puis passe par un pays qui serait peut-être le Mexique, se fait chasser du Yélang et visite enfin les îles volcaniques de l''hémisphère Sud, où elle en apprend davantage sur la civilisation des Draconiens qui ont dominé le monde dans l''antiquité. Au cours de ce voyage, le lecteur est aussi témoin d''une nouvelle étape de la vie sentimentale d''Isabelle ; quant à la présence de son fils, elle donne lieu à moult touches ironiques et tendres, car elle découvre que Jake ne s''intéresse qu''à une chose : la mer et tout ce qui s''en rapproche - mais pas aux dragons.

Sous la plume raffinée et sans pitié de Marie Brennan, retrouvez les aventures d''Isabelle Trent, naturaliste mondialement connue qui a consacré sa vie à l''étude des dragons. "Bien que peu de gens soient assez âgés pour s''en souvenir, et encore moins assez impolis pour en parler, je fus autrefois vilipendée dans les feuilles à scandales. [...] C''est à cette époque de mon existence que je fus accusée de fornication, de haute trahison et d''être la plus mauvaise mère de tout le Scirland. C''est plus que la plupart des femmes peuvent réaliser en l''espace d''une vie et j''admets que j''éprouve une sorte de fierté perverse à y être parvenue. Ce livre est également, bien entendu, le récit de mon expédition en Erigie. Les avertissements de ma première préface s''appliquent toujours : si les descriptions d''actions violentes, de maladies, de mets étrangers au palais des habitants du Scirland, de religions étranges, de nudité en public ou de gaffes diplomatiques idiotes sont susceptibles de vous gêner, fermez ce livre et passez à quelque chose de plus plaisant. Mais je peux vous assurer que j''ai survécu à tous ces événements ; il est donc probable que vous survivrez à leur lecture."

A Tor.com original, From the Editorial Page of the Falchester Weekly Review shares the thoughts of the renowned dragon naturalist Lady Trent--whose memoirs continue to be chronciled in Marie Brennan's acclaimed Victorian Age science fantasy series--about the scientific community. After risking the neck of her loved ones and herself during her perilous sea voyage aboard The Basilisk, and the discoveries made at Keonga, Isabella, Lady Trent, returns to Scirland with the aim of publishing her research. And yet, given the level of secret knowledge she now posseses, she is reduced to waiting to reveal her new academic discovery until royal decrees can be lifted and a fraught political situation avoided. In her idle frustration, Isabella vents her spleen upon the shoddy research published by lesser men with swollen heads in local journals. Enjoy the following collection of letters, found in a trunk of mislaid scholarly documents left behind when she removed to Linshire for the season. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

In the Labyrinth of Drakes, the thrilling new book in the acclaimed fantasy series from Marie Brennan, the glamorous Lady Trent takes her adventurous explorations to the deserts of Akhia. Even those who take no interest in the field of dragon naturalism have heard of Lady Trent's expedition to the inhospitable deserts of Akhia. Her discoveries there are the stuff of romantic legend, catapulting her from scholarly obscurity to worldwide fame. The details of her personal life during that time are hardly less private, having provided fodder for gossips in several countries. As is so often the case in the career of this illustrious woman, the public story is far from complete. In this, the fourth volume of her memoirs, Lady Trent relates how she acquired her position with the Royal Scirling Army; how foreign saboteurs imperiled both her work and her well-being; and how her determined pursuit of knowledge took her into the deepest reaches of the Labyrinth of Drakes, where the chance action of a dragon set the stage for her greatest achievement yet. The Lady Trent Memoirs 1. A Natural History of Dragons 2. The Tropic of Serpents 3. Voyage of the Basilisk 4. In the Labyrinth of Drakes 5. Within the Sanctuary of Wings At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

• 2017 World Fantasy Award finalist for Best Anthology • Contains “The Fall Shall Further the Flight in Me” by Rachael K. Jones, 2017 World Fantasy Award finalist for Best Short Fiction • Contains “Sabbath Wine” by Barbara Krasnoff, 2016 Nebula Award finalist for Best Short Story • 2016 Locus Recommended Reading List, Best Anthology “Allen’s strange and lovely fifth genre-melding fantasy anthology selects 20 new short stories of unusual variety, texture, compassion, and perception. . . . All the stories afford thought-provoking glimpses into alternative realities that linger, sparking unconventional thoughts, long after they are first encountered.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “The arrangement is superb. This anthology of 20 stories can resemble a symphony of themes and variations in a wide range of keys, or a tapestry whose elements form patterns of imagery and meaning that shift and offer new insights throughout the book.” —Locus The Clockwork Phoenix anthologies offer homes to “well-written stories occupying multiple subgenres, usually in the same story, often ambiguously,” as Locus Magazine once put it. The ground-breaking, boundary-pushing, award-nominated series has returned for a fifth incarnation, triumphantly risen from the ashes after another successful Kickstarter campaign. This is the largest installment yet, holding twenty new tales of beauty and strangeness. With original fiction from Jason Kimble, Rachael K. Jones, Patricia Russo, Marie Brennan, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, Rob Cameron, A. C. Wise, Gray Rinehart, Sam Fleming, Sunil Patel, C. S. E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez, Holly Heisey, Barbara Krasnoff, Sonya Taaffe, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Shveta Thakrar, Cassandra Khaw, Keffy R. M. Kehrli, Rich Larson, and Beth Cato. Cover art by Paula Arwen Owen. “And then there is that secret restaurant . . . It is perfection on a plate! And you feel better about yourself and your life and the world every time you go there. Clockwork Phoenix is the name of this restaurant, and Mike Allen is the restaurateur. One sublime dish after another, and yet I still have my favorites that I keep coming back to.” —Little Red Reviewer Table of contents: “The Wind at His Back” by Jason Kimble “The Fall Shall Further the Flight in Me” by Rachael K. Jones “The Perfect Happy Family” by Patricia Russo “The Mirror-City” by Marie Brennan “The Finch’s Wedding and the Hive That Sings” by Benjanun Sriduangkaew “Squeeze” by Rob Cameron “A Guide to Birds by Song (After Death)” by A.C. Wise “The Sorcerer of Etah” by Gray Rinehart “The Prime Importance of a Happy Number” by Sam Fleming “Social Visiting” by Sunil Patel “The Book of May” by C.S.E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez “The Tiger’s Silent Roar” by Holly Heisey “Sabbath Wine” by Barbara Krasnoff “The Trinitite Golem” by Sonya Taaffe “Two Bright Venuses” by Alex Dally MacFarlane “By Thread of Night and Starlight Needle” by Shveta Thakrar “The Games We Play” by Cassandra Khaw “The Road, and the Valley, and the Beasts” by Keffy R.M. Kehrli “Innumerable Glimmering Lights” by Rich Larson “The Souls of Horses” by Beth Cato

Manifestation was only the beginning. The Otherworld has returned -- bringing with it the sidhe, the source of humanity's psychic powers. Some mortals welcome these creatures of legend, some fear them . . . and no one is ready for the change their presence will bring. Last autumn Kim and Julian stood at the center of that storm. Now they face a challenge closer to home: a battle over the laws governing wilders, the closest genetic relatives of the sidhe. Many feel that change should wait until the current upheaval has ended . . . but Kim sees opportunity in the chaos, a chance to free Julian and all his kind from the chains of the deep shield that locks their gifts away. The roots of that shield run deeper than she knows. The quest to destroy it will lead her and Julian back into the world of the sidhe, where they will uncover ancient lies, face betrayal on all sides -- and gamble everything on the possibility of freedom.

The thrilling adventure of Lady Trent continues in Marie Brennan's Voyage of the Basilisk . . . Devoted readers of Lady Trent's earlier memoirs, A Natural History of Dragons and The Tropic of Serpents, may believe themselves already acquainted with the particulars of her historic voyage aboard the Royal Survey Ship Basilisk, but the true story of that illuminating, harrowing, and scandalous journey has never been revealed—until now. Six years after her perilous exploits in Eriga, Isabella embarks on her most ambitious expedition yet: a two-year trip around the world to study all manner of dragons in every place they might be found. From feathered serpents sunning themselves in the ruins of a fallen civilization to the mighty sea serpents of the tropics, these creatures are a source of both endless fascination and frequent peril. Accompanying her is not only her young son, Jake, but a chivalrous foreign archaeologist whose interests converge with Isabella's in ways both professional and personal. Science is, of course, the primary objective of the voyage, but Isabella's life is rarely so simple. She must cope with storms, shipwrecks, intrigue, and warfare, even as she makes a discovery that offers a revolutionary new insight into the ancient history of dragons. The Lady Trent Memoirs 1. A Natural History of Dragons 2. The Tropic of Serpents 3. Voyage of the Basilisk 4. In the Labyrinth of Drakes 5. Within the Sanctuary of Wings At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Seven tales of supernatural horror . . . A maiden in a tower. A grandmother in a cottage. A stranger at a ball. None of them are what they seem, in this collection of very brief stories from fantasy author Marie Brennan. The dark forest of fairy tales hides things more perilous than wolves and wicked stepmothers. Are you prepared for what you’ll find? TABLE OF CONTENTS * The Snow-White Heart * Footprints * Shadows’ Bride * Tower in Moonlight * The Wood, the Bridge, the House * Kiss of Life * Waiting for Beauty Total length: 40 pages, including Story Notes

Marie Brennan offers an intriguing new spin on the classic tale of Penelope and Odysseus. By day she crafts; by night she unmakes. Surely somewhere, in all the myriad crossings of the threads, there is a future in which all will be well. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

For to see mad Tom o''Bedlam, ten thousand miles she''s traveled. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Everyone knows Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world''s preeminent dragon naturalist. Here, at last, in her own words, is the story of a pioneering spirit who risked her reputation, prospects, and her life to satisfy scientific curiosity; of how she sought true love despite her lamentable eccentricities; and of her thrilling expedition to the mountains of Vystrana, where she made discoveries that would change the world.

Three years after her fateful journeys through Vystrana, the widowed (and occasionally scandalous) Lady Trent defies convention to embark on an expedition to the savage, war-torn continent of Eriga, home of the legendary swamp-wyrms of the tropics. Accompanied by an old associate and a runaway heiress, Isabella must brave heat, fevers and palace intrigues to satisfy her boundless fascination with all things draconian.

Have you ever: • Held a sword? • Taken a karate class? • Punched another person in the face? Even if your answer is “no,” you can still write a good fight scene. In this guide, fantasy novelist Marie Brennan will show you how. Drawing on her experience with fencing, stage combat choreography, Okinawan martial arts, and above all writing, she lays out the components that turn the strikes into a compelling story. From purpose to tactics to prose, Writing Fight Scenes walks you through the anatomy and execution of combat on the page.

LONDON, 1625. A young gentleman lies murdered in a Coldharbour alley. Before his death, he uncovered secrets that could threaten the mortal world above and the faerie world below. Now, to find the murderer and protect both realms, Sir Michael Deven will need the help of a man with reason to hate the fae of the Onyx Court — the victim’s own brother. A novella of the Onyx Court, set between Midnight Never Come and In Ashes Lie.

The ground-breaking, boundary-pushing, award-nominated series of fantasy anthologies series returns for a fourth installment through the miracle of Kickstarter, bringing you eighteen brand new tales of beauty and strangeness. You''ll find the light-hearted and the bleak, the surreal become familiar and the familiar turned inside-out. Each story leads you into unmapped territory, there to find shock and delight. With stories by Yves Meynard, Ian McHugh, Nicole Kornher-Stace, Richard Parks, Gemma Files, Yukimi Ogawa, A.C. Wise, Marie Brennan, Alisa Alering, Tanith Lee, Cat Rambo, Shira Lipkin, Corinne Duyvis, Kenneth Schneyer, Camille Alexa, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, Patricia Russo and Barbara Krasnoff. Table of Contents “Our Lady of the Thylacines” by Yves Meynard “The Canal Barge Magician’s Number Nine Daughter” by Ian McHugh “On the Leitmotif of the Trickster Constellation in Northern Hemispheric Star Charts, Post-Apocalypse” by Nicole Kornher-Stace “Beach Bum and the Drowned Girl” by Richard Parks “Trap-Weed” by Gemma Files “Icicle” by Yukimi Ogawa “Lesser Creek: A Love Story, A Ghost Story” by A.C. Wise “What Still Abides” by Marie Brennan “The Wanderer King” by Alisa Alering “A Little of the Night” by Tanith Lee “I Come from the Dark Universe” by Cat Rambo “Happy Hour at the Tooth and Claw” by Shira Lipkin “Lilo Is” by Corinne Duyvis “Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer” by Kenneth Schneyer “Three Times” by Camille Alexa “The Bees Her Heart, the Hive Her Belly” by Benjanun Sriduangkaew “The Old Woman With No Teeth” by Patricia Russo “The History of Soul 2065″ by Barbara Krasnoff Praise for Clockwork Phoenix 4 This book is in several distinct ways a look into the future: the future of fantasy and science fiction, diverse, strange, and wonderful; the future of these individual writers, many of whom are at or near the beginning of careers which promise to be interesting; and, additionally, the future of publishing, in which a crowd-sourced publication from a very small press can produce, and can present professionally and beautifully, work which is at the height of what is being written in genre. This particular phoenix has risen from its ashes triumphant. — Strange Horizons Clockwork Phoenix 4, much like its predecessors, is a high quality, well-organized, engaging anthology. — Tor.com A first rate series of anthologies … The book is stylistically of a piece with its predecessors — a set of well-written stories occupying multiple subgenres, usually in the same story, often ambiguously. — Locus The tone ranges from dark to heartwarming and simple. The overall quality is high … Several of the pieces are quite challenging. Readers will do well to pick up a copy. — Locus Online What makes this fourth edition so special is that it belongs to an impassioned community of writers and readers who went above and beyond to make it happen. … All eighteen [stories] have the power to pull the reader out of his own reality and transport or transform them entirely. — Cabinet des Fées This 4th volume of Clockwork Phoenix contains an excellent diversity of speculative fiction ranging from cold and hopeless to harsh but victorious and warm and fulfilling. It was a pleasure to read. — Tangent Online What kind of stories will you find in Clockwork Phoenix 4? Only those that are magical, imaginative, heart-wrenching, just plain bizarre, forward-looking, backward-looking, biological, romantic, hopeful, darkly funny and openly frightening. All the words that describe the best speculative fiction you’ve ever read apply. In fact, if this isn’t the epitome of speculative fiction, I don’t know what is. — Little Red Reviewer

Marie Brennan begins a thrilling new fantasy series in A Natural History of Dragons, combining adventure with the inquisitive spirit of the Victorian Age. You, dear reader, continue at your own risk. It is not for the faint of heart—no more so than the study of dragons itself. But such study offers rewards beyond compare: to stand in a dragon's presence, even for the briefest of moments—even at the risk of one's life—is a delight that, once experienced, can never be forgotten. . . . All the world, from Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, know Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world's preeminent dragon naturalist. She is the remarkable woman who brought the study of dragons out of the misty shadows of myth and misunderstanding into the clear light of modern science. But before she became the illustrious figure we know today, there was a bookish young woman whose passion for learning, natural history, and, yes, dragons defied the stifling conventions of her day. Here at last, in her own words, is the true story of a pioneering spirit who risked her reputation, her prospects, and her fragile flesh and bone to satisfy her scientific curiosity; of how she sought true love and happiness despite her lamentable eccentricities; and of her thrilling expedition to the perilous mountains of Vystrana, where she made the first of many historic discoveries that would change the world forever. "Saturated with the joy and urgency of discovery and scientific curiosity."—Publishers Weekly (starred review) on A Natural History of Dragons An NPR Best Book of 2013 The Lady Trent Memoirs 1. A Natural History of Dragons 2. The Tropic of Serpents 3. Voyage of the Basilisk 4. In the Labyrinth of Drakes 5. Within the Sanctuary of Wings At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

In this prequel to the urban fantasy novel Lies and Prophecy, Kim is ready for her freshman year at college—but her challenges include more than just choosing courses and learning to live with a roommate. Welton University has welcomed a new student, one of the strange and powerful wilders. If Julian Fiain is going to fit in among his fellow psychics, he’s going to need friends.

Seven years after her sweetheart disappears and nobody believes her claim that he was stolen by faeries, Eliza stumbles into the faerie kingdom hidden beneath Queen Victoria's London and learns that the underground railway is posing an unprecedented threat on the faeries and the humans they protect.

The third volume in the ground-breaking, genre-bending, boundary-pushing CLOCKWORK PHOENIX anthology series, now available in digital format. Includes critically-acclaimed and award-nominated stories by Marie Brennan, Tori Truslow, Georgina Bruce, Michael M. Jones, Gemma Files, C.S.E. Cooney, Cat Rambo, Gregory Frost, Shweta Narayan, S.J. Hirons, John Grant, Kenneth Schneyer, John C. Wright, Nicole Kornher-Stace and Tanith Lee. With a whimsical introduction and new afterword by Nebula Award-nominated editor Mike Allen. CONTENTS The Gospel of Nachash • Marie Brennan Tomorrow Is Saint Valentine''s Day • Tori Truslow Crow Voodoo • Georgina Bruce Your Name Is Eve • Michael M. Jones Hell Friend • Gemma Files Braiding the Ghosts • C.S.E. Cooney Surrogates • Cat Rambo Lucyna''s Gaze • Gregory Frost Eyes of Carven Emerald • Shweta Narayan Dragons of America • S.J. Hirons Where Shadows Go at Low Midnight • John Grant Lineage • Kenneth Schneyer Murder in Metachronopolis • John C. Wright To Seek Her Fortune • Nicole Kornher-Stace Fold • Tanith Lee Praise for CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 3 . . . . Allen’s third volume of extraordinary short stories reaches new heights of rarity and wonder. Marie Brennan sets the bar high with “The Gospel of Nachash,” a fine reinterpretation of the Adam and Eve legend from a fresh perspective. Tori Truslow’s scholarly “Tomorrow Is Saint Valentine’s Day” tells the story of the Great Ice Train and its encounter with the merfolk on the Moon. Gemma Files’s “Hell Friend” and C.S.E. Cooney’s “Braiding the Ghosts” are sinister, spine-tingling ghost stories. Cat Rambo deals with realism and escapism in her futuristic “Surrogates,” where appearances and reality are mutable. Shweta Narayan’s “Eyes of Carven Emerald” eloquently rewrites the history of Alexander the Great to include mechanical entities. Without a wrong note, all the stories in this anthology admirably fulfill Allen’s promise of “beauty and strangeness.” — Publishers Weekly, Starred Review With a balance of new names and established authors, the third Clockwork Phoenix installment collects some magnificent interpretations of fantastic ideas. “The Gospel of Nachash” opens, Marie Brennan’s haunting tale of the beginning of time, and a very interesting reinterpretation of a gospel it is, too. Tanith Lee’s “Fold” is a story of a man who wrote love letters to the people he saw passing beneath his window, and only left his apartment once. Gemma Files’ “Hell Friend” is really a heart-warming ghost story; Georgina Bruce’s “Crow Voodoo” is an unnerving take on something common to fairy tales; and Gregory Frost’s “Lucyna’s Gaze” starts off sweet, and grows more awful with every revealed detail. Clockwork Phoenix delivers on its promise of both beauty and strangeness, and adds in some fright and a few new ways of looking at old tropes. All in all, it’s a very successful collection of thematically similar, but wildly varied in subject, works. — Booklist CLOCKWORK PHOENIX is a series of anthologies from Norilana Books, edited by Mike Allen, that bears the subtitle “New Tales of Beauty and Strangeness”. This seems a quite appropriate subtitle — the stories really do seem attempts at evoking both beauty and the strange. This makes them consistently interesting . . . There is a mixture of wild science fiction (as with John C. Wright’s “Murder in Metachronopolis”, a convoluted time travel mystery) with what seems best called slipstream (say, Tanith Lee’s curious “Fold”, about a man who sends people paper airplane love letters) with out and out fantasy. One of the latter is my favorite here: C. S. E. Cooney’s “Braiding the Ghosts”, in which a girl goes to her grandmother after her mother’s death, and learns from the older woman the secret of “braiding” ghosts — which is to say enslaving them. So ghosts are the servants of the older woman. But the girl is not so happy with this . . . especially when she falls for the ghost she is forced to braid. And the ghosts — are they happy? Read the story and find out . . . lovely stuff. — Locus For the past three years editor Mike Allen has been publishing his unique CLOCKWORK PHOENIX anthologies, inviting authors like Tanith Lee and Catherynne M. Valente to give us their take on the concepts of, as the title has it, “beauty and strangeness.” The result has been a critical and artistic success and, if volume three is any indication, the spell won’t be lifting any time soon. Allen continues to assemble some of the most adventurous, beauteous, and just plain weird stuff our current crop of speculative authors are capable of producing. Adventurous minds are invited to attend. — Strange Horizons

Witch Miryo, having failed to kill her doppelganger, must hunt down her twin, Mirage, who is a bounty hunter, in order to receive her full powers.

The second volume in the ground-breaking, genre-bending, boundary-pushing Clockwork Phoenix anthology series, now available in digital format. Includes critically-acclaimed and award-nominated stories by Claude Lalumière, Leah Bobet, Marie Brennan, Ian McHugh, Ann Leckie, Mary Robinette Kowal, Saladin Ahmed, Tanith Lee, Joanna Galbraith, Catherynne M. Valente, Forrest Aguirre, Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer, Kelly Barnhill, Barbara Krasnoff and Steve Rasnic Tem. With a whimsical introduction and new afterword by Nebula Award-nominated editor Mike Allen. "Sixteen unique voices that manage nevertheless to harmonize into a sort of choir of the uncanny singing in the key of beauty and strangeness ... Mike Allen has conducted it masterfully. I highly recommend it, and look forward with great anticipation to CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 3." — SF Site CONTENTS Three Friends • Claude Lalumière Six • Leah Bobet Once a Goddess • Marie Brennan Angel Dust • Ian McHugh The Endangered Camp • Ann Leckie At the Edge of Dying • Mary Robinette Kowal Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela • Saladin Ahmed The Pain of Glass: A Tale of the Flat Earth • Tanith Lee The Fish of Al-Kawthar''s Fountain • Joanna Galbraith The Secret History of Mirrors • Catherynne M. Valente Never nor Ever • Forrest Aguirre each thing i show you is a piece of my death • Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer Open the Door and the Light Pours Through • Kelly Barnhill Rosemary, That''s For Remembrance • Barbara Krasnoff When We Moved On • Steve Rasnic Tem Praise for CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 2 . . . . Allen finds his groove for this second annual anthology of weird stories, selecting 16 wonderfully evocative, well-written tales. Marie Brennan’s thought-provoking “Once a Goddess” considers the fate of a goddess abruptly returned to mortality. Tanith Lee puts a stunning twist in the story of a morose prince in “The Pain of Glass.” Mary Robinette Kowal’s “At the Edge of Dying” describes a world where magic comes only to those at death’s door. In “Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela,” Saladin Ahmed tells of a small village on the edge of a desert, a hermit and a woman who may be a witch. Each story fits neatly alongside the next, and the diversity of topics, perspectives and authors makes this cosmopolitan anthology a winner. — Publishers Weekly, Starred Review In this anthology of 15 original tales by some of fantasy’s most imaginative voices, Tanith Lee returns to her remarkable Flat Earth setting for a poignant and cutting tale of love, fate, and misfortune in “The Pain of Glass.” Other contributors include veteran and newer writers Forrest Aguirre, Steve Rasnic Tem, Joanna Galbraith, Saladin Ahmed, and others, each chosen for their unique perspective and stylistic grace. VERDICT: This second volume in a new annual anthology series will appeal to fantasy readers who enjoy short stories. — Library Journal CLOCKWORK PHOENIX is the most experimental and often the most interesting of the impressive stable of four anthologies published by Norilana. The second outing has a lot of strong work, including a nice ultra-romantic tale of a woman of glass by Tanith Lee (“The Pain of Glass”), a moving fairly traditional ghost story from Kelly Barnhill (“Open the Door and the Light Pours Through”), and a story I frankly didn’t think I’d like, but which seduced me, Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer’s “each thing i show you is a piece of my death,” about experimental film makers creating a sort of collage film, including what seems a very old clip of a man committing suicide. It’s queasy-making, odd, yet compelling. My favorite story is Ann Leckie’s “The Endangered Camp,” which she says resulted from a sort of challenge to combine dinosaurs, post-apocalyptic fiction, and Mars — and does so beautifully as the crew of the first spaceship to Mars witnesses the asteroid striking Earth and wonders what to do. — Locus

The year is 1666. The King and Parliament vie for power, fighting one another with politics and armies alike. Below, the faerie court has enemies of its own. The old ways are breaking down, and no one knows what will rise in their place. But now, a greater threat has come, one that could destroy everything. In the house of a sleeping baker, a spark leaps free of the oven -- and ignites a blaze that will burn London to the ground. While the humans struggle to halt the conflagration that is devouring the city street by street, the fae pit themselves against a less tangible foe: the spirit of the fire itself, powerful enough to annihilate everything in its path. Mortal and fae will have to lay aside the differences that divide them, and fight together for the survival of London itself . . .

A selection of stories, non-fiction articles, books, and film reviews dealing with fantasy and horror.

When a witch is born, a doppelganger is created. For the witch to master her powers, the twin must be killed. But what happens when the doppelganger survives? Mirage, a bounty hunter, lives by her wits and lethal fighting skills. She always gets her mark. But her new mission will take her into the shadowy world of witches, where her strength may not be a match against powerful magic. Miryo is a witch who has just failed her initiation test. She now knows that there is someone in the world who looks like her, who is her: Mirage. To control her powers and become a full witch, Miryo has only one choice: to hunt the hunter and destroy her.

England flourishes under the hand of its Virgin Queen: Elizabeth, Gloriana, last and most powerful of the Tudor monarchs. But a great light casts a great shadow. In hidden catacombs beneath London, a second Queen holds court: Invidiana, ruler of faerie England, and a dark mirror to the glory above. In the thirty years since Elizabeth ascended her throne, fae and mortal politics have become inextricably entwined, in secret alliances and ruthless betrayals whose existence is suspected only by a few. Two courtiers, both struggling for royal favor, are about to uncover the secrets that lie behind these two thrones. When the faerie lady Lune is sent to monitor and manipulate Elizabeth's spymaster, Walsingham, her path crosses that of Michael Deven, a mortal gentleman and agent of Walsingham's. His discovery of the "hidden player" in English politics will test Lune's loyalty and Deven's courage alike. Will she betray her Queen for the sake of a world that is not hers? And can he survive in the alien and Machiavellian world of the fae? For only together will they be able to find the source of Invidiana's power -- find it, and break it . . . . A breathtaking novel of intrigue and betrayal set in Elizabethan England; Midnight Never Come seamlessly weaves together history and the fantastic to dazzling effect.