The stories collected here, written between August of 1987 and May of 1990, demonstrate that I still believe in the classical unities. Of course, what seems to us a unity now might not have appeared that way when H.G. Wells was writing his wonderful stories in the nineteenth century. Wells might have argued that my 'To the Promised Land' is built around two speculative fantastic assumptions, one that the Biblical Exodus from Egypt never happened, the other that it is possible to send rocketships to other worlds. But in fact we've sent plenty of rocketships to other worlds by now, so only my story's alternative-world speculation remains fantasy today. Technically speaking the space-travel element of the plot has become part of the given; it's the other big assumption that forms the central matter of the story.
--Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Dead Man's Eyes
Enter A Soldier. Later: Enter Another
To The Promised Land
Chip Runner
A Sleep And A Forgetting
In Another Country
The Asenion Solution
We Are For The Dark
Lion Time in Timbuctoo
A Tip On A Turtle Views: 789
Two young women, living centuries apart, both accused of madness, communicate across time to fight a common enemy... their doctors.
"It was the dog who found me."
Such is the stark confession launching the harrowing scene that begins The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls as Emilie Autumn, a young musician on the verge of a bright career, attempts suicide by overdosing on the antipsychotics prescribed to treat her bipolar disorder. Upon being discovered, Emilie is revived and immediately incarcerated in a maximum-security psych ward, despite her protestations that she is not crazy, and can provide valid reasons for her actions if someone would only listen.
Treated as a criminal, heavily medicated, and stripped of all freedoms, Emilie is denied communication with the outside world, and falls prey to the unwelcome attentions of Dr. Sharp, head of the hospital's psychiatry department. As Dr. Sharp grows more predatory by the day, Emilie begins a secret diary to document her terrifying experience, and to maintain her sanity in this environment that could surely drive anyone mad. But when Emilie opens her notebook to find a desperate letter from a young woman imprisoned within an insane asylum in Victorian England, and bearing her own name and description, a portal to another world is blasted wide open.
As these letters from the past continue to appear, Emilie escapes further into this mysterious alternate reality where sisterhoods are formed, romance between female inmates blossoms, striped wallpaper writhes with ghosts, and highly intellectual rats speak the Queen's English.
But is it real? Or is Emilie truly as mad as she is constantly told she is?
The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls blurs harsh reality and magical historical fantasy whilst issuing a scathing critique of society's treatment of women and the mental health care industry's treatment of its patients, showing in the process that little has changed throughout the ages.
Welcome to the Asylum. Are you committed? Views: 788
But, for all that, I went on writing short fiction all through the seventh and eighth decades of my life, and though I’m not very active these days, I would still pay attention if someone were to approach me with an interesting and challenging short-story project, or if some absolutely irresistible story idea were to come into my mind. I will not, at this point, try to claim that the stories that are collected here are the last short stories I will ever write. Surely some editor, in the years ahead, will tickle my imagination with a proposal I can’t resist. But I doubt that will be happening very often; and, meanwhile, here’s the harvest of the fourteen years that began in 1995—not an enormous number of stories, no, but stories nevertheless that I think are worth reading and reprinting.
—Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction Views: 788
Until Asher Morgan came along, nineteen-year old Ember’s life had always been about death. Being around Asher, though, and being able to be near him and touch him, changed her and made her feel alive for the very first time. But now he’s gone and she’s left dealing with her seclusion again, the emptiness of not being able to be touched, and the curse of the Grim Angel. As a battle breaks out between Angels and Reapers, she desperately searches for answers about who she is, where she came from, and what she needs to stop the battle. But things get complicated when Cameron returns to her life and begins messing with her thoughts and emotions. Ember tries to hold onto her sanity while the line between life and death begins to blur. Lives are threatened and taken. Murder is everywhere. She needs to figure out what’s real, what’s an illusion, and who she really has feelings for before it’s too late. Views: 788
In the era of The Hundred Kingdoms, a time of war and unrest, a legendary friendship is forged between king and keeper which will lead to a new destiny for Darkover. Views: 788
Seventeen year-old Jackie discovers she's not human, but instead part of a large supernatural community. She trains with a group of young shapeshifters who become her close friends, and also meets Garrett, the magically powerful vampire who teaches her to use her unique gifts and then manages to steal her heart. Together they face off against his destructive maker, Eleanor, an ancient vampireSeventeen year-old Jackie Crawford is a freak; at least that’s what she’s always thought about herself. She’s too strong, too fast and her senses are way too acute. Not knowing her real parents and passed around from family to family, she’s never fit into the mundane world she’s grown up in, making it impossible for her to put down real roots or form permanent friendships. So waking up in the forest in the middle of the night covered in blood and having no memory of how she got there, pisses her off and makes her even more confused. Who is this guy who’s kidnapped her and tells her that she's more than human and needs to be trained? And who’s the hot guy in the room next door who she’s supposed to train with? And why has Garrett, a compellingly seductive vampire, been her silent guardian for the last few years, saving her life when she was brutally attacked by thugs?As the days pass and Jackie is confronted with the strange truth of who and what she is, she begins to put the pieces of her splintered life back together, to feel whole for the very first time. Becoming acquainted with a world spinning with a mysterious energy and populated by shapeshifters, vampires, werewolves, and even the powerful fae, Jackie learns to pull strength from the magic, her new friendships and even love. Views: 787
A handful of soldiers make their way through the wilderness in the year 2142 to reach Olympia, the abandoned capital of the fallen state of Washington.In the fallen state of Washington lies a deserted city, Olympia. Empty buildings wait in the frost, pillaged at the end of the 21st century, back when the place tried to survive after the Dissolution of the Union. The city is dead now, and only a handful of elite soldiers have dared make their way through the wilderness to obey orders, to retrieve something rare and precious in the heart of this accursed ruin. Views: 787
The search for the Book continues in Momentum, the 3rd installment of Flicker Blue! As the journey leads Jane to unexpected destinations and directly into the path of mortal danger, she learns the heavy cost of her supernatural ability and discovers new secrets of the Curse.A tale of gryphons, snow-dragons, elves, dwarves, dragons and men. An evil elf-mage is haunting the frozen wastelands in the north. Hinfane the tavern-keeper finds unlikely allies in the mysterious creatures that come on the first night of the new moon to collect the mead that she leaves out for them. You can fight an elf, and it seems that you can win. But elves are not so easy to kill... Hwedolyn the gryphon ends up going on a quest, barely believing in the purpose of it himself, not knowing how it will end. This is the first in the Gryphonomicon Gryphon-Dragon histories, a saga that spans generations and tells of the battles between gryphons and dragons and the rise of Aerae, Princess of the North, Empress of the South. An epic heroic fantasy in the tradition of Tolkien, C.S.Lewis, David Eddings. Views: 787
A white-knuckled thrill ride that will keep your eyes glued to the page.Blood: For shape shifter Alec Graves, nothing is more important than family.Duty: Life in the pack requires sacrifices. No matter the cost, Alec always gets the job done.Consequences: Alec will be forced to choose between duty and love, between right and wrong.Bound is a YA Urban Fantasy book with shape shifters.A white-knuckled thrill ride that will keep your eyes glued to the page.Blood: For shape shifter Alec Graves, nothing is more important than family.Duty: Life in the pack requires sacrifices. No matter the cost, Alec always gets the job done.Consequences: Alec will be forced to choose between duty and love, between right and wrong. Before the final note plays, he'll learn the true meaning of sacrifice.Publisher's Note: Bound is a YA Urban Fantasy novel, and is one possible entry point into the books that make up the Reflections Universe. The Reflections Universe is a series of YA Paranormal books featuring vampires, shape shifters, werewolves and more, which have been written so they can be safely enjoyed by both young adults and older readers alike. Bound is followed by Hunted.The Reflections Universe: Some stories are too full of teen urban fantasy goodness to fit into just one series!Dean Murray is the successful author of multiple clean young adult paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and epic fantasy series which collectively have more than 480,000 copies in circulation. Views: 787
When homeschooled farm girl Piper McCloud reveals her ability to fly, she is quickly taken to a secret government facility to be trained with other exceptional children, but she soon realizes that something is very wrong and begins working with brilliant and wealthy Conrad to escape.
"Piper decided to jump off the roof. It wasn't a rash decision on her part. This was her plan: Climb to the top of the roof, pick up speed by running from one end all the way to the other. Jump off. Finally, and most importantly, don't fall. She didn't make plans in the event she did fall, because if you jump off the roof of your house and land on your head, you really don't need any plans from that point on. Even Piper knew that. So that's what she did. She jumped clean off her roof. But before we get to what happens next, you'll probably need to know a thing or two about a thing or two..." Views: 787
Remember the guardian who always made people laugh? Remember the guardian who always tried to help? Remember the guardian who had a backstory?
Do you?
Do you remember the guardian that ran into the forest and never returned?
That guardian was forgotten, or so he thought. Did he escape? No one knows. Only the ones he loves the most. Was he loved back? Everyone knows the answer to that.
Do you?
This story, is a story of a guardian who was forgotten, escaped and loved... Views: 787
There was an Old Lady who swallowed -- all sorts of things. But how did the animals feel about that?Ten years ago two children went missing and were presumed to be victims of a satanic ritual. Police charged the antisocial brother of one of the victims with the crime, but the real culprit's still on the loose. The approaching anniversary prompts the killer to strike again, but there's a private investigator who's beginning to ask the right questions about what happened a decade earlier. The killer discovers that he's being hunted, and decides to do whatever it takes to stay hidden. Lincoln Pierce always wanted to be a private detective, but his life didn't end up the way he expected. His daughter's debilitating disease forced him to make some questionable decisions, and he's been paying for them ever since. He's determined to make the most of a bad situation, and has started looking into a case that could change his entire career, if he doesn't get killed in the process. Views: 786
Homicide Detective John Cooper begins to receive telephone calls from a mysterious caller claiming to know facts of the current cases he is working on. With each call, .John find himself pulled deeper into a game of death, where he begins to question everything that he has ever believed about his life.If you enjoy a villain that you will LOVE to HATE then Next Move, You’re Dead is for you.Homicide Detective John Cooper has always followed the evidence to solve any case; that is until a mysterious caller begins to make him question that evidence. With the murder cases he has been working on already solved, John wonders what the phone calls have to do with them. The evidence clearly proves the guilt of those involved, but the calls make him begin to question his findings, as well as himself - for the first time in his career. With each move, John finds himself caught up in a strange game with an unknown opponent. The caller is always one-step ahead of John, and seems to know John better than he knows himself, but how? How can someone know every detail of a murder and not be involved, but more importantly, how can this chilling caller know everything about John? As John prepares himself to take on the challenge, he soon realizes that everything he has believed is no longer part of his new reality, but merely the next move in The Game. This trilogy is not for the faint of heart, but rather for those who enjoy a dark thriller; full of twists and turns until the last page. While reading this trilogy, you will find yourself lost on a journey into the mind of a diabolical villain, as he pulls you deeper into The Game. If you enjoy an exciting psychological thriller, with a villain that you will LOVE to HATE; Next Move, You’re Dead – Book 1 of the Next Move, You’re Dead Trilogy is for you. Views: 786
A retelling of the Snow White fairy tale from the point of view of the "wicked stepmother."
This version was a chapbook compiled by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab and sold at Comic Con 2008 and on the BPAL website with all proceeds going to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Views: 786
It's not easy pretending to be dead - especially when it feels as if you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. Between an unfulfilled prophecy, the demon-occupied Lowlands, the continuing power of murderous Aifric Moncrieffe - not to mention her constant yearnings for Byron - Integrity Adair has a lot to worry about.
Still, how hard can it really be to save Scotland, maintain her morals, get the guy and keep her sense of humour? Views: 786
