Darrell Schweitzer has been three-times nominated for the World Fantasy Award, twice for Best Collection, and once for the novella "To Become a Sorcerer," which forms the first four chapters of this book. He is also the author of "The White Isle," "The Shattered Goddess," and nearly 300 short stories, many of which are collected in such volumes as "The Darrell Schweitzer Megapack." An expert on fantastic fiction, who has written books about Lord Dunsany and H.P. Lovecraft, he also co-edited the legendary "Weird Tales" magazine.

Seventeen fantasies by one of the field's most prolific short story authors, including tales of...mad gods, specters returning from the beyond, inexplicable enigmas from outer space, a romantic and surreal interlude of the legendary madman, Tom O'Bedlam, time travel to allow an irate professor to settle the Shakespearean authorship controversy, and the King Arthur legend--plus genuinely frightening horror, including the celebrated story, "The Dead Kid." Mike Ashley calls the author "today's supreme stylist" of fantasy, and Tanith Lee says that "Schweitzer is a story-teller, by whose smoky fire one may sit spellbound." First-rate stories of the fantastic by a World Fantasy Award winner!

"A long-deserved tribute to his copious and entertaining career as a storyteller," is how Paul Di Filippo describes this second volume of our Darrell Schweitzer retrospective in his introduction. "We might first make the observation that Darrell hews to time-tested narrative strategies: classical, demonstrably effective modes of story-telling learned at the feet of the masters. . . This straight-line approach does not rule out suspense, trickery, or depth of portraiture. Quite to the contrary, this reliance on immemorial methods of storytelling allow his work to hit home all the more impactfully. Take a story like 'The Dead Kid,' which always lays all of its cards on the table in plain sight, Stephen-King-style, but which is nonetheless full of twists and punchy horror. . . . In 'The Fire Eggs,' we see an alien manifestation that greatly perturbs civilization, along the lines of a Ted Chiang piece. In "Spiderwebs in the Dark" we get a mind-blowing look at the hidden...

Darrell Schweitzer's career stretches back to the early 1970s. He has written novels, most notably The Mask of the Sorcerer (1995), which was expanded from a World Fantasy Award finalist novella, but he has probably most distinguished himself for a steady stream of short fiction which caused anthologist Mike Ashley (in The Mammoth Book of Sorcerers' Tales) to call him "today's supreme stylist" in the fantasy field. His work has appeared in a great variety of publications ranging from Amazing Stories and Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone magazine to Interzone and numerous PS Publishing anthologies. The present volume is the first major retrospective of his work."Once upon a time . . . None of the stories collected herein begin with those words, though some come close. But they might as well. For Darrell Schweitzer writes a very traditional sort of story. His fiction is almost always fantasy, which is a mode nested deep in the roots of Story, usually horror, a mode as old as...

Weird Tales #325 (Fall 2001) features "From Out of the Crocodile's Mouth," by Darrell Schweitzer; "The Gravedigger's Apprentice," by Alvin Helms; "Our Temporary Supervisor," by Thomas Ligotti; "Where All Things Perish," by Tanith Lee; "The Wizard of Ashes and Rain," by David Sandner, and more.

This volume assembles 25 tales by Darrell Schweitzer, modern and alternate-world fantasy and horror tales in the Weird Tales vein. Included in this volume are some of his very finest works, including Pennies from Hell, Peeling It Off, Kind Yvorian's Wager, and many more! Complete contents:TRANSIENTSA LANTERN MAKER OF AI HANLOTHE STORY OF A DADARREFUGEES FROM AN IMAGINARY COUNTRYTHE SORCERER EVORAGDOUTHE MYSTERIES OF THE FACELESS KINGKING YVORIAN'S WAGERTHE SPIRIT OF THE BACK STAIRSTHE OUTSIDE MANSAVAGESON THE LAST NIGHT OF THE FESTIVAL OF THE DEADVANDIBAR NASHA IN THE COLLEGE OF SHADOWSONE OF THE SECRET MASTERSRUNNING TO CAMELOTKVETCHULAKVETCHULA'S DAUGHTERHOW IT ENDEDTHE MOST BEAUTIFUL DEAD WOMAN IN THE WORLDTHE EATER OF HOURSFIGHTING THE ZEPPELIN GANGTHE MESSENGERTHE LAST HERETICTHE WITCH OF THE WORLD'S ENDHOWLING IN THE DARKPEELING IT OFF

This volume assembles 25 tales by Darrell Schweitzer, modern and alternate-world fantasy and horror tales in the Weird Tales vein. Included in this volume are some of his very finest works, including Pennies from Hell, Peeling It Off, Kind Yvorian's Wager, and many more! Complete contents:TRANSIENTSA LANTERN MAKER OF AI HANLOTHE STORY OF A DADARREFUGEES FROM AN IMAGINARY COUNTRYTHE SORCERER EVORAGDOUTHE MYSTERIES OF THE FACELESS KINGKING YVORIAN'S WAGERTHE SPIRIT OF THE BACK STAIRSTHE OUTSIDE MANSAVAGESON THE LAST NIGHT OF THE FESTIVAL OF THE DEADVANDIBAR NASHA IN THE COLLEGE OF SHADOWSONE OF THE SECRET MASTERSRUNNING TO CAMELOTKVETCHULAKVETCHULA'S DAUGHTERHOW IT ENDEDTHE MOST BEAUTIFUL DEAD WOMAN IN THE WORLDTHE EATER OF HOURSFIGHTING THE ZEPPELIN GANGTHE MESSENGERTHE LAST HERETICTHE WITCH OF THE WORLD'S ENDHOWLING IN THE DARKPEELING IT OFF

Fantasy novel by the World Fantasy Award-winning editor and author. "Few writers can genuinely touch the quality of nightmare...the fear that formless and almost banal stems from the sleeping mind. John Bellairs did it with THE FACE IN THE FROST... James Blaylock can do it. And now there is also THE SHATTERED GODDESS." --Mary Gentle

DANGER LURKS IN THE HEART OF THE CITY . . . BUT NOT ALWAYS WHERE YOU EXPECT IT. From New York to Los Angeles to Bucharest, fifteen never-before-published tales by some of the world’s finest fantasy and horror writers celebrate the newest incarnations of an age-old terror that strikes when the moon is full . . . the werewolf. No longer confined to the forests, these modern monsters can be found in places you frequent every day—and never before thought to fear.CARRIE VAUGHN’s popular werewolf radio host Kitty Norville is drawn into a controversy as to whether it’s fair to ban lycanthropy from professional sports. New York’s famous Plaza Hotel is the setting for ESTHER M. FRIESNER’s tale of one very grisly little girl, while Beverly Hills may never quite recover from RON GOULART’s middle-aged Hollywood screenwriter who falls prey to a most unusual problem. Celebrated fantasy author PETER S. BEAGLE tells a chillingly lyrical story of three Louisiana loup garoux locked into a deadly dance of death. Plus many more biting tales from award-winning authors:HOLLY BLACK • P.D. CACEK • GREGORY FROST • TANITH LEE HOLLY PHILLIPS • MIKE RESNICK • DARRELL SCHWEITZER • LISA TUTTLE IAN WATSON • GENE WOLFE • CHELSEA QUINN YARBRO

An anthology of stories Move over, vampires. Make room for the hottest creatures in fantasy: werewolves. Most people think werewolves are creatures of ancient legend, associated with prowling darkened forests and terrifying peasants in medieval cottages. But what about today's werewolf in modern society? Has twenty-first century life changed the rules and lifestyles of the contemporary lycanthrope? Are wolf packs communicating online via social networks? Could the person who at first glance looks like an average commuter (on the early train, to avoid the rising of the full moon) be one of them? Have werewolves infiltrated every level of government? Full Moon City answers these questions, and many more. Featuring contributions from bestselling fantasy luminaries, this collection of spellbinding stories puts the fun back into dark fiction.

"[This] novel has immense power in its climax," said The Encyclopedia of Fantasy about Darrell Schweitzer's 1982 novel, THE SHATTERED GODDESS. Now, at last, here's the companion volume to that work, a cycle of eleven stories set "in the time of the death of the Goddess." This is an Earth of the far future, when the planet has declined into chaos, and darkness looms at the end of human history. Here you'll meet...a dadar, a wizard's shadow attempting to become a man; two sorcerers grotesquely transformed by their fratricidal hatred; a musician who becomes the lord of death; a boy-priest consumed by divine visions; and a witch who loves a god, among many others. Here's strangeness, wonder, and terror in the tradition of Clark Ashton Smith's Xothique or Jack Vance's The Dying Earth. Schweitzer is a master fantasist, whom anthologist Mike Ashley once called "today's supreme stylist." Great fantasy reading, now collected into book form for the first time!