Description
Think you want to live forever? Think again. You may wake up as a zombie tourist, doomed to shamble the sights of Los Angeles. Or you could be a clone, body and memories intact but lacking something you can't quite name. Your frozen head might linger for centuries in a museum while other souls gallivant about the universe. You might be reincarnated as a plastic lawn flamingo or seated Buddha or garden gnome. Or into an unbreakable cycle of servitude. Or you may just outlive the people and things that gave life its flavor.
Emily C. Skaftun's debut collection brings you flippant wish-granting fish, flying tigers, foul-mouthed fairies, rogue robots, vengeful trees, medical dreams, interstellar squirrels, murderous teddy bears, magic-helmet-wearing rollergirls, rampaging aliens, a dash of eldritch horror, and a sprinkle of ghosts.
These 18 stories, spanning a decade, balance on the knife-edge between whimsical and poignant, exploring fates far weirder than death.
About the Author
Tim Powers won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels Last Call and Declare. Declare also received the International Horror Guild Award. His novel On Stranger Tides inspired the Monkey Island video game series and was sold to Disney for the movie franchise installment Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. His book The Anubis Gates won the Philip K. Dick Award and is considered a modern science fiction classic and a progenitor of the steampunk genre. Powers won the Dick Award again for straight science fiction post-apocalypse novel Dinner at Deviant's Palace. Many of his novels, such as Last Call and Alternate Routes, are so-called "secret histories," which use real historical events in which supernatural and metaphysical elements influence the the story in weird and compelling manners. Powers grew up in Southern California and studied English at Cal State Fullerton, where he met frequent collaborators James Blaylock and K.W. Jeter, as well as renowned science fiction author Philip K. Dick, who became a close friend and mentor. Powers is a practicing Catholic who claims "Stories are more effective, and more truly represent the writer's actual convictions, when they manifest themselves without the writer's conscious assistance. I concern myself with my plots, but I let my subconscious worry about my themes." Powers still resides in Southern California with his wife, Serena.
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