9781616964641
Extraordinary writers including Gregory Maguire, Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Lethem, Steven Millhauser, Aimee Bender, Stephen King, Octavia Butler, and Ursula K. Le Guin redefine fantasy forever.
Step right up and buy your ticket to the impossible marvels of the Barnum Museum. If you dare, hunt feral archetypes deep within a haunted English forest. Or conquer the new world with a band of geographically-challenged Norsemen. Go from the depths of a dangerous English forest to the top of the Tower of Babel, or on a caffeinated journey to the Empire of Ice Cream. In this special new edition of a sold-out classic, Peter S. Beagle, author of the The Last Unicorn, has collected nineteen unexpected and delightful stories that expand imaginative frontiers.
Contents
Introduction by Peter S. Beagle
Maureen F. McHugh, "Ancestor Money"
Gregory Maguire, "Scarecrow"
Patricia A. McKillip, "Lady of the Skulls"
T. C. Boyle, "We Are Norsemen"
Steven Millhauser, "The Barnum Museum"
Stephen King, "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut"
Terry Bisson, "Bears Discover Fire"
Francesca Lia Block, "Bones"
Neil Gaiman, "Snow, Glass, Apples."
Aimee Bender, "Fruit and Words"
Jeffrey Ford, "The Empire of Ice Cream"
Michael Swanwick, "The Edge of the World"
Jonathan Lethem, "Super Goat Man"
Susanna Clarke, "John Uskglass and the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner"
Octavia E. Butler, "The Book of Martha"
Yann Martel, "The Vita Æterna Mirror Company"
Peter S. Beagle, "Sleight of Hand"
Robert Holdstock, "Mythago Wood"
Kij Johnson, "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss"
Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Critics, the Monsters, and the Fantasists"
David G. Hartwell, "The Making of the American Fantasy Genre"