Book Description
Four novellas of dark and darker fantasy from Michael Stone. Introduction by World Fantasy Award-winner, Garry Kilworth.
From the Inside Flap
FOUR NOVELLAS OF DARK AND DARKER FANTASY FROM MICHAEL STONE.
SAN FERRY ANN
Spencer's humble blue caravan, standing in the centre of a courtyard, glittered with hoarfrost. Beside it, stripped to the waist in the forbidding night air, cavorted the Amazing Mackenzie. The Australian raised a taper to his lips and spat a tongue of fire that bathed the chateau walls in orange light.
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF KASPER CLARK
Kasper reluctantly lowered himself to the floor, foisting the suitcase before him like a shield. He tried not to stare at the man's hairless body, which was the coppery red of sun-dried tomatoes and glistened with aromatic oils. Kasper could see that he was being ignored in favour of a chessboard that lay between them. He hated chess. Although not as much as he hated sitting opposite a man who was lying fully exposed, propped on one elbow and flaunting a penis large enough to merit its own cushion.
THE TERRACOTTA WARRIOR
Every detail sang of care and devotion to the sculptor's art - from the cruel quirk of the lips to the texture on the boiled-leather plates riveted together to form articulated armour.
"What is he?" breathed Sol. "I never saw the like."
"A terracotta warrior. He has guarded the entrance to the mausoleum of the First Emperor for the last two thousand years."
"Terracotta, you say? Then he's nowt but a gurt flowerpot-man."
LEMON MAN
The being blinked slowly, his long gold eyelashes glinting. "I must introduce myself. I am a principality of the Third Choir. You will follow me." He strode away, leaving a silvery line of footsteps in the dew. John noticed then the wings sprouting from between the principality's shoulder blades; small and inchoate, like vestigial organs or something intended for purely symbolic purposes.