Collected Short Stories and Novellas of Ian R. MacLeod

"MacLeod is a brilliant writer." -Tim Powers "Ian MacLeod writes like an angel. He strings together ideally chosen words into sentences that are variously lush, sparse, subtle, bold, joyous, mournful, comic and tragic." -Paul Di Filippo Welcome to the first half of the collected worlds of one of fiction's great myth-makers. Blending naturalistic settings with real-and unreal-histories, dark presents, strange pasts and star-flung futures, Ian R. MacLeod's multi award-winning stories defy easy classification, but are always vividly elegant, compelling, and filled with wonder. In Grownups, a young boy discovers the strange facts of life in a very different-yet also alarmingly recognizable-world, whilst New Light on the Drake Equation focusses on one man's quest to prove there is still a chance of intelligent life existing beyond Earth, and in Ephemera a very strange librarian has final charge of all the world's knowledge and culture, and The Master Miller's Tale tells of obsessive love as a bucolic past dissolves into the magics of industry, iron and steam. Nothing in MacLeod's visions is ever quite what it seems, yet they remain deeply real and involving. If you haven't read MacLeod before, you can expect to be moved and surprised. If you have, then you need no further introduction other than to say that Everywhere-and its companion volume Nowhere, which features many of his best shorter stories-represent a generous and wide-ranging summary of his work, along with many insights into the creative process which are provided by the fresh introductions and afterwords. Praise for Ian R. MacLeod "Ian R. MacLeod is rapidly becoming one of the contemporary stars of the genre." -Brian Aldiss "MacLeod is set to become a writer of the magnitude of Dickens and Tolkien." -G. P. Taylor "I have no idea what he looks like, but I picture an angle with polychrome wings, dirty hands and a well-chewed pencil." -Gene Wolfe "...in many ways the mature culmination of the New Wave's aggressive appropriation of literary tropes and techniques and the skillful integration of them into subtle, penetrating fiction that, like all true and dangerous art, can pierce and transform the reader." -Jack Dann "Stands beside the achievements of China Mieville." -Jeff VanderMeer "There are moments when you see a life entire... in a moment. And you smile, because you recognize that smell of the world, that capsule of living." -John Clute "Ian R. MacLeod is one hell of a writer-literary, inventive, always surprising. Pay attention: this guy is important." -Michael Swanwick

"MacLeod is a brilliant writer." -Tim Powers "Ian MacLeod writes like an angel. He strings together ideally chosen words into sentences that are variously lush, sparse, subtle, bold, joyous, mournful, comic and tragic." -Paul Di Filippo Welcome to the second half of the collected worlds of one of fiction's great myth-makers. Blending naturalistic settings with real-and unreal-histories, dark presents, strange pasts and star-flung futures, Ian R. MacLeod's multi award-winning stories defy easy classification, but are always vividly elegant, compelling, and filled with wonder. In The Chop Girl, a young working at a World War Two RAF bomber airbase discovers the true meaning of luck, whilst The Discovered Country projects a world in which the dead enjoy an endless afterlife whilst the merely living struggle to survive, and The Visitor from Taured twists a modern urban myth into a tale of one man's search for a Theory Of Everything, and Snodgrass tells a very different version of the Beatles' rise to fame. Nothing in MacLeod's visions is ever quite what it seems, yet they remain deeply real and involving. If you haven't read MacLeod before, you can expect to be moved and surprised. If you have, then you need no further introduction other than to say that Nowhere-and its companion volume Everywhere, which features many of his best longer stories-represent a generous and wide-ranging summary of his work, along with many insights into the creative process which are provided by the fresh introductions and afterwords. Praise for Ian R. MacLeod "Ian R. MacLeod is rapidly becoming one of the contemporary stars of the genre." -Brian Aldiss "MacLeod is set to become a writer of the magnitude of Dickens and Tolkien." -G. P. Taylor "I have no idea what he looks like, but I picture an angle with polychrome wings, dirty hands and a well-chewed pencil." -Gene Wolfe "...in many ways the mature culmination of the New Wave's aggressive appropriation of literary tropes and techniques and the skillful integration of them into subtle, penetrating fiction that, like all true and dangerous art, can pierce and transform the reader." -Jack Dann "Stands beside the achievements of China Mieville." -Jeff VanderMeer "There are moments when you see a life entire... in a moment. And you smile, because you recognise that smell of the world, that capsule of living." -John Clute "Ian R. MacLeod is one hell of a writer-literary, inventive, always surprising. Pay attention: this guy is important." -Michael Swanwick