This collection by Lucius Shepard, one of the most exciting new writers to emerge in the 1980s, includes the eponymous story ¿Barnacle Bill the Spacer¿, about an attempted mutiny on a space station, which won the Hugo Award, as well as ¿Sports in America¿, about a man who finds out just how far he is willing to go when he is hired by a local crime boss to kill a man. In ¿All the Perfumes of Araby¿ a small-time smuggler is granted a vision of the future that compels him to change his life, while ¿Human History¿ is a post-apocalyptic adventure story with a hint of decadence. ¿The Sun Spider¿ is a romance of sorts, with a decidedly gothic twist, while in ¿Beast of the Heartland¿, a boxer at the end of his career is lured back into the ring with the promise of one last big payoff. And anyone who has ever completely lost themselves in a piece of music will recognise the inspiration for ¿A Little Night Music¿. Shepard's stories are not just wonderfully three-dimensional characters dealing with life-changing events; they are filled with colours, textures, sounds and smells, as he describes his backgrounds with as much care as a master painter.

Lucius Shepard is a grand master of dark fantasy, famed for his baroque yet utterly contemporary visions of existential subversion and hallucinatory collapse. In Dagger Key, his fifth major story collection, Shepard confronts hard-bitten loners and self-deceiving operators with the shadowy emptiness within themselves and the insinuating darkness without, to ends sardonic and terrifying. The stories in this book, including six novellas, are: "Stars Seen Through Stone" - in a small Pennsylvania town, mediocrity suddenly blossoms into genius; but at what terrible cost? "Emerald Street Expansions" - in near-future Seattle, echoes of the life of a medieval French poet hint at either reincarnation or a dire conspiracy. "Limbo" - a retired criminal on the run from the Mafia encounters ghosts, and much worse, on the shores of a haunted lake. "Liar's House" - in the grip of the legendary dragon Griaule, destiny is a treacherous and transformative thing. "Dead Monty" - a small-time New Orleans criminal ventures outside his proper territory, and poker and voudoun conspire to bring him down. "Dinner at Baldassaro's" - a gang of immortals debates the future in an Italian resort, only for events to outrun any of their expectations. "Abimagique" - a glib college loser falls in love with a witch, becoming an involuntary part of a world-saving - or world-destroying - magical ritual. "The Lepidopertrist" - a small boy on a Caribbean island witnesses the creation of preternatural beings by a Yankee wizard... "Dagger Key" - off the coast of Belize, the ghost of a famous pirate seems to control a spiral of murder and intrigue; or is someone else responsible?

This encyclopedia is the most up-to-date, concise, clear and affordable guide to all aspects of science fiction, from its background to generic themes and devices, from authors (established and new) to films. Science fiction has evolved into one of the most popular, cutting-edge and exciting fiction geners, with a proliferation of modern and classic authors, themes and ideas, movies, TV series and awards. Arranged in an A-Z format, and featuring a comprehensive index and cross-referencing system, The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is also the most accessible and easy to use encyclopedia of its kind currently available.

Lucius Shepard's work ranges across the fields of fantasy, science fiction and magic realism, garnering comparisons with Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Best-known for the story suite The Dragon Griaule - available as a Gollancz Fantasy Masterwork - he has won or been nominated for every major SFF award. This omnibus collects his ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD-shortlisted novel GREEN EYES, WORLD FANTASY AWARD-winning collection THE JAGUAR HUNTER and SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARD-winning novella VACANCY.

Lucius Shepard's short fiction ranges far and wide over the field of SF and fantasy, and is crammed with show-stopper ideas and an intense originality. The Ends of the Earth is a testimonial to a genius of the genre, and a major American writer. Winner of the 1992 World Fantasy Award for Best Collection. Contents: The Ends of the Earth (1989) Delta Sly Honey (1987) Bound for Glory (1989) The Exercise of Faith (1987) Nomans Land (1988) Life of Buddha (1988) Shades (1987) Aymara (1986) A Wooden Tiger (1988) The Black Clay Boy (1987) Fire Zone Emerald (1985) On the Border (1987) The Scalehunter's Beautiful Daughter (1988) Surrender (1989)

Lucius Shepard's acclaimed Dragon Griaule stories are presented here for the first time in a single volume. This Fantasy Masterworks edition contains: 'The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule' 'The Scalehunter's Beautiful Daughter' 'The Father of Stones' 'Liar's House' 'The Taborin Scale' 'The Skull' This is the definitive tail of the Dragon Griaule: a beast so immense its body forms part of the landscape ...

Nantucket Slayrides contains the two short novels "How the Wind Spoke at Madaket" and "Nomans Land" by Shepard and Robert Frazier's "The Summer People".

The stories gathered here conduct the reader from the wastelands of the near future to the zoned-out bacchanals of Hollywood, from the fevered bordellos of Central America to the hallucinated revels of redneck country, from the broken hears of wandering loners to alluring fantasy realms just beyond the threshold of perception. And when the journey is over, eternal contrasts - of man and woman, bosses and workers, responsibility and escape, conformity and freedom - stand in more powerful definition than ever before...

Fourteen stories - including "Radiant Green Star", winner of the 2001 Locus Award for Best Novella - make up this classic collection. Leading off the book is the Nebula Award-winning title story, in which a poor Honduran hunter is coerced into tracking the forbidden "Black Jaguar of Barrio Carolina." Futuristic war, menacing wind spirits, parallel worlds, a six-thousand-foot dragon: this collection proves that Shepard is neither genre fantasist not strict realist, but one of the most intriguing writers we have today.

The itinerant gun show draws together many subcultures from the margins of society: survivalists, Aryan brotherhoods, and the team of Rita Whitelaw and Jimmy Roy Guy, dealers in collectible arms. Rita has made Jimmy an exception to her general disdain for whites - "not your typical Caucasian," as she describes him - for Jimmy's got a storytelling ability that borders on mystic vision. When Jimmy makes an agreement with the widow of Aryan martyr Bob Champion to broker her husband's infamous Colt .45, he and Rita run afoul of "the Major," Champion's spiritual successor. However, they're not intimidated by the Major's veiled threats. The gun has launched a story, and when Jimmy begins a story, one way or another, he's bound to see it through.