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 ...

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.

While humanity has been telling fantastic stories for millennia, fantasy fiction has only come into its own as a genre in the latter half of the twentieth century, as the works of such writers as J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard have found a wide audience. This wonderful collection celebrates fantasy's heyday with 33 masterpieces of short fiction, ranging from 1940s stories by L. Sprague de Camp, H.L.Gold, Fritz Leiber, and Manly Wade Wellman to more recent tales by such towering modern talents as Peter S. Beagle, Terry Bisson, James P. Blaylock Suzy McKee Charnas, John Crowley, Tanith Lee, Michael Swanwick, Judith Tarr, Howard Waldrop, Jane Yolen, and Roger Zelazny. Just as Gardner Dozois's Modern Classics of Science Fiction has helped longtime fans and new readers alike discover the genre's finest short stories, so too shall this anthology allow readers to find in one volume more than two dozen masterworks of fantasy.

This accessible new introduction to Fantasy literature, media and culture delves into pasts, presents, practices and communities. It considers Fantasy as a deep-rooted form, discusses a wide range of media permutations and reflects on the ways in which fantasies draw from and return ideas to a dynamic, ever-shifting commons.

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)

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.

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?

Fantasy is a genre in motion, gradually expanding its reach and historical sources to embrace a global identity Historical Dictionary of Fantasy Literature, Second Edition is a snapshot of the genre in this moment, identifying new themes and sources that are emerging to inspire, enhance and invigorate the published works of fantasy writers.

Upon its release in 2008, Matt Reeves’s Cloverfield revitalized the giant creature, a cinematic trope that had languished for over a decade. The film addressed the attacks of September 11, 2001, trading the jingoistic rhetoric of retributive military aggression for serious engagement with personal and collective trauma. It applied the horror genre’s fascination with personal stories captured by found footage to the grand violence of history. Innovative and intense, Cloverfield represented blockbuster filmmaking at its best. Cloverfield’s franchising followed the path of high-profile Hollywood properties. This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the franchise, measuring how it steers precariously between the commercial potential, creative risks, and political challenges in Hollywood. As 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) and The Cloverfield Paradox (2018) struggled to sustain and update the franchise’s original concept, both films’ strengths and weaknesses come into focus by comparison with the original, just as the historical sequence of all three films allows for a reassessment of Cloverfield itself. Author Steffen Hantke examines how, in the broader context of postmillennial Hollywood, the Cloverfield franchise remains both a harbinger of the way Hollywood does business and a test case for the cinematic fantasies of apocalyptic disaster that continue to dominate global box office, long after the Cold War that gave rise to giant creatures has ended and 9/11 has lost its hold on the global imagination. As an inspiration for the next stage of blockbuster filmmaking, in which franchises have replaced the singular cinematic masterpiece and marketing plays to fans as critics and scholars, Cloverfield remains as relevant today as when it first unleashed its giant creature onto New York City over a decade ago.

HERE BE DRAGONS... A unique collection of stories by the greatest fantasy writers working today.