The High King is not dead but dreaming. He dreams of his daughter and the dangers that grow from being his child. From being any man’s child.
He dreams of an age that knew him. When he was not only loved, but also needed. He dreams that when she needs him again, he will rise, and he dreams that she will need him again.
He dreams, and the dreams go on forever.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Daniel Abraham (www.danielabraham.com)was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, earned a biology degree from the University of New Mexico, and spent ten years working in tech support. He sold his first short story in 1996, and followed it with six novels, including fantasy series The Long Price Quartet, SF novel Hunter’s Run (co-written with George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois), the Black Sun’s Daughter dark fantasy series (as M. L. N. Hanover), the Dagger and the Coin fantasy series, the Expanse space opera series (as James S.A. Corey, co-written with Ty Franck), which included Hugo Award nominee Leviathan’s Wake, and more than twenty short stories, including International Horror Guild Award-winner ‘Flat Diane’, Hugo and World Fantasy award nominee ‘The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics.’ Upcoming are new solo fantasy novel The Tyrant’s Law and James S.A. Corey space opera Abaddon’s Gate.
Saladin Ahmed (www.saladinahmed.com) was born in Detroit and raised in a working-class, Arab American enclave in Dearborn, MI. His short stories have been nominated for the Nebula and Campbell awards, and have appeared in Year’s Best Fantasy and numerous other magazines, anthologies, and podcasts, as well as being translated into five foreign languages. His first novel, Throne of the Crescent Moon, was published in 2012 to wide acclaim, earning starred reviews from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. Saladin lives near Detroit with his wife and twin children.
Elizabeth Bear (www.elizabethbear.com) was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on the same day as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. She divides her time between Massachusetts, where she lives with a Giant Ridiculous Dog in a town so small it doesn’t even have its own Dunkin Donuts, and western Wisconsin, the home of her partner, Scott Lynch. Her first short fiction appeared in 1996, and was followed after a nearly decade-long gap by fifteen novels, two short story collections, and more than fifty short stories. Her most recent books are Norse fantasy The Tempering of Men (with Sarah Monette) and an Asian-inspired fantasy, Range of Ghosts, and short story collection, Shoggoths in Bloom. Bear’s Jenny Casey trilogy won the Locus Award for Best First Novel, and she won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2005. Her stories ‘Tideline’ and ‘Shoggoths in Bloom’ won the Hugo, while ‘Tideline’ also won the Sturgeon award.
Trudi Canavan (www.trudicanavan.com) lives in Melbourne, Australia. She has been making up stories about people and places that don’t exist for as long as she can remember. While working as a freelance illustrator and designer she wrote the bestselling Black Magician trilogy, which was published in 2001-3 and was named an ‘Evergreen’ by The Bookseller in 2010. The Magician’s Apprentice, a prequel to the trilogy, won the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel in 2009 and the final of the sequel trilogy, The Traitor Queen, reached #1 on the UK Times Hardback bestseller list in 2011.
Glen Cook grew up in northern California and served in the U.S. Navy with the 3rd Marine Recon Battalion, an experience that fundamentally affected his later work. Cook then attended the University of Missouri and the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. His first novel in the Dread Empire series, Silverheels, appeared in 1971 and was followed quickly by a broad range of fantasy and science fiction novels, including the humorous fantasy Garrett PI series and others. His most important work, though, is the gritty Black Company fantasy series that follows an elite mercenary unit over several decades, and which brought a whole new perspective to fantasy. Cook is currently retired, and lives in St. Louis, Missouri where he writes full-time.
Kate Elliott (www.kateelliott.com) has been writing stories since she was nine years old, which has led her to believe either that she is a little crazy or that writing, like breathing, keeps her alive. Her most recent series is the Spiritwalker trilogy(Cold Magic, Cold Fire, Cold Steel), an Afro-Celtic post-Roman alternate-19th-century Regency icepunk mashup with airships, Phoenician spies, the intelligent descendents of troodons, and revolution. Her previous series are the Crossroads trilogy, The Crown of Stars septology, and the Novels of the Jaran. She likes to play sports more than she likes to watch them; right now, her sport of choice is outrigger canoe paddling. Her spouse has a much more interesting job than she does, with the added benefit that they had to move to Hawaii for his work. Thus, the outrigger canoes. They also have a schnauzer (aka The Schnazghul).
Jeffrey Ford (jeffford2010.livejournal.com) is the author of the novels The Physiognomy, Memoranda, The Beyond, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, The Girl in the Glass, The Cosmology of the Wider World, and The Shadow Year. His short fiction has been collected in The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant, The Empire of Ice Cream, The Drowned Life, and Crackpot Palace. Ford’s fiction has been translated into over 20 languages and is the recipient of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the Nebula, the World Fantasy Award, and the Grand Prix de l’imaginaire.
Ellen Klages (www.ellenklages.com) is the author of two acclaimed YA novels: The Green Glass Sea, which won the Scott O’Dell Award, the New Mexico Book Award, and the Lopez Award; and White Sands, Red Menace, which won the California and New Mexico Book Awards. Her short stories, which have been collected in World Fantasy Award nominated collection Portable Childhoods, have been have been translated into Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Japanese, and Swedish and have been nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, and Campbell awards. Her story, ‘Basement Magic,’ won a Nebula in 2005. She lives in San Francisco, in a small house full of strange and wondrous things.
Ellen Kushner (www.ellenkushner.com) first novel, Swordspoint, introduced readers to the city to which she has since returned in The Privilege of the Sword (a Locus Award winner and Nebula nominee), The Fall of the Kings (written with Delia Sherman), and a handful of related short stories, most recently ‘The Duke of Riverside’ in Ellen Datlow’s Naked Cities. Kushner’s own narration of her Riverside novels has just been released by Neil Gaiman Presents for Audible.com. Kushner’s novel Thomas the Rhymer won the Mythopoeic and World Fantasy Awards. With Holly Black, she co-edited Welcome to Bordertown, a revival of the original urban fantasy shared world series created by Terri Windling. A co-founder of the Interstitial Arts Foundation, Ellen Kushner is also the longtime host of the public radio show Sound & Spirit, and a popular public speaker. She lives in New York City, and travels a lot.