From Weird and Distant Shores

From Weird and Distant Shores: This collection of thirteen short stories by the award-winning author of Silk and Tales of Pain and Wonder establishes Caitlin R. Kiernan as one of today's most versatile fantasists. Spanning and transcending the fields of fantasy, dark fantasy, and science fiction, these stories include some of Kiernan's early and hard-to-find work, and explore the limits of that ubiquitous bane of contemporary F&SF, the "theme" and "shared-world" anthology. In the words of Douglas E. Winter: "Caitlin Kiernan's stories, even when appearing in theme anthologies, fill a space that is genuinely hers ó thematically and stylistically. Rarely do her texts offer the punch line ending of a campfire tale, or even a tidy denouement. Instead they present a fine mingling of attitude and atmosphere, expressed with delightful idiosyncrasy . . ." Including such critically-acclaimed stories as "Emptiness Spoke Eloquent" (selected for The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror) and "Persephone," as well as Kiernan's first ever collaboration with Poppy Z. Brite, From Weird and Distant Shores is a nightmare tour de force you won't easily forget.

From Publishers Weekly

Drawn primarily from shared-world anthologies that dominated horror and fantasy markets in the '90s, the 13 stories that comprise Kiernan's latest collection raise intriguing questions about the nature of creative collaboration. Although she acknowledges as silent partners the graphic, gaming and classic horror media that shaped those compilations, the author has such an original and inimitable voice that she virtually steals these stories from their influences. "The Comedy of St. Jehanne d'Arc," one of two selections set in a role-playing game world secretly controlled by a vampire conspiracy, inventively parallels the plight of Joan of Arc to the vampire neophyte forced by her master to speak to the Maid of Orleans in voices. "Stoker's Mistress," set in the same world, shows the creator of Dracula enthralled by a vampire muse who inspires him to write a novel that will deflect mortals from learning the true nature of vampires. Like most of the other selections, these stories stand solidly on their own outside the books that spawned them, in part because Kiernan's focus is not on the minutiae of their prefab universes but on the attitudes and sensibilities of characters caught in their events. Her impressionistic style, built on poetic enjambments of sensory images and moods, proves perfect for rendering the postapocalyptic future of "By Turns" and the alien zombie consciousnesses of "Two Worlds, and in Between." Featuring collaborations with Christa Faust and Poppy Z. Brite, as well as a provocatively opinionated preface, this book should please Kiernan devotees and fans of the worlds she's cohabited. (Feb.)Wrong Things (Forecasts, Oct. 22).Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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