Dagger Key: And Other Stories

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?

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The phrase "embarrassment of riches" could have been coined for this omnibus of mostly not-so-short stories. Shepard is so good at novella length that the mere short story "The Lepidopterist," a drink-cadging beach bum's rap about the events that made him what he is, is the book's weak sister. At 73 pages, "Stars Seen through Stone," about a scuzzy-but-talented musician and a window on another plane of existence, brilliantly mixes alien incursion à la H. P. Lovecraft and the everyday perils of the rock biz as revealed by the indie record-producer narrator. The 75-page ghost story "Limbo," originally the star of the horror anthology The Dark (2003), masterfully blends the atmospheres of Elmore Leonard and Peter Straub, and the ever-so-gratifying "Dead Money" (73 pages) repeats the trick in a marriage of high-stakes poker and voodoo. The 51-page "Liar's House" exploits such quest-fantasy trappings as a creation myth, dragons, and medievalism for antiheroic purposes. The 53-page spirit-possession caper "Dagger Key" is a far more somber, often bracingly naturalistic answer to Pirates of the Caribbean. Throughout, Shepard's rich prose vividly conjures place, deftly yet scrupulously limns characters, and generally dazzles as it enraptures. Olson, Ray

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