Dark Fantasies

This short story collection will keep you on the edge of your seat to the last sentence. Misha Burnett has been published in a wide variety of modern fiction magazines, and here we've collected some of his best work. From the introduction: "e;I'm a tourist, not a colonist. I want to take a couple of pictures, hit an antique mall, get a meal, and get back on the highway. And that's what I write—what you'll get in this book is the casual visitor's view of other worlds than ours. I promise to have you back safe in your own home town by nightfall. "e;That having been said, I do revisit the same locations several times. These nine stories are trips to four settings, more or less. I like to think that these worlds are interesting enough to warrant the return trips. The first two stories, "e;A Hill Of Stars"e; and "e;In The Gloaming O My Darling"e; are set in what I like to call the Eldritch Earth. Early pulp writers were often fascinated by great antiquity, and I share that fascination. So I basically took Robert Howard's prehistoric Cimmeria and pushed it back in time—waaay back, all the way to Lovecraft's Precambrian Era of elder gods and alien monstrosities. "e;It's a mashup of time periods, with human beings and dinosaurs and shoggoths all existing on the same Pangaea-style continent. The concept has both obvious absurdities and an odd charm, and I was able to convince a few other authors to take a stab at the setting."e;The next story, "e;Nox Invictus"e; is a one-off. The germ of the idea came from a discussion of elves in Fantasy being avatars of chaos, with the lawlessness of Elfland contrasted with the order of Christendom in works such as Poul Anderson's Three Hearts And Three Lions. I happened to be reading the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius at the time, so I thought I'd see how a Roman Stoic would fare in the realm of the fair folk—specifically the Svartalfheim of Norse mythology. "e;It was fun, writing the clash of three very different cultures, the civilized Empire, the Celtic barbarians, and the decadent Dark Elves. I hope you enjoy the trip. "e;The next stop on our itinerary doesn't have an official name, but the three stories "e;Candlemass Night"e;, "e;Conessa's Sword"e;, and "e;Through Dry Places"e; are all set in the same world. It's about the closest that I've written to a "e;typical"e; Fantasy world—vaguely Central European, vaguely Medieval. Adventurers from a Dungeons & Dragons campaign would feel at home here. The stories do have an Ashkenazi flavor—it's influenced by my love of Russian Jewish folklore and the places are more Anatevka than Lankhmar."e;Next stop, Dracoheim. The last three stories, "e;She That Was So Proud And Wild,"e; "e;The Hopeful Bodies Of The Young,"e; and "e;An Interrupted Scandal"e; are set in the same Fantasy city. It's different than most Urban Fantasy, though, in that it isn't modern Earth with the addition of fantastic elements but instead a Fantasy world that has "e;grown up"e; into modern technology. Well, relatively modern, anyway—say mid-20th Century."e;