The first time in a science fiction and fantasy collection that the Jewish People-and the richness of their particular points of view-appear without a mask. A showpiece of Jewish wit, culture, and lore, blending humor and sadness, cynicism and faith.

Strong storytelling and new takes on a beloved fantasy topic result in a welcome addition to the literature of dragons. (Library Journal)

Whether portrayed as fire-breathing reptilian beasts or as noble creatures of power and grace, dragons have been found in nearly every culture's mythology. Now, in The Dragon Book, today's greatest fantasists reignite the fire... Includes stories by New York Times bestselling authors Jonathan Stroud, Gregory Maguire, Garth Nix, Diana Gabaldon, Tamora Pierce, Harry Turtledove, Sean Williams, and Tad Williams, as well as tales by Peter Beagle, Jane Yolen, Adam Stemple, Cecelia Holland, Naomi Novik, Kage Baker, Samuel Sykes, Diana Wynne Jones, Mary Rosenblum, Tanith Lee, Andy Duncan, and Bruce Coville.

Edited by Jack Dann (World Fantasy Award-winning co-editor of Dreaming Down Under) and Nick Gevers (acclaimed editor and book reviewer), Ghosts by Gaslight is a showcase collection of all-new stories of steampunk and supernatural suspense by modern masters of horror, fantasy, sf, and the paranormal. An absolutely mind-boggling gathering of some of today's very best dark storytellers--including Peter Beagle, James Morrow, Sean Williams, Gene Wolfe, Garth Nix, Marly Youmans, Jeffery Ford, and Robert Silverberg--Ghosts by Gaslight offers chilling gothic and spectral tales in a delightfully twisted Victorian and Edwardian vein. Think Henry James's Turn of the Screw and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with a decidedly steampunk edge, and you're ready to confront Ghosts by Gaslight.

Neil Gaiman, Eoin Colfer, and many more join this magical brew that] will enchant young adult readers and their elders as well. (Publishers Weekly)

In Wizards, today's master fantasists turn their hands to tales of these magical beings, living in both ancient and modern times, as well as in fantasy realms that never were.

Featuring stories by New York Times bestselling authors Neil Gaiman, Eoin Colfer and Garth Nix as well as tales from Kage Baker, Peter S. Beagle, Terry Bisson, Orson Scott Card, Terry Dowling, Andy Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, Elizabeth Hand, Nancy Kress, Tanith Lee, Patricia A. McKillip, Mary Rosenblum, Tad Williams, Gene Wolfe, and Jane Yolen.

A comprehensive guide to the speculative sub-genre of alternate history fiction, this book maps the unique terrain of this vibrant mode of storytelling and then explains how to write it. First giving a concise conceptual overview and the critical tools to differentiate the different forms of counterfactual fiction, Jack Dann lays out the 'tricks of the trade' such 'Heinleining', how to create recognizable 'divergent points' and how to employ paratextual elements and 'layering' to overcome readers' unfamiliarity with invented counterfactual events and cultures. Alongside this, Dann takes you step-by-step through a complete short story to demonstrate, line-by-line, how alternative history fiction works. As well as Dann's exacting methodology for writing professional quality alternate history stories, this book also features a live-on-the-page Q&A with some of the most esteemed alternate history writers working today, including Kim Stanley Robinson, John Birmingham and Lisa Goldstein among many others, who will detail their own particular hacks, theories, processes, methods and strategies.

Combining extensive and deep knowledge of the field with accessible writing advice, this is the ultimate guidebook to the broad and complex sub-genre of counterfactual and alterative history fiction.

This stellar collection of Jewish science fiction and fantasy carries on in the tradition of its companion volume--the enduring classic Wandering Stars--breaking new ground with every story.

Trouble with mothers; invading aliens and demons; the arrival of the long-awaited Messiah ... all these phenomena and more are tackled in these tales from a creative group of extraordinary writers. We go to the edges of the universe, finding humor, pain and humanity in the unlikeliest of places and situations. Filled with wit, vigor and sharp insight, this is a fantastic feast for the imagination that will intrigue and delight everyone who picks it up, Jew and non-Jew alike.

In Shadows in the Stone, Jack Dann creates a fully-realized, living, breathing universe, a universe where the Vatican is in Venice, Jehovah is really a lesser god known as the Demiurge, and the magus John Dee's experiments with angels are true and repeatable. Here you'll discover a nun who has the expertise and agility of a Ninja warrior, the reincarnated snake goddess known as the Daughter of Light, the famed Florentine magician Pico Della Mirandola, a young magus who is part stone, the Knights Templar of the Crimson Cross, the sapphire tablet: the most secret of the Dead Sea scrolls, and a 15th Century dirigible kept aloft by imprisoned souls. Here you'll find wild adventure and Machiavellian subtlety, treason and heroism, love and carnality, joy and loss, magic, machines, the cosmic machinations of angels, demons, gods, and half-gods; and the absolutely breathtaking vistas that are their battle grounds. Join Louisa Morgan, Lucian Ben-Hananiah, and the fellowship of The Dark Companions in their apocalyptic battle against the Demiurge--described in the forbidden Gnostic texts as the demon god Yaldabaoth... and known to us as Jehovah.

A stellar collection of Jewish science fiction and fantasy from extraordinary writers. Filled with wit, vigor and sharp insight, this is a fantastic feast for the imagination that will intrigue and delight everyone who picks it up.

In the tradition of the old Ace Doubles (flip one book over to read the second title)--here is the ninth Wildside Double: DA VINCI RISING, by Jack Dann Imagine what would happen if Leonardo da Vinci--the Albert Einstein of the Renaissance--was actually able to build and fly his fabulous flying machine. In this marvelous story of high political intrigue, danger, adventure, and ethical dilemma, Leonardo faces the difficult and dangerous consequences of what happens when you try to turn dreams into reality. Winner of the 1996 Nebula Award THE DIAMOND PIT, by Jack Dann The magazine Ideomancer called this tale an action story, a moral meditation, and a critique of pulp heroes that takes place against the backdrop of early airplanes, kidnappings, ragtime piano, spectacular chateaux, Faulknerian histories, elaborate gardens, romantic interludes, catacombs, battles, infidelity, and cold-blooded murder. Winner of the Ditmar Award

A comprehensive guide to the speculative sub-genre of alternate history fiction, this book maps the unique terrain of this vibrant mode of storytelling and then explains how to write it. First giving a concise conceptual overview and the critical tools to differentiate the different forms of counterfactual fiction, Jack Dann lays out the 'tricks of the trade' such 'Heinleining', how to create recognizable 'divergent points' and how to employ paratextual elements and 'layering' to overcome readers' unfamiliarity with invented counterfactual events and cultures. Alongside this, Dann takes you step-by-step through a complete short story to demonstrate, line-by-line, how alternative history fiction works. As well as Dann's exacting methodology for writing professional quality alternate history stories, this book also features a live-on-the-page Q&A with some of the most esteemed alternate history writers working today, including Kim Stanley Robinson, John Birmingham and Lisa Goldstein among many others, who will detail their own particular hacks, theories, processes, methods and strategies.

Combining extensive and deep knowledge of the field with accessible writing advice, this is the ultimate guidebook to the broad and complex sub-genre of counterfactual and alterative history fiction.

The first time in a science fiction and fantasy collection that the Jewish People-and the richness of their particular points of view-appear without a mask. A showpiece of Jewish wit, culture, and lore, blending humor and sadness, cynicism and faith.

In his newest collection of short fiction, award-winning author Jack Dann offers twenty tales of the fantastic which will take readers on flights of fancy, plumb the depths of the human imagination, and examine the human experience through the lens of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Islands of Time is a collection which offers the best and worst of humanity, across time, space, and other dimensions.

Jack Dann is the kind of inspired madman who comes along all too rarely. He is an exacting craftsman and a fevered visionary; his prose sings, his people live and breathe and bleed, and his imaginary landscapes are vivid, surreal, and throb with a singular intensity... -GEORGE R. R. MARTIN

JACK DANN has written or edited over seventy-five books, including the international bestseller The Memory Cathedral, The Rebel, The Silent, Junction, and The Man Who Melted. He is a recipient of the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Australian Aurealis Award (three times), the Ditmar Award (five times), the Peter McNamara Achievement Award and also the Peter McNamara Convenors' Award for Excellence, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Premios Gilgames de Narrativa Fantastica award. He has also been honoured by the Mark Twain Society (Esteemed Knight

With The Rebel, acclaimed award-winning author Jack Dann pulls James Dean from the twisted wreckage and offers him a second chance to make an indelible mark on his art, his culture, and his time in an era of profound change and devastating social upheaval.

Surviving the horrific crash that leaves him permanently scarred, both physically and emotionally, the haunted, brooding, and complex young star finds himself charged with a feeling of responsibility to do something wonderful and important. Yet for Jimmy Dean, the glory road will be winding and broken, littered with the detritus of exploded dreams and destroyed love, as it passes through the holiest cultural sites of postwar twentieth-century America -- the genius-and-drug pumped world of the Beats, the protected inner sanctum of Graceland, the darkest shadows of Camelot. The lives and futures of Kerouac, Sinatra, Elvis, and the Kennedys will all be touched by him -- yet perhaps none so deeply as the fragile sex goddess who will always be his greatest burden and true soul mate, a dazzling and tragically lost phenomenon named Marilyn -- as he moves toward an astonishing destiny that will reconfigure the world.

Ingeniously blending historical fact with brilliant invention, The Rebel is a hip, fast, and mesmerizing ride through the fifties and sixties -- an unforgettable road trip across a nation with an American legend at the wheel.

Following the World Fantasy Award-winning Dreaming Down-Under, acclaimed editor Jack Dann gathers thirty-five of the best and brightest in a golden age of Australian fiction to pen fantastic new tales to shock, astound, and delight. The outstanding bestselling authors include Garth Nix, Terry Dowling, Sean McMullen, Kim Wilkins, Sara Douglass, A. Bertram Chandler, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, Stephen Dedman, Trudi Canavan, John Birmingham, Margo Lanagan, Janeen Webb, Isobelle Carmody, and many others.

In the tradition of the old Ace Doubles (flip one book over to read the second title), here's the twenty-second Wildside Double: THE ECONOMY OF LIGHT, by Jack Dann. This is the story of a Nazi hunter's journey to find the man who tortured him and murdered his family, as he penetrates the depths of the Amazon jungle to experience an extraordinary dream time. Michael Swanwick called this extraordinary novel a dark quest into the heart of dreams. It is a magnificent depiction of a modern descent into hell...and the frightening--and profoundly surprising--consequences of redemption. JUBILEE, by Jack Dann. Peter Lindsay lives in Melbourne, Australia. Charles Blackford is an American trying to relive a happier time in Athens. Both men have lost their wives. And now they must decide how to cope with the overwhelming changes being wrought by transcendent emergences from the sea. This is the quintessential First Contact story, a mind-bendingly brilliant exploration into what is alien...and what it means to be human. Library Journal called Jubilee a haunting story of transformation and loss. First-rate science fiction.

The Man Who Melted is a warning for the future. It is the Brave New World and 1984 for our time, for it gives us a glimpse into our own future -- a future ruled by corporations that control deadly and powerful forms of mass manipulation. It is a prediction of what could happen...tomorrow. The Man Who Melted examines how technology affects us and changes our morality, and it questions how we might remain human in an inhuman world. Will the future disenfranchise or empower the individual? Here you'll find new forms of sexuality, new perversions, new epiphanies, and an entirely new form of consciousness. Would you pay to go down with the Titanic? In this dystopia the Titanic is brought back from the bottom of the sea and refurbished, only to be sunk again for those who want the ultimate decadent experience. Some passengers pay to commit suicide by going under with the ship. The Man Who Melted has been called one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time by Science Fiction Age and is considered a genre classic. It is the stunning odyssey of a man searching through the glittering, apocalyptic landscape of the next century for a woman lost to him in a worldwide outbreak of telepathic fear. Here is a terrifying future where people can gamble away their hearts (and other organs) and telepathically taste the last flickering thoughts of the dead.

In the green days of youth--in another life and in a far land--Jack Dann was invited to participate in Native American religious ceremonies and culture. And in that far country of the past Jack experienced numinous moments and small revelations that changed his life and his art. Some of those distant moments and visceral wisdoms are encapsulated in Poems From a White Heart...a lifetime's distillation of poems birthed in the ice and fire of a lost America. Songs From a White Heart is a journey grounded in intensely personal revelations that inspired Jack's poetry, short stories, and novels such as Bad Medicine, which Locus Magazine described as showing us that true magics, supernatural moments of both grief and joy, can be found in life itself. You just have to know where to look, and how to invoke them-and Jack Dann is an expert at such things.