Lisa Tuttle

Deeply unnerving and utterly original - the book you will need to talk about. A writer decides to write her next book about a female author and artist unjustly forgotten by history. But what starts as an exciting research project rapidly unravels towards breakdown and horror. The subject is to be Helen Ralston, an early twentieth-century author who has been systematically written out of history. The narrator sets about investigating her story as an artist, writer and muse to a much more famous man. Amazingly Ralston turns out to be still alive, and although elderly and frail a series of interviews begin. But a tale about the historic erasure of female voices starts to break down into something even more sinister, bizarre and all-consuming as the narrator uncovers unnerving parallels between Ralston's story and her own...

A widowed writer begins to work on a biography of a novelist and artist—and soon uncovers bizarre parallels between her life and her subject’s—in this chilling and singularly strange novella by a contemporary master of horror and fantasy. The narrator of Lisa Tuttle’s uncanny novella is a recent widow, a writer adrift. Not only has she lost her husband but her muse seems to have deserted her altogether. Her agent summons her to Edinburgh to discuss her next book. What will she tell him? At once the answer comes to her: she will write the biography of Helen Ralston, best known, if at all, as the subject of W.E. Logan’s much-reproduced painting Circe, and the inspiration for his classic children’s book, Hermine in Cloud-Land. But Ralston was a novelist and artist in her own right, though her writing is no longer in print and her most radical painting, My Death, deemed too unsettling—malevolent even—to be shown in public. Over the months that follow, Ralston proves an astonishingly cooperative subject, even as her biographer uncovers eerie resonances between the older woman’s history and her own. Whose biography is she writing—really?

Pity poor Sheila Stoller, writer of some small stature, lured by her ego to a tiny sci-fi convention. She expects boredom and annoyance, but fails to anticipate the actual fannish and metaphysical horrors that await! The Paul Di Filippo Presents series showcases modern masterpieces of science fiction and fantasy selected by acclaimed author and critic Paul Di Filippo.

Slavný autor bestsellerů George R. R. Martin a uznávaná spisovatelka Lisa Tuttleová napsali skvostný nadčasový příběh o světě svázaném železnou tradicí a o mladé ženě, která se proti zavedeným pořádkům vzbouří s umanutou vírou ve svůj spravedlivý sen. Na planetě pokryté oceány, z nichž nad hladinu ční pouze souostroví vydaná napospas bouřím a silným větrům, se usídlila lidská kolonie. Hladký chod civilizace závisí na okřídlencích, všemi vážených hrdinech, kteří s pomocí drahocenných metalických perutí denně překonávají divoké bouře, aby mezi ostrovy rychle a bezpečně šířili čerstvé zprávy, důležitá politická a obchodní poselství, ale i písně, zvěsti a legendy. Maris se narodila jako dcera rybáře, nepřeje si však nic jiného než létat nad širými oceány Větrného přístavu. Aby svého snu dosáhla, prolomí posvátnou tradici, dle níž se křídla dědí ve vyvolených rodech, místo aby se předávala těm, kdo prokáží výjimečné schopnosti. Její revolta však spustí řetězec nepředvídaných událostí a společenských proměn, jež ohrozí křehkou stabilitu lidské společnosti. „Neměla jsem v plánu zůstat celou noc vzhůru, abych Větrný přístav dočetla, ale nezbylo mi nic jiného.“ – Anne McCaffreyová