The Banquet of the Lords of Night and Other Stories [Hardcover]

Liz Williams (Author), Tom Kidd (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 19, 2005

In such novels as The Poison Master, Empire of Bones, and Nine Layers of Sky, Liz Williams sparked readers' imaginations by creating worlds at once strange and familiar. Now this bold new writer brings her best short fiction together in one stunning collection. The stories featured in The Banquet of the Lords of Night have appeared in Asimov's, Interzone, Realms of Fantasy, and The Third Alternative, among others. The stories within the covers of The Banquet of the Lords of Night are varied in style and subject matter, but they are all powerfully written. From the breathtaking title story, "Banquet of the Lords of Night" about an Earth plunged into a world of darkness where light is against the law to the stunning "The Man from the Ministry" in which we learn the how far a mother will go where her family is concerned; Williams displays an astonishing breadth and variety of writing styles. Williams is equally at home writing galaxy-spanning science fiction like "Quantum Anthropology" as she is weaving a tale like "Adventures in the Ghost Trade" which incorporates demons, magic, the afterlife, and private detectives. "Williams's unique cross-genre voice is a reinvigorating one for SF, fantasy and horror." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) Contents: * Adventures in the Ghost Trade * Outremer * Skindancing * A Child of the Dead * The Sea of Time & Space * The Daykeeper * Dieudamour * Sharecropper * Nightside * Dog Years * Dancing Day * The Banquet of the Lords of Night * Loosestrife * Ancestors' Song * Orchidae * Quantum Anthropology * The Blood Thieves * The Man from the Ministry

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As the 18 highly original and imaginative entries in her debut story collection reveal, Williams (The Poison Master) has an astonishing ability to create strange worlds and complex characters with only a few words. She finds new tangents with standard myths (a homosexual Eros and Psyche) and uses non-Western concepts (a bureaucratic Chinese hell) to great effect. There's no typical Williams story, though each contains an element of darkness. Sometimes a stunning idea—dolls of living flesh ("Loosestrife") for affluent but infertile girls or a fad for fashionable diseases ("Nightside")—shows room for further development, and plots occasionally falter, but the impact of each tale is always strong. In one of the best, "The Blood Thieves," a real estate agent's efforts to buy property in central Reykjavik for a multinational genetic research corporation are stymied by a northern fairy called a huldra. The author manages to both entertain and enlighten as she mixes whimsy and humor with a fear of genetic manipulation and a warning about the power of global conglomerates. In "Dog Years," a truly chilling modern ghost story, a dying girl makes a Faustian bargain: in exchange for life, she must let ghosts hungry to see the world use her eyes. Williams's unique cross-genre voice is a reinvigorating one for SF, fantasy and horror. FYI: Two of Williams's four novels have been nominated for Philip K. Dick Awards.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 189 pages
• Publisher: Night Shade Books; First Edition edition (July 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892389932
• ISBN-13: 978-1892389930
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,995,342 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Short stories from Liz Williams, February 6, 2007

By 

M. G. Summers "mommygayle" (Austin, TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Banquet of the Lords of Night and Other Stories (Hardcover)

I found these stories very entertaining and, to some degree, they fore- shadow the Detective Chen novels.