That left the dwarves, the trolls, the human fortresses, the dryads, and the possibility that the mermaids might permit the stationing of Border guards near their waters for the first time.
“We could always flip a coin,” Elliot suggested.
“All right,” Luke said, coming through like he always did. He produced a coin from the pouch at his belt: the circle of gold shone, bright as a promise, in his palm. Luke looked up into Elliot’s eyes. “Where are we going? Call it.”
You leave your father’s house, Elliot thought. And then you work out where to go next.
“You have to ask?” Elliot smiled. “Tails for mermaids.”
Acknowledgments
I’d like to start these acknowledgements in a perhaps startling fashion: with deep gratitude for the internet and people who write comments on it. In Other Lands began as a “short story” (haha! Hahahahaha . . .) I decided to write on my blog, as a present for my readers . . . at a time when I badly needed to rediscover the joy of writing. Obviously, I went completely out of control, and yet so many people said they liked it, came specially to book signings to tell me about their love for a story they could not get signed (now you can, my sweets!), offered praise and insights, and asked me for more. Stories do not often get written serially, but this one was, and it would be a completely different story without those initial readers who accepted a gift graciously and gave me many gifts in return.
The only way I know to prevail in difficult times is through the support of my family, my Irish friends, my English friends, my American friends, my Australian friends. The world is vast, and full of grace. (Sometimes the internet reminds us of both these things. Sometimes the internet reminds us of other things, but the internet does not get as much credit for sharing love and goodness as it should.)
A special thanks to Holly Black, Courtney Milan, Seanan McGuire and Jennifer Lynn Barnes, all writers I admire and friends I cherish, who let me know they were reading the story as it was posted online (“oh my god how can this be!” I screamed. “You put it on the world wide web, dummo,” they kindly did not reply) and encouraged me by saying they liked it, saying not to stop, and taking it seriously when I did not: taking me seriously when I did not.
Holly really was with me every step of the way: she was the first person to ask “Why are you writing a book on your blog?” (“It’s a short story,” I said. “It’s over a hundred thousand words long” she said. “Imbecile” she did not say) and years later she and Kelly Link provided final edits, including Kelly giving the book its name and the sentence “That sex scene needs to be way longer and way better” being uttered as I screamed and tried to drown myself. Sorry. Sorry about everything, Holly and Kelly. Thanks to Carolyn Nowak for the most unsurpassable unicorns and excellent elves in town, and Paul Witcover for catching so many of my fool mistakes. (Any fool mistakes remaining are entirely down to foolish me.
My publisher Small Beer Press, Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link. I still remember the email Kelly sent me offering to publish the book. I read it in Savannah airport, and sat in a chair in Starbucks deeply touched but also trying to think of a way to dissuade her from this kind but obviously doomed course. (Later everyone told me I acted like Spider-man, trying to break up with his true love for her own good. Watch out for supervillains just the same, guys. Surely they will be gunning for those as virtuous as thee.)
About the Author
Sarah Rees Brennan (sarahreesbrennan.com) was born and raised in Ireland and now lives in New York City. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Tell the Wind and Fire and the Lynburn Legacy series among others.
Also Available From Small Beer Press
in all independent bookshops, from our website (smallbeerpress.com), and so on.
Our DRM-free ebooks are available from our indie ebooksite weightlessbooks.com as well as all the usual places.
A Stranger in Olondria
Sofia Samatar
World Fantasy Award winner · British Fantasy Award winner · Crawford Award winner
Jevick, the pepper merchant’s son, has been raised on stories of Olondria, a distant land where books are as common as they are rare in his home—but which his mother calls the Ghost Country. When his father dies and Jevick takes his place on the yearly selling trip to Olondria, Jevick’s life is as close to perfect as he can imagine. Just as he revels in Olondria’s Rabelaisian Feast of Birds, he is pulled drastically off course and becomes haunted by the ghost of an illiterate young girl.
“Samatar’s sensual descriptions create a rich, strange landscape, allowing a lavish adventure to unfold that is haunting and unforgettable.” — Library Journal (*starred review*)
“Mesmerizing—a sustained and dreamy enchantment. A Stranger in Olondria reminds both Samatar’s characters and her readers of the way stories make us long for far-away, even imaginary, places and how they also bring us home again.” — Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
paper · $16 · 9781931520768 | ebook · 9781931520775
Also Available from Small Beer Press
The Winged Histories
Sofia Samatar
NPR Best Books of the Year
Four women—a soldier, a scholar, a poet, and a socialite—are caught up on opposing sides of a violent rebellion. As war erupts and their loyalties and agendas and ideologies come into conflict, the four fear their lives may pass unrecorded. Using the sword and the pen, the body and the voice, they struggle not just to survive, but to make history.
“Like an alchemist, Sofia Samatar spins golden landscapes and dazzling sentences. . . . The Winged Histories is a fantasy novel for those who take their sentences with the same slow, unfolding beauty as a cup of jasmine tea, and for adventurers like Tav, who are willing to charge ahead into the unknown.” — Shelf Awareness (*starred review*)
“All of it is harrowing — and written in such heart-stoppingly beautiful language there’s a good chance readers will ignore the plot and spend a few hours just chewing on the words, slowly, to draw out the flavor. Then they’ll need to read it again. Fortunately, this is a short book; also fortunately, there’s a lot of novel packed into relatively few pages. A highly recommended indulgence.” — N. K. Jemisin, New York Times Book Review
paper · $16 · 9781618731371 | ebook · 9781618731159
Also Available from Small Beer Press
Prophecies, Libels, & Dreams
Ysabeau S. Wilce
“Once upon a time, my little waffles . . .”
Fantastical stories of rockstar magicians, murderous gloves, bouncing boy terrors, vengeful plush pigs, blue tinted butlers, and a Little Tiny Doom set in an opulent quasi-historical world of magick and high manners that bears a striking resemblance to Gold Rush California.
These interconnected stories are set in an opulent quasi-historical world of magick and high manners called the Republic of Califa. The Republic is a strangely familiar place—a baroque approximation of Gold Rush era-California with an overlay of Aztec ceremony—yet the characters who populate it are true originals: rockstar magicians, murderous gloves, bouncing boy terrors, blue tinted butlers, sentient squids, and a three year old Little Tiny Doom and her vengeful pink plush pig.
By turn whimsical and horrific (sometime in the same paragraph), Wilce’s stories have been characterized as “screwball comedies for goths” but they could also be described as “historical fantasies” or “fanciful histories” for there are nuggets of historical fact hidden in them there lies.
“Sometimes the fantastic insists on imbuing the world with blunt meaning — the simplistic drama of good versus evil — but other times it unearths the sense that what individuals experience is far less than what is, a reminder that the world is bigger than us. For example, the fantastic is one of the best places in fiction to find the back-to-front story, in which the apparent events of a story turn out to be less important than what is hinted at behind them, happening just off th
e page. Wilce’s afterwords are of this variety, hinting at a history and social structure that the (fictional) author and (fictional) audience know well, while the reader gathers scraps about the Waking World, Elsewhere, praeterhumans, and the world that has grown up in their place since the Waking World and Elsewhere split and magick faded.” — Bookslut
paper · $16 · 9781618730893 | ebook · 9781618730909
Also Available from Small Beer Press
The Poison Eaters
Holly Black
A Junior Library Guild Pick
Pick your poison: Vampires, devils, werewolves, faeries, or . . . ? Find them all here in Holly Black’s amazing first collection.
In her debut collection, New York Times best-selling author Holly Black returns to the world of Tithe in two darkly exquisite new tales. Then Black takes readers on a tour of a faerie market and introduces a girl poisonous to the touch and another who challenges the devil to a competitive eating match. Some of these stories have been published in anthologies such as 21 Proms, The Faery Reel, and The Restless Dead, and many have been reprinted in many “Best of ” anthologies.
The Poison Eaters is Holly Black’s much-anticipated first collection, and her ability to stare into the void—and to find humanity and humor there—will speak to young adult and adult readers alike.
“Black doesn’t strike a sour note in the bunch. Plus, the small, detailed pen and ink illustrations by Black’s hub Theo add a distinctly melancholic touch. So go ahead drink some Poison—it’s good for you!”
—Reading Rants
“Black’s first story collection assures her place as a modern fantasy master…. Sly humor, vivid characters, each word perfectly chosen: These stories deserve reading again and again.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
hardcover · $17.99 · 9781931520638 | ebook available
Sarah Rees Brennan, In Other Lands
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