The Best of Kage Baker
Author: | Kage Baker |
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Subterranean Press, 2012 |
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Book Type: | Collection |
Genre: | Science-Fiction |
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Synopsis
Kage Baker's death in 2010 silenced one of the most distinctive, consistently engaging voices in contemporary fiction. A late starter, Baker published her first short stories in 1997, at the age of forty-five. From then until the end of her life, she wrote prolifically and well, leaving an astonishing body of work behind.
The Best of Kage Baker is a treasure trove that gathers together twenty stories and novellas, eleven of which have never been collected anywhere. The volume is bookended by a pair of tales from her best known and best loved creation: The Company, with its vivid cast of time traveling immortals. In 'Noble Mold,' Mendoza the botanist and Joseph, the ancient 'facilitator,' find themselves in 19th century California, where a straightforward acquisition grows unexpectedly complex, requiring, in the end, a carefully engineered 'miracle.' In 'The Carpet Beds of Sutro Park,' an autistic Company operative named Ezra encounters a lost soul named Kristy Ann, and finds a way to give her back the world that she has lost.
Among the volume's many other highlights are a pair of brilliant Company novellas: the Hugo Award-nominated 'Son, Observe the Time' and 'Welcome to Olympos, Mr. Hearst,' a tour de force set in the Hollywood of the 1930s and featuring an encounter with legendary newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. There is also a generous assortment of equally brilliant standalone tales, including 'Calamari Curls,' the account of a faded resort town that takes a surprising turn into Lovecraftian terrain, and the World Fantasy Award-nominated 'Caverns of Mystery,' in which ancient stories play themselves out repeatedly, shaping and altering the world around them.
These are only a few of the pleasures waiting within this book. The Best of Kage Baker is exactly what the title proclaims: the best short work of a gifted and irreplaceable writer. Anyone with an interest in first-rate imaginative fiction--anyone with an interest in lovingly crafted fiction of any kind--needs to read this book.
Table of Contents:
- Noble Mold - (1997) - shortstory
- Old Flat Top - (2002) - shortstory
- Hanuman - (2002) - novelette
- Son Observe the Time - (1999) - novella
- Welcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst - (2003) - novella
- The Catch - (2004) - novelette
- Leaving His Cares Behind - (2004) - novelette
- What the Tyger Told Her - (2001) - shortstory
- Calamari Curls - (2006) - shortstory
- Maelstrom - (2007) - novelette
- Speed, Speed the Cable - (2008) - novelette
- Caverns of Mystery - (2008) - shortstory
- Are You Afflicted with Dragons? - (2009) - shortstory
- I Begyn as I Meane to Go On - (2008) - shortstory
- The Ruby Incomparable - (2007) - shortstory
- Plotters and Shooters - (2007) - novelette
- The Faithful - (2003) - novelette
- The Leaping Lover - (2007) - shortfiction
- Bad Machine - (2005) - novelette
- The Carpet Beds of Sutro Park - (2012) - shortstory
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