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A man walks into a bar. A dispute ensues, and the bartender kills him. He's sentenced to ten years for manslaughter. In prison, the convict, Wardlin Stuart, writes prayers addressed to no god in particular. Inexplicably, his prayers — whether it's a request for a girlfriend or a special favor for a fellow inmate — are answered, be it in days or weeks. When his collection of supplications, A Handbook of American Prayer, is published by a New York press, Stuart emerges a celebrity author. Settling into a new life in Arizona, he encounters a fundamentalist minister. The two are destined for a confrontation. In the interim, it seems that the god to whom Stuart has been praying has manifested himself on the earth. In this short novel about America's conflicting love triangle — celebrity, spirituality, and money — Shepard negotiates the thin line between the real and the surreal, expounding upon violence and redemption along the way. This story of an unlikely American messiah shows why The Wall Street Journal has compared Shepard, an award-winning author, to Graham Greene, Robert Stone, and Ward Just.

This novelette originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1985. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Third Annual Collection (1986), edited by Gardner Dozois, Best SF of the Year #15 (1986), edited by Terry Carr. The story is included the collections The Jaguar Hunter (1987) and The Best of Lucius Shepard (2008).

Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, July 1984. The story can also be found in the anthology Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction (1994), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collection The Jaguar Hunter (1987).

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, August 1986. The story can also be found in the anthology Best SF of the Year #16 (1987), edited by Terry Carr. It is included in the collection The Ends of the Earth (1991).

Hugo and Locus Award winning and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, July 1992. The story can aslo be found in the anthology The New Hugo Winners, Volume IV: (1992-94) (1997), edited by Gregory Benford. It is included in the collections Barnacle Bill the Spacer and Other Stories (1997).

The fiction of Lucius Shepard has more to do with Joseph Conrad than Isaac Asimov. Fascinated by deception and decay, and generally labeled a cyberpunk writer, his work transcends the limits of genre fiction. Beast of the Heartland contains seven tales that explore the darkside where science fiction meets horror. Headed by the award-winning "Barnacle Bill the Spacer," a story of high-space mutiny, the book includes "A Little Night Music," a gothic tale of insanity; "All the Perfumes of Araby," where an adventurer in the Middle East links up with an ancient entity; "Human History," a postapocalyptic chiller; "Sports in America," a noir tale in the Chandler tradition; "The Sun Spider," a mini space opera; and the title story -- an ingenious picture of a battered boxer on the decline.

Table of Contents:

• Barnacle Bill the Spacer - (1992)
• A Little Night Music - (1992)
• Human History - (1995)
• Sports in America - (1991)
• The Sun Spider - (1987)
• All the Perfumes of Araby - (1992)
• Beast of the Heartland - (1992)

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Universe 14 (1984), edited by Terry Carr. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection (1985), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection The Jaguar Hunter (1987).

Nebula and World Fantasy Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October-November 1999. The story is included in the collections Trujillo and Other Stories (2004) and Eternity and Other Stories (2005).

WFA and Sturgeon Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 2001. The story can also be found in the anthology Fantasy: The Best of 2001, edited by Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber. It is included in the collections Trujillo and Other Stories (2004) and Eternity and Other Stories (2005).

Here are seven stories from a master of the art. Viktor Chemayev is the Philip Marlowe of Russian detectives, a sad-eyed, heavy drinking romantic who refuses to stay beat. In the title novella of this extraordinary collection, he goes head-to-head with an Irish assassin in the depths of a Moscow nightclub in an attempt to win back his true love, who has been sold to the Beelzebub-like king of the Moscow underworld...

Lucius Shepard is known for his dark, unpredictable vision, and in this assemblage of some of his best writing he takes us from Moscow to Africa; from the mountains of Iraq, where Specialist Charlie N. Wilson encounters a very different sort of enemy, to Central America, where a bloody-handed colonel meets his doom via lizards. In these seven tales Shepard's imagination spans the globe and, like an American Gabriel Garcia Marquez, refuses to be restricted by mere reality.

Table of Contents

• Only Partly Here - (2003)
• A Walk in the Garden - (2003)
• Crocodile Rock - (1999)
• Hands Up! Who Wants to Die? - (2004)
• The Drive-In Puerto Rico - (2002)
• Jailwise - (2003)
• Eternity and Afterward - (2001)

Five Autobiographies and a Fiction, the long-awaited new collection from master storyteller Lucius Shepard, is a significant publishing event, a volume equal in every way to such earlier Shepard classics as The Jaguar Hunter and The Dragon Griaule. Its six long stories offer narrative pleasures as diverse and profound as anything to be found in modern imaginative fiction.

"Ditch Witch," set in rural Oregon, concerns a young man on the run in a stolen car, a hitchhiker who may or may not have witch-like powers, and the bizarre inhabitants of the seemingly innocuous Elfland Motel. "The Flock" is a tale of high school football and small town malaise set against an impossible intrusion from the natural world. A washed-up actor and a Malaysian "woman of power" stand at the center of "Vacancy," the account of a man forced to confront the very real demons of his past. "Dog-eared Paperback of My Life" follows a writer (Thomas Cradle) on his erotically charged journey down the Mekong River, a journey enveloped in a maze of multiple, interpenetrating realities. "Halloween Town" tells the story of a small, extremely strange town and one of its denizens, Clyde Ormoloo, a man who sees too deeply into the "terrible incoherence" of human affairs. The final story, "Rose Street Attractors," takes us into 19th century London and the heart of the steampunk era--in the richly atmospheric tale of a most unusual haunting. Rounding out this generous volume is an Introdution in which Shepard offers a startlingly frank assessment of his own troubled adolescence, identifying the "alternate versions" of himself that appear in these pages and illuminating those points at which fiction and "near-autobiography" converge.

Lyrical, brutal, and always powerfully composed, Five Autobiographies and a Fiction is something special. Each of these six novellas speaks in its own distinctive voice. Each one takes us into the heart of a thoroughly imagined world. Only Lucius Shepard could have created those worlds. Only Lucius Shepard could have given us this book.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Ditch Witch
• The Flock
• Vacancy
• Dog-Eared Paperback of My Life
• Halloween Town
• Rose Street Attractors

Life the second time around is short, strange and terrifying to the awakened. One "zombie", victim of a bizarre scientific obsession, breaks away, leaving a trail of muder and miracle as he flees the Project and the horror his "life" has become.

This novella originally appeared on Sci Fiction, June 4, 2003. It can also be foudn in the anthology Best Short Novels: 2004, edited by Jonathan Strahan. The story is included in the collections Trujillo and Other Stories (2004), Eternity and Other Stories (2005), and The Best of Lucius Shepard (2008).

Contents:

• Kalimantan - (1990) - novella
• Solitario's Eyes - (1983) - short story
• The Arcevoalo - (1986) - novelette

David Mingolla is one of many drug-pumped grunts slugging it out in the rotten jungles of Guatemala, an expendable pawn in an endless, amoral war. Then he meets Debora, an enigmatic young woman who may be working for the enemy, and stumbles into the deadly war zone of psychic conflict where the mind is the greatest woapon, and thoughts are used to kill.

WFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Omni, May 1988. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Fantasy: Second Annual Collection (1989), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. It is included in the collections The Ends of the Earth (1991) and The Best of Lucius Shepard (2008).

Welcome to Grail, Louisiana -- next to nothing and just beyond reality -- where hoodoo meets Jesus, and townsfolk pray to both. This dark fantasy delves into the psychological and motivational depths of Grail and its residents. Miss Sedele mixes up green cocktails called 'cryptoverdes' at Le Bon Chance. Vida Dumars, owner of the Moonlight Diner, peers into the deepest realms of her customers' hearts as though they were picture windows. Town spirit Good Gray Man has promised good fortune to the town as long as it hangs onto tradition. A quirky, fantastical town's heart and soul are slowly, often painfully revealed in this dark and captivating novella.

Sturgeon Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, March 2003. It can also be found in the anthologies Science Fiction: The Best of 2003, edited by Jonathan Strahan and Karen Haber, and The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Seventeenth Annual Collection (2004), edited by Ellen Datlow, Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link. It is included in the collections Trujillo and Other Stories (2004), Eternity and Other Stories (2005) and The Best of Lucius Shepard (2008).

Sturgeon Award winning novella. It originally appeared on Sci Fiction, January 2, 2002. The story is included in the collection Two Trains Running (2004).

Read this story for free at the SciFiction archive.

Locus and Nebula Award winning and Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, April 1986. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fourth Annual Collection (1987), edited by Gardner Dozois, The 1987 Annual World's Best SF, edited by Donald A. Wollheim, Arthur W. Saha and Nebula Awards 22 (1988), edited by George Zebrowski. It is included in the collections The Jaguar Hunter (1987) and The Best of Lucius Shepard (2008).

Hugo, Nebula and Sturgeon Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, August 2000. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection (2001), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collections The Jaguar Hunter (2001) and The Best of Lucius Shepard (2008).

WFA and Shirley Jackson Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the anthology Ghosts by Gaslight: Stories of Steampunk and Supernatural Suspense (2011), edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers. It is included in the collection Five Autobiographies and a Fiction (2013).

Hugo, Nebula, and SF Chronicle Award-nominated Short Story and winner of the Locus Reader's Poll for Best Short Story.

This story follows Dantzler, a soldier in the Special Forces of the US Military. He and his platoon are in El Salvador looking for Sandinista patrols prior to an invasion of Nicaragua. The soldiers rely on ampules, drugs which help them stay calm and focus their rage -- but discover that their increasing use of the drug make it difficult to distinguish between reality and hallucination.

Published originally by The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in April 1984, this story was later anthologized in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection (1985), The 1985 Annual World's Best SF (1985), Beyond Armageddon: Twenty-One Sermons to the Dead (1985), The Best from Fantasy & Science Fiction: A 40th Anniversary Anthology (1989), The Legend Book of Science Fiction (aka Modern Classics of Science Fiction) (1991), Future Earths: Under South American Skies (1993), Future War (1999), The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction (2005), The Mammoth Book of The Best of The Best New SF (2008), The End of the World: Stories of the Apocalypse (2010), The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Volume 2 (2014), and collected in The Jaguar Hunter (1987) and The Best of Lucius Shepard (2008).

Read this story online for free at Baen.

WFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology In the Field of Fire (1987), edited by Jack Dann and Jeanne Van Buren Dann, and was reprinted in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, December 1987. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifth Annual Collection (1988), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories (2011), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. It is included in the collections The Ends of the Earth (1991) and The Best of Lucius Shepard (2008).

A chilling and mysterious voice becomes audible to Sanie shortly after she and her husband Jackson move into the decaying antebellum mansion that is the Bullard ancestral home in rural South Carolina. At first, she wonders if the voice might be a prank played by Jackson's peyote-popping brother Will or his equally off-kilter sister Louise. But soon Sanie discovers that the ghostly voice is merely a single piece in the decadent, baroque puzzle that comprises the Bullard family history rank with sensuality, violence, repression and madness.

WFA nominated short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September 1983. It is included in the collection The Jaguar Hunter (1987).

Hugo, Nebula and Wold Fantasy Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 2007. The story can also be found in the anthology Nebula Awards Showcase 2009, edited by Ellen Datlow. It is included in the collections Dagger Key and Other Stories (2007) and The Best of Lucius Shepard (2008).

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Playboy, July 1990. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighth Annual Collection (1991), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fourth Annual Collection (1991).

Lucius Shepard writes from the darkest, truest heart of America -- not the heart of the United States or of North America, but all of America -- and he writes of it with rare passion, honesty and intelligence. His earliest stories, the ones that made his name a quarter of a century ago were set in the jungles of South America and filled with creatures dark and fantastical. Stories like "Salvador", "The Jaguar Hunter", and the excoriatingly brilliant "R&R" deconstructed war and peace in South America, in both the past and the future, like no other writer of the fantastic.

A writer of great talent and equally great scope, Shepard has also written of the seamier side of the United States at home in classic stories like "Life of Buddha" and "Dead Money", and in "Only Partly Here" has written one of the finest post-9/11 stories yet. Perhaps strangest of all, Shepard created one of the greatest sequence of "dragon" stories we've seen in the tales featuring the enormous dragon, Griaule.

The Best of Lucius Shepard is the first ever career retrospective collection from one of the finest writers of the fantastic to emerge in the United States over the past quarter century. It contains nearly 300,000 words of his best short fiction and is destined to be recognized as a true classic of the field.

Table of Contents:

• The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule - (1984)
• Salvador - (1984)
• A Spanish Lesson - (1985)
• The Jaguar Hunter - (1985)
• R & R - (1986)
• The Arcevoalo - (1986)
• Shades - (1987)
• Delta Sly Honey - (1987)
• Life of Buddha - (1988)
• White Trains - (1987)
• Jack's Decline - (1988)
• Beast of the Heartland - (1992)
• Radiant Green Star - (2000)
• Only Partly Here - (2003)
• Jailwise - (2003)
• Hands Up! Who Wants to Die? - (2004)
• Dead Money - (2007)
• Stars Seen Through Stone - (2007)

This novella originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1989. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventh Annual Collection (1990), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection The Ends of the Earth (1991).

Lucius Shepard's short fiction ranges far and wide over the field of SF and fantasy, and is crammed with show-stopper ideas and an intense originality. The Ends of the Earth is a testimonial to a genius of the genre, and a major American writer. Winner of the 1992 World Fantasy Award for Best Collection.

Table of Contents:

• The Ends of the Earth (1989)
• Delta Sly Honey (1987)
• Bound for Glory (1989)
• The Exercise of Faith (1987)
• Nomans Land (1988)
• Life of Buddha (1988)
• Shades (1987)
• Aymara (1986)
• A Wooden Tiger (1988)
• The Black Clay Boy (1987)
• Fire Zone Emerald (1985)
• On the Border (1987)
• The Scalehunter's Beautiful Daughter (1988)
• Surrender (1989)

Winner of the Locus Award.

In the mid nineteenth century, vampires gather at Castle Banat, one of their most sprawling and ancient warrens. Their five-hundred-year breeding project has produced the Golden, a mortal of perfect blood, and they've come to drink from her in a ceremony that will incidentally make her one of the Family. When the girl is found murdered, the clan's shadowy patriarch calls on the detective Michel Beheim to solve the crime. But Michel has been a vampire for only a short while, and though he was a talented investigator among mortals, he is ill-prepared for the task. Soon he is fighting to survive the bizarre terrors of the labyrinthine castle and the schemes of vampires who guard a secret that may forever alter the world of the undead.

Winner of the 1988 World Fantasy and Locus Awards for Best Story Collection, The Jaguar Hunter brings together some of the 1980s' finest speculative fiction. From the battlegrounds of near-future Latin America, to spirit-haunted Nepal, to the ecosystem on the body of a giant dragon, the stories vividly evoke both real-world and fantastic locales with thorough credibility. Shepard's attention to character development and cultural detail are especially remarkable, and reflect his extensive world travels. Featured in the collection, "Salvador" won the Locus Award in 1985 and "R&R" the Nebula and Locus Awards in 1987.

Table of Contents

• Foreword - (1987) - essay by Michael Bishop
• The Jaguar Hunter - (1985)
• The Night of White Bhairab - (1984)
• Salvador - (1984)
• How the Wind Spoke at Madaket - (1985)
• Black Coral - (1984)
• The End of Life as We Know It - (1985)
• A Traveler's Tale - (1984)
• Mengele - (1985)
• The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule - (1984)
• A Spanish Lesson - (1985)
• R & R - (1986)

Some editions also include the stories

• Solitario's Eyes - (1983)
• Delta Sly Honey - (1987)
• The Exercise of Faith - (1987)
• Radiant Green Star - (2000)

Nebula and World Fantasy Award-nominated Novelette.

"It was his wife's debt to Onofrio Esteves, the appliance dealer, that brought Esteban Caax to town for the first time in almost a year" is the sentence which opens "The Jaguar Hunter", a tense tale of a man forced to hunt a jaguar to make up for his wife's desire to improve her social status.

Published originally by The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in May 1985, this story was later anthologized in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Third Annual Collection (1986), The 1986 Annual World's Best SF (aka World's Best SF 5) (1986), Magicats II (1991), Killing Me Softly: Erotic Tales of Unearthly Love (1995), The Fantasy Hall of Fame (expanded) (1998) and Tails of Wonder and Imagination (2010), and collected in The Jaguar Hunter (1987) and The Best of Lucius Shepard (2008).

Read this story online for free at Infinity Plus.

World Fantasy Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the anthology Little Deaths: 24 Tales of Sex and Horror (1994), edited by Ellen Datlow. A limmited edtition chapbook has also been published.

Note that this is the stand alone novel, not the similarly titled collection Trujillo and Other Stories

In the town of Trujillo, in Honduras, on the edge of the Mosquito Coast, Dr. Arturo Ochoa, a semi-retired psychiatrist, has a single patient: a troubled young man named Thomas Stearns, the son of a wealthy Atlanta family. Stearns has been found adrift on the Carribean in a vessel owned by two Nicaraguans, both of whom are missing; he has been alone for eighteen days and has little memory of that time. Suspected of murder, Stearns is unconcerned. He knows his family will buy off the police. But he is reluctant to leave Trujillo, having developed an odd affinity for the town. As therapy progresses, he tells of a mysterious stone figure regurgitated by, improbably, a whirlpool, and Dr. Ochoa, drawn into his pathology, begins to doubt not only Stearns' sanity, but his own.

This collection of fact and fiction was inspired by the time science fiction writer Lucius Shepard spent with Missoula Mike, Madcat, and other members of a controversial brotherhood known as the Freight Train Riders of America. Shepard rode the rails throughout the western half of the United States with the disenfranchised, the homeless, the punks, the gangs, and the joy riders for the magazine article "The FTRA Story." That original article is presented here, along with two new hobo novellas, "Over Yonder" and "Jailbait." In "Over Yonder," alcoholic Billy Long Gone finds himself on an unusual train. As Billy travels his health improves and his thinking clears, and he arrives in Yonder-an unlikely paradise where a few hundred hobos live in apparent peace and tranquility. But every paradise has its price, and in Yonder, peace and tranquility breed complacency and startling deaths. "Jailbait" is a hardcore tale of deception, lust, revenge, and murder in the seedy underbelly of rail yards and train hopping. Madcat, who functions best in a whiskey-induced haze, must decide between solitude and companionship when he meets up with Grace, an underaged runaway. Grace, in turn, seeks the security of an older man and the life about which only young girls can dream.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: The Steel - essay by Lucius Shepard
• The FTRA Story - essay by Lucius Shepard
• Over Yonder - (2002)
• Jail Bait - (2004)

In South Florida, a journalist is stranded in the coastal town of Piersall. This secluded landscape hosts an unlikely encounter with a past love and the beginning of a chain of events that will link the estranged lovers. Shepard investigates the nature of their love and the elusive, alienating force that separated them in the past, despite their seemingly boundless passion. Here is an erotic valentine of insatiable longing and hope. “[Lucius Shepard] Brings to mind Graham Greene, Robert Stone, and Ward Just.” -- Wall Street Journal

The stories gathered here conduct the reader from the wastelands of the near future to the zoned-out bacchanals of Hollywood, from the fevered bordellos of Central America to the hallucinated revels of redneck country, from the broken hears of wandering loners to alluring fantasy realms just beyond the threshold of perception. And when the journey is over, eternal contrasts - of man and woman, bosses and workers, responsibility and escape, conformity and freedom - stand in more powerful definition than ever before...

Table of Contents:

• After Ildiko - (2003) - short story
• Carlos Manson Lives - (2003) - short story
• Chinandega - (2007) - novella
• Handsome, Winsome Johnny - (2003) - novelette
• Larissa Miusov - (2007) - short story
• The Ease With Which We Freed the Beast - (2007) - short story
• The Emperor - (2005) - short fiction
• Viator - (2004) - novel
• Story Notes - (2009) - essay

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honour of Jack Vance (2009), edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, and was reprinted in Subterranean Online, Spring 2009. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2010, edited by Rich Horton.

Read the full story for free at Subterranean.

Novella in Shepard's Griaule series. It originally appeared in Sci Fiction, December 3, 2003 and was later printed as a chapbook. It can also be found in the collections Dagger Key and Other Stories (2007) and The Dragon Griaule (2012).

Read this story for free at the SciFiction archive.

Hugo, World Fantasy, and SF Chronicle Award-nominated Novella and winner of the Locus Reader's Poll for Best Novella.

This story is a mystery / legal drama of a father who is put on trial for killing the priest of the cult which worships the mountain-sized dragon sleeping near their town, after the priest kidnaps his daughter and prepares to sacrifice her, naked and bound, to the Dragon Griaule.

Published originally as a chapbook and then by Asimov's in September 1989, this story was later collected in The Dragon Griaule (2012).

Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, BSFA, and SF Chronicle Award-nominated Novella.

The mountain-sized sleeping Dragon Griaule overshadows a nearby town with its maleficient presence. Desperate to overthrow its malignant influence without alerting the dragon to their intent, the town hires a painter who promises to cover the dragon's beautiful scales in a poisonous paint which will kill it once and for all.

Published originally by The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in December 1984, this story was later anthologized in Nebula Awards 20 (1985), The Best Fantasy Stories from the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (aka Great Tales of Fantasy and Science Fiction) (1985), Bestiary! (1985), Dragons! (1993), Modern Classics of Fantasy (1997), The Mammoth Book of Fantasy (2001), Wings of Fire (2010), and collected in The Jaguar Hunter (1987), The Best of Lucius Shepard (2008), and The Dragon Griaule (2012).

Read this story online for free at Baen.

Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and SF Chronicle Award-nominated Novella and winner of the Locus Reader's Poll for Best Novella.

In self-defense, Catherine kills the man who attempts to rape her. Pursued by his vengeful brothers, she takes refuge in the mouth of the mountain-sized, immobilized dragon which overshadows her town -- but becomes trapped inside the dragon, where she encounters another trapped human and many strange creatures.

Published originally as a chapbook and then by Asimov's in September 1988, this story was later anthologized in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixth Annual Collection (aka Best New SF 3) (1989) and The Locus Awards: Thirty Years of the Best in Science Fiction and Fantasy (2004), and collected in The Ends of the Earth (1991) and The Dragon Griaule (2012).

World Fantasy Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the collection The Dragon Griaule (2012).

In the Carbonales Valley, a remote region separated from this world by the thinnest margin of possibility, there is an ancient, incredibly large creature known as the Dragon Griaule. For twenty-five years, in stories ranging from The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule through Liar's House, Lucius Shepard has brought us extraordinary accounts of lives shaped by the dragon's undying influence. The Taborin Scale is the latest installment in this ongoing epic, and it is an astonishing and revelatory accomplishment.

The story begins when George Taborin numismatist, collector, and solid citizen travels to the valley on his annual vacation. There, he encounters a prostitute named Sylvia and acquires a tiny dragon's scale with unexpected properties. With shocking suddenness, George is removed from his everyday life and thrust into a primal world of violence and cruelty. In the course of an adventure that will change his life in fundamental ways, he is forced to bear witness to the gradual unfolding of a vast, implacable design.

The Taborin Scale is Lucius Shepard at his absolute best. Bizarre, horrifying, and strangely beautiful, it is both a gripping, self-contained narrative and a pivotal moment in what might be the most singular fantasy of our time.

Read this story online for free at Subterranean Press.

More than twenty-five years ago, Lucius Shepard introduced us to a remarkable fictional world, a world separated from our own 'by the thinnest margin of possibility'. There, in the mythical Carbonales Valley, Shepard found the setting for "The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule", the classic account of an artist -- Meric Cattanay -- and his decades long effort to paint -- and kill -- a dormant, not quite dead dragon measuring 6,000 feet from end to end. The story was nominated for multiple awards and is now recognized as one of its author's signature accomplishments.

Over the years, Shepard has revisited this world in a number of brilliant, independent narratives that have illuminated the Dragon's story from a variety of perspectives. This loosely connected series reached a dramatic crossroads in the astonishing novella, "The Taborin Scale". The Dragon Griaule now gathers all of these hard to find stories into a single generous volume. The capstone of the book -- and a particular treat for Shepard fans -- is "The Skull", a new 40,000 word novel that advances the story in unexpected ways, connecting the ongoing saga of an ancient and fabulous beast with the political realities of Central America in the 21st century. Augmented by a group of engaging, highly informative story notes, The Dragon Griaule is an indispensable volume, the work of a master stylist with a powerful -- and always unpredictable -- imagination.

Table of Contents:

• The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule - [Griaule] - (1984) - novelette
• The Scalehunter's Beautiful Daughter - [Griaule] - (1988) - novella
• The Father of Stones - [Griaule] - (1988) - novella
• Liar's House - [Griaule] - (2003) - novella
• The Taborin Scale - [Griaule] - (2010) - novella
• The Skull - [Griaule] - novella
• Story Notes (The Dragon Griaule) - essay

Lucius Shepard's Beautiful Blood is something both special and long awaited: the first novel-length exploration of the world of the Dragon Griaule. It's a subject that has preoccupied Shepard since the publication of "The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule" in 1984, and he has returned to it repeatedly over the years, though never before in such a mesmerizing, all-encompassing fashion.

Like the initial tale, Beautiful Blood begins in the 1850s in the town of Teocinte, in a world "separated from our own by the thinnest margin of possibility." It is a landscape whose dominant feature is the massive, long-dormant body of an ancient dragon that has lain there, motionless, for millennia, exerting a powerful but mysterious influence on the surrounding area. The novel tells the story of Richard Rosacher, an ambitious young medical student who becomes fascinated by the properties inherent in the dragon's blood. His exploitation of those properties launches him on a career that leads him from the shabbiest quarter of Teocinte to a morally ambiguous position of power, wealth, and influence. Beautiful Blood takes us though the entire length of that career, which is marked throughout by the invisible agency of Griaule, who may well be the driving force behind Rosacher's astonishing ascension.

The novel also encapsulates the events of the initial Griaule story, events that dovetail neatly with the current tale. Meric Cattanay, the eponymous protagonist of "The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule," makes a welcome reappearance here. Meric's decades-long involvement with the dragon begins at roughly the same time as Rosacher's. Their stories proceed along parallel but independent lines that occasionally intersect, providing us with a view of familiar events wider and deeper than any we have had before. The result is a colorful, involving narrative with profound metaphysical overtones, one that raises--but does not answer--significant questions. Is the dragon merely a bizarre but entirely natural phenomenon? Or is he/it the manifestation of some divine purpose? And to what extent are the actions of men like Meric and Rosacher the reflections of its implacable but enigmatic will? Questions such as these animate the narrative at every turn, adding an extra level of resonance to one of the most original and important fictional creations of recent years.