Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente was born on Cinco de Mayo, 1979 in Seattle, WA, but grew up in in the wheatgrass paradise of Northern California. She graduated from high school at age 15, going on to UC San Diego and Edinburgh University, receiving her B.A. in Classics with an emphasis in Ancient Greek Linguistics. She then drifted away from her M.A. program and into a long residence in the concrete and camphor wilds of Japan.She currently lives in Maine with her partner, two dogs, and three cats, having drifted back to America and the mythic frontier of the Midwest.
A Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects
Catherynne M. Valente
A GUIDE TO FOLKTALES IN FRAGILE DIALECTS by award-winning author and poet Catherynne M. Valente is a delightful collection of poetry, short fables, and fairy tales that explore myth and wonder, ancient and modern, with an introduction by Midori Snyder. "Structured around a series of folktale motifs, Valente's eloquent second full-length poetry collection dissects the perceived roles of women in Earth's and otherworldly fable and myth.... enlightening and enthralling." -- Publishers Weekly "Catherynne Valente writes in the language of dreams, which is not rational and yet always makes sense. I could read the poems in this book a hundred times and find new meanings, new pleasures in them. It is an astonishingly beautiful and deeply satisfying accomplishment ... A brilliant, beautiful book." -- Theodora Goss "A tale of two grandmothers, one mythical, one real, that will gently, inexorably break your heart. A story of a god's petty curse reimagined as a sensual, sexual postmodern nightmare. A sinister conspiracy of black magic and murder hatched in the land of Lewis Carroll. Those are just tiny morsels in the decadent poetic feast found in A Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects -- Catherynne Valente doesn't so much retell legends and fairy tales as twist and sculpt them into new shapes, stunning objets d'art built from exhilarating language that never flinch from painful truths." -- Mike Allen, three-time Rhysling Award winner "Her poems enchant, enthrall and devastate, and this collection takes the astonishing skill she showed in Apocrypha and distills it, deepens it, sharpens it into a tool to carve stories out of language. If Sappho had written Ovid's Metamorphoses, she could not have done better than this." -- SF Site Born in the Pacific Northwest in 1979, Catherynne M. Valente is the author of the Orphan's Tales series, as well as The Labyrinth, Yume no Hon: The Book of Dreams, The Grass-Cutting Sword, and four books of poetry, Music of a Proto-Suicide, Apocrypha, The Descent of Inanna, and Oracles. She is the winner of the Tiptree Award and the Million Writers Award and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the World Fantasy Award, the Rhysling Award, and shortlisted for the Spectrum Award. She currently lives in Northeastern Ohio with her partner, two dogs, and two cats. Her sixth novel, Palimpsest, will be released by Bantam Spectra in February of 2009.
A Menina que Navegou ao Reino Encantado no Barco que ela Mesma Fez (Fairyland, #1)
Catherynne M. Valente
Setembro é uma menina que sonha com aventuras. Quando é convidada por um Vento Verde e um Leopardo para ir ao Reino Encantado é claro que aceita. (Você não aceitaria?) Mas o Reino Encantado está em tulmulto, e vai levar uma menina de doze anos, um dragão que adora livros e um menino estranho e quase humano chamado Sábado a derrotar uma Marquesa malvada e restaurar a ordem.
Annihilation (Mass Effect: Andromeda, #3)
Catherynne M. Valente
An official tie-in to the hit video game Mass Andromeda, written by award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente
The Quarian ark Keelah Si’yah sails toward the Andromeda galaxy, carrying 20,000 colonists from sundry races including the drell, the elcor, and the batarians. Thirty years from their destination, a routine check reveals drell lying dead in their pods, and a deadly pathogen on board. Soon, the disease is jumping species, and it quickly becomes clear that this is no accident. It’s murder, and the perpetrator is still on board.
The ship’s systems rapidly degrade, and panic spreads among the colonists, for the virus yields a terrible swelling of the brain that causes madness, hallucinations, and dreadful violence. If the ship’s crew can’t restore their technology and find a cure, the Keelah Si’yah will never make it to the Nexus.
Comfort Me With Apples
Catherynne M. Valente
Sophia was made for him. Her perfect husband. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Everything is perfect.
It's just that he's away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.
But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband's face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can't quite meet her gaze...
But everything is perfect. Isn't it?
Deathless
Catherynne M. Valente
Koschei the Deathless is to Russian folklore what devils or wicked witches are to European culture: a menacing, evil figure; the villain of countless stories which have been passed on through story and text for generations. But Koschei has never before been seen through the eyes of Catherynne Valente, whose modernized and transformed take on the legend brings the action to modern times, spanning many of the great developments of Russian history in the twentieth century.
Deathless, however, is no dry, historical tome: it lights up like fire as the young Marya Morevna transforms from a clever child of the revolution, to Koschei’s beautiful bride, to his eventual undoing. Along the way there are Stalinist house elves, magical quests, secrecy and bureaucracy, and games of lust and power. All told, Deathless is a collision of magical history and actual history, of revolution and mythology, of love and death, which will bring Russian myth back to life in a stunning new incarnation.
El pecado de América
Catherynne M. Valente
Green Like Dying
Catherynne M. Valente
In the Cities of Coin and Spice (The Orphan's Tales, #2)
Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente enchanted readers with her spellbinding In the Night Garden. Now she continues to weave her storytelling magic in the next book of Orphan’s Tales—an epic of the fantastic and the exotic, the monstrous and mysterious, that will transport you far away from the everyday. . . .
Her name and origins are unknown, but the endless tales inked upon this orphan’s eyelids weave a spell over all who listen to her read her secret history. And who can resist the stories she tells? From the Lake of the Dead and the City of Marrow to the artists who remain behind in a ghost city of spice, here are stories of hedgehog warriors and winged skeletons, loyal leopards and sparrow calligraphers. Nothing is too fantastic, anything can happen, but you’ll never guess what comes next in these intimately linked adventures of firebirds and djinn, singing manticores, mutilated unicorns, and women made entirely of glass and gears. Graced with the magical illustrations of Michael Kaluta, In the Cities of Coins and Spice is a book of dreams and wonders unlike any you’ve ever encountered. Open it anywhere and you will fall under its spell. For here the story never ends and the magic is only beginning. . . .
In the Night Garden (The Orphan's Tales, #1)
Catherynne M. Valente
A Book of Wonders for Grown-Up Readers
Every once in a great while a book comes along that reminds us of the magic spell that stories can cast over us–to dazzle, entertain, and enlighten. Welcome to the Arabian Nights for our time–a lush and fantastical epic guaranteed to spirit you away from the very first page . . .
Secreted away in a garden, a lonely girl spins stories to warm a curious peculiar feats and unspeakable fates that loop through each other and back again to meet in the tapestry of her voice. Inked on her eyelids, each twisting, tattooed tale is a piece in the puzzle of the girl’s own hidden history. And what tales she tells! Tales of shape-shifting witches and wild horsewomen, heron kings and beast princesses, snake gods, dog monks, and living stars–each story more strange and fantastic than the one that came before. From ill-tempered “mermaid” to fastidious Beast, nothing is ever quite what it seems in these ever-shifting tales–even, and especially, their teller. Adorned with illustrations by the legendary Michael Kaluta, Valente’s enchanting lyrical fantasy offers a breathtaking reinvention of the untold myths and dark fairy tales that shape our dreams. And just when you think you’ve come to the end, you realize the adventure has only begun….
Praise for In the Night Garden
“Cathrynne Valente weaves layer upon layer of marvels in her debut novel. In the Night Garden is a treat for all who love puzzle stories and the mystical language of talespinners.” —Carol Berg, author of Daughter of Ancients
“Fabulous talespinning in the tradition of story cycles such as The Arabian Nights. Lyrical, wildly imaginative and slyly humorous, Valente's prose possesses an irrepressible spirit.” —K. J. Bishop, author of The Etched City
“Astonishing work! Valente’s endless invention and mythic range are breathtaking. It’s as if she’s gone night-wandering, and plucked a hundred distant cultures out of the air to deliver their stories to us.” —Ellen Kushner, author of Thomas the Rhymer
“Refreshingly original in both style and form, In the Night Garden should delight lovers of myth and folklore.” —Juliet Marillier, author of the Sevenwaters trilogy
La bambina che divenne la Regina di Fairyland
Catherynne M. Valente
C'era una volta una ragazzina di nome Malva che abitava a Fairyland. Malva era stufa di vivere sempre nella stessa casa ombreggiata dagli alberi da dessert, di dormire sempre nello stesso letto parlante e di studiare sempre gli stessi incantesimi. Voleva imparare tutte le arti magiche possibili. Ecco perché, quando seppe che le streghe e le fattucchiere accorrevano alla capitale Pandemonium per la grande festa delle Follie del Mondo, decise di recarsi laggiù anche lei. Ma nella reggia si nascondeva un sovrano crudele, e solo Malva poteva sconfiggerlo… Da un'autrice acclamata dalla critica e dalla stampa internazionale, un piccolo racconto inedito. Una storia incantevole che vi farà scoprire lo straordinario mondo de "La bambina che fece il giro di Fairyland per salvare la fantasia" e de "La bambina che perse la sua ombra per salvare la magia del mondo" (disponibile in libreria e in ebook dal 24 settembre).
La bambina che fece il giro di Fairyland per salvare la fantasia
Catherynne M. Valente
A dodici anni, Settembre vive una vita normalissima nella fin troppo tranquilla cittadina di Omaha, in Nebraska. In realtà, da sempre sogna una vera avventura. Così, il giorno in cui un distinto signore bussa alla sua finestra e, presentatosi come il magico Vento Verde, le propone di partire per un fantastico viaggio fino a Fairyland, Settembre accetta senza esitazioni. Non lo avreste fatto anche voi? Dopo l'emozionante viaggio in sella a un leopardo che vola, Settembre si ritrova catapultata su Fairyland - sola, perché il magico Vento Verde non può mettere piede sull'isola, governata da una capricciosa e crudele Marchesa che tiranneggia i suoi sudditi. Soltanto Settembre può aiutare il popolo di Fairyland, ritrovando l'antico scrigno nascosto da qualche parte in una foresta incantata. Un compito tutt'altro che facile, denso di pericoli e di prove da superare, in cui però verrà aiutata dai molti nuovi amici che la sua generosità le ha procurato, in particolare da un drago alato con la passione per i libri e da un misterioso ragazzo di nome Sabato. E alla fine, dopo mille avventure, Settembre - che sognava di viverne una sola! - grazie al suo cuore grande, al coraggio e all'immaginazione riuscirà ad avere la meglio sulla cattiveria, l'avidità e la superbia che regnano a Fairyland, salvando così per tutti i bambini il mondo della Fantasia.
La bambina che perse la sua ombra per salvare la magia del mondo (Fairyland, #2)
Catherynne M. Valente
Un anno è ormai trascorso da quando Settembre è tornata a casa, ma lei non ha ancora dimenticato le straordinarie avventure vissute a Fairyland. Ogni giorno si siede alla finestra e aspetta che il magico Vento Verde torni per portarla via. Ma il Vento non arriva e la bambina è sempre più triste. Teme di non rivedere più Fairyland, e nemmeno la propria ombra, perduta durante il viaggio. Finalmente, una sera, le si presenta l’occasione che ha a lungo sognato: mentre legge un libro in un campo di grano, Settembre vede una barchetta scivolare sulle spighe dorate. Convinta che sia l’unico modo per tornare a Fairyland, inizia a rincorrere la barca, fino a precipitare in una misteriosa foresta fatta di vetro. E come per magia si ritrova di nuovo a Fairyland. Durante la sua assenza, però, qualcosa di terribile è accaduto: gli abitanti del regno hanno perso la propria ombra – e la propria magia. La colpa è di Halloween, la nuova sovrana di Fairyland Disotto, che ha rubato tutte le ombre, e non ha alcuna intenzione di restituirle. In realtà Halloween altri non è che l’ombra perduta di Settembre. Toccherà quindi proprio a lei, armata solo di coraggio, immaginazione e un grande cuore, affrontare la Regina. E anche se i suoi amici – il mitico Vento Verde, la simpatica Viverna Dalla-A-Alla-Elle e il fedele Sabato – nascondono molti segreti, Settembre riuscirà comunque a salvare la magia di Fairyland e del mondo. Questa volta, per sempre.
L'Esprit de L'Escalier
Catherynne M. Valente
L’Esprit de L’Escalier by Catherynne M. Valente is a provocative retelling of the Greek myth, in which Orpheus, the musician son of Apollo and Calliope, successfully rescues his wife Eurydice--dead of a snake bite-- from Hades.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
L'Immortale
Catherynne M. Valente
È appena scesa la sera, a San Pietroburgo, quando un uomo affascinante bussa alla porta di Marja Morevna per chiederla in sposa. È Koščej l’Immortale, zar della Vita. Marja accetta di seguirlo attraverso le steppe della Russia. Nel paese incantato di Koščej, non troverà solo sfarzo, bellezza incontaminata e dovrà superare tre ardue prove per dimostrare alla diffidente Baba Jaga di essere davvero la predestinata ad amare l’Immortale, e poi affrontare una violenta guerra contro il nemico eterno di Koščej, lo zar della Morte.
Quando infine, ferita dall’amore e in cerca di tregua, Marja tornerà nella sua amata città, verrà travolta dall’atmosfera cupa dei terribili anni della seconda guerra mondiale. Da una San Pietroburgo stretta nella morsa dell’assedio fino alle gelide steppe dove si celano paesi fatati, la ragazza vivrà una storia d’amore senza eguali, in una terra di confine dove le leggende si confondono con la realtà e la magia antica si scontra con un famelico desiderio di conquista. Quest’incredibile avventura costringerà Marja a scendere a patti con il tormentato destino che la lega indissolubilmente a Koščej l’Immortale, sperimentando il potere del vero amore, il dolore delle perdite fatali, l’ebbrezza momentanea della felicità.
Una storia di vita e morte, amore e potere, vecchi ricordi e magia oscura ambientata nella suggestiva Russia del Novecento, in cui i miti e il folclore locali risplendono in tutto il loro fascino.
«Le storie, al contrario delle persone, non muoiono per sempre. A volte possono tornare in vita, ma solo grazie a circostanze molto speciali. Devono essere resuscitate dal tocco miracoloso di una classe molto rara di persone, un tipo versatile di genio/studioso/santo che possa donare loro nuova vita. Catherynne Valente è una persona di questo tipo».
Lev Grossman
« L’Immortale fa con la Russia ciò che Jonathan Strange & il signor Norrell di Susanna Clarke ha fatto con l’Inghilterra».
Jason Heller, «The A.V. Club»
«Un inebriante mix di magia e tenebra, in cui risuonano Il Maestro e Margherita e Angela Carter. La prosa è perfetta, l’immaginario è spettacolare e la storia è davvero coinvolgente. Questo libro non è soltanto bello, ma è genuinamente straordinario».
Laura Kelly, «Big Issue»
Minecraft: The End (Official Minecraft Novels, #4)
Catherynne M. Valente
For as long as they can remember, the twin endermen Fin and Mo have lived in the mysterious land of The End. On the outskirts of the great enderman city of Talos, they explore ancient ruins under the watchful gaze of the mighty ender dragon. They have everything they need in the end ship they call home, and know everything there is to know about their world—or so they think until the strangers from another dimension arrive.
The invaders are called humans, and they’ve come to steal artifacts and slay the ender dragon. Fin and Mo are ready to protect their home from the trespassers, but when they come face-to-face with the humans, they discover that they aren’t as prepared for battle as they’d thought. Caught off guard, the twins are trapped in the middle of a war between the endermen and the humans, with the future of their home at stake.
Myths of Origin: Four Short Novels
Catherynne M. Valente
Live the Myth! New York Times best-seller Catherynne M. Valente is the single most compelling voice to emerge in fantasy fiction in decades. Collected here for the first time, her early short novels explore, deconstruct, and ultimately explode the seminal myths of both East and West, casting them in ways you've never read before and may never read again.The Labyrinth - a woman wanderer, a Maze like no other, a Monkey and a Minotaur and a world full of secrets leading down to the Center of it All.Yume No Hon: The Book of Dreams - an aged woman named Ayako lives in medieval Japan, but dreams in mythical worlds that beggar the imagination . . . including our own modern world.The Grass-Cutting Sword - when a hero challenges a great and evil serpent, who speaks for the snake? In this version of a myth from the ancient chronicle Kojiki, the serpent speaks for himself.Under in the Mere - Arthur and Lancelot, Mordred and le Fay. The saga has been told a thousand times, but never in the poetic polyphony of this novella, a story far deeper than it is long.
Oracles: A Pilgrimage
Catherynne M. Valente
The Oracles of the ancient world spoke for the gods, they spoke for the future: but they could not speak for themselves. Here, their voices bubble up from the depths, enraged and sardonic, sorrowing and wild, finding themselves on new ground -- scattered across the American continent, marking a path for the seeker to follow, from New England universities to Hawaiian volcanoes, from dilapidated factories to Chinatown kitchens, from the Old East to the New West...
Osmo Unknown and the Eightpenny Woods
Catherynne M. Valente
A fantasy following a boy journeying away from the only home he’s ever known and into the magical realm of the dead in order to fulfill a bargain for his people.Osmo Unknown hungers for the world beyond his small town. With the life that Littlebridge society has planned for him, the only taste Osmo will ever get are his visits to the edge of the Fourpenny Woods where his mother hunts. Until the unthinkable happens: his mother accidentally kills a Quidnunk, a fearsome and intelligent creature that lives deep in the forest. None of this should have anything to do with poor Osmo, except that a strange treaty was once formed between the Quidnunx and the people of Littlebridge to ensure that neither group would harm the other. Now that a Quidnunk is dead, as the firstborn child of the hunter who killed her, Osmo must embark on a quest to find the Eightpenny Woods—the mysterious kingdom where all wild forest creatures go when they die—and make amends. Accompanied by a very rude half-badger, half-wombat named Bonk and an antisocial pangolin girl called Never, it will take all of Osmo’s bravery and cleverness to survive the magic of the Eightpenny Woods to save his town…and make it out alive.
Palimpsest
Catherynne M. Valente
In the Cities of Coin and Spice and In the Night Garden introduced readers to the unique and intoxicating imagination of Catherynne M. Valente. Now she weaves a lyrically erotic spell of a place where the grotesque and the beautiful reside and the passport to our most secret fantasies begins with a stranger’s kiss.…
Between life and death, dreaming and waking, at the train stop beyond the end of the world is the city of Palimpsest. To get there is a miracle, a mystery, a gift, and a curse—a voyage permitted only to those who’ve always believed there’s another world than the one that meets the eye. Those fated to make the passage are marked forever by a map of that wondrous city tattooed on their flesh after a single orgasmic night. To this kingdom of ghost trains, lion-priests, living kanji, and cream-filled canals come four Oleg, a New York locksmith; the beekeeper November; Ludovico, a binder of rare books; and a young Japanese woman named Sei. They’ve each lost something important—a wife, a lover, a sister, a direction in life—and what they will find in Palimpsest is more than they could ever imagine.
Radiance
Catherynne M. Valente
Radiance is a decopunk pulp SF alt-history space opera mystery set in a Hollywood-and solar system-very different from our own, from Catherynne M. Valente, the phenomenal talent behind the New York Times bestselling The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.
Severin Unck's father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate 1946 in which talking movies are still a daring innovation due to the patent-hoarding Edison family. Rebelling against her father's films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars. For this is not our solar system, but one drawn from classic science fiction in which all the planets are inhabited and we travel through space on beautiful rockets. Severin is a realist in a fantastic universe.
But her latest film, which investigates the disappearance of a diving colony on a watery Venus populated by island-sized alien creatures, will be her last. Though her crew limps home to earth and her story is preserved by the colony's last survivor, Severin will never return.
Told using techniques from reality TV, classic film, gossip magazines, and meta-fictional narrative, Radiance is a solar system-spanning story of love, exploration, family, loss, quantum physics, and silent film.
Silently and Very Fast
Catherynne M. Valente
Fantastist Catherynne M. Valente takes on the folklore of artificial intelligence in this brand new, original novella of technology, identity, and an uncertain mechanized future.
Neva is dreaming. But she is not alone. A mysterious machine entity called Elefsis haunts her and the members of her family, back through the generations to her great-great-grandmother—a gifted computer programmer who changed the world. Together Neva and Elefsis navigate their history and their future, an uneasy, unwilling symbiote.
But what they discover in their dreamworld might change them forever . . .
Six-Gun Snow White
Catherynne M. Valente
A New York Times bestselling author offers a brilliant reinvention of one of the best-known fairy tales of all time with Snow White as a gunslinger in the mythical Wild West.Forget the dark, enchanted forest. Picture instead a masterfully evoked Old West where you are more likely to find coyotes as the seven dwarves. Insert into this scene a plain-spoken, appealing narrator who relates the history of our heroine’s parents—a Nevada silver baron who forced the Crow people to give up one of their most beautiful daughters, Gun That Sings, in marriage to him. Although her mother’s life ended as hers began, so begins a remarkable tale: equal parts heartbreak and strength. This girl has been born into a world with no place for a half-native, half-white child. After being hidden for years, a very wicked stepmother finally gifts her with the name Snow White, referring to the pale skin she will never have. Filled with fascinating glimpses through the fabled looking glass and a close-up look at hard living in the gritty gun-slinging West, this is an utterly enchanting story…at once familiar and entirely new.
Space Oddity (Space Opera, #2)
Catherynne M. Valente
Return to the greatest contest in the galaxy in the sequel to the hilarious USA TODAY bestseller Space Opera from New York Times bestselling author and finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, and Ursula K. Le Guin awards.
The Metagalactic Grand Prix—part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part continuation of the wars of the past returns and the fate of the Earth is once again threatened. The civilizations opposed to humanity have been plotting and want to take down the upstarts. Can humanity rise again in this sequel to the beloved Hugo Award–nominated national bestselling Space Opera by New York Times bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente?
Space Opera (Space Opera, #1)
Catherynne M. Valente
A century ago, the Sentience Wars tore the galaxy apart and nearly ended the entire concept of intelligent space-faring life. In the aftermath, a curious tradition was invented—something to cheer up everyone who was left and bring the shattered worlds together in the spirit of peace, unity, and understanding.
Once every cycle, the civilizations gather for the Metagalactic Grand Prix—part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part continuation of the wars of the past. Instead of competing in orbital combat, the powerful species that survived face off in a competition of song, dance, or whatever can be physically performed in an intergalactic talent show. The stakes are high for this new game, and everyone is forced to compete.
This year, though, humankind has discovered the enormous universe. And while they expected to discover a grand drama of diplomacy, gunships, wormholes, and stoic councils of aliens, they have instead found glitter, lipstick, and electric guitars. Mankind will not get to fight for its destiny—they must sing.
A band of human musicians, dancers, and roadies have been chosen to represent Earth on the greatest stage in the galaxy. And the fate of their species lies in their ability to rock.
Speak Easy
Catherynne M. Valente
"If you go looking for it, just about halfway uptown and halfway downtown, there’s this hotel stuck like a pin all the way through the world. Down inside the Artemisia it’s this mortal coil all over. Earthly delights on every floor."
The hotel Artemisia sits on a fantastical 72nd Street, in a decade that never was. It is home to a cast of characters, creatures, and creations unlike any other, including especially Zelda Fair, who is perfect at being Zelda, but who longs for something more. The world of this extraordinary novella—a bootlegger's brew of fairy tales, Jazz Age opulence, and organized crime—is ruled over by the diminutive, eternal, sinister Al. Zelda holds her own against the boss, or so it seems. But when she faces off against him and his besotted employee Frankie in a deadly game that just might change everything, she must bet it all and hope not to lose…
Multiple-award-winning, New York Times’ bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente once again reinvents a classic in Speak Easy, which interprets “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” if Zelda Fitzgerald waltzed in and stole the show. This Prohibition-Era tale will make heads spin and hearts pound. It’s a story as old as time, as effervescent as champagne, and as dark as the devil’s basement on a starless night in the city.
The Beasts Who Fought for Fairyland Until the Very End and Further Still
Catherynne M. Valente
From Catherynne M. Valente's blog:
"Ever since the election, people have been telling me to shut up and go back to Fairyland. Be silent. Be good. Accept. Submit. Stop talking about politics. Stick to fairy tales. (As if fairy tales have ever not been about politics.) Go back to Fairyland. Go back to Fairyland.
So I did. Please enjoy this story set before the events of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. If you’d prefer to read this elsewhere, see the bottom of the page for downloads."
The Best of Catherynne M. Valente, Volume One
Catherynne M. Valente
The celebrated author of Fairyland, Space Opera, and much more, Catherynne M. Valente is also known for her stunning prose and captivating worldbuilding. From life on Mars to the zombified streets of Augusta, Maine, she has taken readers on unforgettable journeys for two decades.
Subterranean Press is proud to present: The Best of Catherynne M. Valente, Volume One, the first comprehensive collection of Valente’s short fiction, soaring through eighteen years of pushing the edges of storytelling.
Among her award-winning stories, you’ll find everything from melancholy robot girls to Eurydice and Orpheus; from detectives in Purgatory to time-traveling squirrels to a very different Santa Claus; from the grey coast of Washington to Alice’s Wonderland.
Valente’s work is an open, beating heart, ready to welcome you in to its darkness and its light.
Table of Contents:
Left Ventricle
The Consultant
The Difference Between Love and Time
A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica
White Lines on a Green Field
The Wolves of Brooklyn
Reading Borges in Buenos Aires
Days of Flaming Motorcycles
One Breath, One Stroke
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time
Mouse Koan
Right Atrium
The Melancholy of Mechagirl
The Future Is Blue
The Sin-Eater
The Sun in Exile
Color, Heat, and the Wreck of the Argo
The Perfect Host
How to Become a Mars Overlord
Fade to White
Secretario
Twenty-Five Facts About Santa Claus
In the Future When All’s Well
Planet Lion
Left Atrium
A Great Clerk of Necromancy
Urchins, While Swimming
L’Espirit D’Escalier
The Lily and the Horn
The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild
Palimpsest
The Red Girl
The Flame After the Candle
The Wedding
The Bread We Eat in Dreams
The Secret of Being a Cowboy
Right Ventricle
Aquaman and the Duality of Self/Other, America, 1985
A Fall Counts Anywhere
A Delicate Architecture
Golubash, or Wine-Blood-War-Elegy
Badgirl, the Deadman, and the Wheel of Fortune
Down and Out in R’lyeh
The Shoot-Out at Burnt Corn Ranch Over the Bride of the World
No One Dies in Nowhere
The Limitless Perspective of Master Peek, Or, the Luminescence of Debauchery
Daisy Green Says I Love You
Silently and Very Fast
What the Dragon Said: A Love Story
The Boy Who Lost Fairyland (Fairyland, #4)
Catherynne M. Valente
When a young troll named Hawthorn is stolen from Fairyland by the Red Wind, he becomes a changeling – a human boy -- in the strange city of Chicago, a place no less bizarre and magical than Fairyland when seen through trollish eyes. Left with a human family, Hawthorn struggles with his troll nature and his changeling fate. But when he turns twelve, he stumbles upon a way back home, to a Fairyland much changed from the one he remembers. Hawthorn finds himself at the center of a changeling revolution--until he comes face to face with a beautiful young Scientiste with very big, very red assistant.
Time magazine has praised Catherynne M. Valente's Fairyland books as "one of the most extraordinary works of fantasy, for adults or children, published so far this century." In this fourth installment of her saga, Valente 's wisdom and wit will charm readers of all ages.
The Bread We Eat in Dreams
Catherynne M. Valente
Subterranean Press proudly presents a major new collection by one of the brightest stars in the literary firmament. Catherynne M. Valente, the New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and other acclaimed novels, now brings readers a treasure trove of stories and poems in The Bread We Eat in Dreams.
In the Locus Award-winning novelette “White Lines on a Green Field,” an old story plays out against a high school backdrop as Coyote is quarterback and king for a season. A girl named Mallow embarks on an adventure of memorable and magical politicks in “The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland—For a Little While.” The award-winning, tour de force novella “Silently and Very Fast” is an ancient epic set in a far-flung future, the intimate autobiography of an evolving A.I. And in the title story, the history of a New England town and that of an outcast demon are irrevocably linked.
The thirty-five pieces collected here explore an extraordinary breadth of styles and genres, as Valente presents readers with something fresh and evocative on every page. From noir to Native American myth, from folklore to the final frontier, each tale showcases Valente’s eloquence and originality.
Table of Contents:
The Consultant
White Lines on a Green Field
The Bread We Eat in Dreams
The Melancholy of Mechagirl
A Voice Like a Hole
The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland—For a Little While
How to Raise a Minotaur
The Shoot-out at Burnt Corn Ranch Over the Bride of the World
Mouse Koan
The Blueberry Queen of Wiscasset
In the Future When All’s Well
Fade to White
Aeromaus
Red Engines
The Wolves of Brooklyn
One Breath, One Stroke
Kallisti
The Wedding
The Secret of Being a Cowboy
Twenty-Five Facts About Santa Claus
We Without Us Were Shadows
The Red Girl
Aquaman and the Duality of Self/Other, America, 1985
The Room
Silently and Very Fast
What the Dragon Said: A Love Story
The Days of Flaming Motorcycles
Catherynne M. Valente
The Difference Between Love and Time
Catherynne M. Valente
Tor is pleased to reprint “The Difference Between Love and Time” by Catherynne M. Valente, as featured in Someone in Time: Tales of Time-Crossed Romance—available from Solaris.
The Future Is Blue
Catherynne M. Valente
Thirteen stories unlike any others.
In the title story, Theodore Sturgeon Award-winning novelette “The Future Is Blue,” an outcast girl named Tetley lives on floating Garbagetown, in a world that dreams of the long lost land. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos is explored and reinvented in style in “Down and Out in R’lyeh.” In the novelette “The Limitless Perspective of Master Peek, or, the Luminescence of Debauchery,” Perpetua masquerades as a man in order to continue her father’s business as a glassblower and must fashion a special eye for a queen. And in “The Beasts Who Fought for Fairyland Until the Very End,” the wyvern A-Through-L, the warrior Green Wind and his giant cat the Leopard of Little Breezes cope with their broken-hearted disappointment over politicks as the evil Marquess ascends to rule.
Of her previous collection, The Bread We Eat in Dreams, the New York Times said, “Valente’s writing DNA is full of fable, fairy tale and myth drawn from deep wells worldwide.” With The Future Is Blue she continues to build and invent unforgettable worlds and characters with lyrical abandon, creating stories that feel old and new at once.
The Future is Blue also includes three never-before-printed stories, for almost 30,000 words of work exclusive to this collection: “Major Tom,” “Two and Two is Seven,” and the long novelette “Flame, Pearl, Mother, Autumn, Virgin, Sword, Kiss, Blood, Heart, and Grave.”
Limited: 1250 signed numbered hardcover copies
Table of Contents:
The Future Is Blue
No One Dies in Nowhere
Two and Two is Seven
Down and Out in R'lyeh
The Limitless Perspective of Master Peek, or, the Luminescence of Debauchery
Snow Day
Planet Lion
Flame, Pearl, Mother, Autumn, Virgin, Sword, Kiss, Blood, Heart, and Grave
Major Tom
The Lily and the Horn
The Flame After the Candle
The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild
The Beast Who Fought for Fairyland Until the Very End
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1)
Catherynne M. Valente
Twelve-year-old September lives in Omaha, and used to have an ordinary life, until her father went to war and her mother went to work. One day, September is met at her kitchen window by a Green Wind (taking the form of a gentleman in a green jacket), who invites her on an adventure, implying that her help is needed in Fairyland. The new Marquess is unpredictable and fickle, and also not much older than September. Only September can retrieve a talisman the Marquess wants from the enchanted woods, and if she doesn’t . . . then the Marquess will make life impossible for the inhabitants of Fairyland. September is already making new friends, including a book-loving Wyvern and a mysterious boy named Saturday. With exquisite illustrations by acclaimed artist Ana Juan, Fairyland lives up to the sensation it created when the author first posted it online. For readers of all ages who love the charm of Alice in Wonderland and the soul of The Golden Compass, here is a reading experience unto itself: unforgettable, and so very beautiful.
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There (Fairyland, #2)
Catherynne M. Valente
September has longed to return to Fairyland after her first adventure there. And when she finally does, she learns that its inhabitants have been losing their shadows—and their magic—to the world of Fairyland Below. This underworld has a new ruler: Halloween, the Hollow Queen, who is September's shadow. And Halloween does not want to give Fairyland's shadows back.
Fans of Valente's bestselling, first Fairyland book will revel in the lush setting, characters, and language of September's journey, all brought to life by fine artist Ana Juan. Readers will also welcome back good friends Ell, the Wyverary, and the boy Saturday. But in Fairyland Below, even the best of friends aren't always what they seem. . . .
The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home (Fairyland, #5)
Catherynne M. Valente
This final book in the New York Times-bestselling Fairyland series finds September accidentally crowned the Queen of Fairyland. But there are others who believe they have a fair and good claim on the throne, so there is a Royal Race--whoever wins will seize the crown.
Along the way, beloved characters including the Wyverary, A-Through-L, the boy Saturday, the changelings Hawthorn and Tamburlaine, the wombat Blunderbuss, and the gramophone Scratch are caught up in the madness. And September's parents have crossed the universe to find their daughter.
Who will win? What will become of September, Saturday, and A-Through-L? The answers will surprise you, and are as bewitching and bedazzling as fans of this series by Catherynne M. Valente have come to expect.
The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland - For a Little While (Fairyland, #0.5)
Catherynne M. Valente
This original short story tells the tale of how a girl named Mallow defeated King Goldmouth with the help of the Red Wind, Mr. Map, and many fairyland friends new and old--from Catherynne M. Valente, author of the children's fantasy sensation The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two (Fairyland, #3)
Catherynne M. Valente
September misses Fairyland and her friends Ell, the Wyverary, and the boy Saturday. She longs to leave the routines of home, and embark on a new adventure. Little does she know that this time, she will be spirited away to the moon, reunited with her friends, and find herself faced with saving Fairyland from a moon-Yeti with great and mysterious powers.
Here is another rich, beautifully told, wisely humorous and passionately layered book from New York Times bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente.
The Glass Town Game
Catherynne M. Valente
A Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner “Dazzling.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) Charlotte and Emily Brontë enter a fantasy world that they invented in order to rescue their siblings in this “lovely, fanciful” (Booklist, starred review) novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.Inside a small Yorkshire parsonage, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne Brontë have invented a game called Glass Town, where their toy soldiers fight Napoleon and no one dies. This make-believe land helps the four escape from a harsh Charlotte and Emily are being sent away to a dangerous boarding school. But then something incredible a train whisks them all away to a real Glass Town, and the children trade the moors for a wonderland all their own. This is their Glass Town…almost. Their Napoleon never rode into battle on a fire-breathing porcelain rooster. And the soldiers can die; wars are fought over a potion that raises the dead, a potion Anne would very much like to bring back to England. But returning is out of the question—Charlotte will never go back to that horrible school. Together the Brontë siblings must battle their own imaginations in this magical celebration of authorship, creativity, and classic literature from award-winning author Catherynne M. Valente.
The Habitation of the Blessed (A Dirge for Prester John, #1)
Catherynne M. Valente
This is the story of a place that never was: the kingdom of Prester John, the utopia described by an anonymous, twelfth-century document which captured the imagination of the medieval world and drove hundreds of lost souls to seek out its secrets, inspiring explorers, missionaries, and kings for centuries. But what if it were all true? What if there was such a place, and a poor, broken priest once stumbled past its borders, discovering, not a Christian paradise, but a country where everything is possible, immortality is easily had, and the Western world is nothing but a dim and distant dream?
Brother Hiob of Luzerne, on missionary work in the Himalayan wilderness on the eve of the eighteenth century, discovers a village guarding a miraculous tree whose branches sprout books instead of fruit. These strange books chronicle the history of the kingdom of Prester John, and Hiob becomes obsessed with the tales they tell. The Habitation of the Blessed recounts the fragmented narratives found within these living volumes, revealing the life of a priest named John, and his rise to power in this country of impossible richness. John's tale weaves together with the confessions of his wife Hagia, a blemmye--a headless creature who carried her face on her chest--as well as the tender, jeweled nursery stories of Imtithal, nanny to the royal family.
The Labyrinth
Catherynne M. Valente
Here Monsters are hidden ...
A lyrical anti-quest through a conscious maze without center, borders, or escape--a dark pilgrim's progress through a landscape of vicious Angels, plague houses, crocodile-prophets, tragic chess-sets, and the mind of an unraveling woman, driven on by the mocking guide who seeks to destroy as much as save.
Enter the world of the Labyrinth, where Doors do not wait to be opened, but hunt you in the night. This is Zarathustra in Wonderland, a puzzle which defies solution, a twisted path through language and madness...
But where will you hide?
The Melancholy of Mechagirl
Catherynne M. Valente
Science fiction and fantasy stories about Japan by the multiple-award winning author and New York Times best seller Catherynne M. Valente. A collection of some of Catherynne Valente's most admired stories, including the Hugo Award-nominated novella "Silently and Very Fast" and the Locus Award finalist "13 Ways of Looking at Space/Time," with a brand-new long story to anchor the collection.
Contents:
The Melancholy of Mechagirl (2011) poem
Ink, Water, Milk (2013)
Fifteen Panels Depicting the Sadness of the Baku and the Jotai (2010)
Ghosts of Gunkanjima (2005)
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time (2010)
One Breath, One Stroke (2012)
Story No. 6 (2013)
Fade to White (2012)
The Emperor of Tsukayama Park (2005) poem
Killswitch (2007)
Memoirs of a Girl Who Failed to Be Born from a Peach (2005) poem
The Girl with Two Skins (2008) poem
Silently and Very Fast (2011)
The Past Is Red
Catherynne M. Valente
Catherynne M. Valente, the bestselling and award-winning creator of Space Opera and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland returns with The Past is Red, the enchanting, dark, funny, angry story of a girl who made two terrible mistakes: she told the truth and she dared to love the world.The future is blue. Endless blue...except for a few small places that float across the hot, drowned world left behind by long-gone fossil fuel-guzzlers. One of those patches is a magical place called Garbagetown.
Tetley Abednego is the most beloved girl in Garbagetown, but she's the only one who knows it. She's the only one who knows a lot of things: that Garbagetown is the most wonderful place in the world, that it's full of hope, that you can love someone and 66% hate them all at the same time.
But Earth is a terrible mess, hope is a fragile thing, and a lot of people are very angry with her. Then Tetley discovers a new friend, a terrible secret, and more to her world than she ever expected.
The Refrigerator Monologues
Catherynne M. Valente
The lives of six female superheroes and the girlfriends of superheroes. A ferocious riff on women in superhero comics.
A series of linked stories from the points of view of the wives and girlfriends of superheroes, female heroes, and anyone who’s ever been “refrigerated”: comic book women who are killed, raped, brainwashed, driven mad, disabled, or had their powers taken so that a male superhero’s storyline will progress.
The Sin of America
Catherynne M. Valente
Archived: Does not meet catalog guidelines
What the Dragon Said: A Love Story
Catherynne M. Valente
Free online poetry.
Tor.com is celebrating National Poetry Month by featuring science fiction and fantasy poetry from a variety of SFF authors. You’ll find classic works, hidden gems, and new commissions featured on the site throughout the month. Bookmark the Poetry Month index for easy reading.
On this Saturday we’re featuring a new composition from Catherynne M. Valente, “What the Dragon Said: A Love Story.”
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