A mother struggling to repress her violent past, A son struggling to grasp his violent future, A father blind to the danger that threatens them all. When the winds of war reach their peninsula, will the Matsuda family have the strength to defend their empire? Or will they tear each other apart before the true enemies even reach their shores? High on a mountainside at the edge of the Kaigenese Empire live the most powerful warriors in the world, superhumans capable of raising the sea and wielding blades of ice. For hundreds of years, the fighters of the Kusanagi Peninsula have held the Empire’s enemies at bay, earning their frozen spit of land the name ‘The Sword of Kaigen.’ Born into Kusanagi’s legendary Matsuda family, fourteen-year-old Mamoru has always known his purpose: to master his family’s fighting techniques and defend his homeland. But when an outsider arrives and pulls back the curtain on Kaigen’s alleged age of peace, Mamoru realizes that he might not have much time to become the fighter he was bred to be. Worse, the empire he was bred to defend may stand on a foundation of lies. Misaki told herself that she left the passions of her youth behind when she married into the Matsuda house. Determined to be a good housewife and mother, she hid away her sword, along with everything from her days as a fighter in a faraway country. But with her growing son asking questions about the outside world, the threat of an impending invasion looming across the sea, and her frigid husband grating on her nerves, Misaki finds the fighter in her clawing its way back to the surface.

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.

Jane vuole sottrarsi a un destino infame e per farlo è disposta a pagare qualsiasi prezzo. È una changeling, una bambina scambiata nella culla, rapita al mondo umano. È stata condotta in catene in un universo fatato e guerrafondaio, e costretta a lavorare in una fabbrica di draghi di ferro, tenuti insieme dall’odio e dall’acciaio. Melanchthon è uno di loro, il più maligno e violento, ormai malfunzionante e destinato alla demolizione. Lui e Jane stringono un patto, uniti come sono da sentimenti di vendetta, rancore e voglia di bruciare ancora nella notte. La fuga dalla fabbrica è solo il primo passo, ma è ciò che viene dopo il vero incubo: crescere e trovare la propria strada in una società scomposta, consumata dall’avidità e dalla brama di potere, dalle droghe e dal sesso occasionale, il tutto con i più improbabili compagni: coboldi, fate, goblin ed elfi corrotti che sniffano polvere di fata in club esclusivi. Ma la magia dei draghi di ferro non conosce limiti, e Melanchthon infesterà la mente e il destino di Jane, finché un giorno non tornerà da lei per un ultimo folle volo. Michael Swanwick sovverte gli archetipi con un libro anarchico e febbrile, diventato in breve tempo un cult del dark fantasy. La figlia del drago di ferro è la storia di una bambina, di una ragazza, di una donna che combatte da sola contro la violenza del mondo e contro quel drago che, come un impulso autodistruttivo, non smette di venirci a trovare.