Description
Book SynopsisPraise for Ysabeau S. Wilce's previous books: "This fresh and funky setting is rich with glorious costumes, innovative language, and tantalizing glimpses of history."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review These inter-connected 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. Ysabeau S. Wilce is the author of Flora Segunda, Andre Norton Award--winner Flora's Dare, and Flora's Fury, and she has published work in Asimov's, Steampunk!, and Fantasy & Science Fiction. She lives in San Francisco, California.
Trade ReviewEarly reader reaction: "Reading Ysabeau Wilce is like discovering a new language, dark and magical and far more fun than the one you grew up speaking. Califa and her denizens sizzle to life on the page in all of their blood-soaked, candy-colored glory; Prophecies, Libels and Dreams is a wonder." -- Kelly Braffet, author of Save Yourself "The Republic of Califa differs from the American West Coast in a number of small details, of course: the egregores and praterhumans, the Magick and Gramatica, the peculiar dynastic struggles of the Pontifexa Georgiana and her decadent postbears. But all these are the subtle and minuscule discrepancies of a parallel yet proximate reality, easily overlooked by the casual reader. Where Ms. Wilce shines is in her use of the larger effects--those of tone, style, and voice--which make her world so much richer than our own." -- Paul Park "Ysabeau Wilce is an original American fantasist. Unique in vision, rare in quality, Califa is one of the few truly American fantasy worlds, owing as much to the Wild West, San Francisco Bay and Mexican folklore as to Shakespeare, Dickens and Tolkien. Read and enjoy!" -- Ellen Kushner Praise for Ysabeau S. Wilce's previous books: "This fresh and funky setting is rich with glorious costumes, innovative language and tantalizing glimpses of history."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Table of ContentsThe Biography of a Bouncing Boy Terror! Quartermaster Returns Metal More Attractive The Lineaments of Gratified Desire Lovelocks Hand in Glove The Shavetail
