Blackgate.com Website Review

Twenty-five years ago oversized trade paperbacks fantasy anthologies were few and far between. Today they’re the default, but in the early 90s, when original anthologies routinely appeared as mas* markets paperbacks, you had to be something special to warrant the deluxe trade paper format. (Nowadays, of course, the mas* market anthology is long dead, but that’s a subject for a different post.) STRANGE DREAMS was something special. In the early 90s Stephen Donaldson was one of top-selling fantasy writers on the planet, with as a result of a conversation with master anthologist Martin H. Greenberg. > We were discussing the basis on which I might be willing — or > indeed able — to pull together a collection, and I quickly > dismissed the traditional anthological fundaments: Historical > Development (where fantasy came from and how it grew); Defense of > Genre (why fantasy is written); Technical Display (how fantasy can > be written); and Thematic Modulation (what fantasy has to say about > X and Y)… once all these bases have been diminished, why bother to > do a collection at all? Taylor has won the Ditmar Award twice. His first win was in 1982 for his short story “Where Silence Rules.” He won a second time in 1987 for his novel BARD III: THE WILD SEA.  He has been nominated for four additional Ditmar Awards as well as an Aurealis Award. “Sepulchres of the Undead” appeared in the anthology THE SECRET HISTORY OF VAMPIRES, edited by Darell Schweitzer, in 2007. The story The great pyramids of Egypt have held a fascination for people for millennia.  In “Sepulchres of the Undead,” Taylor explains that they are not simply vast monuments to the egos of the early Pharaohs, but actually served an important purpose.  After Menkhaf kills a large bat on one of the pyramids, he learns that the pharaohs and their families are actually a separate race from most Egyptians. They