A Limited Edition Slipcase Set containing signed hardbacks of the four independent novellas that comprise the 'Strange Tales' quartet: four tales of weird science fiction and off-kilter fantasy from four master storytellers. Set 4: Strange Tales 1. Ghost Frequencies – Gary Gibson 2. The Lake Boy – Adam Roberts 3. Matryoshka – Ricardo Pinto 4. The Land of Somewhere Safe – Hal Duncan
Gary Gibson – Ghost Frequencies Susan MacDonald knows she’s close to perfecting a revolutionary new form of instantaneous communication, but unless she makes a breakthrough soon her project will be shut down. Do the odd sounds – snatches of random conversation and even music – that are hampering her experiments represent the presence of ‘ghosts’ as some claim, deliberate sabotage as suggested by others, or is there a more sinister explanation?
Adam Roberts – The Lake Boy Cynthia lives in a lakeside parish in Cumbria, where none suspect her blemished past. Then a ghostly scar-faced boy starts to appear to her and strange lights manifest over Blaswater. What of the astromomer Mr Sales, who comes to study the lights but disappears, presumed drowned, only to be found wandering naked days later with a fanciful tale of being ‘hopped’ into the sky and held within a brass-walled room? What of married mother of two Eliza, who sets Cynthia’s heart so aflutter?
Ricardo Pinto – Matryoshka Lost in Venice in the aftermath of the war, Cherenkov just wants to put his head down somewhere and sleep, but her copper hair snares his eye. She leads him to Eborius, a baroque land lost in time, and takes him on a pilgrimage across Sargasso seas in search of the Old Man, who dwells on an island where time follows its own rules. Last of his kind, the Old Man is the only being alive who may hold the answers Cherenkov craves.
Hal Duncan – The Land of Somewhere Safe The Land of Somewhere Safe: where things go when you think, “I must put this somewhere safe,” and then can never find them again. The Scruffians: street waifs Fixed by the Stamp to provide immortal slave labour. But now they’ve nicked the Stamp and burned down the Institute that housed it, preventing any more of their number being exploited. Hounded by occultish Nazi spies and demons, they leave the Blitz behind in search of somewhere safe to stow it…
The slipcase is limited to just 52 lettered sets (A - Z, AA - ZZ)
Each slipcase features Ben Baldwin's combined artwork as a wraparound.
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