A press release from Fantastic Books:
Fantastic Books is thrilled to announce the acquisition of reprint rights to two more books by Tanith Lee: The Gorgon and Tamastara: The Indian Nights.
Fantastic Books was founded to bring back into print the out-of-print backlists of classic authors that ought to be available, and these two books continue that successful program. They join two other Lee classics: Sabella and Kill the Dead, which are Fantastic’s best-selling books in the UK. Tamastara and The Gorgon are collections of short fiction, originally published in the mid-1980s. As with the first two Lee titles, these new editions will be fronted with new cover art by John Kaiine.
Back cover copy from the original publication of The Gorgon:
“The Gorgon”, a brilliant shocker that leads off this scintillating new collection of Tanith Lee’s tales, was the winner of the World Fantasy Award for best short story of the year. It is appropriate that it gives its title to these tales ranging from horror and the supernatural to science fiction, from the writer who has been justly termed “Princess Royal of Heroic Fantasy.”
Here you will find unforgettable encounters of men and beasts—of dragons and unicorns, cats and seals, virgins and vampires. This is truly a feast of treasures for everyone whose taste runs to a gourmet imagination.
Contents of The Gorgon: The Gorgon; Anna Medea; Meow; The Hunting of Death: The Unicorn; Magritte’s Secret Agent; Monkey’s Stagger; Sirriamnis; Because Our Skins are Finer; Quatt-Sup; Draco, Draco; La Reine Blanche.
Back cover copy from the original publication of Tamastara:
All the magic and mystery of fabled India is woven into these marvel tales of seven strange nights. For that vast land which many have conquered and none have subdued is the home of ten thousand gods and a hundred thousand demons—and the teeming races that dwell on its shrouded plains and marbled cities have kept their mystic secrets.
Only the vivid imagination of Tanith Lee, who has been rightly called “Princess Royal of Heroic Fantasy,” could penetrate the nighted veils of India’s lore. In Tamastara she does so to delight the mind and season with scented curry the imagination of the West.
Here are hidden gods and demonic possession, here are were-beasts and subterranean terrors, here are beings transformed and souls reborn, here is Terror and Wonder. Winner of the World Fantasy Award and the August Derleth Award, Tanith Lee is at her best in this new book.
Contents of Tamastara: Foreign Skins; Bright Burning Tiger; Chand Veda; Under the Hand of Chance; The Ivory Merchants; Oh, Shining Star; Tamastara.
Fantastic Books publishes new and reprint speculative fiction titles in both beautiful, long-lasting print-on-demand editions and electronic editions. Reprinted authors include James Gunn, Tanith Lee, S.N. Lewitt, Michael Moorcock, Mike Resnick, and Norman Spinrad. New titles include Allen Steele’s collection Sex and Violence in Zero-G, T. Jackson King’s YA novel Little Brother’s World, and Daniel M. Kimmel’s nonfiction Jar Jar Binks Must Die. Owner/publisher Ian Randal Strock also edits SFScope.com, and has been a science fiction editor and writer for more than two decades.