"Nothing lasts! The faun sleeps, / Smiling, mute, remorseless." - Ludmila Jevsejeva, Autuna Melodio
In St. Petersburg, amidst an uneasy truce with the revolution, there exists a secret trade in looted ikons. But who are the dark strangers seeking for the Gate of the Archangel? In the small town of Tzern, news arrives of the death of the Emperor; meanwhile a postmaster, a priest, a prophet and a war-wearied soldier watch the dawn for signs of the future. Constantinople: A quest for the lost faiths of the former Ottoman Empire leads a French scholar to believe that the strangest may also be the truest. On the edges of Europe, exiles and idealists meet in a caf© to talk of their hopes-while sinister forces begin to march. These stories, exquisitely told by Mark Valentine, are about individuals caught up in the endings of old empires-and of what comes next.
Contents
A Certain Power
The Dawn at Tzern
A Walled Garden on the Bosphoros
Carden in Capaea
The Bookshop in Novy Svet
The Autumn Keeper
The Amber Cigarette
The Ka of Astarakahn
The Original Light
The Unrest at Aachen
The Mascarons of the Late Empire
Acknowledgments
Mark Valentine's stories have been selected for Best British Short Stories edited by Nicholas Royle, Best New Horror edited by Stephen Jones, The Mammoth Books of Ghost Stories edited by Richard Dalby, and the Ghosts & Scholars books edited by Rosemary Pardoe, as well as for many other anthologies. Along with The Swan River Press, he also publishes with other independent imprints such as Tartarus Press (UK), Sarob Press (France) and Zagava (Germany). His twenty or so books include studies of Arthur Machen and the diplomat and fantasist Sarban, and essays on book-collecting and the esoteric. He also edits Wormwood, a journal of the fantastic.
Industry Reviews
"Valentine is a master at capturing the ineffable in prose, of writing stories that combine a gentle plot, an unusual setting and a character filled with longing to create an effect that describes aspects of the world, aspects of our lives, that simply cannot be addressed in any straightforward fashion." - The Agony Column
"In recent years, Mark Valentine has wisely been carving a niche for himself . . . Where with Aickman the uncanny is communicated through the psyche of the unreliable narrator, with Valentine it is reflected back to the protaganist by the cumulative effect of place and its harboured, half-ignored history." - Mark Andresen, The Pan Review
"Mark Valentine's Selected Stories, which despite its seemingly small size is dense, allusive, and thoroughly satisfying." - Richard Bleiler, Dead Reckonings
"This book is arguably the best 'sampler' of Mark Valentine's highly-regarded fiction. While not every story can be deemed supernatural, they are all imbued with a strangeness and beauty that takes them - and the reader - several removes from what is called realism." -David Longhorn, Supernatural Tales
