Past Magic

The tales gathered here range from slyly rendered time travel to Lovecraftian horror, from alternate histories of theocratic ascendancy and alienated celebrities to a vision of an astronaut lost between universes, from vivid speculative social realism to a meditation on the place of realist art in a world dominated by effortless virtual reality. In the title story, the Isle of Man is a last opulent refuge from the onslaught of climate change, and its miracle-working scientists have resurrected a little girl lost at sea; in 'Two Sleepers', a housewife finds herself transplanted from a drab suburban existence into a slightly but crucially altered domestic idyll; in 'The Bonny Boy' - a lost chapter from MacLeod's remarkable neo-Victorian fantasy novel The House of Storms, appearing here for the first time- the staff of a home for abandoned children confront their own prejudices in unforgettable ways. And in the closing story, 'Nina-With-The-Sky-In-Her-Hair', a mysterious tailor contrives clothes out of a heavenly fabric of cerulean blue, driving subtle wedges between a holidaying millionaire and his trophy wife...


Genre: Science Fiction