Lawrence Watt-Evans

Timeskip / Charles de Lint -- We could do worse / Gregory Benford -- Prescience / Pat Murphy -- Windwagon Smith and the Martians / Lawrence Watt-Evans -- Miss Carstairs and the Merman / Delia Sherman -- Events which took place a day before other events / Avram Davidson -- What befell Mairiam / Algis Budrys -- Jack Straw / Midori Snyder -- A dirge for Clowntown / James Powell -- The edge of the world / Michael Swanwick.

When her master falls victim to his own spell as a result of a tax collector's interference, young female apprentice wizard Kilisha realizes that she must find a way to restore him unaided.

Tobas had been lucky to find a wizard to take him on as apprentice. But then the wizard died suddenly and unexpectedly after teaching Tobas only a solitary spell, and the youth was too old to find a new master. How could he earn a living when all the magic he could do was light fires?

Working as a check-and-balance team at the side of the Wizard Lord, the magically infused Chosen wonder if his plan to modernize will jeopardize the delicate balance of power and require them to remove him from his position.

One night Ed Smith thought he was having a waking nightmare when he saw a monstrous face at his window, but in the morning his neighbors were missing. The people who later turned up were not quite right, and gradually Smith realized they not only weren't his neighbors, but weren't even human--they were the creatures he had seen ? Watt-Evans has created a terrifying new monster in the classic tradition of Frankenstein and Dracula!

Presents essays, short stories, and poems grouped in four categories: What is a fantasy?, What can fantasy teach us?, What's real and how do you know?, and Thinking on your own, by authors from Isaac Asimov to Patricia Wrede.

"Gregory Kraft could see the ghosts and monsters no one else saw. He could see them. He couldn't stop them." -- Amazon.com.

All of the world is kept in a delicate balance under the supervision of the Wizard Lord. It is his duty to govern lightly and protect his domain...but if he should stray from the way of the just then it is up to the Chosen to intercede. The Chosen are the Leader, the Seer, the Swordsman, the Beauty, the Thief, the Scholar, the Archer, and the Speaker, magically infused mortal individuals who for the term of their service have only one function--to remove an errant Wizard Lord. But the new Wizard Lord has now changed the playing field by neutralizing all magic in his domain (both his own and that of the Chosen) and has successfully killed and/or blocked his adversaries and their challenges to his omnipotence. Sword (now on the run) must work alone to restore order to their fair land and unravel the mystery of the Ninth Talisman--which might be the salvation or downfall of all that is good in their well ordered land.--From publisher description.