Tony Earley

A collection of eight short stories: 1. The Prophet from Jupiter 2. Charlotte (selected for The Best American Short Stories 1993 and New Stories from the South: The Year's Best 1993) 3. Here We Are in Paradise 4. Gettysburg 5. Lord Randall 6. Aliceville (selected by National Public Radio's "Sound of Writing" as one of the best stories of 1992) 7. Story of Pictures 8. My Father's Heart (named a Distinguished Story of 1992 in The Best American Short Stories)

The alternate Earth of "The Blue Star" is no home to swashbucklers or soldiers. It's a carefully worked out society, approximating the 18th-century Austro-Hungarian Empire. In this world, gunpowder has not been discovered, but magic works. The Empire centered around the city of Netzigon is corrupt, collapsing, decadent, and basically tiresome. The novel follows the adventures of Rodvard Bergelin, who begins as an ineffecutal, milquetoast government clerk and becomes embroiled in a massive plot to pull the Empire down and rebuild a free society. Great Stuff! Originally published by Twaine in 1952. This is the first paperback appearance, one of the early entries in the "Adult Fantasy" series that [Lin Carter](/authors/OL1813446A) constructed for [Ballantine Books](/publishers/Ballantine_Books).

"Tony Earley's View of the world is from the edge, at the cusp. Which is what this collection of personal essays is about - about how he stands with one foot in the rural mountains of his birth and upbringing and the other in the Brady Bunch's split-level."--BOOK JACKET.