Nowhere

The Collected Short Stories and Novellas of Ian R. MacLeod, Volume 2

“MacLeod is a brilliant writer.” —Tim Powers

“Ian MacLeod writes like an angel. He strings together ideally chosen words into sentences that are variously lush, sparse, subtle, bold, joyous, mournful, comic and tragic.” —Paul Di Filippo

Welcome to the second half of the collected worlds of one of fiction’s great myth-makers. Blending naturalistic settings with real—and unreal—histories, dark presents, strange pasts and star-flung futures, Ian R. MacLeod’s multi award-winning stories defy easy classification, but are always vividly elegant, compelling, and filled with wonder.

In “The Chop Girl,” a young working at a World War Two RAF bomber airbase discovers the true meaning of luck, whilst “The Discovered Country” projects a world in which the dead enjoy an endless afterlife whilst the merely living struggle to survive, and “The Visitor from Taured” twists a modern urban myth into a tale of one man’s search for a Theory Of Everything, and Snodgrass tells a very different version of the Beatles’ rise to fame.

Nothing in MacLeod’s visions is ever quite what it seems, yet they remain deeply real and involving. If you haven’t read MacLeod before, you can expect to be moved and surprised. If you have, then you need no further introduction other than to say that Nowhere—and its companion volume Everywhere, which features many of his best longer stories—represent a generous and wide-ranging summary of his work, along with many insights into the creative process which are provided by the fresh introductions and afterwords.

Cover Art: Dirk Berger

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

“The Chop Girl” first published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 1991
“The Perfect Stranger” first published in The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy, December 1991
“Hector Douglas Makes a Sale” first published in Hector Douglas Makes a Sale, PS Publishing promotional booklet, 2011
“Isabel of the Fall” first published in Interzone #169, 2001
“Snodgrass” first published in In Dreams, ed. Paul J. McAuley and Kim Newman, Gollancz, 1992
“Nevermore” first published in Dying for It: More Erotic Tales for Unearthly Love, ed. Gardner Dozois, Harper Voyager, 1997
“Tirkiluk” first published in The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy, February 1995
“The Visitor from Taured” first published Asimov’s Science Fiction, September 2016
“Nina-With-The-Sky-In-Her-Hair” first published in The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy, December 1995
“Starship Day” first published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 1995
“Second Journey of the Magus” first published in Subterranean, Winter 2010
“Re-Crossing the Styx” first published in The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy, July/August 2010
“On the Sighting of Other Islands” first published in Celebration, ed. Ian Whates, March 2008
“Past Magic” first published in Interzone, September 1990
“The Crane Method” first published in Subterranean, Spring 2011
“The Wisdom of the Group” first published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, March 2017
“Well-Loved” first published in Interzone, March/April 1990
“The Discovered Country” first published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, September 2013

Published as an eBook in 2019 by JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc., in association with the Zeno Agency LTD.

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eISBN: 978-1-62567-442-5

Electronic version by Baen Books