Naked City - by Ellen Datlow (Paperback)

About the Book

Featuring original stories from 20 of today's hottest paranormal authors, this dark and captivating collection is sure to delight with otherworldly tales of magic and mischief. Featured authors include Jim Butcher and Patricia Briggs.

Book Synopsis

Featuring original stories from 20 authors, this dark, captivating, fabulous and fantastical collection, Naked City, is not to be missed! Edited by award-winning editor Ellen Datlow.

In this thrilling collection of original stories some of today's hottest paranormal authors delight, thrill, and captivate readers with otherworldly tales of magic and mischief. In Jim Butcher's "Curses" Harry Dresden investigates how to lift a curse laid by the Fair Folk on the Chicago Cubs. In Patricia Briggs' "Fairy Gifts," a vampire is called home by magic to save the Fae who freed him from a dark curse. In Melissa Marr's "Guns for the Dead," the newly dead Frankie Lee seeks a job in the afterlife on the wrong side of the law. In Holly Black's "Noble Rot," a dying rock star discovers that the young woman who brings him food every day has some strange appetites of her own.

Delia Sherman, Richard Bowes, Ellen Kushner, Christopher Fowler, Pat Cadigan, Peter S. Beagle, Naomi Novik, Matthew Kressel, Kit Reed, Lavie Tidhar, Nathan Ballingrud, John Crowley, Jeffrey Ford, Lucius Shepard, Caitlin R. Kiernan, and Elizabeth Bear also contribute to this fabulous collection.

Review Quotes

"This anthology of short fiction affords a superb sampling of urban fantasy, that popular sf/fantasy subgenre defined in the book's introduction (which, in all of three pages, is a welcome and helpful, to say nothing of articulate, definition of this subgenre) as a combination of the "often-dark edge of city living with enticing worlds of magic"--with an urban landscape being absolutely crucial to the story. To put it another way (as also expressed in the introduction, that is), "where the story takes place should matter, in some way, to the story." The headliner piece, by virtue of its placement first in the collection's presentation and the name recognition of the author, is "Curses," by Jim Butcher, creator of the urban-fantasy series Dresden Files. It opens like a noir detective story--"Most of my cases are pretty tame"--but by page 2, we see this is Dresden Files fiction as well. The premise is a riot: the famous curse upon the Chicago Cubs has supernatural origins here. "Priced to Sell," by Naomi Novik, is also very entertaining. It's about vampires buying real estate in Manhattan. But you will have fun with all 20 stories." --Booklist

About the Author

Multiple award-winning editor Ellen Datlow has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for almost thirty years. She was fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and SCIFICTION and has edited more than fifty anthologies, including the horror half of the long-running The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. She lives in New York.