In a magnificent and daring new novel that triumphantly blends fact and fiction, Jack Dann offers his own thrilling secret history of a lost year in Leonardo da Vinci's life. He begins with a wildly imaginative bit of speculation: What if Leonardo, who was obsessed with flight and who conceived brilliant blueprints for the first flying machines, didn't stop with his designs? What if, during that missing year, he actually built and flew his marvelous machine... five hundred years before the Wright brothers legendary flight at Kitty Hawk?

This unforgettable, magical novel takes for its premise an inspired bit of speculation based firmly in history: Leonardo da Vinci's conception of a marvelous flying machine. Set against the colorful backdrop of Italy and Persia in the 1400s, The Memory Cathedral masterfully calls forth a dazzling era when magic and science were one and the same.

With The Rebel , acclaimed award-winning author Jack Dann pulls James Dean from the twisted wreckage and offers him a second chance to make an indelible mark on his art, his culture, and his time in an era of profound change and devastating social upheaval. Surviving the horrific crash that leaves him permanently scarred, both physically and emotionally, the haunted, brooding, and complex young star finds himself charged with a feeling of responsibility to do "something wonderful and important." Yet for Jimmy Dean, the glory road will be winding and broken, littered with the detritus of exploded dreams and destroyed love, as it passes through the holiest cultural sites of postwar twentieth-century America -- the genius-and-drug pumped world of the Beats, the protected inner sanctum of Graceland, the darkest shadows of Camelot. The lives and futures of Kerouac, Sinatra, Elvis, and the Kennedys will all be touched by him -- yet perhaps none so deeply as the fragile sex goddess who will always be his greatest burden and true soul mate, a dazzling and tragically lost phenomenon named Marilyn -- as he moves toward an astonishing destiny that will reconfigure the world. Ingeniously blending historical fact with brilliant invention, The Rebel is a hip, fast, and mesmerizing ride through the fifties and sixties -- an unforgettable road trip across a nation with an American legend at the wheel.

From the critically acclaimed author ofThe Memory Cathedralcomes perhaps the most powerful, haunting, and unforgettable novel of the Civil War--or any war--ever written. Provocative, poetic, and disturbing, it introduces us to a young narrator, Mundy McDowell, whose voice rivals any in literature, bringing poignantly to life the surreal horrors of battle and its spiritual cost to human survival. I was scarce twelve the day the damn Yankees invaded the valley. I seen a lot that day I ain't never gonna forget. Men blown apart, screamin' and dyin' all around me. I was wandering in the woods like I wasn't supposed to and wound up right in the middle of the battle. And that's what I suppose saved me. When I got back home the main house was burning to the ground. I saw two men wearin' bits and pieces of 'Federate and Yank uniforms. They killed Poppa right off, and Mother they dragged into the front yard before they killed her too. I reckon that was the day I first got the knack of being invisible. The spirit dog seen me right off, though. He was big and black and smelled like burning. His eyes were like red coals and everywhere he went, it seemed death followed. Him and me, we mostly traveled together after that. I passed through midnight fields of dead and dying soldiers, reeking makeshift field hospitals worse than hell itself; climbed into the mountains where the runaway slaves hid; and walked through towns shattered by the passage of the war. I met a lot of people, some of them living and some of them just memories. There was Jimmadasin, the slave who died on my account, and Mammy Jack, who taught me to see visions; the gallant Colonel Ashby, who let me ride by his side, and, of course, the mulatto whore Lucy, who saved my life twice. Last but not least, there was mad but brilliant General Jackson, who was probably responsible for putting more men in their graves than any other during the Shenandoah campaign. Whether he was a hero or a demon I never did determine, but I wish I had never met him at all. And through it all I remained silent. The power of speech left me the day my parents were killed and I first saw the spirit dog. You see, the whole time I was wandering through that valley of death I was deciding on whether to go back to being human or to become a spirit myself, and that's what this book is all about. From the Hardcover edition.

Following in the footsteps of the landmark collection, Dreaming Down-Under, this new book brings together Australia's greatest fantasy writers and cutting-edge new authors 35 new stories celebrating the wild side of Australian fantasy writing Welcome to the energy, invention and imagination of Australia's finest writers of speculative fiction - from acclaimed international bestsellers to the freshest new voices. ten years ago, Dreaming Down-Under captured the excitement of the wild side of Australian fiction and won a coveted World Fantasy Award. Now it's time to start Dreaming Again ... CONtRIBUtORS: Peter M. Ball, Lee Battersby, John Birmingham, Jenny Blackford, Russell Blackford, Adam Brown, Simon Brown, trudi Canavan, Isobelle Carmody, Paul Collins, Rowena Cory Daniells, Cecilia Dart-thornton, Rjurik Davidson, Stephen Dedman, Sara Douglass, terry Dowling, Jason Fischer, Ben Francisco, Christopher Green, Richard Harland, trent Jamieson, Margo Lanagan, Rosaleen Love, Chris Lynch, Sean McMullen, Jason Nahrung, Garth Nix, Cecily Scutt, Angela Slatter, Aaron Sterns, Dirk Strasser, Lucy Sussex, Janeen Webb, Kim Westwood and Kim Wilkins And including a previously unpublished story from the late great A. Bertram Chandler 'Dreaming Again is at once quintessentially Australian and enticingly other. If you read short fiction you'll want this collection. If you don't, this is a reason to start.' Bookseller + Publisher

Tese confronting and thought provoking stories are written from a perspective rarely seen in literature. Concentration is nothing less than an attempt to describe the indescribable . . . to come to terms with the unthinkable. The Holocaust was so terrible, so far on the edges of comprehension, so surreal, so psychologically cyclonic and horrific in dimension and effect that perhaps it might best be glimpsed through the reflections of metaphor and fantasy. Dann answers the historian Hayden White's call to revise our notion of what constitutes realistic representation in order to take account of experiences that are unique to our century and for which older modes of representation have proven inadequate. And given the historical amnesia that seems to characterize our time, a work such as this is also . . . necessary.