Sixteen amazing stories, with only four previously published in English, by the award-winning author of The Night Orchid. A lonely astronaut shepherds a flock of artificial intelligences... A human is captured by a wish-seeking fairy... On a hostile world, a small band of scientists must survive the attacks of a lethal vegetation in exchange for the single bud that will give Mankind immortality... A comic glimpse of dinosaurian bureaucracy... Creepy bio-mechanic horror, magical realism, neo-romantic space operas, Orwellian dystopias... All compete to dazzle the reader's eye in a truly outrageous bouquet of stories by an expert dreamer. "Jean-Claude Dunyach and his stories represent the workings of a multiplex engine of creation, its multiple cylinders all entrained in perfect unison, and whirring at high speculative RPMs " Paul Di Filippo. Find out why The Night Orchid was called "one of the most successful single-author collections I've read for some time" (Alien OnLine) and "a definite must read for science fiction fans" (Blether) and Dunyach "one of the most talented imaginations living today" (David Brin).

Arthur Conan Doyle takes Professor Challenger to the South of France to meet Professor Picard, Irene Adler and a horror from the ancient past. ("A treat... read it and grin," Tangent Online.) What extraordinary secrets lie in the weave of an ancient carpet? (Voted Best Story of 1998, Interzone; "particularly strong," scifi.com.) A young boy accidentally swallows a fairy. ("An intriguing glimpse into a different world," BestSF.net; "A disturbing fairy tale," Strange Horizons.) Mysterious cocoons fall to Earth bringing alien revelations. ("Vivid and engaging," Tangent Online.) What do corpses do to other corpses at night? ("Gripping... disquieting," Tangent Online.) In cyberspace all intelligences are edible. ("Worthy of Philip K. Dick," Mauvais Genres.) Fourteen stories by multiple award-winning French science fiction author Jean-Claude Dunyach, including six never before translated. This volume features Unravelling the Thread selected in Year's Best Science Fiction of 1999 and Watch Me When I Sleep included in Year's Best Fantasy and Horror of 2002. In his foreword, David Brin (The Postman, Earth) describes the author as "one of the most talented imaginations living today" and urges: "Feast upon the imagination of Jean-Claude Dunyach."