Synopses & Reviews
* Where did Sinbad Sail?* Who Fired the Phoenix?
* The Boy Who Cried Werewolf
* The Great Rough Beast
* Postscript on Prester John
* The Secret of Hyperborea
* What Gave All Those Mammoths Cold Feet?
And many more--fictional? authoritative? fantastic? deadpan?--investigations into the real, the true'and the things that should be true
PREFACE BY PETER S. BEAGLE
ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE BARR
"Although the wombat is real and the dragon is not, nobody knows what a wombat looks like and everyone knows what a dragon looks like."
Not a novel, not a book of short stories, Adventures in Unhistory is a book of the fantastic--a compendium of magisterial examinations of Mermaids, Mandrakes, and Mammoths; Dragons, Werewolves, and Unicorns; the Phoenix and the Roc; about places such as Sicily, Siberia, and the Moon; about heroic, sinister, and legendary persons such as Sindbad, and Aleister Crowley, and Prester John; and--revealed at last--the Secret of Hyperborea.
The facts are here, the foundations behind rumors, legends, and the imaginations of generations of tale-spinners. But far from being dry recitals, these meditations, or lectures, or deadpan prose performances are as lively, as crazily inventive, as witty as the best fiction of the author, a writer praised by Gardner Dozois as "one of the great short story writers of our times."
Who, on the subject of Dragons, could write coldly, dispassionately, guided only by logic? Certainly not Avram Davidson. Certain facts, these facts, deserve more than recitation; they deserve flourish, verve, gusto, style--the late, great Avram Davidson's unique voice. That prose which, in the words of Peter S. Beagle's Preface to this volume, "cries out to be read aloud."
Review
"Released in 1993 near the time of his death, Davidson's volume offers his take on the factual-or possibly factual-basis of mermaids, mandrakes, dragons, mammoths, werewolves, unicorns, and other denizens of the fantastic." Library Journal
Review
"I cannot recommend reading this book in one sitting, or even three or four. Davidson is best consumed like, well, powdered unicorn horn, or mandrake: in small doses, widely spaced." Los Angeles Times
Synopsis
A new edition of the long out-of-print fantasy anthology offers a collection of inventive studies of the world of the fantastical, covering such topics as Mermaids, Mandrakes, and Mammoths; Dragons, Werewolves, and Unicorns; the Secret of Hyperborea; and the adventures of Sinbad, Aleister Crowley, Prester John, and other unique individuals. 10,000 first printing.
Synopsis
Not a novel, not a book of short stories,
Adventures in Unhistory is a book of the fantastic a compendium of magisterial examinations of Mermaids, Mandrakes, and Mammoths; Dragons, Werewolves, and Unicorns; the Phoenix and the Roc; about places such as Sicily, Siberia, and the Moon; about heroic, sinister, and legendary persons such as Sindbad, and Aleister Crowley, and Prester John; and revealed at last the Secret of Hyperborea.
The facts are here, the foundations behind rumors, legends, and the imaginations of generations of tale-spinners. But far from being dry recitals, these meditations, or lectures, or deadpan prose performances are as lively, as crazily inventive, as witty as the best fiction of the author, a writer praised by Gardner Dozois as "one of the great short story writers of our times."
Who, on the subject of Dragons, could write coldly, dispassionately, guided only by logic? Certainly not Avram Davidson. Certain facts, these facts, deserve more than recitation; they deserve flourish, verve, gusto, style the late, great Avram Davidson's unique voice. That prose which, in the words of Peter S. Beagle's Preface to this volume, "cries out to be read aloud."
Synopsis
A unique work of the imagination returns to print
About the Author
Davidson is one of the most celebrated science fiction authors and the winner of the Hugo Award, the Edgar Award, and the World Fantasy Award.