Travellers in Magic: Stories

By Lisa Goldstein

Book Overview

Fifteen stories of ordinary lives that take fantastic turns. Robert never quite feels at home with Cassie's family, a gang of eccentrics including a reptile smuggler, a worshipper of Osiris, and an old woman who believes her photographs can see into the future. When he breaks up with Cassie, she is so upset that she gives him the most terrible thing she can offer: an envelope of her grandmother's photos, which show in detail the path that Robert's life will take. At first, this vision of the future gives him strength--but soon it becomes a prison on glossy paper. A Nebula and Hugo Award finalist, Cassandra's Photographs demonstrates all the power of Lisa Goldstein's imagination. Whether she is writing about shape-shifting aliens or kind-hearted ghosts, Goldstein's fantasies remain grounded in reality, supported by the kind of crystalline prose that takes a lifetime to master. This collection also includes the Nebula Award finalist Alfred.

• Format: MP3 CD
• Language: English
• ISBN: B08ZBJFGBT
• ISBN13: 9798200308538
• Release Date: March 2021
• Publisher: Tantor Audio
• Length: 1 Pages

Customer Reviews

Deceptively simple

Lisa Goldstein has a very unusual style among fantasy writers. She doesn't fall do anything resembling Tolkien's writing style (as many try) or his epic world of elves and dwarves. She doesn't fancify, she doesn't try to make her works grandiose. She refuses to write a series, as almost every other fantasy author does.She enchants instead, but using surprisingly simple language, depicting surprisingly normal-seeming events, and evoking wonder on every page despite. I have heard her work compared to oriental brushwork - the description fits.This collection of short stories is one of the best single author collections I have read. She explores a huge variety of subjects, from the historical, with Sir Walter Raleigh, to the disturbing story of an old woman, neglected for years, chosen by aliens to decide if the human race should be exterminated, to the story of a man, given photos that show his future, in a desperate search for the woman who appears ion one picture.She skirts her personal rule of never writing series' a bit closely, by returning to the same fictional country of Amaz in two stories (also featured in her novel Tourists), but those stories are decidedly stand-alones, each exploring the theme of being a stranger in a foreign country, but viewing that theme from a different angle each time.A reader looking for sweeping action will likely be disappointed; even Walter Raleigh's journey across the sea to seek El Dorado is not an action-adventure, but rather a smart moral dilemma. Anyone seeking intelligence, creativity, truly human characters, and sudden moments of beauty, will be delighted.