The Tor.com Sampler
200
The Tor.com Sampler
200eBook
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Overview
Please enjoy these excerpts from a dozen of Tor.com's favorite science fiction, fantasy, and horror novellas and novels from the following innovative writers.
Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys
The Emperor’s Railroad by Guy Haley
Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
Infomocracy by Malka Older
Nightshades by Melissa F. Olson
The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
The Builders by Daniel Polansky
Spiderlight by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Envy of Angels by Matt Wallace
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780765394309 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tor Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 08/30/2016 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 200 |
| Sales rank: | 385,414 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
RUTHANNA EMRYS lives in a mysterious manor house on the outskirts of Washington, DC, with her wife and their large, strange family. She makes home-made vanilla, obsesses about game design, gives unsolicited advice, and occasionally attempts to save the world. Her stories have appeared in a number of venues, including Strange Horizons, Analog, and the Tor website. Winter Tide is her first novel.
A prolific freelance author and journalist, GUY HALEY is the author of Reality 36, the Warhammer 40,000 novels Valedor and Baneblade, among others. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son.
CASSANDRA KHAW writes a lot. Sometimes, she writes press releases and excited emails for Singaporean micropublisher Ysbryd Games. Sometimes, she writes for technology and video games outlets like Eurogamer, Ars Technica, The Verge, and Engadget. Mostly, though, she writes about the intersection between nightmares and truth, drawing inspiration from Southeast Asian mythology and stories from people she has met. She occasionally spends time in a Muay Thai gym punching people and pads.
SEANAN McGUIRE is the author of the October Daye urban fantasy series, the InCryptid series, and several other works, both standalone and in trilogies. She also writes darker fiction as Mira Grant.
Seanan lives in a creaky old farmhouse in Northern California, which she shares with her cats, a vast collection of creepy dolls, and horror movies, and sufficient books to qualify her as a fire hazard.
She was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and in 2013 she became the first person ever to appear five times on the same Hugo ballot.
NNEDI OKORAFOR was born in the United States to two Igbo (Nigerian) immigrant parents. She holds a PhD in English and is an associate professor of creative writing, currently teaching at the University at Buffalo. Her first novel written for the adult market, Who Fears Death, won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. She has been the winner of many more awards for her short stories and young adult books, including the Wole Soyinka Africa Prize for Literature, the Macmillan Writer's Prize for Africa, the Carl Brandon Parallax Award, the Black Excellence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Literature, the Margin: Exploring Modern Magical Realism Short Story Contest, and the Strange Horizons Readers Choice Award for Nonfiction. She has also been a finalist for the Essence Magazine Literary Award, Tiptree Award, a British Science Fiction Association Award (Best Novel) and the Theodore Sturgeon Award. She was also a nominee for the NAACP Imagine Award, among others. Nnedi's books are inspired by her Nigerian heritage and her many trips there. Nnedi lives in Illinois with her daughter Anyaugo and family.
MALKA OLDER is a writer, humanitarian worker, and PhD candidate at the Centre de Sociologie des Organisations studying governance and disasters. Named Senior Fellow for Technology and Risk at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs for 2015, she has more than eight years of experience in humanitarian aid and development, and has responded to complex emergencies and natural disasters in Uganda, Darfur, Indonesia, Japan, and Mali. Infomocracy is her first novel.
MELISSA F. OLSON is the author of the Scarlett Bernard series of urban fantasy novels for Amazon's 47North and the mystery The Big Keep.
She lives in Madison, WI, with her family and two comically oversized dogs.
KAI ASHANTE WILSON's debut novel The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps won the 2016 Crawford Award . His stories "Super Bass" and the Nebula-nominated "The Devil in America" can be read online gratis at Tor.com. His story «Légendaire.» can be read in the anthology Stories for Chip, which celebrates the legacy of science fiction grandmaster Samuel Delany. Kai Ashante Wilson lives in New York City.
VICTOR LaVALLE is the author of the short story collection Slapboxing with Jesus, three novels, The Ecstatic, Big Machine, and The Devil in Silver, and an ebook-only novella, Lucretia and the Kroons.
He has been the recipient of numerous awards including a Whiting Writers' Award, a United States Artists Ford Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship and the key to Southeast Queens.
He was raised in Queens, New York. He now lives in Washington Heights with his wife and son. He teaches at Columbia University.
Author of the critically-acclaimed Low Town series, DANIEL POLANSKY was born in Baltimore in 1984. He was living in Brooklyn when he wrote this, but by the time you read it he might be somewhere else.
ADRIAN TCHAIKOVSKY is the author of the acclaimed Shadows of the Apt fantasy series and the epic science fiction blockbuster Children of Time. He has been nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award and a British Fantasy Society Award. In civilian life he is a lawyer, gamer and amateur entomologist.
MATT WALLACE is the author of The Next Fix, The Failed Cities, and the novella series, Slingers. He's also penned over one hundred short stories, some of which have won awards and been nominated for others, in addition to writing for film and television. In his youth he traveled the world as a professional wrestler and unarmed combat and self-defense instructor before retiring to write full-time. He now resides in Los Angeles with the love of his life and inspiration for Sin du Jour's resident pastry chef.
Matt-Wallace.com is where he hangs out online.
RUTHANNA EMRYS lives in a mysterious manor house on the outskirts of Washington, DC with her wife and their large, strange family. Her stories have appeared in a number of venues, including Strange Horizons, Analog, and Tor.com. She is the author of the Innsmouth Legacy series, which began with Winter Tide. She makes home-made vanilla, obsesses about game design, gives unsolicited advice, and occasionally attempts to save the world.
A prolific freelance author and journalist, Guy Haley is the author of Reality 36, the Warhammer 40,000 novels Valedorand Baneblade, among others. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son.
CASSANDRA KHAW is the USA Today bestselling author of Nothing But Blackened Teeth and the Bram Stoker Award-winner, Breakable Things. Other notable works of theirs are The Salt Grows Heavy and British Fantasy Award and Locus Award finalist, Hammers on Bone. Khaw’s work can be found in places like The Magazine of Fantasy&Science Fiction, Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Tor.com. Khaw is also the co-author of The Dead Take the A Train, co-written with bestselling author Richard Kadrey.
SEANAN McGUIRE is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, Alex and Locus Award-winning Wayward Children series, the October Daye series, the InCryptid series, and other works. She also writes darker fiction as Mira Grant. Seanan lives in Seattle with her cats, a vast collection of creepy dolls, horror movies, and sufficient books to qualify her as a fire hazard. She won the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and in 2013 became the first person to appear five times on the same Hugo ballot. In 2022 she managed the same feat, again!
NNEDI OKORAFOR, born to Igbo Nigerian parents in Cincinnati, Ohio on April 8, 1974, is an author of fantasy and science fiction for both adults and younger readers. Her Tor.com novella Binti won the 2015 Hugo and Nebula Awards; her children's book Long Juju Man won the 2007-08 Macmillan Writer's Prize for Africa; and her adult novel Who Fears Death was a Tiptree Honor Book. She is an associate professor of creative writing and literature at the University at Buffalo.
Malka Older is a writer, aid worker, and sociologist. Her science-fiction political thriller Infomocracy was named one of the best books of 2016 by Kirkus Reviews, Book Riot, and The Washington Post. She is the creator of the serial Ninth Step Station, currently running on Realm, and her short story collection And Other Disasters came out in November 2019. She is a Faculty Associate at Arizona State University’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society and teaches in the genre fiction MFA at Western Colorado University. Her opinions can be found in The New York Times, The Nation, and Foreign Policy, among others.
Melissa F. Olson is the author of the Scarlett Bernard series of urban fantasy novels for Amazon's 47North and the mystery The Big Keep.
She lives in Madison, WI, with her family and two comically oversized dogs.
Victor LaValle is the author of more than ten works of fiction and graphic novels, including the multi-award-winning novel, The Changeling. His books have won the World Fantasy Award, British Fantasy Award, Bram Stoker Award, Dragon Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award, among many others. He has been a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula Awards. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Whiting Writers Award, and the Key to Southeast Queens. He teaches writing at Columbia University and lives with his wife and kids in the Bronx.
DANIEL POLANSKY was born in 1984 in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the author of the Low Town series, the Hugo nominated The Builders, and A City Dreaming. He currently resides on a hill in eastern Los Angeles.
Adrian Tchaikovsky was born in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, and headed off to university in Reading to study psychology and zoology. For reasons unclear even to himself, he subsequently ended up in law. Adrian has since worked as a legal executive in both Reading and Leeds and now writes full-time. He also lives in Leeds, with his wife and son. Adrian is a keen live role-player and occasional amateur actor. He has also trained in stage-fighting and keeps no exotic or dangerous pets of any kind – possibly excepting his son.
Tchaikovsky's critically-acclaimed Elder Race was shortlisted for a Hugo Award, and for the inaugural Ursula K. Le Guin prize! Other notable works include The Expert System's Brother and Made Things.
He is also is the author of the popular Shadows of the Apt series, the Echoes of the Fall series and other works. The Tiger and the Wolf won the British Fantasy Award for Best Fantasy Novel – and Children of Time won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.
MATT WALLACE is the author of The Next Fix, The Failed Cities, and the novella series, Slingers. He's also penned over one hundred short stories, some of which have won awards and been nominated for others, in addition to writing for film and television. In his youth he traveled the world as a professional wrestler and unarmed combat and self-defense instructor before retiring to write full-time. He now resides in Los Angeles with the love of his life and inspiration for Sin du Jour's resident pastry chef.
Read an Excerpt
The Tor.com Sampler
By Ruthanna Emrys, Guy Haley, Cassandra Khaw, Seanan McGuire, Nnedi Okorafor, Malka Older, Melissa F. Olson, Victor LaValle, Daniel Polansky, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Matt Wallace
Tom Doherty Associates
Copyright © 2016 Tor.ComAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7653-9430-9
CHAPTER 1
THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM
Victor LaValle
1
PEOPLE WHO MOVE TO NEW YORK always make the same mistake. They can't see the place. This is true of Manhattan, but even the outer boroughs, too, be it Flushing Meadows in Queens or Red Hook in Brooklyn. They come looking for magic, whether evil or good, and nothing will convince them it isn't here. This wasn't all bad, though. Some New Yorkers had learned how to make a living from this error in thinking. Charles Thomas Tester for one.
The morning of most importance began with a trip from Charles's apartment in Harlem. He'd been hired to make a delivery to a house out in Queens. He shared the crib in Harlem with his ailing father, Otis, a man who'd been dying ever since his wife of twenty-one years expired. They'd had one child, Charles Thomas, and even though he was twenty and exactly the age for independence, he played the role of dutiful son. Charles worked to support his dying dad. He hustled to provide food and shelter and a little extra to lay on a number from time to time. God knows he didn't make any more than that.
A little after 8:00 a.m., he left the apartment in his gray flannel suit; the slacks were cuffed but scuffed and the sleeves conspicuously short. Fine fabric, but frayed. This gave Charles a certain look. Like a gentleman without a gentleman's bank account. He picked the brown leather brogues with nicked toes. Then the seal-brown trooper hat instead of the fedora. The trooper hat's brim showed its age and wear, and this was good for his hustle, too. Last, he took the guitar case, essential to complete the look. He left the guitar itself at home with his bedridden father. Inside he carried only a yellow book, not much larger than a pack of cards.
As Charles Thomas Tester left the apartment on West 144th Street, he heard his father plucking at the strings in the back bedroom. The old man could spend half a day playing that instrument and singing along to the radio at his bedside. Charles expected to be back home before midday, his guitar case empty and his wallet full.
"Who's that writing?" his father sang, voice hoarse but the more lovely for it. "I said who's that writing?"
Before leaving, Charles sang back the last line of the chorus. "John the Revelator." He was embarrassed by his voice, not tuneful at all, at least when compared with his dad's.
In the apartment Charles Thomas Tester went by Charles, but on the street everyone knew him as Tommy. Tommy Tester, always carrying a guitar case. This wasn't because he aspired to be a musician; in fact he could barely remember a handful of songs and his singing voice might be described, kindly, as wobbly. His father, who'd made a living as a bricklayer, and his mother, who'd spent her life working as a domestic, had loved music. Dad played guitar and Mother could really stroll on a piano. It was only natural that Tommy Tester ended up drawn to performing, the only tragedy being that he lacked talent. He thought of himself as an entertainer. There were others who would have called him a scammer, a swindler, a con, but he never thought of himself this way. No good charlatan ever did.
In the clothes he'd picked, he sure looked the part of the dazzling, down-and-out musician. He was a man who drew notice and enjoyed it. He walked to the train station as if he were on his way to play a rent party alongside Willie "The Lion" Smith. And Tommy had played with Willie's band once. After a single song Willie threw Tommy out. And yet Tommy toted that guitar case like the businessmen proudly carrying their briefcases off to work now. The streets of Harlem had gone haywire in 1924, with blacks arriving from the South and the West Indies. A crowded part of the city found itself with more folks to accommodate. Tommy Tester enjoyed all this just fine. Walking through Harlem first thing in the morning was like being a single drop of blood inside an enormous body that was waking up. Brick and mortar, elevated train tracks, and miles of underground pipe, this city lived; day and night it thrived.
Tommy took up more room than most because of the guitar case. At the 143rd Street entrance he had to lift the case over his head while climbing the stairs to the elevated track. The little yellow book inside thumped but didn't weigh much. He rode all the way down to 57th Street and there transferred for the Roosevelt Avenue Corona Line of the BMT. It was his second time going out to Queens, the first being when he'd taken the special job that would be completed today.
The farther Tommy Tester rode into Queens the more conspicuous he became. Far fewer Negroes lived in Flushing than in Harlem. Tommy bumped his hat slightly lower on his head. The conductor entered the car twice, and both times he stopped to make conversation with Tommy. Once to ask if he was a musician, knocking the guitar case as if it were his own, and the second time to ask if Tommy had missed his stop. The other passengers feigned disinterest even as Tommy saw them listening for his replies. Tommy kept the answers simple: "Yes, sir, I play guitar" and "No, sir, got a couple more stops still." Becoming unremarkable, invisible, compliant — these were useful tricks for a black man in an all-white neighborhood. Survival techniques. At the last stop, Main Street, Tommy Tester got off with all the others — Irish and German immigrants mostly — and made his way down to street level. A long walk from here.
The whole way Tommy marveled at the broad streets and garden apartments. Though the borough had grown, modernized greatly since its former days as Dutch and British farmland, to a boy like Tommy, raised in Harlem, all this appeared rustic and bewilderingly open. The open arms of the natural world worried him as much as the white people, both so alien to him. When he passed whites on the street, he kept his gaze down and his shoulders soft. Men from Harlem were known for their strut, a lion's stride, but out here he hid it away. He was surveyed but never stopped. His foot-shuffling disguise held up fine. And finally, amid the blocks and blocks of newly built garden apartments, Tommy Tester found his destination.
A private home, small and nearly lost in a copse of trees, the rest of the block taken up by a mortuary. The private place grew like a tumor on the house of the dead. Tommy Tester turned up the walkway and didn't even have to knock. Before he'd climbed the three steps, the front door cracked open. A tall, gaunt woman stood in the doorway, half in shadows. Ma Att. That was the name he had for her, the only one she answered to. She'd hired him like this. On this doorstep, through a half-open door. Word had traveled to Harlem that she needed help and he was the type of man who could acquire what she needed. Summoned to her door and given a job without being invited in. The same would happen now. He understood, or could at least guess, at the reason. What would the neighbors say if this woman had Negroes coming freely into her home?
Tommy undid the latch of the guitar case and held it open. Ma Att leaned forward so her head peeked out into the daylight. Inside lay the book, no larger than the palm of Tommy's hand. Its front and back covers were sallow yellow. Three words had been etched on both sides. Zig Zag Zig. Tommy didn't know what the words meant, nor did he care to know. He hadn't read this book, never even touched it with his bare hands. He'd been hired to transport the little yellow book, and that was all he'd done. He'd been the right man for this task, in part, because he knew he shouldn't do any more than that. A good hustler isn't curious. A good hustler only wants his pay.
Ma Att looked from the book, there in the case, and back to him. She seemed slightly disappointed.
"You weren't tempted to look inside?" she asked.
"I charge more for that," Tommy said.
She didn't find him funny. She sniffled once, that's all. Then she reached into the guitar case and slipped the book out. She moved so quickly the book hardly had a chance to catch even a single ray of sunlight, but still, as the book was pulled into the darkness of Ma Att's home, a faint trail of smoke appeared in the air. Even glancing contact with daylight had set the book on fire. She slapped at the cover once, snuffing out the spark.
"Where did you find it?" she asked.
"There's a place in Harlem," Tommy said, his voice hushed. "It's called the Victoria Society. Even the hardest gangsters in Harlem are afraid to go there. It's where people like me trade in books like yours. And worse."
Here he stopped. Mystery lingered in the air like the scent of scorched book. Ma Att actually leaned forward as if he'd landed a hook into her lip. But Tommy said no more.
"The Victoria Society," she whispered. "How much would you charge to take me in?"
Tommy scanned the old woman's face. How much might she pay? He wondered at the sum, but still he shook his head. "I'd feel terrible if you got hurt in there. I'm sorry."
Ma Att watched Tommy Tester, calculating how bad a place this Victoria Society could be. After all, a person who trafficked in books like the little yellow one in her hand was hardly the frail kind.
Ma Att reached out and tapped the mailbox, affixed to the outside wall, with one finger. Tommy opened it to find his pay. Two hundred dollars. He counted through the cash right there, in front of her. Enough for six months' rent, utilities, food and all.
"You shouldn't be in this neighborhood when the sun goes down," Ma Att said. She didn't sound concerned for him.
"I'll be back in Harlem before lunchtime. I wouldn't suggest you visit there, day or night." He tipped his cap, snapped the empty guitar case shut, and turned away from Ma Att's door.
On the way back to the train, Tommy Tester decided to find his friend Buckeye. Buckeye worked for Madame St. Clair, the numbers queen of Harlem. Tommy should play Ma Att's address tonight. If his number came up, he'd have enough to buy himself a better guitar case. Maybe even his own guitar.
2
"THAT'S A FINE GIT-FIDDLE."
Tommy Tester didn't even have to look up to know he'd found a new mark. He simply had to see the quality of the man's shoes, the bottom end of a fine cane. He plucked at his guitar, still getting used to the feel of the new instrument, and hummed instead of sang because he sounded more like a talented musician when he didn't open his mouth.
The trip out to Queens last month had inspired Tommy Tester to travel more. The streets of Harlem could get pretty crowded with singers and guitar players, men on brass instruments, and every one of them put his little operation to shame. Where Tommy had three songs in his catalog, each of those men had thirty, three hundred. But on the way home from Ma Att's place, he'd realized he hadn't passed a single strummer along the way. The singer on the street might've been more common in Harlem and down in Five Points, or more modern parts of Brooklyn, but so much of this city remained — essentially — a bit of jumped-up countryside. None of the other Harlem players would take a train out to Queens or rural Brooklyn for the chance of getting money from the famously thrifty immigrants homesteading in those parts. But a man like Tommy Tester — who only put on a show of making music — certainly might. Those outer-borough bohunks and Paddys probably didn't know a damn thing about serious jazz, so Tommy's knockoff version might still stand out.
On returning from Ma Att's place, he'd talked all this through with his father. Otis Tester, yet one more time, offered to get him work as a bricklayer, join the profession. A kind gesture, a loving father's attempt, but not one that worked on his son. Tommy Tester would never say it out loud — it'd hurt the old man too much — but working construction had given his father gnarled hands and a stooped back, nothing more. Otis Tester had earned a Negro's wage, not a white man's, as was common in 1924, and even that money was withheld if the foreman sometimes wanted a bit more in his pocket. What was a Negro going to do? Complain to whom? There was a union, but Negroes weren't allowed to join. Less money and erratic pay were the job. Just as surely as mixing the mortar when laborers didn't show up to do it. The companies that'd hired Otis Tester, that'd always assured him he was one of them, had filled his job the same day his body finally broke down. Otis, a proud man, had tried to instill a sense of duty in his only child, as had Tommy's mother. But the lesson Tommy Tester learned instead was that you better have a way to make your own money because this world wasn't trying to make a Negro rich. As long as Tommy paid their rent and brought home food, how could his father complain? When he played Ma Att's number, it hit as he dreamed it would, and he bought a fine guitar and case. Now it was common for Tommy and Otis to spend their evenings playing harmonies well into the night. Tommy had even become moderately better with a tune.
Tommy had decided against a return to Flushing, Queens, though. A hustler's premonition told him he didn't want to run into Ma Att again. After all, the book he'd given her had been missing one page, hadn't it? The very last page. Tommy Tester had done this with purpose. It rendered the tome useless, harmless. He'd done this because he knew exactly what he'd been hired to deliver. The Supreme Alphabet. He didn't have to read through it to be aware of its power. Tommy doubted very much the old woman wanted the little yellow book for casual reading. He hadn't touched the book with his bare hands and hadn't read a single word inside, but there were still ways to get the last sheet of parchment free safely. In fact that page remained in Tommy's apartment, folded into a square, slipped right inside the body of the old guitar he always left with his father. Tommy had been warned not to read the pages, and he'd kept to that rule. His father had been the one to tear out the last sheet, and his father could not read. His illiteracy served as a safeguard. This is how you hustle the arcane. Skirt the rules but don't break them.
Today Tommy Tester had come to the Reformed Church in Flatbush, Brooklyn; as far from home as Flushing, and lacking an angry sorceress. He wore the same outfit as when he went to visit Ma Att, his trooper hat upside down at his feet. He'd set himself up in front of the church's iron-railed graveyard. A bit of theater in this choice, but the right kind of person would be drawn to this picture. The black jazz man in his frayed dignity singing softly at the burying ground.
Tommy Tester knew two jazz songs and one bit of blues. He played the blues tune for two hours because it sounded more somber. He didn't bother with the words any longer, only the chords and a humming accompaniment. And then the old man with the fine shoes and the cane appeared. He listened quietly for a time before he spoke.
"That's a fine git-fiddle," the man finally said.
And it was the term — git-fiddle — that assured Tommy his hustle had worked. As simple as that. The old man wanted Tommy to know he could speak the language. Tommy played a few more chords and ended without flourish. Finally he looked up to find the older man flushed, grinning. The man was round and short, and his hair blew out wildly like a dandelion's soft white blowball. His beard was coming in, bristly and gray. He didn't look like a wealthy man, but it was the well-off who could afford such a disguise. You had to be rich to risk looking broke. The shoes verified the man's wealth, though. And his cane, with a handle shaped like an animal head, cast in what looked like pure gold.
"My name is Robert Suydam," the man said. Then waited, as if the name alone should make Tommy Tester bow. "I am having a party at my home. You will play for my guests. Such dusky tunes will suit the mood."
"You want me to sing?" Tommy asked. "You want to pay me to sing?"
"Come to my home in three nights."
Robert Suydam pointed toward Martense Street. The old man lived there in a mansion hidden within a disorder of trees. He promised Tommy five hundred dollars for the job. Otis Tester had never made more than nine hundred in a year. Suydam took out a billfold and handed Tommy one hundred dollars. All ten-dollar bills.
"A retainer," Suydam said.
Tommy set the guitar flat in its case and accepted the bills, turning them over. 1923 bills. Andrew Jackson appeared on the front. The image of Old Hickory didn't look directly at Tommy, but glanced aside as if catching sight of something just over Tommy Tester's right shoulder.
"When you arrive at the house, you must say one word and only this word to gain entrance."
Tommy stopped counting the money, folded it over twice, and slipped it into the inner pocket of his jacket.
"I can't promise what will happen if you forget it," Suydam said, then paused to watch Tommy, assessing him.
"Ashmodai," Suydam said. "That is the word. Let me hear you say it."
"Ashmodai," Tommy repeated.
Robert Suydam tapped the cane on the pavement twice and walked away. Tommy watched him go for three blocks before he picked up his hat and put it on. He clicked the guitar case shut. But before Tommy Tester took even one step toward the train station, he got gripped, hard, on the back of the neck.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Tor.com Sampler by Ruthanna Emrys, Guy Haley, Cassandra Khaw, Seanan McGuire, Nnedi Okorafor, Malka Older, Melissa F. Olson, Victor LaValle, Daniel Polansky, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Matt Wallace. Copyright © 2016 Tor.Com. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
THE BALLAD OF BLACK TOM,
BINTI,
THE BUILDERS,
THE EMPEROR'S RAILROAD,
EVERY HEART A DOORWAY,
ENVY OF ANGELS,
COPYRIGHT,
Infomocracy,
NIGHTSHADES,
THE SORCERER OF THE WILDEEPS,
SPIDERLIGHT,
Winter Tide,
HAMMERS ON BONE,
Copyright Page,
Related Subjects
Customer Reviews
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