Anthology.The.Mammoth.Book.of.Angels.And.Demons.2013.Paula.Guran (73 page)

A blizzard blew up shortly after the plane landed in England, knocking out the airport’s power supply. I was alone in an airport elevator at the time, and it went dark and jammed between floors. A dim emergency light flickered on. I pressed the crimson alarm button until the batteries ran down and it ceased to sound; then I shivered in my LA T-shirt in the corner of my little silver room. I watched my breath steam in the air, and I hugged myself for warmth.

There wasn’t anything in there except me; but even so, I felt safe and secure. Soon someone would come and force open the doors. Eventually somebody would let me out; and I knew that I would soon be home.

About the Authors

Peter Atkins
was born in Liverpool, England, and now lives in Los Angeles. He is the author of the novels
Morningstar
,
Big Thunder
and
Moontown
and the screenplays
Hellraiser II
,
Hellraiser III
,
Hellraiser IV
,
Wishmaster
and
Prisoners of the Sun
. His short fiction has appeared in such anthologies as
The Museum of Horrors
,
Dark Delicacies II
and
Hellbound Hearts
, and periodocals including
Weird Tales
,
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
,
Postscripts
and
Cemetery Dance
. A collection of his short fiction,
Rumours of the Marvellous
, was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Society Award. He blogs at:
peteratkins.blogspot.com
.

Peter M. Ball
’s first published SF story appeared in
Dreaming Again
in 2007, and since then his short fiction has appeared in publications such as
Fantasy
,
Strange Horizons
,
Apex Magazine
,
Interfictions II
,
Shimmer
and
Years Best SF 15
. His faerie-noir novella,
Horn
, was published in 2009 by Twelfth Planet Press, followed by
Bleed
in 2010. He lives in Brisbane, Australia, and can be found online at
www.petermball.com
and on twitter @ petermball.

Nathan Ballingrud
won the Shirley Jackson Award for “The Monsters of Heaven”. He’s published fiction in
Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy
,
Lovecraft Unbound
,
Teeth: Vampire Tales
and
Inferno: New Tales of Terror
, among other venues, and has been reprinted in Year’s Best anthologies several times. His first book,
North American Lake Monsters: Stories
, is due from Small Beer Press in 2013.

Clive Barker
is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, artist, director and producer. Following the publication of his earliest short stories as
The Books of Blood
in 1984, Barker went on to write numerous bestselling novels, including
The Great and Secret Show
,
Weaveworld
,
Imajica
,
The Thief of Always
,
Everville
,
Sacrament
,
Galilee
and
Coldheart Canyon
. The first book of a children’s series,
Abarat
, was published in 2002 to critical acclaim, as were
Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War
(2004) and
Abarat: Absolute Midnight
(2011). He is currently working on the fourth of five volumes for the series. As a screenwriter, director and film producer, he is credited with the Hellraiser and Candyman franchises, as well as
Nightbreed
,
Lord of Illusions
,
Gods and Monsters
,
The Midnight Meat Train
,
Book of Blood
and
Dread
. An accomplished painter and visual artist, Barker has had exhibitions in New York and Los Angeles.

Thanks to classic works such as
The Last Unicorn, Tamsin
and
The Innkeeper’s Song
,
Peter S. Beagle
is acknowledged as one of America’s greatest fantasy authors. In addition to stories and novels, he has written numerous teleplays and screenplays, including the animated versions of
The Lord of the Rings
and
The Last Unicorn
, plus the “Sarek” episode of
Star Trek: The Next Generation.
He is also a poet, lyricist and singer/songwriter. In 2007, Beagle won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his original novelette, “Two Hearts”. For more details on Peter’s career and upcoming titles, see
http://www.conlanpress.com
and
www.facebook.com/petersbeagle
.

Pat Cadigan
is the author of numerous acclaimed short stories and five novels. Her first novel,
Mindplayers
, was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award, and her second and third novels –
Synners
and
Fools
– both won the Arthur C. Clarke

Award. Her collection,
Patterns
, was honoured with the Locus Award. Cadigan’s work has also been nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula awards. The author lived in Kansas City for many years, but has resided in London, England since 1996.

Sam Cameron
is the author of a young adult mystery series set in the Florida Keys that includes
Mystery of the Tempest
, a finalist for ForeWord Book of the Year. Other books in that series include
The Secret of Othello
and
The Missing Juliet
. Her work has appeared in several anthologies for GLBTQ audiences, including
Speaking Out
,
The Boys of Summer
and
Women of the Dark Streets.
Visit her at fi
sherkey.wordpress.com
.

A born and bred New Yorker,
Suzy McKee Charnas
served in the Peace Corps as a teacher in Nigeria, taught high school, and wrote curriculum for a drug abuse treatment program. She married in 1969, and she and her husband went to live in New Mexico where she began writing science fiction and fantasy full time. Her books and stories have won her various awards over the years, and a play made from her best-known novel,
The Vampire Tapestry
, has been staged on both coasts. She lectures and teaches about fantasy, SF and fiction-writing whenever she gets a chance to. Her website is
www.suzymckeecharnas.com
.

Neil Gaiman
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of novels
Neverwhere
,
Stardust
,
American Gods
,
Coraline
,
Anansi Boys
,
The Graveyard Book
and (with Terry Pratchett)
Good Omen
s; the Sandman series of graphic novels; and the story collections
Smoke and Mirrors
and
Fragile Things
. He has won numerous literary awards including the Hugo, the Nebula, the World Fantasy, and the Stoker Awards, as well as the Newbery medal.

Tanya Huff
lives in rural Ontario and loves country life. A prolific author, her work includes many short stories, five fantasy series and a science fiction series. One of these, her Blood Books series, featuring detective Vicki Nelson, was adapted for television under the title
Blood Ties
(writing the ninth episode allowed her to finally use her degree in Radio and Television Arts). Her most recent novel is
The Wild Ways
. When not writing, she practises her guitar and spends too much time online. Her blog is:
andpuff.livejournal.com
.

Caitlín R. Kiernan
is the author of several novels, including the award-winning
Threshold
,
Daughter of Hounds
,
The Red Tree
,
The Drowning Girl
and, most recently (writing as Kathleen Tierney),
Blood Oranges.
Her short fiction has been collected in
Tales of Pain and Wonder
;
From Weird and Distant Shores
;
To Charles Fort, with Love
;
Alabaster
;
A is for Alien;
and
The Ammonite Violin & Others
. Her erotica has been collected in two volumes,
Frog Toes and Tentacles
and
Tales from the Woeful Platypus
. Subterranean Press published a retrospective of her early writing,
Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (Volume One)
in 2011 and collection
Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart
in 2012. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island with her partner, Kathryn.

Jay Lake
lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works on numerous writing and editing projects. His most recent books in traditional print are
Kalimpura
from Tor Books, and
Love In the Time of Metal and Flesh
from Prime Books. His short fiction appears regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay is a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. Jay can be reached via his website at
www.jlake.com
or
www.twitter.com/jay_lake
.

Tanith Lee
has written and published 78 novels, 13 collections and around 300 short stories, ranging through SF, Fantasy, Horror, YA, Contemporary, plus Gay/Lesbian and Detective fiction. She has also won, or been short-listed for, many awards. In 2009, she was made a Grand Master of Horror. She lives on the Sussex Weald close to the sea, with her husband, writer/artist John Kaiine, and under the iron paw of two tuxedo cats.

Charles de Lint
is a full-time writer and musician who presently makes his home in Ottawa, Canada, with his wife MaryAnn Harris. His most recent books are
Under My Skin
(Razorbill Canada, 2012;
Amazon.com
for the rest of the world) and
Eyes Like Leaves
(Tachyon Press, 2012). His first album
Old Blue Truck
came out in early 2011. For more information about his work, visit his website at
www.charlesdelint.com
. He’s also on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Now a #1
New York Times
bestselling author,
George R. R. Martin
sold his first story in 1971 and has been writing professionally ever since. He spent ten years in Hollywood as a writer-producer, working on
The Twilight Zone
,
Beauty and the Beast
and various feature films and television pilots that were never made. Martin also edited the Wild Cards series, fifteen novels written by teams of authors. In the mid-1990s he returned to prose, and began work on his epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. In April 2011, HBO premiered its adaptation of the first of that series,
A Game of Thrones
, and he was named as one of
Time
’s most influential people of the year.
A Dance With Dragons
, the fifth A Song of Ice and Fire book, was published in 2011. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his wife Parris.

Sarah Monette
grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, one of the three secret cities of the Manhattan Project, and now lives in a 106-year-old house in the Upper Midwest with a great many books, two cats, one grand piano and one husband. Her PhD diploma (English Literature, 2004) hangs in the kitchen. She has published six novels and more than forty short stories (some of each in collaboration with Elizabeth Bear). Some of her Kyle Murchison Booth stories have been collected in
The Bone Key
; some of other short fiction in
Somewhere Beneath Those Waves
. Her next novel,
The Goblin Emperor
, will come out from Tor under the pen name Katherine Addison. Visit her online at
www.sarahmonette.com
.

Joyce Carol Oates
published her first book in 1963 and has since published over fifty novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry and non-fiction. Her novel
them
(1969) won the National Book Award, and her novels
Black Water
(1992),
What I Lived For
(1994), and
Blonde
(2000) were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Oates is the Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor in the Humanities with the Program in Creative Writing at Princeton University, where she has taught since 1978. Among her many honours are the PEN Center USA Award for Lifetime Achievement, Mailer Prize for Lifetime Achievement, Howard T. Behrman Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities, National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Lifetime Achievement in American Literature, and Bram Stoker Award for Life Achievement.

Richard Parks
’s fiction has appeared in such diverse places as
Asimov’s Science Fiction
,
Realms of Fantasy
,
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet
,
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
,
Weird Tales
and numerous anthologies, including
Year’s Best Fantasy
and
Fantasy: The Best of the Year
. He’s been a finalist for both the World Fantasy Award and the Mythopoeic Award. His second novel,
To Break the Demon Gate
, is due out from PS Publishing in 2013. A collection of his Lord Yamada stories,
Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter
, is also slated for publication in 2013 by Prime Books. You can find his blog at
www.richardparks.com
.