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  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  3 The Lanchesters

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  First published in the UK by Robinson,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2008

  Copyright © Mike Ashley, 2008 (unless otherwise indicated)

  The right of Mike Ashley to be identified as the

  author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance

  with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition

  that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold,

  hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover

  other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition

  including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication

  Data is available from the British Library

  UK ISBN 978-1-84529-806-7

  eISBN 978-1-78033-282-6

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  First published in the United States in 2008 by Running Press Book Publishers

  All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright

  Conventions

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any

  means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any

  information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented,

  without written permission from the publisher.

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  Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing

  US Library of Congress number: 2008926372

  US ISBN 978-0-7624-3383-4

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  Printed and bound in the EU

  The following stories are in copyright in the names of the individual authors or their estates.

  “The Dark One: A Mythograph” © 1994 by A A Attanasio. First published in Crank #4, 1994. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Lost Wax” © 2006 by Leah Bobet. First published in Realms of Fantasy, December 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Sandmagic” © 1979 by Orson Scott Card. First published in Swords Against Darkness IV edited by Andrew J Offutt (Zebra Books, 1979). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Tower of Babylon” © 1990 by Ted Chiang. First published in Omni, November 1990. From the authors collection, Stories of Your Life and Others (Tor, 2002). Reprinted by permission of the author and the authors agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.

  “Dream a Little Dream for Me…” © 2000 by Peter Crowther. First published in Perchance to Dream edited by Denise Little and Martin H Greenberg (DAW Books, 2000). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Jack Neck and the Worry Bird” © 1998 by Paul Di Filippo. First published in Science Fiction Age, July 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Senator Bilbo” © 2001 by Andy Duncan. First published in Starlight 3 edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Tor Books, 2001). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Boatman’s Holiday” © 2005 by Jeffrey Ford. First published in The Book of Voices edited by Michael Butscher (Flame Books, 2005). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Fence at the End of the World” © 2002 by Melissa Mia Hall. First published in Realms of Fantasy, August 2002. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Old House Under the Snow” © 2004 by Rhys Hughes. First published in Postscripts #2, Summer 2004. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The All-at-Once Man” © 1970, 1998 by the Estate of R A Lafferty. First published in Galaxy Magazine, July 1970. Reprinted by permission of the Estate and the Estates Agents, Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.

  “Using It and Losing It” © 1990 by Jonathan Lethem. First published in Journal Wired, Summer/Fall 1990. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Charlie the Purple Giraffe was Acting Strangely” © 2004 by David D Levine. First published in Realms of Fantasy, June 2004. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “A Ring of Green Fire” © 1994 by Sean McMullen. First published in Interzone #89, November 1994. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Elric at the End of Time” © 1981 by Michael Moorcock. First published in Elsewhere, edited by Terri Windling and Mark Alan Arnold (Ace Books, 1981). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “I Am Bonaro” © 1964 by John Niendorff. First published in Fantastic, December 19
64. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Master Lao and the Flying Horror” © 2005 by Lawrence Person. First published in Postscripts #4, Summer 2005. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Cup and Table” © 2006 by Tim Pratt. First published in Twenty Epics, edited by Susan Groppi and David Moles (Lulu.com, 2006). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “I, Haruspex” © 1998 by Christopher Priest. First published in The Third Alternative #16, 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Detweiler Boy” © 1977, 2005 by the Estate of Tom Reamy First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction April 1977. Reprinted by permission of the Estate and the Estates Agents, Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.

  “Radio Waves” © 1995 by Michael Swanwick. First published in Omni, Winter 1995. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Save a Place in the Lifeboat for Me” © 1976 by Howard Waldrop. First published in Nickelodeon #2, September 1976. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Banquet of the Lords of Night” © 2002 by Liz Williams. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, June 2002. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  CONTENTS

  Copyright acknowledgments

  Beyond the Impossible, Mike Ashley

  Senator Bilbo, Andy Duncan

  Sandmagic, Orson Scott Card

  Dream a Little Dream for Me…, Peter Crowther

  Lost Wax, Leah Bobet

  Save a Place in the Lifeboat for Me, Howard Waldrop

  I Am Bonaro, John Niendorff

  The Old House Under the Snow, Rhys Hughes

  Banquet of the Lords of Night, Liz Williams

  Charlie the Purple Giraffe was Acting Strangely, David D Levine

  Master Lao and the Flying Horror, Lawrence Person

  Using It and Losing It, Jonathan Lethem

  The All-at-Once Man, R A Lafferty

  Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani, William Hope Hodgson

  Boatman’s Holiday, Jeffrey Ford

  The Detweiler Boy, Tom Reamy

  The Fence at the End of the World, Melissa Mia Hall

  Elric at the End of Time, Michael Moorcock

  Cup and Table, Tim Pratt

  I, Haruspex, Christopher Priest

  Radio Waves, Michael Swanwick

  Tower of Babylon, Ted Chiang

  Jack Neck and the Worry Bird, Paul Di Filippo

  The Dark One: A Mythograph, A A Attanasio

  A Ring of Green Fire, Sean McMullen

  BEYOND THE IMPOSSIBLE

  Mike Ashley

  IN MY PREVIOUS ANTHOLOGY, The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction, I defined “extreme” as those stories that took a basic idea, whether simple or complicated, and developed it to some extreme, beyond what the reader might normally expect. I’ve used that same basis here.

  However, whereas the content of a science fiction story is limited by the rules of science (no matter how much the author may try and bend them), in fantasy there are no limits other than those which the writer himself may impose. So while science fiction is the literature of the possible, no matter how extreme, fantasy is the literature of the impossible, which means it’s pretty extreme to start with.

  And that’s the fun of this anthology. In all of the stories, the authors have taken a fantastic idea – and I mean fantastic in both its senses – and then seen how far they can push it. My one criterion is that they must still be readable stories. I did not want anything that was incomprehensible.

  All the stories here are straight narratives. It’s the ideas and how they are developed that are extreme, and though the authors have applied a certain logic as a hand-brake on their imagination, that doesn’t stop them taking things beyond the impossible.

  The kind of ideas you will encounter include:

  a cartoon character who becomes aware of his readers;

  a world of darkness where any concept of light means death;

  a man who decides to live all ages at once;

  an occult experiment to recreate the Crucifixion that goes wrong;

  And those are the relatively straightforward ones.

  In recent years, ever since the phenomenal success of Lord of the Rings, fantasy has become associated in many peoples minds as relating solely to wizards and elves and dwarves in worlds where magic works. This overlooks that vast wealth of fantasy fiction that has been appearing for centuries, much of which has nothing to do with elves or fairies.

  Fantasy is the most liberated form of fiction. It allows the writer to free their own and the readers’ imaginations and go for broke. In fantasy anything can happen, anything at all. In fantasy reality gives way to the unreal.

  The challenge to the writer is to make it into a meaningful story which the reader can still understand and which could even seem real, no matter how extreme. There are stories here, even the most extreme ones, which manage to suspend the readers disbelief enough that, for a moment, you believe it could happen. And that’s one of the pleasures of fantasy. For that moment as the story engulfs you, you can live in the world of the impossible. Masters of fantasy in the past have included H G Wells, John Collier, Algernon Blackwood, H P Lovecraft and Stephen Vincent Benet – none of whom wrote about elves and fairies. However, for this volume I wanted to include stories primarily by the modern masters. Over half the stories have been written in the past ten years. The oldest story is by William Hope Hodgson who was so forward thinking that the story reads as almost contemporary. Contributors include those masters of the unusual and bizarre Orson Scott Card, Peter Crowther, Paul Di Filippo, Rhys Hughes, R A Lafferty, Michael Moorcock, Christopher Priest, Michael Swanwick and Howard Waldrop.

  As with the previous volume I have presented the stories in sequence from the least to the most extreme, so your imagination can expand as you work through the book. Dip in at a later story at your peril! However, in order to bring you back safely into this world the final story serves as a form of digestif, allowing a mental calming down. But otherwise, the brakes are off. Prepare yourself for a wild and exuberant ride.

  Mike Ashley

  November 2007

  SENATOR BILBO

  Andy Duncan

  We begin our journey in what ought to be the relative safety of the Shire. But we are generations on from the days of Bilbo and Frodo and the Shire finds itself infected by politics and politicians. Andy Duncan wondered what it might be like if Theodore Bilbo, the segregationist and member of the Ku Klux Klan, who was a US senator from 1935 to 1947, had been related to Bilbo Baggins.

  Andy Duncan (b. 1964) is a native of South Carolina. He is a former journalist and currently a college teacher who has been winning a swathe of awards since his first fiction appeared in 1996, including the World Fantasy Award for his collection Belthahatchie and Other Stories (2000). His website is at www.angelfire.com/al/andyduncan/

  “It regrettably has become necessary for us now, my friends, to consider seriously and to discuss openly the most pressing question facing our homeland since the War. By that I mean, of course, the race question.”

  In the hour before dawn, the galleries were empty, and the floor of the Shire-moot was nearly so. Scattered about the chamber, a dozen or so of the Senator’s allies – a few more than needed to maintain the quorum, just to be safe – lounged at their writing-desks, feet up, fingers laced, pipes stuffed with the best Bywater leaf, picnic baskets within reach: veterans, all. Only young Appledore from Bridge Inn was snoring and slowly folding in on himself; the chestnut curls atop his head nearly met those atop his feet. The Senator jotted down Appledore’s name without pause. He could get a lot of work done while making speeches – even a filibuster nine hours long (and counting).

  “There are forces at work today, my friends, without and within our homeland, that are attempting to destroy all boundaries between our proud, noble race and all the mule-gnawing, cave-squatting, light-shunning, pit-spawned scum of the East.”

  The Senator’s voice cracked on �
�East,” so he turned aside for a quaff from his (purely medicinal) pocket flask. His allies did not miss their cue. “Hear, hear,” they rumbled, thumping the desktops with their calloused heels. “Hear, hear.”

  “This latest proposal,” the Senator continued, “this so-called immigration bill – which, as I have said, would force even our innocent daughters to suffer the reeking lusts of all the ditch-bred legions of darkness – why, this baldfooted attempt originated where, my friends?”

  “Buckland!” came the dutiful cry.

  “Why, with the delegation from Buckland…long known to us all as a hotbed of book-mongers, one-Earthers, elvish sympathizers, and other off-brands of the halfling race.”

  This last was for the benefit of the newly arrived Fredegar Bracegirdle, the unusually portly junior member of the Buckland delegation. He huffed his way down the aisle, having drawn the short straw in the hourly backroom ritual.

  “Will the distinguished Senator,” Bracegirdle managed to squeak out, before succumbing to a coughing fit. He waved his bladder-like hands in a futile attempt to disperse the thick purplish clouds that hung in the chamber like the vapors of the Eastmarsh. Since a Buckland-sponsored bill to ban tobacco from the floor had been defeated by the Senator three Shire-moots previous, his allies’ pipe-smoking had been indefatigable. Finally Bracegirdle sputtered: “Will the distinguished Senator from the Hill kindly yield the floor?”

  In response, the Senator lowered his spectacles and looked across the chamber to the Thain of the Shire, who recited around his tomato sandwich: “Does the distinguished Senator from the Hill so yield?”

  “I do not,” the Senator replied, cordially.

  “The request is denied, and the distinguished Senator from the Hill retains the floor,” recited the Thain of the Shire, who then took another hearty bite of his sandwich. The Senator’s party had re-written the rules of order, making this recitation the storied Thain’s only remaining duty.

  “Oh, hell and hogsheads,” Bracegirdle muttered, already trundling back up the aisle. As he passed Gorhendad Bolger from the Brockenborings, that Senators man like his father before him kindly offered Bracegirdle a pickle, which Bracegirdle accepted with ill grace.