This time, I sat next to a pixie girl called Takara, who had pinkish hair and wore a bright pink dress to match. She was the first forest-dweller I had seen wearing jewellery: she was wearing a necklace and bracelet of finely worked crystal beads. When she noticed my interest, she removed her bracelet and held it out to me. “Sophiel, I would be so pleased if you would wear this!”I was surprised by this kind and very selfless gesture; after all, I had not been admiring her jewels with any intention of asking her to part with them!“You’re very kind, Takara, but I was merely admiring your handiwork!” I said, trying politely to refuse her gift. “Mitsuko told me that you make your jewellery yourself. You’re very talented, they’re really lovely pieces, but I wouldn’t want to take them away from you. It’s you that makes these jewels really beautiful!

S’ils participent tous deux des littératures de l’imaginaire, s’ils ont quelques points communs, comme par exemple leur localisation sur des planètes exotiques et la description de sociétés organisées selon des règles différentes des nôtres, la science-fiction et la fantasy n’en sont pas moins de nature très différente. L’une procède d’un retour à la pensée magique, elle est donc régressive, tandis que l’autre s’appuie sur les conquêtes de l’intelligence et du savoir. L’une flatte l’irrationnel, l’autre est un outil de questionnement du monde. La fantasy est une pure littérature d’évasion alors que la science-fiction est toujours en prise, même dans ses projections les plus lointaines, avec le réel.

Oh, what had she done?"He'd startled her; that was the problem. It was all his fault he was lying on the ground, looking rather cherub like, his blond hair curling about his ears, his bright blue eyes closed now, his masculine lips parted slightly as he slept the sleep of the dead.She studied his masculine lips. And thought just how much havoc she could wreak if she kissed him. Served him right for startling her so.Without analyzing whether she should do it, and just because she could, she pressed her mouth against his and gently kissed his lips, meaning only to give a quick peck and that was it.... His lips curved up under hers and for a second, she thought he was awake, smiling at her kissing him....Her thoughts reverted to the kiss and immediately the human faery tale Sleeping Beauty and the prince giving the princess a kiss to wake her sprang to mind. Why ever did humans make up such nonsense anyway?

A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain - a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space .... Therefore we must judge a weird tale not by the author's intent, or by the mere mechanics of the plot; but by the emotional level which it attains at its least mundane point... The one test of the really weird is simply this - whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost rim.

The room was two-tiered,its marble balconies filled with rams and water nymphs in fancydress; a kaleidoscope of colours swayed in time to the beat ofhypnotic music. A concerto of absent musicians, it played only inher mind. The numerous chandeliers with sculptured metal frameshung down from chains, with endless fireflies attached. At the farend stretched a grand staircase, dressed with a plush velvet carpetin deep cerise, and ceiling paintings edged with gold embosseddado rails clung to the walls.Then Eve honed in on herself and saw that she wore a crushedwhite taffeta A-line gown that fit her trim figure like a glove. Herbutterfly mask with floral patterns embroidered in red and goldsilk sat against her pale skin, her reflection like that of a porcelaindoll. A matching shawl rested softly on her shoulders. Everythingwas so beautiful that she almost totally lost herself in the mirror’sreflection."(little snippet from our book)

You truly are the most astonishingly beautiful hobbit I’ve ever seen,” he said, and Tamsyn froze.“Hobbit??”“Um, yes?” he said, and Tamsyn looked down at herself in panic. Her suit had disappeared and been replaced by a straight dress in a rustic homespun fabric of a drab, brownish grey. Her hair still looked the same, she established when she grabbed a handful and held it up in front of her face, but when she scrabbled up and caught a glimpse of her feet, her legs immediately lost their strength again. She thudded back down hard and grabbed her left leg, yanking her foot up to her eyes.It was bare, large and very, very hairy.She checked her other foot as well, hoping against all laws of probability that it would be different, and groaned in consternation when it looked the same as the left one.“This can’t be true!” she wailed, scrambling to get up again. “I’m a hobbit!

Tears fled her eyes as she ran, and they slid into her ears, but she did not wipe them, no, she pressed forward through the many trees, keeping her eyes upon the large shadow that flew forward, almost guiding her out of the woods, but that was preposterous – so why am I following it?What do you mean why are you following it? It’s the only thing that’s putting distance between you and those...monsters back there!But what about Lord Delacroix?What the devil about him?He tried to keep you safe – he truly did attempt to save you—And what did that get him? Crushed by a damned Lycan – again!But I should still go back to save him....I should keep moving!But he’s saved my life – I can’t let him die!Technically, he’s already dead, Alexi....Goddamn it all!Run – run now – come back when you’re safe!Come back? With who?!Help, of course!Where on Earth am I going to find help?!

There aren't many berry bushes where I'm from.""And just where would that be?"His hand paused on a berry like it was a monumental decision whether to pluck it or not. He finally pulled and explained he was from a small town in the southernmost part of Morringhan. When I asked the name, he said it was very small and had no name...."A town with no name? Really? How very odd." I waited for him to scramble, and he didn't disappoint me."It's only a region. A few scattered dwellings at most. We're farmers there. Mostly farmers. And you? Where are you from?"...I took the berry still poised in his fingers and popped it in my mouth. Where was I from? I narrowed my eyes and smiled. "A small town in the northernmost part of Morrighan. Mostly farmers. Only a regions, really. A few scattered dwellings. At most. No name."He couldn't restrain a chuckle. "Then we come from opposite but similar worlds, don't we?

I’m not a boy!” Dashan retorted hotly. “How dare you speak to me like that!”“I’ll speak to you any way I see fit. You are sorely lacking in discipline and wouldn’t know danger if it bit you in the arse!” Ryland looked towards the door where Dashan wanted to go. “Do you have any idea what sort of place that is?”“A brothel?”Ryland laughed so hard his head fell back. “A brothel, he says. My, my, aren’t you the innocent? It is a brothel, but a certain type of one. The men who frequent it are known to have very particular tastes.”“What sort of tastes?” Dashan was curious now. Did Ryland know it was a brothel for men who wanted men? And how did he know? Did he use this place too?Ryland shook his head. “That’s not something the king would appreciate me telling his son.”“Show me then. I demand that you show me. That’s an order.

He's MINE", I howled. "Mine! And I'm his! You knew this when you slunk into our bed. I told you at the beginning, and I thought you understood, well, you understand now, don't you?"He had the nerve to extend a placating hand to me, and I wished so violently for a weapon, I were not surprised to hear the clatter of a knife falling out of the cupboard.I turned my head to the side and spat instead. "I told you 'no', dammit. I told you I'd follow him to the ends of the fucking earth, and I will, and you thought that if you took him, you'd take the way I felt. Well, you can't! Hammer and me - we're twined together, like rose bushes or wrought iron, and you can't untangle us, and if you did, you'd have to break us! Don't you see what you've done? You tried to break Hammer! He's mine! My whole life, the only thing I ever wanted were him, and you tried to break him! And why? So you could have me? You don't care for me!

Remy shot to her feet, eyes blazing. Her hands were fisted at her sides. “Don’t be stupid, Creed.”“What did you say?” I asked slowly.“Don’t. Be. Stupid.”I opened my mouth, closed it. “Why do you even care?” I finally asked.Remy’s eyes shifted away from mine. She was hiding something. “You’re giving up.”“No.” I shook my head. “Giving up would be giving in to the darkness completely. I haven’t quite taken that step yet.”“What’s stopping you?”“What?”“If you don’t care and you want it to be over, what’s stopping you from letting the evil inside of you destroy you?”You.“You need to leave,” I told her.“I can’t.”A low rumble sounded deep in my chest.“Are you growling at me?”“Are you scared?”“No.”“You should be,” I stated, moving for her.

A long time ago, there was a little girl called Mary. Now Mary, she was warned several times not to go to her neighbor’s house. Her neighbor was a grandmother. But Mary hardly listened, so she snuck off one night to spy on her. She tried the front door first, and it creaked open. Then suddenly, she heard a squeaking noise upstairs. She followed it – climbed up the wooden stairs where half of it was already rotten. She heard the squeaking noise again. It was coming from the library. She opened the door and hid behind a couch. She peered out, and she saw the grandmother.” Dave paused to drain his cup of coffee before continuing. My heart thudded so loudly, I thought that everyone could hear it. “So Mary gasped in disbelief as she heard the squeaking noise again, and the grandmother’s rocking chair was not moving at all. Then the grandmother opened her eyes and looked directly at her, holding her gaze steadily and sharply, and then suddenly, BOO!

One day I found him amid large packages from which spilled attractive, glossy paperbacks with mythical covers. He had tried to use, as a "generator of ideas" — for we were running out of them — those works of fantastic literature, that popular genre (especially in the States), called, by a persistent misconception, "science fiction." He had not read such books before; he was annoyed — indignant, even — expecting variety, finding monotony. "They have everything except fantasy," he said. Indeed, a mistake. The authors of these pseudo-scientific fairy tales supply the public with what it wants: truisms, clichés, stereotypes, all sufficiently costumed and made "wonderful" so that the reader may sink into a safe state of surprise and at the same time not be jostled out of his philosophy of life. If there is progress in a culture, the progress is above all conceptual, but literature, the science-fiction variety in particular, has nothing to do with that.

Now, there is a tendency at a point like this to look over one’s shoulder at the cover artist and start going on at length about leather, tightboots and naked blades.Words like ‘full’, ‘round’ and even ‘pert’ creep into the narrative, until the writer has to go and have a cold shower and a lie down.Which is all rather silly, because any woman setting out to make a living by the sword isn’t about to go around looking like something off the cover of the more advanced kind of lingerie catalogue for the specialized buyer.Oh well, all right. The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hun Ling’s Oriental Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a short sword.All right, maybe the boots were leather. But not black.

An ear-splitting screech pierced the silence, followed by another, striking his ears like metal against a hollow bell. The woosh woosh of wind being displaced brought Andrew’s attention skyward, and a glacial gust of paralyzing terror raced up his spine. The creature opened its mouth, and a blazing shaft of fire bellowed from above. Andrew barely had enough time to back beneath an awning for protection. Egnatious and Sebastian dove to the side while Firen sidestepped her impending doom, raising the katana in challenge.The screeching returned, except now the howls were coming from every direction.Firen’s chest heaved. “Did you see that?” she asked, her stormy eyes glinting with rapture and daring as she held her katana out, preparing for the next attack.“Did I see the dragon?” Sebastian asked, hysteria dangerously rising to the surface. He stood and brushed himself off. “Yes, I bloody well did see that enormous, scaly, fire-breathing dragon.