And Death Shall Have No Dominion: A Tribute to Michael Shea

Devotees of World Fantasy Award–winner Michael Shea’s work will welcome this tribute volume, a labor of love put together by his widow, Linda, and weird fiction expert Joshi. The entries range from poems to excerpts from his longer fiction, including the epic fantasy series Nifft the Lean. There are enough glimpses of Shea’s impressive imagination to make newcomers seek out more of his writings. One highlight is an unpublished novella, the moving “Credit Card,” in which the lead, Ricky Deuce, journeys to see his cancer-stricken wife, Angie, who has to impersonate her sister to get insurance coverage. A number of talented writers, including Laird Barron and Jessica Amanda Salmonson, share their memories of Shea. The last word, appropriately, belongs to the author himself, in the form of a short meditation about horror in which he lyrically describes humankind as “spinning inside a discus of dust and fire flung out by the first heartbeat of time.” (Oct.)