Setting Suns
BY ELIZABETH DONALD
New Babel Books, 2006
A nightmarish funhouse turned deadly.
A couple trapped in a futile journey through time.
A single baleful eye watching from the deep.
An assassin waiting in a snow-covered tree.
A pair of soldiers trapped between death and something worse.
These are the tales and terrors of Elizabeth Donald, award-winning author of the Nocturnal Urges vampire mystery series. These stories and more are contained in this volume of terrifying twilight tales.
In that space between evening and nightfall, between consciousness and sleep, the moment when the light fades and the shadows take over... These are the lands of the Setting Suns.
REVIEWS
The stories in SETTING SUNS are imbued with a haunting lyricism, bur frequently there are moments of pure terror that arrive like a devastating punch to the gut. Donald?s is one of the strongest and freshest new genre voices out there.
-- Bryan Smith, author of "House of Blood" and "Deathbringer"
Ultimately, the one thing I take away from this collection is the power of love... It might lead to futility and death, but it's what keeps us going, whether giving us the power to save someone from a mad gunman or simply to pack away a demonic - er, defective - teddy bear. The only thing you won?t like about this book is reaching the end.
-- Kit Tunstall, author of the Blood Lines vampire series
It usually takes a lot to sell me a short story, especially when it comes to sci-fi or horror, and extra-especially when stories are tragic (as those genres tend to be). But Donald has two things in her favour: she?s clever (I enjoy a good twist) and her short stories are not strictly bizarre, symbolic, stream-of-consciousness pieces with no point to them. Not to say that none of the stories have any bizarre, symbolic or stream-of-consciousness elements, or that it?s bad that some do (it?s definitely not), but I consider it a plus when I get to the end of a short story and have actually understood what has happened in it.
-- Wolfen Moondaughter, Sequential Tart
Elizabeth Donald delves into the shadows of the human psyche and plucks out the darkest, squirmiest bits fit for the spookiest of campfire gatherings. I had the privilege of attending a reading of hers... and that warmly-lit and cheerful room grew steadily colder, smaller, suffocating as she wove the tales of an unending horror of love, loss and a terrifying car accident as well as the story of a submarine crew stranded at the bottom of the sea... but not alone. If you want some well-crafted and shiver-worthy fiction that will invade your dreams and keep you glancing over your shoulder, get yourself a copy of SETTING SUNS.
-- Sara Harvey, author of "A Year and a Day"
Includes the short story "Wonderland," which won the Darrell Award for speculative fiction.
