Inspired by medieval legends about the poet Vergil, who was revered not only as the author of the Aeneid but also as a powerful necromancer, Davidson embarked on his Vergil Magus series in the '60s with the intriguing novel The Phoenix and the Mirror. In this sequel, Vergil answers a magical summ...
Sturm und Drang! ancient god-aliens coming back to earth to raise the people up! it's a revolution, against the Mexican government and the terrible monster-god-aliens who come from the Evil Stars! the Aztecs rise again to commit bloody atrocities! hearts are pulled from chests! battles with light...
I've always found Avram Davidson to be amongst the subtlest of writers. Where other writers will use words like meat cleavers or blunt instruments, Davidson will use them as a prankster might a feather or a surgeon a scalpel. At his best, which is in the realm of the short story, he leaves the re...
Like Malamud and Jackson, Avram Davidson brought a unique level of charm, wit, and intrigue to the short story form. Collected here for the first time are his remarkable mystery tales, including the 1815 investigations of New York's Chief Constable; a sinister lesson in New England thrift; New Am...
The premise of this book is amazing: In the Middle Ages, it was believed that the Roman poet Vergil was a magician. What if he really had been?As you can probably tell, I think this is the best idea for a plot ever.Set in a strange alternate Europe (I am not sure what time period it is supposed t...
The Maze is a pathway between worlds and times. Its Masters know the secret, but decline to interfere. Its Guardians at different levels prevent invasion of one world by the inhabitants of another. But the alien hive-creatures called Chulpex mean to find their way past the Guardians to colonize a...
Ran Loman wanted only to be left alone, to get away from it all. That's why he volunteered for duty on Pia 2, the most remote, isolated world in the Galaxy. The problem on Pia 2 was redwing, a plant used throughout the galaxy as a medical fixative. Redwing grew ony on Pia 2. And lately, less an...
Plot: The starship Persephone has been taken over by Mutineers, and the loyal crew was stuck on the life boat and left. The Captain, instead of going to the nearly planet with the lifeboat and calling for help, goes far afield to a pre-tech culture to try to get back to Guild space and catch t...
Swarthy, hairy, ostracized by others of his tribe, the boy Arnten flees their abuse and goes in search of the Bear, his father, in the wilds of Ultima Thule. Witchery leads him to the Bear, and witchery leads the evil one called the Wolf to catch them both. And witchery helps Arnten to escape, al...
It did seem to him, though, that this, naturally, other course was not taking them at all past Liguria, where in ancient days … so men said … the piddle of lynxes had solidified to form amber: always a great article of trade — Liguria, and the lands of the Franks, and then of the Catalands: where...
by Robert Silverberg Foreword - Starship Avram: A Writers’ Memorial Party by Grania Davis THE FIFTIES My Boy Friend’s Name Is Jello Introduction by Robert Silverberg The Golem Introduction by Damon Knight The Necessity of His Condition Introduction by Poul and Karen Anderson Help! I Am Dr. Morris...
It seemed as though many great rivers, or one great river which had shifted its channel repeatedly, had coursed through the land over endless ages. Eroded cliffs, gaunt escarpments, high and low plateaus and buttes were the up-and-down features of the terrain. Grey gravel crunched under their fee...
But there did not seem to be much pleasure taken in the eating by anyone. Lors wondered, shortly, why guards had not already been posted and the gates secured — or why everyone had not fled inland and upland — but before long this became clear enough, though it never became acceptable, to him. Th...
Stori said, “But that wasn’t oron-tree country.” “No, it isn’t. That’s beside the point. Which is, that that country — and I suppose, sooner or later, most of Tarnis — is being readied for factory-type agriculture. There are other crops beside oron-nut oil. We know who is behind the survey. The C...
Lurching slightly, into each other, as they walked the stinking streets preceded by a surly link-bearer — for not every sullen alley was graced by street-torches in fixtures — provided by the tavern for a fee, which, however small, was yet not so small as the fee he himself would get; and who muc...
Slowly the mists rolled away, slowly the sun came toiling up from behind the two mighty mountains, slowly the morning cookfires sent their thin wreaths of smoke upward to be slowly dissolved upon the winds. Heaps of big brown adobe bricks stood curing in the air, cattle lowed and slowly moved alo...
It seemed to Jon-Joras that there was no longer any skin on the inside of his thighs. His hands were now free, but his feet were bound instead, by a line passing under the pony’s belly. The dogs loped alongside, from time to time looking up at him—hungrily, it seemed. Their eyes glowed red in the...