“Seven Vampires: A Judge Dee Mystery” by Lavie Tidhar is one of a series of stories about an ancient vampire who investigates crimes committed against their own kind by his fellow bloodsuckers. The author avoids the familiar tropes of time travel and creates a truly original work of the imagination. The plot builds to a dramatic climax, with vivid details of the changes wrought by inaccurate timepieces in this strange world. This is an unusual time fantasy, written in a clear, formal style that makes its fantastic content seem real. The boy comes up with a plan to have the chronologist return, in order to follow him to the mysterious outside world, but at the cost of great damage to his fellow citizens.

If they do not run accurately, the effect on the villagers is profound. Every once in a while, the chronologist arrives out of nowhere to adjust the community’s clocks. MacLeod, a boy lives in a town that is isolated from others by a so-called time mist. In addition to this trio of honorees, the website offers two original works of fiction. This month features the first, second, and third place winners of the first LeVar Burton Reads writing contest, presented by FIYAH Literary Magazine and Tor.com. He lives in the riverside town of Bewdley in England.“Seven Vampires: A Judge Dee Mystery” by Lavie Tidhar His work has won the Arthur C Clarke award for the Year’s Best Novel, along with the Sidewise Award for Alternate History (twice), the World Fantasy Award (again twice), the John W Campbell Memorial Award and the Locus Award for the Year's Best First Novel.

MacLeod is the author of seven novels and five short story collections spanning the entire spectrum of fantastic fiction which have been critically acclaimed, widely anthologised and translated into many languages. On travels that will take you from cluttered attics and strange shorelines to star-flung civilisations and beyond, let Ian R. What holds all these pieces together, including the gripping long new novelette “Downtime” and its vision of a near-future penal system, are vivid writing, strong characters and a sense of awe and surprise. From furthest reaches of deep space in “The Memory Artist” to the jungles of Yucatan in “Lamagica,” and from the strange suburbia of “Stuff” to a Vatican where a dying pope awaits deliverance in “Sin Eater,” the worlds mapped out by these stories range far and wide.Īs, from the mythic ancient city of “The God of Nothing” to the post-human futures of “Ephemera” and “The Fall of the House of Kepler,” via alternate pasts and some very twisted presents in such tales as “Selkie,” “The Mrs Innocents” and “The Chronologist,” do the times.

The Chronologist by Ian R. MacLeod