Tabaea the Thief stole something more precious than Dragons' Blood from the enchanted old house: evesdropping on the doddering wizard who owned the place, she stole the secret of wizardry itself.

While sneaking and prowling and stealing for a living, Tabea witnesses a wizard teaching his apprentice a spell, and she uses the spell to conjure up a magic dagger. Original.

Tabaea the Thief stole something more precious than Dragons' Blood from the enchanted old house: evesdropping on the doddering wizard who owned the place, she stole the secret of wizardry itself.

Once upon a time all literature was fantasy, set in a mythical past when magic existed, animals talked, and the gods took an active hand in earthly affairs. As the mythical past was displaced in Western estimation by the historical past and novelists became increasingly preoccupied with the present, fantasy was temporarily marginalized until the late 20th century, when it enjoyed a spectacular resurgence in every stratum of the literary marketplace. Stableford provides an invaluable guide to this sequence of events and to the current state of the field. The chronology tracks the evolution of fantasy from the origins of literature to the 21st century. The introduction explains the nature of the impulses creating and shaping fantasy literature, the problems of its definition and the reasons for its changing historical fortunes. The dictionary includes cross-referenced entries on more than 700 authors, ranging across the entire historical spectrum, while more than 200 other entries describe the fantasy subgenres, key images in fantasy literature, technical terms used in fantasy criticism, and the intimately convoluted relationship between literary fantasies, scholarly fantasies, and lifestyle fantasies. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography that ranges from general textbooks and specialized accounts of the history and scholarship of fantasy literature, through bibliographies and accounts of the fantasy literature of different nations, to individual author studies and useful websites.

Presents articles on the horror and fantasy genres of fiction, including authors, themes, significant works, and awards.

When the foreigners confronted Sterren in Ethshar of the Spices, he was uneasy; when they all but abducted him, taking him to an obscure kingdom in the south, he knew he was in a terrible predicament. A predicament some might actually find appealing--he was by heredity the Ninth Warlord of Semma, least of the small kingdoms; he was a noble, and his rank afforded him material privileges, even in a place as insignificant and obscure as Semma. But the office also carried certain terrible responsibilities: he was to win the war the stupid King had stirred up by his arrogance. Two larger and stronger Kingdoms were preparing to invade Semma. And if the country lost, the first thing likely to be forfeit was the life of the Warlord. And if it won ... if it won, the fate and shape of Ethshar would change forever. For deep in the south there are secrets of magic not even Sterren can imagine.

CAINA AMALAS is the Ghost circlemaster of Istarinmul, leader of the Emperor's spies in the city. She has defeated powerful foes, but more dangerous enemies lie before her. A sorcerous catastrophe threatens to destroy Istarinmul, and the only the mysterious sorceress Annarah, last loremaster of lost Iramis, knows how to stop it. To rescue Annarah and save Istarinmul, Caina must brave the Inferno, the hellish fortress of the sinister Immortals. But those who enter the Inferno never return...