Barnacle Bill the Spacer and Other Stories

This collection by Lucius Shepard, one of the most exciting new writers to emerge in the 1980s, includes the eponymous story Barnacle Bill the Spacer, about an attempted mutiny on a space station, which won the Hugo Award, as well as Sports in America, about a man who finds out just how far he is willing to go when he is hired by a local crime boss to kill a man. In All the Perfumes of Araby a small-time smuggler is granted a vision of the future that compels him to change his life, while Human History is a post-apocalyptic adventure story with a hint of decadence. The Sun Spider is a romance of sorts, with a decidedly gothic twist, while in Beast of the Heartland, a boxer at the end of his career is lured back into the ring with the promise of one last big payoff. And anyone who has ever completely lost themselves in a piece of music will recognise the inspiration for A Little Night Music. Shepard's stories are not just wonderfully three-dimensional characters dealing with life-changing events; they are filled with colours, textures, sounds and smells, as he describes his backgrounds with as much care as a master painter.