Love in a Time of Dragons and Other Rare Tales

by Tanith Lee

‘A time of dragons’ might conjure the image of a fantastical medieval world, with knights dark and light, clever sorcerers and witches, doomed kings and charmed innocents. Love might seem to be very much a part of such a world, where passions rage and honour fires the blood. But the truth is that dragons come in many guises, even into modern times. As does love.

Love and the dragon go hand in hand: the hot fiery breath of desire and the madness that takes possession of the senses; the dragon sleeps within but may be awakened. Sometimes the beast is subtle, sometimes fearsomely overt in its endeavours to control the human heart, to intimidate, to conquer. Love itself can be a dragon.

Even in Tanith Lee’s most fantastical fairy tale worlds and medieval fantasies, the beating heart within her stories reveal aspects of the human condition – its weaknesses and strengths, its passions, its yearning. In this volume of tales, most of which have not been collected before, the author takes up her sword to face the dragons – not to slay them, but to see their stories reflected in the blade. For be sure they each have one to tell…

With an introduction by Craig Gidney

Contents:

Love in a Time of Dragons; Uous; Age; Battle; The Champion; Exalted Hearts; King’s Mage; Saxon Flaxen; The War That Winter Is; After I killed Her; The Demoness; Northern Chess; Sun City; Three Days; The Mermaid.

Genres: Fantasy, Dragons

292 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2019

About the author

Tanith Lee was a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of 77 novels, 14 collections, and almost 300 short stories. She also wrote four radio plays broadcast by the BBC and two scripts for the UK, science fiction, cult television series "Blake's 7."
Before becoming a full time writer, Lee worked as a file clerk, an assistant librarian, a shop assistant, and a waitress.

Her first short story, "Eustace," was published in 1968, and her first novel (for children) The Dragon Hoard was published in 1971.

Her career took off in 1975 with the acceptance by Daw Books USA of her adult fantasy epic The Birthgrave for publication as a mass-market paperback, and Lee has since maintained a prolific output in popular genre writing.

Lee twice won the World Fantasy Award: once in 1983 for best short fiction for “The Gorgon” and again in 1984 for best short fiction for “Elle Est Trois (La Mort).” She has been a Guest of Honour at numerous science fiction and fantasy conventions including the Boskone XVIII in Boston, USA in 1981, the 1984 World Fantasy Convention in Ottawa, Canada, and Orbital 2008 the British National Science Fiction convention (Eastercon) held in London, England in March 2008. In 2009 she was awarded the prestigious title of Grand Master of Horror.

Lee was the daughter of two ballroom dancers, Bernard and Hylda Lee. Despite a persistent rumour, she was not the daughter of the actor Bernard Lee who played "M" in the James Bond series of films of the 1960s.

Tanith Lee married author and artist John Kaiine in 1992.