Plunged into the Roaring Twenties for the Arkham Horror titles Mask of Silver and its sequels The Deadly Grimoire and The Bootlegger's Dance. A new sequence begins with The Nightmare Quest of April May and The Arcane Gamble of Harvey Waltersin 2025. I've written novels set in the Forgotten Realms, City of the Dead and Crypt of the Moaning Diamond, as well as several short stories and novella Cold Steel and Secrets set in this Dungeons & Dragons world. When not battling cosmic horrors, animated skeletons, and other supernatural foes, I'm authoring tales of Cobalt City, a place of superheroes, super villains, and regular joes just trying to get by. A new expanded edition of Wrecker of Engines and related short stories was issued in 2024.
My other science fiction and fantasy short stories appear in various anthologies. The complete list on my website at rosemaryjones.com.
As the co-author of the Encyclopedia of Collectible Childrens Books, I spent many years collecting and often dip back into these treasures for my own pleasure and entertainment. I currently share my home with 2,000+ volumes, not all cataloged here.
I do enjoy a good compilation of short stories. When I saw that Orson Scott Card had a hand in the judging of the Phobos Sci Fi Anthology that year, I had to pick this up. As promised on the back, it really does encourage one to think about alternatives to the way we do things now, and the way we did things then, and the way we may do things in times to come. And what OSC says in the intro is really the best review for this book: "Science fiction does not prepare you for the future by predicting with any kind of accuracy what it will be. It prepares you to embrace any future by giving you practice at the skills required to recognize change and construct a new worldview that takes it into account."
My favorite story of the collection was RUWattU8. Very clever and twisted... A close second was The Beast of All Possible Worlds. If you get a chance, I strongly encourage you to pick this up. It's a great read for a quiet afternoon.
I'm always going to have a soft spot for this anthology. It was my first fiction sale! And it's been fun to see the authors in this anthology move on to other things.