Douglas Smith | Writer of Fantasy and Science Fiction

Summary
Aurora Award Finalist

Collection | 3 novelettes, 97 pages | introduction by Chaz Brenchley
Hardcover, signed by author and personalized as requested
PS Publishing, 2008

“Highly, highly recommended” —Fantasy Book Critic

Impossibilia, Doug's first collection of short fiction, was published by the award-winning UK press, PS Publishing, as part of their "Showcase" series highlighting genre fiction's best up-and-coming writers.

Impossibilia was a finalist for the 2009 Aurora Awards for best long form work. The lead story, "A Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, by Van Gogh," was also a finalist for the 2009 Aurora for best short form work. Another story, "Spirit Dance," won the Aurora in 2001.

With an introduction by award-winning UK fantasy and mystery writer, Chaz Brenchley, Impossibilia contains two brand new novelettes, "A Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, by Van Gogh" and "Going Down to Lucky Town," plus a reprint of my award-winning novelette, "Spirit Dance," the story on which my first novel is based.

From Chaz's introduction:

"There are three stories in this collection, and they reach from van Gogh's rural France to the classic travelling fair to the far lost forest, and from timeshift to shapeshift to the activity of luck. That's range, or at least a glimpse of range, in the grand manner that harks back to Bradbury and Sturgeon and Ellison; that's the freedom that the short form allows, the humming-bird's brief attention at this flower and at this one and at that...

However it dresses, literature has its great themes – love and death, largely – and its lesser themes, and they mirror the natural concerns of life. Which is why, whatever the setting and whatever the mood, Doug Smith's stories turn inward, on their characters. Not always in a kindly way – fiction is necessarily ruthless, or else it degrades into sentimentality – but these are none the less stories that treat with hope, and will not in the end deny it. Dues are paid, and life goes on: reaching, purposeful, intent."

Genre
Collection of short fiction including urban fantasy and science fiction

Reviews
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