From Earthsea to Cimmeria, Lankhmar to Markovy, the dozen stories collected here brim with swordplay, adventure, music, and magic. Here there be dragons...as well as wily wizards and mighty-thewed warriors, fleet-footed thieves and flat-footed palace guards, wise witches and fearsome giants, and even a humble storyteller or two. The contributors include some of the genre's greatest writers - Robert E. Howard and L Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, and Ursula K. Le Guin - as well as modern masters such as Phyllis Eisenstein, R. Garcia y Robertson, Ellen Kushner, John Morressy, and Pat Murphy, plus stories from exciting newcomers like Charles Coleman Finlay, Yoon Ha Lee, and Chris Willrich. It all adds up to a dozen peerless forays into the fantastic and a great book for anyone with a yearning for adventure!

The contents are:

• Introduction
• The Hall of the Dead by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp
• A Hedge against Alchemy by John Morressy
• Ill Met in Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber
• Counting the Shapes by Yoon Ha Lee
• Firebird by R. Garcia y Robertson
• Dragon's Gate by Pat Murphy
• After the Gaud Chrysalis by Charles Coleman Finlay
• The Swordsman Whose Names Was Not Death by Ellen Kushner
• The Island in the Lake by Phyllis Eisenstein
• Darkrose and Diamond by Ursula K. Le Guin
• King Rainjoy's Tears by Chris Willrich
• The Fantasy Writer's Assistant by Jeffrey Ford