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This story can be found in The Music of the Night, Stagestruck Vampires & Other Phantasms, and Modern Classics of Fantasy.

Hugo Award winning and Nebual Award nominated short story. It first appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, July 1989. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Mammoth Book of Werewolves (1994), edited by Stephen Jones, The New Hugo Winners, Volume III (1994), edited by Connie Willis, Visions of Wonder (1996), edited by David G. Hartwell and Milton T. Wolf, and The Urban Fantasy Anthology (2011), edited by Peter S. Beagle and Joe R. Lansdale. It is also included in the collections Music of the Night (2001) and Stagestruck Vampires and Other Phantasms (2004).

When her old friend, Ricky Maulders, who is dying of cancer, visits artist Dorothea Howard, he discovers sheis being held captive by the magical power of one of her own creations that she refuses to let go of, and haunted by the ghost of a judge in post-Revolution France. Dorothea insists that all she wants is to be left alone. But then three Chicano teens on the run from the police and a gaggle of summer-school students violently enter Dorothea's life, and she's confronted with all the messy stuff (like "politics") she's always sought to avoid.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Teeth: Vampire Tales (2011), edited by Ellen Datlow. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2012, edited by Rich Horton.

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Omni, September 1986. The story can also be found in the anthologies Omni Best Science Fiction One (1992), edited by Ellen Datlow, Nebula Awards 22 (1988), edited by George Zebrowski and Vanishing Acts (2000), edited by Ellen Datlow. It is included in the collection Stagestruck Vampires and Other Phantasms (2004).

The vampire, the werewolf, the witch, the Phantom of the Opéra--Suzy McKee Charnas brings together four monster-movie archetypes as you've never encountered them before, along with an original Afterword. The rage of a tormented adolescent is poignantly expressed in the Hugo-winning "Boobs." A vampire's sessions with a psychiatrist become a contest of wills in the Nebula-winning "Unicorn Tapestry." Dark magic puts a woman's ugly insecurities on public display in "Evil Thoughts." And a beautiful woman exerts an uneasy control over the tempers of a monster in the critically acclaimed "Beauty and the Opéra or The Phantom Beast." Suspenseful and thought-provoking, MUSIC OF THE NIGHT affirms the vitality of these classic demons of our cultural imagination, at once nightmarish and seductive.

Table of Contents:

• Unicorn Tapestry - (1980) - novella
• Boobs - (1989) - shortstory
• Evil Thoughts - (1990) - novelette
• Beauty and the Opéra or The Phanton Beast - (1996) - novelette

Hugo, Nebula, and Tiptree award-winning author Suzy McKee Charnas offers up her lush stories in this compelling retrospective story collection. In Stagestruck Vampires, the supernatural and the real intertwine seamlessly. A villainous maestro is redeemed by his lovely, apt pupil in "Beauty and the Opera or The Phantom Beast." Inside the "Unicorn Tapestry," a psychotherapist stalks a vampire. A dazzling performance of Tosca is marred by a shocking murder during "A Musical Interlude."

This collection features original work by Charnas--the mystical novelette, "Peregrines," and two original essays. Also included is a collaborative story on vampire themes, "Advocates," written with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, author of the Saint-Germain Chronicles.

"I am woven through your past, as you are through mine--and both of us through theirs, the sea-peoples'." Hugo- and Nebula Award-winner Charnas has written a book about humans, her own past, and how our lives have always been intertwined with the creatures of the seas. "Strange Seas" is Charnas' first nonfiction book, and her first e-book. An investigation into personal questions about herself and her writing grew to encompass not just her past, but the pasts of all of us. "I saw a lot of closed doors inside the house of myself, labeled 'I don't care,' 'I don't know,' and--the majority--'I don't remember.' But one stood open, the one that Miriam's words had unlatched and flung wide--'I don't believe.' There was no denying what lay beyond. The whales had souls, and I had been a killer of whales."

This short story originally appeared in Omni, February 1979. It can also be found in the anthologies Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year: Ninth Annual Collection (1980), edited by Gardner Dozois, Fantasy Annual III (1981), edited by Terry Carr, and The Fourth Omni Book of Science Fiction (1985), editd by Ellen Datlow. The story would later be incorporated in the novel The Vampire Tapestry (1980).

Winner of the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature.

Amy, brooding on a family crisis, retreats to Central Park--from the frying pan straight into the fire! Out of her past swoops her old arch-enemy Kevin Malone, the neighborhood punk who used to bully her. Angrily chasing him now through an arched passage under a park roadway, she emerges into another world. Kevin's feverish imagination has transformed Central Park into the Fayre Farre, a land of danger, magic, and heroic adventure. Here, among castles, elves, monsters, wild men, battles, and prophecies, Kevin is a Prince and a legendary champion. He's also still a self-centered jerk with a chip on his shoulder, and he's lost control of his magnificent creation: chaos and destruction are sweeping the land. Despite Kevin's bravado, Amy sees that he desperately needs her help. Will she risk her life in such a thankless job, or just leave him to sort out his own mess? And either way, where will that leave her?

Edward Weyland is far from your average vampire: not only is he a respected anthropology professor but his condition is biological — rather than supernatural. He lives discrete lifetimes bounded by decades of hibernation and steals blood from labs rather than committing murder. Weyland is a monster who must form an uneasy empathy with his prey in order to survive, and The Vampire Tapestry is a story wholly unlike any you've heard before.

Nebula Award winning and World Fantasy Award and Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the anthology New Dimensions 11 (1980), edited by Robert Silververg and Martha Randall. It can also be found in the anthologies Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year: Tenth Annual Collection (1981), edited by Gardner Dozois, Fantasy Annual IV (1981) edited by Terry Carr, Nebula Award Stories Sixteen (1982), edited by Jerry Pournell and John F. Carr, Baker's Dozen: 13 Short Fantasy Novels (1984), edited by Charles G. Waugh, Martin H. Greenberg and Isaac Asimov and Blood Thirst: 100 Years of Vampire Fiction (1997) edited by Leonard Wolf. The story is included in the collections Music of the Night (2001) and Stagestruck Vampires and Other Phantasms (2004).

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Polished Stones: An Introduction - essay
• 9 - Scorched Supper on New Niger - (1980) - novelette
• 61 - Evil Thoughts - (1990) - novelette

After thirty years, Suzy McKee Charnas has completed her incomparable epic tale of men and women, slavery and freedom, power and human frailty.

It starts with Walk to the End of the World, where Alldera the Messenger is a slave among the Fems, in thrall to men whose own power is waning.

In continues with Motherlines, where Alldera the Runner is a fugitive among the Riding Women, who live a tribal life of horse-thieving and storytelling, killing the few men who approach their boundaries.

The books that finish Alldera's story, The Furies and The Conqueror's Child, are now available. Once you start here, you won't want to stop until you've read the last word of the last book.

The men of the Holdfast had long treated with contempt the degenerated creatures known as "fems." To give themselves the drive to survive and reconquer the world, the men needed a common enemy. Superstitious belief had ascribed to the fems the guilt for the terrible Wasting that had destroyed the world. They were the ideal scapegoat. The truth was lost in death and decay and buried in history. It was going to be a long journey back...

Suzy McKee Charnas' incomparable epic tale of men and women, slavery and freedom, power and human frailty.

It starts with Walk to the End of the World, where Alldera the Messenger is a slave among the Fems, in thrall to men whose own power is waning. It continues with Motherlines, where Alldera the Runner is a fugitive among the Riding Women, who live a tribal life of horse-thieving and storytelling, killing the few men who approach their boundaries.

In Book Three, The Furies, Aldera the Conqueror leads an army back over the mountains, hoping to end the tyranny and free the slaves she left behind.

The Fems were slaves of the men in the Holdfast. When Alldera escaped her slavery, she led a band of rebels to build a world where women rule. Now Sorrel, Alldera's daughter, joins her mother. She brings with her a young boy she has adopted.

The Conqueror's Child completes an epic history of life and love and the war between men and women which will stand for generations to come.

A gift for sorcery descends to the women of the Marsh family, but Tina's mother doesn't want to talk about it, so Tina is on her own and unprepared when random objects inexplicably start to disappear: a doorknob, a shoe, the kitchen linoleum, and even the huge statue of King Jagiello in Central Park. It's just the "kraken"--a vast world-eating monster from an evil dimension--trying to grab something that Tina doesn't even know she has. But unexpected allies show up: a touchy young violinist from the posh East Side and a shabby old street musician who is much more than he seems. It's up to these three, using magic and music, to save New York from the kraken's devouring ferocity.

The monster rages through the subway tunnels. Meanwhile, three thugs calling themselves the "Princes of Darkness" work to set it free, breaking the network of venerable landmarks that make up the city's supernatural defense. Tina and her friends race desperately to find the stolen statue, to restore it to its place as guardian and champion against paranormal threats--but magic alone can't defeat the kraken: that will take their strongest daring and creativity and loyalty to each other.

Valentine Marsh's magic grandmother is gone--missing from her New Jersey retirement home--and Val's mom fears the worst. But Val knows that Gran is on a mission. Unlike her mom, Val accepts the reality of the magical gift that all the Marsh women inherit, so it's no huge surprise when she discovers that the new school psychologist--clever, jovial, creepy Dr. Brightner--is not only a ruthless necromancer but also the threat that has sent Gran into hiding. Brightner is determined to co-opt the Marsh women's gifts, which he needs to power an evil ritual that will steal an army of souls from New York's homeless and deliver them to fight in a distant wizards' war. Far from supporting Val, her mom falls under Brightner's spell. With only her brains, her nerve, and the unknown powers of the enchanted glove from Gran, Val desperately strives to improvise the rescue of her mother--and of Brightner's army of helpless, conscripted souls--before his growing vortex of destructive force sweeps them all away to their doom.

Valentine Marsh has had a gut-wrenching year. While negotiating the usual rocky social terrain of high school, she's had a magical heritage thrust upon her, defeated a monster at grim personal cost (The Bronze King), and by a hair's breadth foiled the soul-stealing scheme of a pair of evil necromancers (The Silver Glove). And even now she can't catch a break!

During a New Year's Eve party in New York, Valentine and her friends unwittingly launch a far-reaching magical flare. Within days, the sending attracts a new threat--an arrogant young noblewoman masquerading as a foreign student named "Bosanka Lonatz." Bosanka gives Val a deadline to reconvene the New Year's party, aka the "Comet Committee," to help her summon her own lost people who might very well take over Earth, in place of the alien world they once ruled but had to abandon. With Granny Gran lying comatose in the hospital, Val must race time once more to forestall otherworldly disaster--but first she's got to rally her scattered, unpredictable friends and get a grip on her own fears, for a final confrontation with an angry and powerful enemy.