Winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection

Contains "The Bone Swans of Amandale," Nebula Award finalist for Best Novella

"C. S. E. Cooney is one of the most moving, daring, and plainly beautiful voices to come out of recent fantasy. She's a powerhouse with a wink in her eye and a song in each pocket."
-- Catherynne M. Valente, New York Times-bestselling author of the Fairyland novels

"These stories are a pure joy. C. S. E. Cooney's imagination is wild and varied, her stories bawdy, horrific, comic, and moving-frequently all at the same time. Her characters are wickedly appealing, and her language -- O! her language. Lush, playful, poetic, but never obscure or stilted, it makes her magic more magic, her comedy more comic, and her tragic moments almost unbearable."
-- Delia Sherman, author of Young Woman in a Garden: Stories

"C.S.E. Cooney's a major talent and these are major talent stories. Who can resist hero rats, pouting swans, feral children, flying carpets and the Flabberghast? So tongue-tied am I with delight I fall back on the usual cliches: gripping, delightful, insightful, rollicking & lyrical -- and yet not one cliche is to be found in Bone Swans, only stories of surpassing delicacy and wit, told by a lady of rare talent. Please, ma'am, might I have some more?"
-- Ysabeau S. Wilce, Andre Norton Award wining author of Flora's Dare

A swan princess hunted for her bones, a broken musician and his silver pipe, and a rat named Maurice bring justice to a town under fell enchantment. A gang of courageous kids confronts both a plague-destroyed world and an afterlife infested with clowns but robbed of laughter. In an island city, the murder of a child unites two lovers, but vengeance will part them. Only human sacrifice will save a city trapped in ice and darkness. Gold spun out of straw has a price, but not the one you expect.

World Fantasy Award winner Ellen Kushner has called Cooney's writing "stunningly delicious! Cruel, beautiful and irresistible." Bone Swans, the infernally whimsical debut collection from C. S. E. Cooney, gathers five novellas that in the words of Andre Norton Award winner Delia Sherman are "bawdy, horrific, comic, and moving-frequently all at the same time." Cooney's mentor, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master Gene Wolfe, proclaims in his introduction that her style is so original it can only be described as "pure Cooney," and he offers readers a challenge: "Try to define that when you've finished the stories in this book."

More praise for Bone Swans

If your familiarity begins and ends with C.S.E. Cooney's poetry, do yourself a favor and stick around for these novellas. If you aren't new to her stories, know that you will find her here at the top of her not inconsiderable game. Highly original, mythic in scope, lyrically told, just plain fun.
-- Nicole Kornher-Stace, author of Archivist Wasp

C.S.E. Cooney's Bone Swans is like visiting a literary Ys. Coaxed by her deft hand, lands and people long lost to memory resurface, breaking through the hearts of readers with the force of a gentle tsunami. Once that wave has broken over you, you are never the same.
-- Tiffany Trent, author of The Unnaturalists

"Like one of her characters, C. S. E. Cooney is a master piper, playing songs within songs. Her stories are wild, theatrical, full of music and murder and magic."
-- James Enge, author of Blood of Ambrose
"It's a treasure chest of a collection, and it's full of gems."
-- Sharon Shinn, author of the Elemental Blessings series

• We started tracking this book on May 22, 2015.
• This book was £3.81 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 55 times in the past 3,268 days.
• The current price of this book is £4.75 last checked 11 hours ago.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past 90 days is £4.73.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past year is £0.78.
• The lowest price to date was £0.77 last reached on March 3, 2021.
• This book has been £0.77 one time since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was £4.89 last reached on November 7, 2023.
• This book has been £4.89 2 times since we started tracking it.

• Literature & FictionMythology & Folk TalesFairy Tales
• Science Fiction & FantasyFantasyAnthologies & Short Stories

• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 226 Pages
• File Size: 3,340 KB