Praise for John Crowley:

"Like a magus, John Crowley shares his secrets generously, allowing us to believe that his book is revealing the true and glorious nature of the world and the reader's own place within it."—Village Voice

"[Crowley] transforms the lead of daily life into seriously dazzling artistic gold."—Newsday

Often de-scribed as an alchemical allegory, John Crowley instead decided this is "the first science fiction novel." After all "it's fiction; it's about the possibilities of a science; and it's a novel." No matter what else it might be, it's definitely "one of the great outlandish stories in Western literature." With eight appropriately weird and fascinating black and white woodcuts by Theo Fadel.

John Crowley was born in Presque Isle, Maine, in 1942. He moved to New York City after college in Indiana to make movies, and did find work in docu-mentary films, an occupation he still pursues. He has published many novels including the Ae-gypt quartet and Little, Big. He teaches creative writing at Yale University. In 1992 he received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. He finds it more gratifying that almost all his work is still in print.

Theo Fadel has a BA in Archeology (Bryn Mawr) and a Master of Architecture from Co-lumbia University. Currently her studio is in Easthampton, and she's been in Massachusetts less than a hundred years. This is the first book she has illustrated.