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Dust jacket illustration by Ken Laager.

Tales of adventure and suspense:

Five stage magicians set out to topple Hitler in 1934
A middle-aged lawyer finds himself battling new, predatory species
A hate-filled demagogue threatens the peaceful existence of the cats and dogs at the city dump
A secret agent in 1963 Egypt must stop a madman bent on world domination

The four long pieces in this volume show Lewis Shiner writing "hard edged, often political genre fiction at its finest," as Publishers Weekly said about his Collected Stories. These are some of the most accessible stories Shiner has ever written, featuring, as he says in his introduction, "car chases, ticking clocks, and things blowing up in slow motion." At the same time, all four stories deal with the abuse of power in a way that has never been more timely.

For those new to Shiner's work, Heroes and Villains is an ideal starting point, offering the complex characters and moral issues of his acclaimed novels in condensed and action-packed form. For Shiner's many fans, who include George R. R. Martin, Jonathan Lethem, and Karen Joy Fowler, no further incentive is required.

"What Shiner is doing with these familiar elements is neither emulation nor parody but deconstruction… This is a political and an ethical work, dark-shaded, more in the spirit of Le Carré than Fleming…a love letter to Egypt, at least to the Egypt that was in 1963, and the Egypt that might have been."

—Lois Tilton, Locus, on "Doctor Helios."

From Publishers Weekly:

“Common folk rising to depose despots with unchecked power is the theme running through Shiner’s compilation of three action-packed novellas and one short story... High adventure, exotic locales, and beautiful women all triumph. Shiner (Collected Stories) merges well-researched and detailed historical elements with cinematic action and crisp writing.”