This collection of short fiction from award winning-author Jay Lake represents his favorites of his own work, both current and classic. With an emphasis on recent publications since his last short fiction collection in 2007, The Sky That Wraps showcases his reach in fantasy, science fiction, and the ambiguous territory in between. This volume includes two all-new stories, “Coming for Green” and “To Their Late Escape”, as well as previously uncollected fan favorites “The American Dead” and “The Sky That Wraps The World Round, Past the Blue and Into the Black.” Twenty other stories round out this wide-ranging survey of Lake’s work.

Limited: 1000 signed numbered hardcover copies

Praise for Green:
“[Green] is nicely powered by strong mythic undertones and a fresh take on the relationship between gods and mortals.”
—Publishers Weekly

Praise for Escapement:
“Lively and thought-provoking...Lake effectively anneals steampunk with geo-mechanical magic in an allegorical matrix of empire building and Victorian natural science.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Lake has configured his world-dominating empires, one British, the other Chinese, with huge and devoted attention to the last detail.”
—John Clute, Washington Post Book World

Table of Contents

Anything Could Be True An Introduction by Ken Scholes
The Sky That Wraps the World Round, Past the Blue and Into the Black
Journal of an Inmate
Achilles, Sulking in His Buick
Crossing the Seven
The Leopard’s Paw
Coming for Green
Promises
Witness to the Fall
Number of the Bus
A Different Way Into the Life
Green Grass Blues
Fat Man
Dogs in the Moonlight
Little Pig, Berry Brown and the Hard Moon
On the Human Plan
Lehr, Rex
The Man With One Bright Eye
To Raise a Mutiny Betwixt Yourselves
Skinhorse Goes to Mars
A Very Old Man With No Wings at All
People of Leaf and Branch
A Water Matter
To This Their Late Escape
Chain of Fools
The American Dead

From Booklist:
“Lake writes extraordinary short stories, with note-perfect world building as strong as that in his novels… Lake covers quite a bit of ground, from the mythic to the futuristic, and does it all with a strong take on the human element and genuinely fantastic tales.”

From Publishers Weekly:
“One of Lake’s strengths is his ability to channel classic writers and styles, such as the heroic fantasy of Robert E. Howard in ‘The Leopard’s Paw,’ Cordwainer Smith in the baroque ‘The Man with One Bright Eye,’ pulp SF in ‘Lehr, Rex,’ and space opera adventure in ‘To Raise a Mutiny Betwixt Yourselves.’”

From San Francisco Book Review:
“Jay Lake is a first-class wordsmith, an author who relishes the possibilities of language, utilizing words to their utmost to craft incredibly detailed worlds both hauntingly familiar and mind-bogglingly different. From a desolate prison to dense cityscapes, from rooftops to cemeteries, from Shakespeare in space to ghosts in small-town Texas, The Sky That Wraps meanders along the creative spectrum, lovingly realized with linguistic aplomb.”

From SFRevu:
“I recommend this anthology highly. If you have read Lake before then you will definitely enjoy this work. If you have never read Lake then this would be a good starting point.”