Glen Cook is, of course, best known for his enormously popular series fiction, which includes the Garrett P.I. and Dread Empire sequences, as well as the internationally acclaimed Chronicles of the Black Company. Readers familiar only with this aspect of Cook’s career will find a great many pleasures—and an equal number of surprises—in his vibrant new collection, Winter’s Dreams.

The fourteen standalone stories in Winter’s Dreams range in length from vignettes (“Appointment in Samarkand”) to novellas (“In the Wind”). Together, they encompass an astonishing variety of themes, tones, styles, and settings. Not one of these stories bears the slightest resemblance to the others. Each one manages to enchant, illuminate, and entertain in its own distinctive fashion.

In the near future America of “Song from a Forgotten Hill,” the nations’ tragic racial history replays itself in an all too familiar form.
“The Seventh Fool” recounts the comic misadventures of a charming con man who outsmarts both his gullible target—and himself.
“The Waiting Sea” encapsulates the entire life history of a navy veteran haunted by the sea -- and by the faceless voices only he can hear.
In “Ponce,” a poverty stricken St. Louis family encounters a mysterious blue-eyed dog—a dog that serves as a conduit to the undisclosed secrets of the universe.
“The Recruiter” presents a powerfully disturbing portrait of an ultra-violent future and asks the question: How far will a man go in order to survive?

Equally suitable both for newcomers and for long-time Glen Cook fans, Winter’s Dreams is something special, a consistently enthralling volume that claims new imaginative territory at every turn.

Limited: 250 signed numbered copies, bound in leather
Trade: Fully cloth bound hardcover edition

Table of Contents:

Song from a Forgotten Hill
And Dragons in the Sky
Appointment in Samarkand
Sunrise
The Devil’s Tooth
In the Wind
The Recruiter
The Seventh Fool
Ponce
Quiet Sea
Darkwar
Enemy Territory
The Waiting Sea
Winter’s Dreams

From Publishers Weekly (Starred Review):
"Best known for his Black Company series of fantasy novels, Cook focuses on alternate realities, distant futures, self-sacrifice, and camaraderie born of loneliness in these 12 intimate stories... Close first-person perspectives tug heartstrings in these tragedies of thwarted expectations."

From Library Journal:
"Whether set in a fantasy world ('Winter's Dreams'; 'Darkwar') or spanning four decades in the real one ('The Waiting Sea'), the 14 stories in this volume showcase the variety and depth of Cook's ('Chronicles of the Black Company' series) mastery of the short form."