Steve Rasnic & Melanie Tem : In Concert collects the collaborative short fiction of Melanie Tem and Steve Rasnic Tem, who have worked at the cutting edge of imaginative fiction for over a quarter century. In the twenty-one tales herein, the reader will find fear, joy, and mystery. In Concert showcases the wide range of their collaborative work. The title story tells of a lonely elderly woman who achieves rapport with a lost astronaut through the power of music. In "The Icy Region My Heart Encircles," an aging Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein, keeps the heart of her late husband on the mantel and is haunted by her dead children and the living incarnation of her Monster. And in "The Man on the Ceiling," the authors take turns telling of the fears and darkness common to all families, while reminding the reader that "everything I tell you is true." The publication of In Concert is an event well worth celebrating.In Concert is one in a long series of short story collections by award-winning authors, including "Futile Efforts," By Tom Piccirilli, "Afraid - Tidbits of Terror," by Elizabeth Massie, "The Forgetting Wood," by Steven Savile, "Dark Dixie," by Ronald Kelly and "The Call of Distant Shores," by David Niall Wilson.ABOUT THE AUTHORS:STEVE RASNIC TEM's short fiction has been compared to the work of Franz Kafka, Dino Buzzati, Ray Bradbury, and Raymond Carver, but to quote Joe R. Lansdale: "Steve Rasnic Tem is a school of writing unto himself." His 300 plus published pieces have garnered him a British Fantasy Award, and nominations for the World Fantasy and Bram Stoker Awards.MELANIE TEM's chronicles of the terrors that haunt families and the amazing resilience of the human spirit have collected a Bram Stoker award, a British Fantasy Award, and praise both here and abroad. Stephen King said of her first novel, Prodigal, "spectacular, far better than anything by new writers in the hardcover field." Dan Simmons declared it "A cry from the very heart of the heart of darkness . . . Melanie Tem may well be the literary successor to Shirley Jackson."
