The Reckless imprint has been as busy (and as lucky in the works it has attracted) as its older Candlemark sibling. After the high-stakes interstellar diplomacy of Wisps of Spider Silk, the noir interplanetary sleuthing of Piper Deez and the Case of the Winter Planet, the oneiric frissons of Dreaming the Dark , the haunting transmutations of Fates and Furies, and the witty small-town shenanigans of The Miasma Is Not for Us to Say, along saunters Melanie Stormm’s intricate, funny, elegiac Last Poet of Wyrld’s End: brimming with invention and poetic flourishes, it’s an SFnal take on Li Bai—or an elevated variation of Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master with a soupçon of Moby Dick.

Melanie Stormm is a semi-sentient being living and breathing in New Hampshire, who generally tries not to make a complete mess of things. A known and respected musician in some spheres, unknown and ignored in others, she is also poet, writer of short-fiction and comics to the same varying degree of success. Her short story “A Mohawk Place for Souls” was a finalist for the Hamlin Garland Award for Short Fiction in 2018 and published by Beloit Fiction Journal that same year.

We expect to share Last Poet in early fall of 2020. Mark your calendars for immersion into the gyres and puzzles within puzzles of Wyrld’s End!

Image: Li Bai, woodblock print in the Nanling Wushuang Pu collection by Jin Guliang, Ming dynasty (public domain)