Description

The harbor city of Wyrld’s End, adopted home to the denizens of a human arkship, is rife with deadly conspiracies, pleasure sages, enigmatic sentient indigenous aliens, and the occasional wave of undead. Like any great city, it is also home to the ragged, rugged species of The Common Poet. Zhou Liu Yang is such a poet, with one addition: he possesses a mysterious object with technological abilities which verge on the magical. Trouble is, thanks to a hole in his pocket, he’s lost it…and the wrong sort of people would like to find it. Also, there’s the existential question of lunch, to say nothing of the questions posed by the singing tentacled giants of the deep.

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Praise for Last Poet of Wyrld’s End:

What a treasure! In this delightful tale of SFnal whimsy, Zhou Liu Yang wanders in search of his lost marble through the weird, threat-spiked Wyrld’s End, offering poems to everyone he encounters, whether friend or foe. His thoughts about poetry are exquisite, his wistfulness appealing, his world dangerous, but as it happens, he is not without a…friend. —Sherwood Smith, creator of the Sartorias-deles universe and Wren’s world, Nebula award finalist

It’s inordinately refreshing in this age of concatenated disasters to find a book this good-natured. A genial silliness about it feels like settling down with hot cocoa and cookies, gazing from contented warmth at a blizzard outside. // A most unusual book, filled with humor and light. Stormm is an author who understands perfectly how to Have Fun with Words. —F. J. Bergmann, editor of Star*Line, winner of multiple speculative poetry (Elgin, Rhysling, Rannu) awards

… Liu Yang the Poet is funnier and wiser than most characters have the right to be, and his quest is at times part Tolkien’s The Hobbit, part Coehlo’s The Alchemist and even a little bit Neil Gaiman, but, ultimately, is wholly imbued with Stormm’s surefire and sly, engaging voice, reminding us that great adventures in search of the magical are ultimately about finding that which is much closer to home, and the heart. —Christopher Locke, author of 25 Trumbulls Road and Ordinary Gods

In the delightful novella Last Poet at Wyrld’s End, Melanie Stormm takes readers on a day-long journey in the company of the befuddled poet Liu Yang. // At once comical, lyrical, and melancholy, the story builds to a satisfying conclusion while leaving me hopeful that there will be other stories set in this intriguing landscape. —Jennifer Crow, author of The First Bite of the Apple, Elgin and Rhysling awards nominee

Last Poet of Wyrld’s End // is a fascinating amalgam of science fiction and fantasy, set in a future time and a distant planet where science and magic meld. Most interesting is the poet’s mind and heart of Liu Yang, the scintillating poetic perspective and language in which he swims and survives. Get this book: compelling and beautiful. —Vince Gotera, editor of the North American Review, winner of multiple poetry awards, Pushcart nominee

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Last Poet of Wyrld’s End
by Melanie Stormm
Published by The Reckless imprint of Candlemark & Gleam, September 2020
80 pages
eISBN: 978-1-936460-97-7
Cover design: Rhiannon McCullough