Hugo Best Novella nominee (1990)Nebula Best Novella nominee (1990)

Nebula Best Novellette nominee (1990)

Part gritty urban police procedural and part horror fable, this enthralling fantasy/mystery examines issues of life, death, love and morality. A man without memory, known as the Gypsy, wanders the streets of Lakota, Ohio, leaving death in his wake. After a clerk is murdered during a holdup, the Gypsy is booked by cop Mike Stepovich, who uncharacteristicallydb pockets the suspect's strange knife, found nearby. An apparent snafu releases the Gypsy, who comes under suspicion again when a woman fortune teller is murdered in a cheap hotel. Stepovich, with the unvoiced disapproval of his brash young partner Durand, surreptitiously looks into the murders, now out of their jurisdiction, and finds himself walking down strange paths. Meanwhile a woman known as the Fair Lady is working her spells to draw others, including Stepovich's teenage daughter's friends, into her evil web. She can be stopped only by three brothers, known as the Raven, the Owl and the Dove. As forces move to their climax, Stepovich's retired former partner plays a role, as does an old drunk known as the Coachman, who may hold the key to salvation. Brust ( The Phoenix Guards ) and Lindholm ( Wizard of the Pigeons ) have crafted a powerful and memorable fantasy.(From Publishers Weekly)

Megan Lindholm (Wizard of the Pigeons) writes tightly constructed SF and fantasy with a distinctly contemporary feel. Robin Hobb (Assassin's Quest) writes sprawling, multi-volume fantasies set in imaginary realms. These two writers, apparently so different, are, of course, the same person, each reflecting an aspect of a single multifaceted imagination.Inheritance gathers the best of Hobb and Lindholm's shorter fiction into one irreplaceable volume containing ten stories and novellas (seven by Lindholm, three by Hobb), together with a revealing introduction and extensive, highly readable story notes. The Lindholm section leads off with the Hugo and Nebula-nominated novella 'A Touch of Lavender,' a powerful account of love, music, poverty, and addiction set against an extended encounter between human and alien societies. Other memorable entries include 'Cut,' a reflection on the complex consequences of freedom, and the newly published 'Drum Machine,' an equally absorbing meditation on the chaotic nature of the creative impulse. Two of Robin Hobb's contributions revisit the world of her popular Live Traders series. 'Homecoming' enlarges the earlier history of those novels through the journal entries of Lady Carillion Carrock, while 'The Inheritance' concerns a disenfranchised young woman who comes to understand the true nature of her grandmother's legacy. And in 'Cat's Meat,' a long and wonderful story written expressly for this collection, an embattled single mother reclaims her life with the help of a gifted—and utterly ruthless—cat.

Seattle: a place as magical as the Emerald City. Subtle magic seeps through the cracks in the paving stones of the sprawling metropolis. But only the inhabitants who possess special gifts are open to the city's consciousness; finding portents in the graffiti, reading messages in the rubbish or listening to warnings in the skipping-rope chants of children. Wizard is bound to Seattle and her magic. His gift is the Knowing — a powerful enchantment allowing him to know the truth of things; to hear the life-stories of ancient mummies locked behind glass cabinets, to receive true fortunes from the carnival machines, to reveal to ordinary people the answers to their troubles and to safeguard the city's equilibrium. The magic has its price; Wizard must never have more than a dollar in his pocket, must remain celibate, and he must feed and protect the pigeons. But a threat to Seattle has begun to emerge in the portents. A malevolent force born of Wizard's forgotten past has returned to prey upon his power and taunt him with images of his obscure history; and he is the only wizard in Seattle who can face the evil and save the city, his friends and himself.