When I sold "The Final Folly of Captain Dancy" to Tor, as half of a Tor Double (which never appeared), the contract had a curious feature: while I retained most of the rights, I could not publish it as a stand-alone work. I could include it in a collection so long as that collection contained at least four stories.

I have no idea why that was in there, or even whether the contract is still in force at all, but I didn't see any need to argue with it, so when I decided I wanted to make the story available again in these days of ebooks and print-on-demand, it needed to be part of a collection. So I went through my inventory of short fiction and found three other stories that seemed to go with it reasonably well.

I didn't want to bother publishing it myself, though, so I took it to FoxAcre Press, which was happy to publish it. They put together a cover and the rest of the package, and here we are!

What do I mean by "pseudo-historical fantasies?" I mean the story appears to take place (at least partly) in the past, but not the real past -- a past with magic or super-science. As FoxAcre's Roger Allen puts it, "stories the couldn't possibly have happened, but probably should have."

So here are the four stories I found that fit that description:

• "The Final Folly of Captain Dancy"
• "Windwagon Smith and the Martians"
• "My Mother and I Go Shopping"
• "One Million Lightbulbs"

Bonus features: A new introduction by the author, an essay on how I came to write "Captain Dancy," and, at long last, the revelation you've all been waiting on so long: "What the Parrot Was For."

And that's all there is to it. Care to check it out? Use the links in the right-hand column to buy it!

That's it; here's your list of handy exits:

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