Eighteen new tales of the Arabian Nights blending the modern and the ancient with the strangeness of speculative fiction. You will find magical lamps, thieves, intrepid explorers, noble queens, fishermen, sorcerers, outcast princes, dancers, djinn, assassins and even smart-talking cats, set in exotic Persia, Egypt, Arabia, the Ottoman Empire, as well as modern and even futuristic incarnations of these.
The non-AustLit authors and their contributions are Marilag Angway ('Shadow Dancer'), Cherith Baldry ('The Green Rose'), Jetse de Vries ('Djinni Djinni Dream Dream'), Barb Siples ('The Sultan's Debt'), and Joshua Gage ('The Dancer of Smoke').
Sahara Desserts, who works as a belly dancer in restaurants, finds herself engaged in a mythic quest to set her mentor to rest.
A story about a young princess, Amalia, with an acquired disability - one arm and one leg were broken when she was three years old and haven’t healed properly. More challenging, however, is her father who refuses to let her grow up. Then she meets someone connected with the Djinn.
Baasim is a backpack bomber heading for his target before he wakes up in another time and another place with the opportunity to redeem himself.
'Thoren and Jeremiah are a couple with conflicting desires; Thoren wants to care for Jeremiah while Jeremiah wants to perform as a belly dancer and cloud his mind with drugs' (Nalini Haynes, Dark Matter).
'Chrisaphina lives in a hostile world where her father’s business is failing and she must marry to survive off the streets. Her brother was lost to the Janissary corps; every street urchin reminds her of him. Chrisaphina’s father wants to marry her to a Muslim while she imagines herself in love with a stranger who rides by daily. A djinn imbues the story with mystery' (Nalini Haynes, Dark Matters).
A surrealistic comedy set in British India, the pompous Colonel Watson and a nervous Lieutenant Kirk set off to investigate a complaint about an ifrit (evil spirit).
'A chilling story of love and pride and the price one pays for choices.'
Ethan, a personal assistant to a billionaire, approaches Reba Django looking for a powerful talisman. When she refuses he takes her brother hostage. Reba is forced to give Ethan what he wants, but what he doesn't know is that Reba traffics in candles to commune with djinn ... and there are more than one kind. This has ramifications that Ethan cannot anticipate.
The story of Orpheus, Persephone and the Underworld told from a Middle-Eastern perspective.
'Shaya is imprisoned in a supernatural dungeon. Gradually we learn who Shaya is and how she came to be imprisoned through her developing relationship with her gaoler' (Nalini Haynes, Dark Matter).
