The Ocean and All Its Devices

Dust Jacket by Timothy Truman

Fans of William Browning Spencer have been waiting more than ten years for this, his second collection of short stories. The Ocean and All Its Devices won't disappoint.

Spencer's first collection, The Return of Count Electric was acclaimed by reviewers in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Cemetery Dance, Publishers Weekly and other magazines and newspapers. Science fiction legend Roger Zelazny, once introduced to Spencer's work, became a lifelong devotee. He wrote: "William Browning Spencer is one of those rare short story writers who comes along once in a generation -- like Saki, Collier, Sheckley -- and manages to combine all of the virtues within that restricted format."

The Ocean and All Its Devices collects some of Spencer's finest published work. Three of these stories appeared in "year's best" anthologies. Another, "The Death of the Novel," was a finalist for a Bram Stoker Award, while "The Essayist in the Wilderness" was on the final ballot for a World Fantasy Award.

In stories within:

• *The proprietor of a seaside resort puzzles over the yearly off-season pilgrimage of a curiously solemn couple and their fey child. ("The Ocean and All Its Devices")
• *A marriage made in a heaven of parallel worlds is tested by impossible luck, both good and bad. ("The Oddskeeper's Daughter")
• *A virtual reality addictions counselor is on the run with his zoned-out client, pursued by the relentless architects of a seductive virtual game called Apes and Angels. ("The Halfway House at the Heart of Darkness")
• *A young girl, who speaks only in lines of poetry culled from world literature, is poised between two universes while a social worker struggles to save her -- and, perhaps, doom a universe. ("Foster Child")
• *A circus magician races against time as the world threatens to end, not with a bang or a whimper, but with the flick of a switch. ("The Lights of Armageddon")

Here, at last, are these stories and other uncollected gems, the rest of William Browning Spencer's short fiction.

Table of Contents:

• The Ocean and All Its Devices
• The Oddskeeper's Daughter
• The Death of the Novel
• Downloading Midnight
• Your Faithful Servant
• Foster Child
• The Halfway House at the Heart of Darkness
• The Lights of Armageddon
• The Essayist in the Wilderness

Limited to 750 signed and numbered hardcover copies and SOLD OUT at the publishers