Current cant equates fantasy with escapism, and current fashion would have it that fantasy is both easy to read and to write. It isn't. When it is done honestly, by a skillful writer, fantasy takes us far enough beyond our daily perceptions to open us to the essential realities beneath it. This is the true goal of all art.

Is this politics? I suppose I am going to have to learn all about it, if I am to run Lord Ferris's household, and throw parties and all. Now...explain to me again just who hates who, and why?

Yo-Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin together again for the first time.

Let the fairy tale begin on a winter's morning, then, with one drop of blood newly-fallen on the ivory snow: a drop as bright as a clear-cut ruby, red as a single spot of claret on the lace cuff.

A masterwork. A particularly American magic realism that touches the heart of race and childhood in our country; it's 100 Years of Solitude for an entire generation of American Baby Boomers, and deserves the widest possible audience.

Not being the sort to throw a book, she pounded her fist on her cushion.

I'm the Duke of Riverside. I build things here and pretty much keep the peace, and discourage certain behaviors. If you think all that has been achieved through entirely civil and lawful means, you've had your head in a bucket.