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"Ballroom Blitz" by Veronica Schanoes is a contemporary fairy tale about a young man, who with his eleven brothers, have been cursed to remain in a rock club for their bad behavior. Their only shot at freedom might be the twelve sisters who one day enter the club.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Hugo Award winning short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 2000 and was reprinted in Lightspeed, May 2012. The story can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 6 (2001), edited by David G. Hartwell, The Hard SF Renaissance (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, and New Skies: An Anthology of Today's Science Fiction (2003), edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden. It is included in the collection Different Kinds of Darkness (2004).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Halcyon Blithe, being a young man of good breeding and lineage as well as endowed with those qualities and abilities of a sorcerous nature and wishing to fulfill his full potential, is ready to assume his proper place in the world. He aims to seek his fortune among those who tend and sail the awesome nautical juggernauts-the dragonships. With this is mind, Blithe gladly accepts his rank as Midshipwizard and becomes a member of the crew who man the dragonships-vessels which harness the bodies and strength of living dragons with seafaring technology.

Combining elements of Hornblower with Harry Potter, and Robert Louis Stevenson with Robin Hobb, Midshipwizard Halcyon Blithe is a nautical tale rich in magic and intrigue. A tale set against a panorama of fantastic naval battle as we follow the career of a young midshipwizard as he moves up through the ranks of His Majesty's Navy.

His yeoman voyage now behind him, Blithe must now accept new responsibilities as he ascends to the rank of:

DRAGONFRIGATE WIZARD HALCYON BLITHE.

In the latest chapter of the young wizard's nautical education he finds himself second in command of a captured enemy vessel that must engage a demonship in combat before returning to port. Upon his return he is assigned duty on a dwarven dragonship where he and his shipmates encounter the deceit of politics and diplomacy before they can regain the security of their Arcanian dragonship and the company of their trusted crewmates.

Combining elements of Hornblower with Harry Potter, and Robert Louis Stevenson with Robin Hobb, the Halcyon Blithe are nautical tales rich in magic and intrigue set against a panorama of fantastic naval battles as we follow the career of a young midshipwizard as he moves up through the ranks of His Majesty's Navy.