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This short story originally appeared in Son and Foe, #1, July 2006. It can also be found in the anthology Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2006 Edition, edited by Rich Horton.

Sharp-eyed Marianne lives in a white tower made of steel and concrete with her father and the other Professors. Outside, where the land is thickly wooded and wild beasts roam, live the Barbarians, who raid and pillage in order to survive. Marianne is strictly forbidden to leave her civilized world but, fascinated by these savage outsiders, decides to escape. There, beyond the wire fences, she will discover a decaying paradise, encounter the tattooed Barbarian boy Jewel and go beyond the darkest limits of her imagination.

Playful, sensuous, violent and gripping, "Heroes and Villains" is an ambiguous and deliriously rich blend of post-apocalyptic fiction, gothic fantasy, literary allusion and twisted romance.

Proving that even in Utopia some people are oppressed, the leftover "bad guys" from the triumph of Good and Light--thieves, a black knight, a vengeful, man-eating sorceress--attempt to save the world from the terrible fate of boredom.

Tales of adventure and suspense:

• Five stage magicians set out to topple Hitler in 1934
• A middle-aged lawyer finds himself battling new, predatory species
• A hate-filled demagogue threatens the peaceful existence of the cats and dogs at the city dump
• A secret agent in 1963 Egypt must stop a madman bent on world domination

The four long pieces in this volume show Lewis Shiner writing "hard edged, often political genre fiction at its finest," as Publishers Weekly said about his Collected Stories. These are some of the most accessible stories Shiner has ever written, featuring, as he says in his introduction, "car chases, ticking clocks, and things blowing up in slow motion." At the same time, all four stories deal with the abuse of power in a way that has never been more timely.

For those new to Shiner's work, Heroes and Villains is an ideal starting point, offering the complex characters and moral issues of his acclaimed novels in condensed and action-packed form. For Shiner's many fans, who include George R. R. Martin, Jonathan Lethem, and Karen Joy Fowler, no further incentive is required.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• The Black Sun
• The Next
• Doglandia
• Doctor Helios
• Story Notes

Chronicles the life of the evil Verminaard, from his humble beginnings to his career as a despised ruler. By the authors of The Oath and the Measure. Original. 150,000 first printing.

Presents the story of the black dragon of Xak Tsaroth, ruins that lie in the heart of a murky and dangerous swamp, detailing the origins of the creature and its role as a minion of the Dark Queen. Original.

Exploring the lives of the ruthless overlords of Ansalon, the Villains series details the rise and fall of Krynn's oppressors. The raw power and innate cunning of the Highlord Ariakus carries him to complete mastery over the armies of the Dark Queen. Yet fueled by insatiable ambition, he seeks an even higher throne. Illustrations.

Death to Heretice!

The words ring through the treetop city of Solace night and day. Hederick, as leader of the Seeker religion in Solace and self-ordained conscience of Krynn, leads an Inquisition and vows to stop only when all who follow magic and the old gods are dead And Takhisis, Queen of Darkness, smiles.

Hederick faces the false priest who led him to Seekerism, a thief fleeing death sentence, the beautiful white-robed mage who loves Hederick despite herself, and the power of the vallenwood trees themselves.

Ellen Dodge Severson's DRAGONLANCE novels include Kindred Spirits (with Mark Anthony) and Steel and Stone. This, her third novel, tells the story of the demagogue Hederick, one of Krynn's most nefarious villains.

The Villains series explores the corrupted origins of the malevolent minions of Takhisis, Queen of Darkness.

Fewmaster Toede, a vain, pompous, and unreliable slavemaster and Dragon Highlord, becomes an unwitting hero as he walks a narrow and perilous path among competing evil forces that would make him their pawn. Original.

The long-awaited tale of the New York Times best-selling Dragonlance series' greatest villain--Takhisis, Queen of Darkness--follows her as she is worshipped by legions of evil beings and spends her time plotting to escape from the Abyss. Original.

A masterful tale of ambition, jealousy, desire, and superpowers.

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates--brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find--aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge--but who will be left alive at the end?

In Vicious, V. E. Schwab brings to life a gritty comic-book-style world in vivid prose: a world where gaining superpowers doesn't automatically lead to heroism, and a time when allegiances are called into question.

Magneto and Professor X. Superman and Lex Luthor. Victor Vale and Eli Ever. Sydney and Serena Clarke. Great partnerships, now soured on the vine.

But Marcella Riggins needs no one. Flush from her brush with death, she's finally gained the control she's always sought?and will use her new-found power to bring the city of Merit to its knees. She'll do whatever it takes, collecting her own sidekicks, and leveraging the two most infamous EOs, Victor Vale and Eli Ever, against each other once more.

With Marcella's rise, new enmities create opportunity--and the stage of Merit City will once again be set for a final, terrible reckoning.