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Stories of myth and legend, heroes and gods, fables and fantasy. In 'Heartless Gao Walks Number Nine Hell and Other Stories' Bill Ward collects nine tales that prove that how a story is told is at least as important as what is said. From the death meditation of a legendary Celtic hero and the steampunk transformation of an ant colony, to a tale of lost Atlantis and a journey across the Chinese Underworld, Bill Ward borrows from past and future, East and West, to craft fresh legends for the modern age. Includes the Shan & Bao adventure 'Secrets of the Ironskull Order.'On 'Heartless Gao Walks Number Nine Hell:'"Of all the authors in this issue, Bill Ward is the one with whom I am most familiar and I found his story, "Heartless Gao Walks Number Nine Hell" the best in the issue. One fine day, "in the last good year of the reign of the Lotus Cloud Emperor", the Daolong Monastery finds itself transported to Hell. They don't know what to do and their prayers go unanswered, so they send a man named Gao out to free them. He was a General known as Heartless Gao but wants to lead a contemplative life. Nonetheless, he sets off on a journey and finds allies and enemies in his quest to free the monastery. This story was imaginative, exciting, humorous and a joy to read." -- Sam Tomaino, SFRevu"...The first line hooks the reader, and from then until the story’s end, the reader is intrigued, if not transfixed, by Ward’s strange and compelling vision of the underworld. This epithet-laden tale would fail in most formats, but in the familiar form of a myth, it succeeds. Amidst a number of minor and clever commentaries (such as Hell’s hysterical bureaucracy) emerges a thoughtful discourse on the nature of what it means to be human, and the moments centering on this topic are no less exciting than Heartless Gao’s confrontation with Hell’s many demons." -- Nathan Goldman, Tangent Online (A Tangent Online Recommended Read for 2010)On 'How Antkind Lost Its Soul:' "...I did enjoy Ward’s inoculation-like descriptions of Black Beetle’s viciousness. In addition, as I read, I found myself considering whether or not I, too, would have succumbed to that insurgent’s adept rhetoric." --KJ Hannah Greenberg, Tangent Online (A Tangent Online Recommended Read for 2009)On 'The Wroeth's Grinding Bowl:""The first two stories in the magazine were my favorites. Bill Ward's "The Wroeth's Grinding Bowl" is a well done morality tale about the ruler of a prosperous city who takes advantage of the title character, the last of those creatures called wroeths, and of his grinding bowl, which can make anything one can imagine. Including, the world learns to its sorrow, unpleasant things." -- Rich Horton, SF Site

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