Throughout her forty-year career, Tanith Lee proved herself adept at numerous genres, including high fantasy, horror, science fiction, and combinations thereof. One of her specialties was the variety of heroic fantasy known as sword-and-sorcery. Novels such as The Birthgrave, Night’s Master, and The Storm Lord are highly regarded by both fans and critics, but she has a wealth of short stories to her credit as well. In February DMR Books will publish The Empress of Dreams, a collection of sixteen of Tanith’s tales of swords and sorcery. The title comes from a letter of praise publisher Donald A. Wollheim wrote about her:

“From the day that her novel The Birthgrave was first published Tanith Lee has been a blazing gem in the crown of fantasy literature… ‘Princess Royal’… perhaps better the Empress of Dreams. ”

The Empress of Dreams will be available in early February in trade paperback and digital formats. The cover art was painted by Lauren Gornik, whose work graced the covers of past DMR releases such as Manly Wade Wellman’s Cahena and Harry Piper’s The Great Die Slow.

Stories included in The Empress of Dreams:

“Odds Against the Gods”
“Sleeping Tiger”
“The Demoness”
“The Sombrus Tower”
“Winter White”
“In the Balance”
“Northern Chess”
“Southern Lights”
“Mirage and Magia”
“The Three Brides of Hamid-Dar”
“The Pain of Glass”
“These Beasts”
“Two Lions, a Witch, and the War-Robe”
“A Tower of Arkrondurl”
“The Woman in Scarlet”
“Evillo the Uncunning”

More forthcoming releases from DMR Books:

Renegade Swords II (March) - Like the previous volume, this anthology contains many lesser-known and rarely reprinted sword-and-sorcery tales. Includes stories by Michael Moorcock, Robert E. Howard, Karl Edward Wagner, and more.

Worlds Beyond Worlds by John R. Fultz (April) - This collection of Fultz’s short fiction spans a variety of subgenres, from dark fantasy to sword-and-sorcery, heroic fantasy to weird history.