"It's rare that I'm not working on a novel. Short stories often happen between novels. Consequently my output is fairly small. But I love the tale-telling concept, the notion that I can spin a yarn, rather than construct something architectural and precise."

So writes triple Hugo Award-winning author C.J. Cherryh in the introduction to this book, the first comprehensive collection of her independent short fiction. For though Cherryh is primarily known for her novels, it's clear both from the more than two dozen brilliant and varied stories collected here, as well as her commentaries about them, that she loves the short forms and truly enjoys her forays into them.

We welcome you to join the realms of C. J. Cherryh's imagination, where you'll visit: "Cassandra"--the Hugo Award-winning tale of a woman cursed with a unique, prophetic madness. "Threads of Time"--an unforgettable reminder that when you play tricks in time, Time itself may play the greatest trick on you. Sunfall--in which six mighty Earth cities laden with the grandeur of history confront their fates in the far future light of our own dying sun. And many other magical, alien, and future worlds, in a volume that incorporates all C. J. Cherryh's previous, long-unavailable collections, individual short stories that have never been compiled before, and a never-before-published novella written specifically for this book.

Board this spaceship where your tour guide is one of the most gifted and brilliant science fiction and fantasy writers, and embark on a journey fueled by the imagination of the incomparable C. J. Cherryh.