Frost on Glass

Cover art by Jethro Lentle.

In the title novella of this collection, a famous, creatively-blocked novelist faces exile or execution unless he can write a new story, and the theme of writing threads through the pages of this dazzling new collection.

The book contains eleven stories that explore strange pasts and new futures, plus non-fiction pieces drawn from the writer’s life, substantial commentaries on the origins and development of each of the stories, and a major new essay on how ideas are developed.

Both a magnificent gathering of fiction and a penetrating examination of the craft of writing, Frost on Glass memorably showcases and analyses the storytelling genius of Ian R MacLeod.

Contents:

• Introduction: Don’t Look Back
• The Discovered Country
• Afterword: Silver Machines
• Hector Douglas Makes a Sale
• Afterword: A Cul-de-Sac in Los Angeles
• Foreword: Different Warts and All
• A Truncated Life in Books
• The Cold Step Beyond
• Afterword: The Future isn’t Real
• A Concise and Ready Guide
• Afterword: Bloody Dragons
• An Empty Grey Cell of One’s Own
• Re-Crossing the Styx
• Afterword: On Being Dark
• The Traveller and the Book
• Afterword: On Writing Rubbish
• I’ve Got This Idea For A Story...
• The Crane Method
• Afterword: Rejection
• The Decline of the English Ghost story
• Letter to Will
• Afterword: Those Who Can’t...
• Me and the Mushroom Cloud
• Tumbling Nancy
• Afterword: Other Writers
• Frost on Glass
• Afterword: Writer’s Block
• Entangled
• Afterword: Volcanoes and Dinosaurs