The Poison Oracle (28 page)

SP:
This makes it sound as though it’s something anyone might do, but like a Tourbillon watch, if we took it apart, all we would have are the pieces, not the watch.

PD:
It doesn’t feel like that to me. I think if you took it to pieces all you’d have left would be a pile of driftwood that I’d found, beachcombing along the shore of my imagination and put together, trying to build myself some sort of a dwelling that would keep the rain out.

About the Author

Peter Dickinson OBE was born in Zambia and educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge. After graduation, he joined the staff of the British humor magazine
Punch
where he worked for seventeen years, leaving as Assistant Editor. At forty he began a career as a mystery writer. His first two books were awarded the British Crime Writers Association’s Golden Dagger Award, and each succeeding book has been published to wide acclaim. Among his mysteries are
Hindsight, The Last Houseparty, A Summer in the Twenties, Death of a Unicorn, The Lively Dead,
and
King and Joker
.
He lives in England and is married to the novelist Robin McKinley. Find out more at peterdickinson.com.

Peter Dickinson titles available from Small Beer Press

DEATH OF A UNICORN

Peter Dickinson is my own chosen demigod in the pantheon of crime fiction.”—Laurie R. King

“Everything here is exactly right.”—
The New Yorker

EARTH AND AIR: TALES OF ELEMENTAL CREATURES

“Mining folklore for ideas is routine in modern fantasy, but not many can add the surprising twists and novel logic that Peter Dickinson does. These are beautiful stories, deft, satisfying, unexpected. They deserve to become classics of the genre.”—Tom Shippey,
Wall Street Journal,
Best Fiction of 2012

EMMA TUPPER’S DIARY

“Fish out of water Emma must spend the summer in Scotland with cousins she’s never met. It’s the sort of family where everyone is whip-smart, conversations are fast and fascinating, and statements of fact are rarely truthful. All of which makes for one extremely suspenseful and surprisingly thought-provoking adventure.”—Gwenyth Swain (author of
Chig and the Second Spread
)

THE SEVENTH RAVEN

“This steady, sober hostage story is not quite a thriller . . . but anyone . . . can be engaged by the argument and enveloped in Dickinson’s carefully textured citadel.”—
Kirkus Reviews

Mysteries and more from Small Beer Press for independent-minded readers:

Poppy Z. Brite,
Second Line: Two Short Novels of

Love and Cooking in New Orleans

“Fun foodie fiction, and readers will scarf it down.”—
Publishers Weekly

Kelley Eskridge,
Solitaire

“Jackal Segura has committed a capital crime. Instead of life in prison, she agrees to a virtual solitary confinement . . . an impressive achievement.”—
Strange Horizons

Trafalgar
(trans. Amalia Gladhart)

“Delightful. Thought-provoking. Impressive. Brilliant.”—Liz Bourke, Tor.com

Elizabeth Hand,
Generation Loss

“A thriller. . . . A dark and beautiful novel.”—
Washington Post Book World

Ayize Jama-Everett,
The Liminal People

“
A
damn good read. It
’
s a smart actioner that will entertain you while also enticing you to think about matters beyond the physical realm. It will be especially welcome if you are one of those people, like me, who was riveted by the first season of
Heroes
, with its multiracial cast and intriguing new perspective on superpowers. This novel is the second season we always wanted
.”—Annalee Newitz, io9

Kij Johnson,
At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories

“Thought-provoking . . . emotionally wrenching stories.”—
Publishers Weekly,
Best Books of the Year

The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin

In two volumes:
Where on Earth
&
Outer Space, Inner Land

“No better spirit in all of American letters than that of Ursula K. Le Guin.”—
Slate

Karen Lord,
Redemption in Indigo

Mythopoeic, Crawford, & Frank Collymore Award winner

Maureen F. McHugh,
After the Apocalypse: Stories

“Incisive, contemporary, and always surprising.”
—Publishers Weekly
Top 10 Books of the Year

Sofia Samatar,
A Stranger in Olondria

“Samatar’s sensual descriptions create a rich, strange landscape, allowing a lavish adventure to unfold that is haunting and unforgettable.”—
Library Journal
(starred review)

Sean Stewart,
Perfect Circle

“The perfect amalgam of cursed past and haunted present, of classic ghost tales

and up-to-the-minute cinematic riffs.”
—Washington Post

Vincent McCaffrey,
Hound; A Slepyng Hound to Wake

“Henry is a character cut from Raymond Chandler: a modern knight on a mission to save

those, and what, he loves.”—Barbara Peters, The Poisoned Pen

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