The Red Bird

By Douglas Smith

Aurora Award Finalist story from a multi-award winning author.

"Doug Smith is, quite simply, the finest short-story writer Canada has ever produced in the science fiction and fantasy genres, and he's also the most prolific. His stories are a treasure trove of riches that will touch your heart while making you think."
—Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Hominids and FlashForward

"A great storyteller with a gifted and individual voice."
— Charles de Lint

"One of Canada's most original writers of speculative fiction."
— Library Journal

DESCRIPTION:
When the Shogun’s soldiers burn his village and kill his parents, young Asai is rescued by a strange red hawk and led to a fabled temple. Here, he trains under Ikada, the Warrior of the Red Bird and seeker of the Hidden Light. Asai will be the last Warrior, and unless he can succeed where all other Warriors have failed--to discover the Hidden Light--then his people will suffer a thousand years of misery.

But when Sawako, a beautiful young woman, challenges him, Asai must choose between his heart, his people, and his destiny.

REVIEWS:
"A spellbinding piece of writing set in a Japan-that-never-was that is both well-plotted and elegantly paced"
—Strange Horizons

“I loved this tale. ... It has the feel of a myth or legend about a boy who finds that his destiny is closely entwined with the destiny of a people. ... Honestly, I could have read it forever. The ending was that perfect combination of sadness and hope.”
—SF Crowsnest Review

“A superbly told, involving, and brilliantly paced short story, complete with an ending made more tragic by its inevitability.”
—Tangent Online

"Powerful, moving and not quite predictable (A+)"
—Fantasy Book Critic

“A wonderfully recounted story, with an excellent pace and a perfect ending.”
— Bibliopolis

"A mini-epic. ... If you love Japanese and Samurai stories, this one will give you goose bumps."
—Tangent Online

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Doug is an award-winning author of speculative fiction, with over a million words of fiction sold and over a hundred short story sales to professional markets in thirty countries and two dozen languages.

He has published three short story collections: Chimerascope (ChiZine Publications, Canada, 2010), Impossibilia, (PS Publishing, UK, 2008), and just recently, La Danse des Esprits (Dreampress, France, 2011).

Doug has twice won Canada's Aurora Award for speculative fiction, and have been a finalist for the international John W. Campbell Award, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation's Bookies Award, and the juried Sunburst Award.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Douglas Smith
• Release date: Apr 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458052292

Douglas Smith

Douglas Smith is an award-winning historian and translator and the author of Rasputin and Former People, which was a bestseller in the U.K. His books have been translated into a dozen languages. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he has written for The New York Times and Wall Street Journal and has appeared in documentaries with the BBC, National Geographic, and Netflix. Before becoming a historian, he worked for the U.S. State Department in the Soviet Union and as a Russian affairs analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He lives with his family in Seattle.