Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, by Van Gogh

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:
Maroch, an expert in remote viewing and an ex-agent of the ‘Company,' reluctantly agrees to coach a beautiful young woman “viewer,” who bears an uncanny resemblance to his dead wife, in a scheme to locate lost paintings by Vincent van Gogh, setting off a chain of events that may alter the past and destroy both their lives.

REVIEWS:
"One of the best and most moving novellas I have read. Haunting and evocative... Just astounding."
—Fantasy Book Critic

"An important story, a story that matters, and I hope that many, many people will read it. ... A beautifully written, brilliantly crafted story in which Smith raises the bar even higher than his previous works. Doug's characteristic vivid settings and compelling characters are present, driven, as always, by love, and by a mystery which keeps the pages turning as the reader is drawn ever deeper. ... Don't miss this one!"
—Rainbow Dragon Recommends

"The revolution of themes and words is very fluid throughout this story, making the pace almost rhythmic, drawing you along... The ending is a perfect resolution of the paradox of backward time travel."
—SF Crowsnest Book Reviews

"Right up to the story’s surprising conclusion, Smith keeps his readers guessing ... It’s an ending that shouldn’t work but somehow does, and it’s a testament to the writer’s skill that their fate seems entirely fitting."
—The Fix

"[A story that] follows two paths...a love affair that hits the rocks of the characters' messed-up pasts, and a scary new wrinkle on [remote viewing]."
—Locus

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: Mar 30, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458066466

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.