Swift the Chase: Scenes from 9 Fantastic Stories

By Raf Morgan, Intisar Khanani, Casey Blair and 6 more

Magic—danger—and the thrill of the chase!

 

Experience the rush of racing across rooftops with thieves—or the desperation of fleeing an assassin who knows you a little too well. From the fish market of a tropical island sultanate, to the monster-filled alleys of a steampunk London, to a land where souls take different forms as they rise or fall through the layers of the world, this collection of chase scenes and vignettes set in nine distinctive worlds will leave you spellbound.

 

Find unexpected allies, unshakeable enemies, sudden twists and turns, and always the swiftness of the chase—whether you're on the hunt, or racing for your life.

This sampler includes an exclusive bonus scene set during the events of Tea Set and Match by Casey Blair, available for free online, and a scene from an unpublished novel by Rachel Neumeier not available anywhere else. The excerpts by Intisar Khanani, Raf Morgan, P. Djèlí Clark, Sherwood Smith, Joyce Chng, Melissa McShane, and Andrea K. Höst are from longer works that are available for sale at all major retailers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Fourth Gorgon
• Release date: Sep 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393737261

Book preview

Swift the Chase

Swift the Chase

Scenes from 9 Fantastic Stories

Intisar Khanani Raf Morgan Casey Blair Rachel Neumeier P. Djèlí Clark Sherwood Smith Joyce Chng Melissa McShane Andrea K. Höst

Edited by

Raf Morgan

Contents

Introduction

Raf Morgan

Intisar Khanani

Sunbolt

Raf Morgan

The Desert Wall

Casey Blair

Daring to Chase

Rachel Neumeier

World of Tiers

Phenderson Djéli Clark

The Angel of Khan el-Khalili

Sherwood Smith

Lhind the Thief

Joyce Chng

Wolf at the Door

Melissa McShane

Pretender to the Crown

Andrea K Höst

The Pyramids of London

Introduction: copyright 2019 Raf Morgan

The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of any other agency, organization, employer or company.

Cover design by by Jenny Zemanek at Seedlings Design Studio

Version 4

The Fourth Gorgon Press

New York, NY

Introduction

Raf Morgan

I love chase scenes.

Add in a rich three-dimensional cityscape, where the chase can lead up and over roofs, down underground through tunnels or sewers, through twisty crowded streets, a hapless vendor’s stall or the backyard of befuddled family, and I’m all in. I love imagining the wintry scent of falling snow and the burn of ice on ungloved hands, or the fierce sun hot on the top of the character’s head and the smell of citrus and crushed dates—crushed of course when the smart, crafty, cunning, hopeful, desperate, loyal hero runs over them in her bid to escape. All those elements, and more, are here in the excerpts that follow.

I have loved the work of some of the writers in this collection for years, and some are new to me, discovered in the course of finding others who have written chase scenes that satisfy that itch.

The excerpts that follow are just that—sections of larger works, from short stories, to novels, to a web serial, meant to tease your appetite and introduce you to new authors and new adventures. It’s a curated equivalent of the look inside feature of online retailers, with two exceptions.

Two of my favorite authors contributed scenes that aren’t available anywhere else: Casey Blair wrote an exclusive bonus scene to Tea Set and Match, sure to delight fans of that serial (it delighted me!), and Rachel Neumeier has shared a scene from an unpublished novel, The World of Tiers, which made my little fan heart swoop.

If my copies of Sunbolt by Intisar Khanani, Lhind the Thief by Sherwood Smith, and The Pyramids of London by Andrea K. Höst were paper instead of digital, their pages would be soft with many re-readings. I go back to these authors again and again when I need to be cheered up and rediscover a sense of hope.

P. Djèlí Clark, author of The Angel of Khan el-Khalili, is writing the supernatural alternate history set in Cairo I didn’t know I needed until I read it; and Joyce Chng the female werewolf sibling rivalry I didn’t know I needed in Wolf at the Door. Finally, I was introduced to Melissa McShane’s indomitable female heroes in Pretender to the Crown when I was looking for authors to round out this collection.

These books and short story are available for sale at most major retailers. I hope you’ll fall in love as hard as I did and want to keep reading.

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Raf Morgan

August 2019

Intisar Khanani

Intisar Khanani grew up a nomad and world traveler. She has lived in five different states as well as in Jeddah on the coast of the Red Sea. Until recently, Intisar wrote grants and developed projects to address community health with the Cincinnati Health Department, which was as close as she could get to saving the world. Now she focuses her time on her two passions: raising her family and writing fantasy. Intisar’s debut novel, Thorn, was picked up by HarperTeen and will be re-released in Winter 2020. In the meantime, she’s hard at work on the remaining books of The Sunbolt Chronicles.

A street thief with a dangerous sense of honor, Hitomi is on her way to a meeting of the Shadow League, the underground resistance working to undermine the corrupt and powerful Arch Mage Blackflame... if she can only get there safely.

The winding streets and narrow alleys of Karolene hide many secrets, and Hitomi is one of them. Orphaned at a young age, Hitomi has learned to hide her magical aptitude and who her parents really were. Most of all, she must conceal her role in the Shadow League, an underground movement working to undermine the powerful and corrupt Archmage Wilhelm Blackflame.

When the League gets word that Blackflame intends to detain—and execute—a leading political family, Hitomi volunteers to help the family escape. But there are more secrets at play than Hitomi’s, and much worse fates than execution. When Hitomi finds herself captured along with her charges, it will take everything she can summon to escape with her life.

Sunbolt

Mgeni! Stay a moment; I have your future for you.

I grin, turning toward Mama Ali. She sits beneath the cloth shade of her market stall, her husband’s catch heaped on the wooden counter before her: mounds of sardines, glinting silver bright in the sun. Today there’s also a single little octopus that must have gotten tangled in his nets, its