ISBN: 0-88739-378-0
248 pp.
Size: 6 x 9
Pub Date: 10/2001
Paperback Original
Price: $14.95
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Zuralia Dreaming
Alfred Tella
Scientist Jonathan Spencer is two years out of college, and not unhappy with his new job as a lab technician and his solitary forays to the public library. But when he gets lost in the rain one day and is befriended by the grandfatherly owner of an odd apothecary shop, Jonathan's quiet life is transformed. He begins to have dreams about an idyllic land called Zuralia, and the old man, who calls himself a "dream sender" transports him there.
The character of the shy young scientist blossoms in his new world-he makes friends, has wild adventures, gains enough self-confidence to seduce the princess he falls in love with, and discovers that he is gifted with the extraordinary power to create worlds. But Zuralia is only one small island in a world of islands, not all of them utopias, and someone, or something, would like Jonathan dead. When the dream world, and Earth itself, are threatened by the evil mistress of nightmare worlds and her monstrous minion, the world-eating Qog, Jonathan begins to understand why, and realizes that he must learn to use his gift quickly.
Zuralia is fantasy at its best: a rich, fully-imagined world described in real life detail, grounded in human desire and emotion, and explored by the most endearing of protagonists.
Review: "It starts quietly, almost conventionally, with the obscure little shop, and proceeds gently, with nice folk in a nice magic realm. The difference is this is a dream realm, subject to destruction as readily as creation.... The dream becomes a nightmare. Imaginative touches, such as an island population that radically changes its nature when the head of its statue-god is changed... People and places are wonderfully described..."
-Piers Anthony, author of Doon Mode and Source of Magic
"If you like H.P. Lovecraft's work, you'll love this book. Wonderful atmosphere in the Lovecraft tradition!"
-A. C. Crispin, author of Star Wars: The Hans Solo Trilogy
Bio: ALFRED TELLA, a northern Virginian, is the author of the fantasy novels, Sundered Soul and The Willing Spirit, the latter coauthored with Piers Anthony.
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