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Cover Reveal: The Gates of Polished Horn

Cover art for the Gates of Polished horn, a collection of stories, by Mark A. Rayner --

This is always an exciting time during the life of a book. The moment when the art is ready. I believe this work by BiblioFic Designs does a lovely job of expressing what’s in between the cover in terms of the stories, themes and genres presented there. Not an easy task for a collection that spans several genres, and runs the gamut from serious to silly.

As I mentioned about this time last year, Donovan Street Press is publishing my next book. It’s a collection of twenty short stories and flash fictions I’ve written over the years, going back twenty-four years. (Wait, that long ago? Checks math. Yeah, twenty-four. Yikes.)

Some of those stories have been previously published. You may have even read one or two of them if you’ve been subscribing to this newsletter for long enough – they’ve appeared in such publications as Abyss & Apex, Parsec, Corvus Review and The Saturday Evening Post.

The title of the collection is one that I’ve always had in mind for one of my projects. At one point it was the title of a trilogy that I started that never went anywhere. It originates from this quote:

“Two gates there are for our evanescent dreams, one is made of ivory, the other made of horn. Those that pass through the ivory cleanly carved are will-o’-the-wisps, their message bears no fruit. The dreams that pass through the gates of polished horn are fraught with truth, for the dreamer who can see them.”

~Homer, Book XIX, The Odyssey

And that’s exactly what holds the collection together: dreamers facing their truth. Many of the stories are science fiction, some are humorous, but there’s other genres in there: magical realism, horror, fantasy, and even some straight-up literary fiction. Yet they all deal with characters encountering a life-altering fact. Some of them are dream-like, some more visceral, and some exist in that liminal space between.

I’ll let you know when it’s available for pre-order!


cover art of The Fridgularity and Marvellous Hairy, both by Mark A. Rayner

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If you’d like to check out one of my previous novels, before you buy, I’m happy to just give you one. Not only that, you can choose between Marvellous Hairy and The Fridgularity. (They’re both great in their own ways.) Just join my newsletter to get started!

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