Valeria Vitale

The Mediterranean is a liquid road connecting places and people. Ships, words and stories travel on its waves. Sometimes fantastic creatures, hidden in the hold. The Mediterranean speaks many languages; some of them we don't recognize anymore. They are ancient, but never really dead. This speculative fiction anthology collects twenty-four pieces of fiction and poetry, new and old, and some things that are in between, because we don't believe in boundaries. It gathers Mediterranean stories with a horror twist and horror stories with a Mediterranean flavour-caring sea monsters, still dripping and briny; brave mermaids, merciless ghosts and bizarre creatures-with exerpts in nine different languages and many different styles.

X for ten years, X for marking out a spot in the genre, X for the unknown variable that changes the status quo. This anthology is a mix of reprints from the first decade of The Future Fire magazine, and new, experimental, unusual or aspirational pieces that push boundaries or play games that might tickle Borges, Calvino and Kafka. With both old and new stories, the editors hope to give a taste of what they'd like to see more of in the next decade, and in the process supply voracious readers with 29 short stories and other pieces of writing full of progressive ideas, underrepresented voices, socially important tales, and of course entertaining, quality fiction! This paper book gives the stories, half of them previously published but in digital form only, another time and space to be enjoyed in.