Winner of the Spectrum Award, Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award

Award-winning author Ginn Hale lives in the Pacific Northwest with her lovely wife and their ancient, evil cat. She spends the rainy days admiring local fungi. The stormy nights, she spends writing science-fiction and fantasy stories featuring LGBT protagonists. (Attempts to convince the cat to be less evil have been largely abandoned.)

The Long Past & Other Stories by Ginn Hale

1858 –Warring mages open up a vast inland sea that splits the United States in two. With the floodwaters come creatures from a long distant past. What seems like the End Times forges a new era of heroes and heroines who challenge tradition, law, and even death as they transform the old west into a new world.

—In the heart of dinosaur country a laconic trapper and a veteran mage risk treason to undertake a secret mission.

—A brilliant magician and her beautiful assistant light up stages with the latest automaton, but the secrets both of them are hiding test their trust in each other and pit them against one of the most powerful men in the world.

—At the wild edge of the Inland Sea, amidst crocodiles and triceratops, an impoverished young man and a Pinkerton Detective must join forces to outmaneuver a corrupt judge and his gunmen.

CURATOR'S NOTE

The three tales (novella and short stories) in The Long Past & Other Stories are classic Ginn Hale: well-crafted characterizations of compelling, likable folks, clever and brave enough to defeat whatever might come their way. Romance can be innovative too (by the way, it's m/m and f/f romance which is not so much innovative as overdue). – Tenea D. Johnson

 

REVIEWS

  • "Hale (the Cadeleonian Series) mashes up steampunk and fantasy to gleefully unsettle the historical status quo"

    – Publishers Weekly

  • "It's hard to assign a label to a collection of three stories that combine and subvert so many different genres at once. The world building found in this concept is excellently executed, with 1800s industry, cowboys, mages and dinosaurs expertly woven in with issues of racism, sexism and homophobia. Each story is a snapshot into how the rifts have affected the livelihoods of a diverse group of characters, showing the true faces of the American spirit as each overcome hardship to succeed. The Long Past is a perfect blend of love and action — it's refreshing to see LGBT couples not only kick ass together, but get their happily-ever-afters too."

    Romantic Times Top Pick 4 ½ Stars!

  • "So interesting, so inventive, so much feeling in these stories. Love the setting - Wild West & dinosaurs & steampunk & magic & the Chicago's World Exposition!"

    – Simon, Goodreads
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

Colorado Territory 1864

High up in the clear blue sky, a group of pterosaurs swept past the red-and-white-striped balloon of an approaching airship. The gull-sized creatures soared through the dirigible's wake and then dived towards dark waters far below.

Grover watched the wily green pterosaurs descend to snatch silver-sided fish from the waves of the Inland Sea then go flapping back towards their roosts in the sea-swept cliffs of the Rocky Mountains. His attention returned to the star-spangled airship with its brassy gondola. The ship hadn't yet crossed through the gray haze of the spell dome. It arched up from the alchemically fortified walls of the city and kept out most anything bigger than a songbird. Even across the distance and through the distortion, Grover thought he could make out the gold sun-shaped insignia of the US Office of Theurgy and Magicum on the gondola's prow.

Theurgist professors, soldiers and maybe even a mage floated up there. All of them coming here to investigate the big blue sea that had flooded the states and territories from Kansas to the Gulf of Mexico.

The High Plains had transformed into a seabed. The foothills of the Rocky Mountains had become a chain of islands dotting the blue water, while high peaks now stood like a vast, great levee. As the waters had spread, so had lush fern jungles and the strange, old creatures that inhabited both.

Land and lives had been lost, and Fort Arvada had been inundated with refugees. And yet after six years, this single airship was all the aid the federal government sent. Grover just hoped they'd brought plenty of powdered alchemic stone. The city's fortifications had been uprooted and stretched thin as paper to enclose as much farmland as possible, but the spells were old and growing weaker with every season.

Soon nothing would stand between the farmers of Fort Arvada and the old creatures.

Back on the bandstand, the musicians indulged in a final practice of their jubilant welcome to the visiting dignitaries while the gathered crowd peered up at the sky. Grover briefly spotted his cousin Frank, looking sharp despite having his nine-year-old daughter balanced on his shoulders. She waved her rag doll at the sky.

Up on the bandstand Mayor Wilder anxiously leafed through the pages of his speech. Mrs. Cora Cody and several other society women straightened their patchwork dresses and smiled at each other like they were about to attend their first dances. Then Cora turned to her husband, George, and straightened his beaver pelt top hat. Miss Xu Song shouted gleefully from the crowd that she could see the airship. Hundreds of men hooted and whooped.

From his post within the church steeple, Grover studied the expanse of cloud drifting across the blue sky. A ghostly pale wing dipped down from the white billows. Grover hefted his rifle and tracked the huge silvery pterosaur.

"Thunderbird," Toby Cody whispered from beside him. The spindly ginger youth worked the focus of his spyglass. "Holy Moses! It's a big'un, Grove."

Grover continued to follow the beast through the sight of his rifle. Its silver membranous wings stretched a good thirty feet across. Sunlight glinted along the saber-sharp beak. Squinting, Grover could just make out the jet-black eyes and that slight curve that lent all thunderbirds the appearance of smiling slyly down on the rest of the world.