Alabaster is dark fantasy

Dark fantasy

Dark fantasy is a term used to describe a fantasy story with a pronounced horror element.-Overview:A strict definition for dark fantasy is difficult to pin down. Gertrude Barrows Bennett has been called "the woman who invented dark fantasy". Both Charles L...

 and science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 author Caitlin R. Kiernan

Caitlin R. Kiernan

Caitlín Rebekah Kiernan is the author of many science fiction and dark fantasy works, including seven novels, many comic books, more than one hundred published short stories, novellas, and vignettes, and numerous scientific papers.- Overview :Born in Dublin, Ireland, she moved to the United States...

's fourth collection of short fiction. It consists of five stories concerning the misadventures of Dancy Flammarion, the albino girl and monster hunter who first appeared in Kiernan's 2001 novel, Threshold. The tales follow Dancy from her childhood in the backwoods and swamps of the Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 panhandle to her teenage duels with strange and murderous creatures in south Georgia. Haunted by a being which may or may not be an angel, Dancy is driven from one encounter to the next, gradually beginning to doubt the nature of her quest. All of these stories occur before the events of Threshold. Released by Subterranean Press

Subterranean Press

Subterranean Press is a small press publisher in Michigan. Subterranean is best known for publishing genre fiction, primarily horror, suspense and dark mystery, fantasy, and science fiction...

, the book is illustrated by Ted Naifeh

Ted Naifeh

Edward "Ted" Naifeh is an American comic book writer and artist who gained notoriety for his illustrations in the goth romance comic Gloomcookie...

. The collection was released with a chapbook

Chapbook

A chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chap-book was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera , popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales,...

 containing a sixth Dancy Flammarion story, "Highway 97."
The book's afterword, "On the Road to Jefferson," was originally released as a chapbook by Subterranean Press in 2002 to accompany the hardcover edition of "Les Fleurs Empoisonnées," titled In the Garden of Poisonous Flowers.

Contents

• Author's Preface
  • "Les Fleurs Empoisonnées"
  • "The Well of Stars and Shadow"
  • "Waycross"
  • "Alabaster"
  • "Bainbridge"
• Afterword: "On the Road to Jefferson"