Brand-new stories by: Thomas Adcock, Kevin Baker, Thomas Bentil, Lawrence Block, Jerome Charyn, Suzanne Chazin, Terrence Cheng, Ed Dee, Joanne Dobson, Robert Hughes, Marlon James, Sandra Kitt, Rita Laken, Miles Marshall Lewis, Pat Picciarelli, Abraham Rodriguez Jr., S.J. Rozan, Steven Torres, and Joe Wallace. As any Bronxite will tell you, being from Da Bronx is a permanent condition, no matter where you end up... For a time in the '70s and '80s, the name was synonymous (to non-Bronxites) with a vast urban maelstrom of lawlessness and decay. But the place was always more complicated than that. There's the Bronx Zoo, the Botanical Garden, universities, Yankee Stadium, grand estates, squalid housing projects, the sinking Concourse, and nautical City Island... The writers represented in Bronx Noir know the borough so well that, reading the book, you'll smell it, feel it, see it, hear it. The sights and scents will be multitudinous and as distinct as the neighborhoods. And everyone of them, in all their glorious mutual contradiction, is the Bronx

Pelmen the Powershaper was over his head in trouble. Trouble was nothing new to him, but this time it was too much. His beloved Serphimera had left him without a word of farewell. His old rival, the sorceress Mar-Yilot, had vowed to kill him and his friend Dorlyth mod Karis. Ngandib-Mar, seat of the Power Pelmen obeyed, was on the brink of bitter internal war, and Chaomonous was again threatening to invade. Even the formerly peaceful tugoliths were marching into Ngandib-Mar to wreak slaughter and destruction. Now young Rosha mod Dorlyth was trying to get into the High Fortress to confront the evil sorcerer Flayh, who controlled it. It seemed that some dark Nemesis was dogging Pelmen’s footsteps, and there was nothing he could do about it. He did the only thing he could. He headed into the trouble

Beware the Dragon! The dragon was divided! Its two heads, Vicia and Heinox, were fighting for control of its massive body. For centuries, it had sat quietly at Dragonsgate, content with its tribute of slaves for food. Now it took to the air, burning villages at random throughout the Three Lands to vent its rage and confusion. With Dragonsgate open for the passage of armies, war and chaos beset all the Lands. It was all the fault of Pelmen the player, who had confused the heads to gain escape for himself and the Princess Bronwynn. Pelmen the player, Pelmen the powershaper—now Pelmen the Prophet of the Power! And only Pelmen could end the evils that threatened to destroy everything. But Pelmen was helpless, locked in the King’s dungeon, waiting to be executed on the drawing blocks. Should he escape, the prophecy of the Priestess foretold an even more terrifying fate at the mouths of the dragon!

When the kingdom of Chaomonous is taken over by Queen Ligne, the living Imperial House desperately calls for the wizard, Pelmen, to come to its rescue