The Idol of the Flies

3.9/5 ( ratings)

As many readers know, we lost of one our greats when Jane Rice passed away in early March. For the last two years, Ms. Rice had been working with editors Stefan Dziemianowicz and Jim Rockhill on the preparation of a volume that would collect all of her weird and macabre tales in one massive tome. While we are bitterly disappointed that Ms. Rice was unable to see the finished book, we believe it is one that she would have been well pleased with.

The Idol of the Flies is a massive retrospective of Jane Rice's sixty-year career in weird fiction. From her earliest stories for John Campbell's Unknown Worlds, through the 1950's tales written for Charm and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science-Fiction, to the recent novelette "The Sixth Dog", all of Ms. Rice's macabre fiction is collected in this book. Editors Stefan Dziemianowicz and Jim Rockhill have done a splendid job of tracking down stories from a wide variety of sources. Ms. Rice herself did revisions on several pieces to restore previously excised supernatural elements.

Rumor has long been rampant of "missing" Jane Rice stories written for Campell's Unknown Worlds. We're pleased to report that those stories have been found and while not restored exactly to their original form, they now represent the author's preferred version.

CONTENTS:
Introduction [Stefan R. Dziemianowicz]
The Idol of the Flies
The Crest of the Wave
The Golden Bridle
The Dream
The Elixir
The Forbidden Trail
The House
Magician’s Dinner
Pobby
The Refugee
The Cats
The Mystery of the Lion Window
The Crossroads
The Misfits
The Last Straw
The Loolies Are Here [First appeared under the pseudonym Allison Rice]
A Difficult Subject
The Rainbow Gold
The White Pony
The Willow Tree
The Sixth Dog
The Stalkers
Afterword [Jim Rockhill]