The City of Silk and Steel

This is the tale of a city - like any other city, to begin with - and how it was lost and won, and lost again.

This is the tale of an unusual army and its extraordinary leaders: Rem, the librarian, whose tears are ink; wise Gursoon, who defines their conscience; and the silver-tongued thief, Anwar Das, who knows when to ignore that conscience. And it is the tale of the mysterious Zuleika, with her unexpected gift for violence. Without her, the city could not have been taken; because of her, it could not be held.

Most of all, this is the tale of Bessa, the city of silk and steel, as much legend as truth: its fate will haunt you for as long as stories are told ...

Also published as The Steel Seraglio

“The Steel Seraglio brings its alternate world of struggle, politics and magic very much to life, transcending the more labored construct of symbol and metaphor in a fairy tale or fable retold only to make some kind of point.” ― Locus

“The Steel Seraglio is not a work of feminist or utopian theory. Nor is it a historical fantasy, a romance, a thriller, a poem, an allegory, or an epic. Rather, somehow, it is all of these things, mixed with a handful of gnomic utterances, a generous splash of the comic, and permeated by a deep understanding of what it means to weave a fairytale through with vision, to tell stories as a way of making meaning and making change, and to let those stories hang and fall. . . .” ― Neon Magazine

“The Steel Seraglio is a masterful, engaging and utterly fascinating story by three wonderful writers. One can only hope they will collaborate again, as this project has proven how well they work together. The reader is really the winner here.” ― SF Revu

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