Secret Life

This collection of 23 stories reflects a diversity of approaches to key questions about the human condition, including questions about mortality, love, obsession, and creativity. 'Balzac's War' is a harrowing, powerful far-future novella that pits brother against brother in a landscape ravaged by war with Earth's newly sentient human-made species. In 13th-century Cambodia, a lone artist is torn between his love of his craft and his unspoken love for a woman in 'The Bone Carver's Tale'. In 'The Emperor's Reply' and 'The Compass of His Bones', set in 17th-century Peru, the last Incan Emperor, having brutally fallen at the hands of the Conquistadores, seeks his revenge.VanderMeer, Jeff is the author of 'Secret Life', published 2004 under ISBN 9781930846272 and ISBN 1930846274.