The Slantwise Histories and Other Stories

Magic Seen From the Edge

The Slantwise Histories and Other Stories collects Alix E. Harrow's short fiction about tricksters, ghosts, battlefields, roadside attractions, and people who refuse the roles assigned to them. Its settings move from alternative history to the near future, but the stories repeatedly find magic in the lives of workers, mothers, soldiers, and other figures usually pushed out of the center.

Award Winners Beside New Work

The 304-page collection includes the Hugo Award-winning A Witch's Guide to Escape, alongside the first print appearances of Six Deaths of the Saint and The Knight and the Butcherbird. Harrow presents preferred versions of earlier work and adds four brand-new stories. That mix makes the book both a gathering place for familiar favorites and a substantial source of material readers have not seen before.

Defiance Is the Connecting Thread

These stories are linked less by a single setting than by the moment someone chooses to dissent, defect, or slip free. Harrow's characters often begin with little institutional power, then discover that stories, names, and acts of care can alter the terms around them. The collection gives those quiet rebellions room to stand beside stranger spectacles, from ancient violence to uncanny stops just off the highway.