Deserts of Fire

In 1987, the New York Times published their first front-page review of a science fiction anthology for a collection called In the Field of Fire, themed around the war in Vietnam. “Vietnam was science fiction,” the reviewer wrote, and writing about it through that lens found meaning in a war few understood.

This idea, that speculative fiction is a vital tool to understanding the inexplicable, is just as relevant nearly thirty years later. Deserts of Fire is a war-inspired anthology for the new millennium, because for many, the recent wars in the deserts of Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East are just as slippery to grasp and difficult to understand as Vietnam was two generations earlier.

Inside Deserts of Fire are stories from a variety of bestselling and award-winning authors that start with the simple and modest ambition of making the reader feel strange about the recent past. Because when there are too many explanations, the truth won’t be found by merely choosing one side or the other. But rather, the truth is in the existence of the confusion itself.

Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

Douglas Lain is the author of two novels, Billy Moon and After the Saucers Landed, an editor, and the publisher of Zero Books, which specializes in philosophy and political theory. He hosts the Zero Squared podcast, interviewing a wide range of fascinating and engaging people with insights for the new millennium. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and children.

“The 21 stories in this anthology ably demonstrate the imaginative possibilities of war as a theme in contemporary speculative fiction. [Lain’s] selections prove that the best speculative fiction, no matter how futuristic, is always about the here and now.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Thought-provoking, brilliantly curated . . . every entry is meritorious and well-wrought . . . A welcome addition to the landscape that SF used to frequently visit.”
—Paul Di Filippo, Locus

“Lain has done the heavy-lifting of curation, and delivered a rucksack-ready primer in the state of the world, the near-past and –future, and where writing about war may take us next. There is little doubt that these explorations will ignite conversation and thoughtful analysis.”
—Red Bull Rising

“. . . speculative fiction is used effectively to look at the underbelly of conflict and tries to make some sense of it beyond the headlines and rhetoric of politicians. An intelligent read that is as mind-blowing as no-man’s land.”
—Starburst Magazine