Lake People and Other Speculative Tales

From a padded cell to Jacobean England to a distant planet, the fiction of award-winning writer Anna D. Allen is as eclectic as ever in her second collection of short stories, Lake People and Other Speculative Tales.

Bella would be a master mage… if only she could remember her vocabulary.

On the planet Caledonia, little Ellie Fisher-Jones quickly discovers tree-climbing just isn’t the same when the trees ask questions.

What’s a Horsewoman of the Apocalypse to do when she wearies of bloated babies? Go shopping, of course.

In space, there are no rest stops.

Sir Henry’s collection of Egyptian antiquities is the finest in Europe. Now, if his granddaughter Beatrice would just stop raising the dead....

Alison hears voices. Some people think that’s a bad thing. The voices disagree.

Thomas Reed just wanted to buy some land. He didn't intend for the village midwife to go up in flames in the process.

The Natives say if suitable offerings are made, the Lake Spirits return what was lost to the waters. But Kate never lost anything… so what out on the dark lake is watching her?

Ten tales relating snippets of the human experience, each with a speculative twist, from dark fantasy to science fiction—plus a touch of warped humor, along with a dash of creepy.

Includes: “Voices in a Distant Room” (Young Adult), “Mordecai’s Grimoire,” “Lonely Famine, Happy at Last,” “Lake People,” “Hallyhee, Cried the Trees” (for kids and their grown-ups), “Upon the Daily Cargo Run” (Middle Grade), “Immolation,” “The Mage, the Siege, and the Miscast Spells” (Young Adult), and “Sir Henry’s New Mummy” (Middle Grade), as well as the post-apocalyptic western, “Ten Gallons a Whore,” winner of Writers of the Future.