Ian McDonald is a major SF writer, whose River of Gods (2004) won the British Science Fiction Association award for Best Novel, and was shortlisted for the corresponding Hugo, Arthur C. Clarke, and British Fantasy Society awards.

A compelling study of how Mills & Boon romances adapt the forms and metaphors of canonical literature to romance purposes.

Taking up where the author's book Of Modern Dragons (2007) left off, these essays continue Lennard's investigation of the praxis of serial reading and the best genre fiction of recent decades, including work by Bill James, Walter Mosley, Lois Mcmaster Bujold, and Ursula K. Le Guin. There are groundbreaking studies of contemporary paranormal romance, and of Hornblower's transition to space, while the final essay deals with the phenomenon and explosive growth of fanfiction, and with the increasingly empowered status of the reader in a digital world. There is an extensive bibliography of genre and critical work.

The notes in this audiobook provide an overview of Mosley's career and the series, give historical and literary backgrounds to the novel (including Chandler, Himes, Pinkerton Men and Private Eyes, Hollywood's Gumshoes, and the 'GI Bill'), and consider the film adaptation of Devil. Chapter by chapter Annotations detail allusions, slang, musical references, flora and fauna, and fashion, while disentangling Mosley's real and fictive Los Angeles.

Tamora Pierce is a prolific and very unusual modern master of fantasy for young adults and the first such author to appear regularly on the New York Times bestseller lists.