Venera Dreams: A Weird Entertainment

Italian edition

Venera Dreams

A Great Books Marquee selection of The Word on the Street Toronto 2017

Somewhere in the Mediterranean lies the mysterious archipelago of Venera, a city-state drenched in erotic romanticism, fuelled by atavistic ritual, and suffused with surreal adventure and intrigue. Outside forces repeatedly attempt to steal its most closely guarded treasure: the secret of the sacred spice vermilion, and its power to alter consciousness and perhaps even reality. Venera Dreams: A Weird Entertainment chronicles the city-state’s mythic history through antiquity, Roman times, the Renaissance, the Victorian era, the twentieth century, the present, and the far future.

contents

overture: Bedtime Stories

part 1 ~ Strange Romances

  • The City of Unrequited Dreams
  • Xandra’s Brine
  • At the World Tree Hotel
  • The Venera Fantasy Convention

interlude: Vermilion Dreams: The Complete Works of Bram Jameson

part 2 ~ Adventures in Times Past

  • The Hecate Centuria
  • The Secret Dragon of Imperial Power
  • Agents of the Vermilion Eye
  • The Surrealist Lanterns

interlude: The Phantasmagorical Odysseys of Scheherazade

part 3 ~ The Secret Histories of Magus Amore

  • The Subterranean Odyssey of Magus Amore
  • Adventures in Crypto-alchemy: The Golden Cryptograph
  • The Thirteenth Goddess
  • Vermilion Wine

The author gratefully acknowledges the Canada Council for the Arts for its financial support toward the writing of Venera Dreams: A Weird Entertainment