Description

The Man Who Lost His Magic (The Collected Short FIction Volume Eight) by R.A. Lafferty

Hardcover – Centipede Press – August 2025 – 414 pages

In a career that began in 1959 and continued until his death in 2002, R.A. Lafferty garnered the admiration of authors and editors including Robert A.W. Lowndes, Harlan Ellison, A.A. Attanasio, Gene Wolfe, Michael Swanwick and many, many others. His body of short fiction is comprised of well over 200 stories and, despite his vast popularity, there was never a concerted effort made to produce a comprehensive collection of his short fiction, until now.
Centipede Press has your ticket so hop on board to experience the unique worlds of R. A. Lafferty (1914-2002) in The Man Who Lost His Magic, the eighth volume in the collected short fiction of R. A. Lafferty. Your journey is a magical recipe consisting of a little bit of fantasy, a smidge of science fiction and a pinch of horror.
Featuring whimsical story stops including the seven archetypal human fears in “Pine Castle,” the chaos caused by aliens’ sudden inexplicable appearance in “Guesting Time,” and a murder case of mistaken identity in “Enfants Terribles.”
The creative journeying continues reaching out to examine humanities intellect compared to what stories can conjure in “And Did You Not Wail.” A meal to die for is created in “Oh, Those Trepidatious Eyes!” while advice on how to fill the Well of Ideas is offered in “Oh Whatta You Do When the Well Runs Dry?” And let’s not forget the perfect murder in “Almost Perfect” and an alien invasion happens right under our nose in “And Some in Velvet Gowns” plus a self-described dumb kid has everyone fooled in “Eurema’s Dam.”
These twenty-nine rarely reprinted stories span thirty years (1959-1989) in the career of one of science fiction’s most idiosyncratic voices. This volume includes an introduction by noted editor, critic and biographer Gary K. Wolfe and edited by the late John Pelan (1957-2021).