Saffron and Brimstone by Elizabeth Hand

…This collection of mostly longer pieces is as evocative as its cover photograph of a butterfly in extreme close-up. Most of the stories make one’s skin creep, even as one revels in Hand’s language and characters. All of them, in one way or another, are about transformation, about becoming. They are about change and how people cause it, embrace it, reject it, or all three… Saffron and Brimstone belongs on the shelf of everyone who loves literate, unusual, extremely well-written fantasy. Read the rest.