The Servants (2007)
A novel by
Michael Marshall Smith

Interior Art by Alex McVey


 


SYNOPSIS:
Things are unreliable. Things break. Things fall apart. Even at 11 years old, Mark knows this all too well.

By the time he moves out of London to a wintery seaside town, things are already bad. His mother is sick, and Mark doesn’t get along with his new stepfather. Although he finds an ally in an elderly neighbor, it still doesn’t feel like home, and shadows are soon gathering as things slowly start to get worse.

Mark knows he has to do something, but he doesn’t know what. And the only people who might be able to help him . . . may not exist.

A modern fantasy novel from the International Horror Guild award-winning author of SPARES and the STRAW MEN trilogy. The first original novel by Smith in almost a decade! (ONE OF US was published 9 years ago.)



THE SERVANTS was published in the following editions:

Trade hardcover $30
SOLD OUT
175 numbered hardcovers, bound in cloth and/or leather, with fine endpapers, and signed by Michael Marshall Smith $75
SOLD OUT
26 lettered hardcovers, hand bound using the finest materials, housed in a handcrafted traycase using the finest materials, and signed by all contributors $400
SOLD OUT

 


"THE SERVANTS is an absolute delight of a book... mysterious, poignant, and tender. Highly recommended."
—Charles DeLint, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

"This moving parable delivers strong psychological insights into a child's powerlessness and anger. B+"
—Entertainment Weekly

"A superb, offbeat contemporary fantasy. Smith portrays a child's irrational anger with devastating accuracy, and the visits to the surreal and intensely symbolic world of the servants are powerfully depicted."
—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"THE SERVANTS is beautiful. It rolls in like the morning tide. Then it sweeps the you out in its undertow and holds you hostage to play upon the emotions young Mark experiences until they become part of your own. This reminded me of early Bradbury or Charles DeLint in the manner that a mundane setting morphs into a world of fantasy, sometimes dark and disturbing, but so easily done, you don’t notice it happening—or don’t care because it’s so finely written. Recommended for anyone who still visits his or her inner child."
—Horror World