A Long Cold Winter (The Witch Who Came In From The Cold Season 1 Episode 1)
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Cloak-and-dagger intrigue is served up with a magical twist in the riveting new episodic online serial created by Max Gladstone and Lindsay Smith.
The streets of Prague are a deadly chessboard on which the CIA and KGB make their moves, little dreaming that a deeper game is being played between the Consortium of Ice and the Acolytes of Flame, ancient organizations that seek to harness elemental magic. When Andula, a young Czech student, is stalked by an inhuman hunter, KGB agent and Ice operative Tanya Morozova must risk all to protect her, while CIA agent Gabe Pritchard learns that some horrors, once seen, can never be forgotten.
This episode is brought to you by lead creatives Max Gladstone and Lindsay Smith, who advise readers to fasten their seatbelts and get ready for one hell of a ride.
Praise for The Witch Who Came in from the Cold:
"Those who like to mix magic, spycraft, and secret history should enjoy this—it may please fans of Stross’s Laundry series." —Locus Magazine
"Full of fast-paced, high-intensity action paired with magic at a level that has not been seen until now, with a cliff-hanger that lets readers know that the game is not over and has only just begun." —The San Francisco Book Review
"The Witch Who Came in from the Cold is a chilly evocation of a different kind of Cold War." —Charles Stross, author of the Laundry Files series
“Take a double shot of Le Carré, a dash of Deighton, a twist of Quiller, a splash of Al Stewart’s The Year of the Cat, throw in a jigger full of elemental magic, mix well … and voilà! The Witch Who Came In From The Cold.” —Victor Milán, author of The Dinosaur Lords
"The occult love child of John le Carre and The Sandbaggers." —Marie Brennan, author of A Natural History of Dragons
"As soon as I saw that, I was instantly hooked, and the pilot jacked the intrigue to the max. Two female Soviet spy witches, an American spy with something weird drilling magical holes in his head, and a world of secrets within secrets in a locale where old-world myth and the Cold War face off, pedal to the metal . . . it’s awesome. Or as we said in 1970, Far out. " —Sherwood Smith, author of Crown Duel
"The installments are easy to read one at a time, but the tangles of alliances, secrets, and shocking double-crosses will have readers up all night mumbling, “Just one more.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
Max Gladstone
Max Gladstone is the author of the Hugo-nominated The Craft Sequence series, which Patrick Rothfuss called “stupefyingly good.” Max’s interactive mobile game Choice of the Deathless was nominated for the XYZZY Award, and his critically acclaimed short fiction has appeared on Tor and in Uncanny Magazine, and in anthologies such as XO Orpheus: Fifty New Myths and The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales. John Crowley described Max as “a true star of 21st-century fantasy.” Max has sung in Carnegie Hall and was once thrown from a horse in Mongolia.
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Cassandra Rose Clarke
Cassandra Rose Clarke is the author of Star’s End, Our Lady of the Ice, and The Mad Scientist’s Daughter, as well as several novels for young adults. She holds an M.A. in creative writing from The University of Texas at Austin, and attended Clarion West in 2010. Her work has been nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award, the Romantic Times Reviewer's Choice Award, and YALSA's Best Fiction for Young Adults.
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Ian Tregillis
Ian Tregillis is the son of a bearded mountebank and a discredited tarot card reader. He was born and raised in Minnesota, where his parents had landed after fleeing the wrath of a Flemish prince. (The full story, he's told, involves a Dutch tramp steamer and a stolen horse.) Nowadays he lives in New Mexico, where he consorts with writers, scientists and other unsavoury types.
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Fran Wilde
Fran Wilde’s books include her Nebula and Compton Crook award–winning debut Updraft and the Nebula award–winning, Best of NPR selection Riverland. Her fiction has appeared in numerous publications and “best of” anthologies. She teaches at colleges and MFA programs nationwide; edits fiction for the Sunday Morning Transport; writes nonfiction for publications including the Washington Post, the New York Times, and NPR.org; and hoards both fountain pens and ink. You can find her at Franwilde.net.
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