Anne Steelyard: The Garden of Emptiness #2

Barbara Hambly's *Anne Steelyard: The Garden of Emptiness* returns with this 2009 Penny-Farthing Press installment, featuring a richly painted cover by Glen Orbik that evokes the golden age of adventure pulps. Anne herself dominates the composition — her determined face front and center — while swirling around her are glimpses of exotic action: a green-masked figure, mounted warriors silhouetted against a dusky sky, a looming purple visage, and other intriguing characters caught mid-drama. Orbik's lush, painterly style gives the whole cover a cinematic warmth that makes this one hard to pass by on the shelf.