Kevin Fikkan is a reckless computer game test runner whose history is a series of betrayals. Janny Laias is a game designer determined to create a realistic fantasy world and rule over it as a god. But Janny's world has a treacherous programming bug that can only be solved by running the game without a safety system?through the demon-infested Tangled Lands.

I wrote the 2008 World Fantasy Award finalist for best novel, The Secret Academy, and other books. I think my best stories include Elsewhere and Dogland, which Ellen Kushner of public radio's Sound & Spirit on Dogland called, "A masterwork. A particularly American magic realism that touches the heart of race and childhood in our country; it's 100 Years of Solitude for an entire generation of American Baby Boomers, and deserves the widest possible audience."