LIBRARY: City Beyond Time

In which the next Library subscription book is announced

CITY BEYOND TIME: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis by John C. Wright will be the 38th book in the Castalia Library subscription. It will be a limited edition of 650/75 (Jul-Sep 2026). Please note that the above image is simply a mockup and will not be the final design of the actual leatherbound book’s cover.

Metachronopolis is the golden city beyond time. Ruled by the Masters of Time, who can travel freely throughout the multitudinous time lines of Man’s history, the city is a shining society of heroes and horrors. For the arrogant Masters, who steal famous men and women out of the past and bring them to the eternal city for their amusement, are not only beyond time, but beyond remorse and retribution too.

CITY BEYOND TIME: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis is John C. Wright’s mind-bending and astonishingly brilliant take on time travel. Utilizing a centuries-spanning perspective, Wright expertly weaves a larger tale out of a series of smaller ones. Part anthology and part novel, CITY BEYOND TIME is fascinating, melancholy, frightening, and a true masterpiece of story-telling by one of the most important and audacious authors in science fiction today.

AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND, also by John C. Wright, is still one of our most popular works and there has been an amount of demand for us to do a second edition. While we will get caught up on the backlog before we consider doing that, we’re delighted to have the ability to bring a second masterwork by the science fiction grandmaster to the Library, especially since Mr. Wright has added a new and original tale of Metachronopolis to the exceptional collection, entitled “Ghosts and Prophets”.

An excerpt from “Ghosts and Prophets”

I blinked again and glanced behind me. A skull grinned at me, white and shining in the lamplight. The flesh of the face had simply dissolved. But, grotesquely enough, the hat was still there, as was the hair on the back of his head.

The stranger said, “Maybe it is not too late to fix this.” He holstered his pistol.

He must have had cool nerves, since I was still armed with a space-raygun. But maybe he knew I would not shoot.

The bright little playing card showing face of Nia turned dark when I picked it up. I stood, frowning down at the dark square.

The stranger said, “Drop it. Don’t complicate things.”

I tucked the card into my pocket. I said, “Why not? Time paradox?”

He sighed wearily, shoulders slumped. “Not again!” he muttered.

I said, “If you did not want me to recognize me, you should have grown a beard. Or worn as mask. Or something…” Then, a giddy sense of triumph swirled into my brain. It occurred to me how proud my father would have been, if he had lived.

I was grinning. “I did it. I did it! You are me, aren’t you? Admit it! My future self. So I did invent time travel. Or I will. How long does it take me?”

He was saturnine. “If you kill the version of you that comes back in time to try to stop yourself from inventing time travel — then it takes no time at all. The only problem is that the time ring then has no beginning and no end. It does not have a right to exist. Nor do you.”

He turned and started to walk away.

Beneath the lamppost he paused, and looked over his shoulder. “You coming?”

I said, “Where?”

He said, “Where else? We all go to the same destination, no matter what we do.”

A cold chill touched my spine. “You mean … death?”

“I meant the future,” he said. He added in a thoughtful tone, “But I like your answer better. If I re-run this scene, I will use that line.”

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We will announce the new Castalia Cathedra book tomorrow.