Lost Worlds: Short Stories is part of the Gothic Fantasy short story series by Flame Tree Publishing. It’s a beautiful hardbound volume with an embossed cover that features works by classic and current authors on the subject of lost and hidden worlds. It includes well-known stories such as “The Country of the Blind” by H.G. Wells, “The Man Who Would Be King” by Rudyard Kipling, and “At the Mountains of Madness” by H.P. Lovecraft as well as excerpts from The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle, Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard. Why do I make this announcement? Apart from the fact that the book is awesome and I can hardly wait to dive into it, amongst this august company is a little-known contemporary author named John Walters. Not only that, but because the editor placed the stories in alphabetical order, “The Lady of the Lost Valley” by John Walters is sandwiched in between works by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Maybe that has more significance to me than to anyone else, but I find it amazing to find myself in a table of contents surrounded by giants of literature such as these that I grew up reading and admiring.