The author of Eternal Light, Red Dust, and Pasquale's Angel, PAUL J. McAULEY has taken science fiction in dazzling new directions. With FAIRYLAND-- his most compelling, vividly imagined work to date he firmly establishes himself as one of today's major talents in the world of speculative fiction.Before he met the brilliant, hypnotic child Milena, Alex Sharkey had never played with "dolls"--blue-skinned, gengineered lifeforms designed for work, amusement, or destruction. But the underground gene-hacker is seduced by a megalomaniacal little girl's dream of providing the soulless genetic constructs with free thought and a future-and he unwittingly unleashes a plague of madness on the world. Now there's a void in his life and memory that must be refilled, but it means pursuing the dangerous sentient species he helped sire from the ruins of a Magic Kingdom through a wasted Europe. It is Alex Sharkey's last chance and the last hope remaining for a once-dominant human race.