BVC Announces Val Hall: Century by Alma Alexander

These are the stories of a century in a place called Val Hall.

Val Hall, home and last sanctuary for retired superheroes, third class.

Val Hall, raised by the vision and devotion of one man for others of his kind… in the wreckage of the world left behind in the ashes of the conflagration of what they called the Great War.

Men and women in whom an extraordinary moment released one singular extraordinary power, gathered under the definition of Superheroes (Third Class), could gather here in the twilight of their lives in search of security, contentment, care, and peace – they could come here to find, and take shelter with, others of their kind.

From those who could know the unknowable, release gifts trapped in other minds, free ancient memories with a single touch, lead their kin back to the Promised Land, or face down a volcano; from those who use the power of their voice to make others believe anything they say, or those whose task it was to turn annihilation from their people at any cost, or stand against the storm to protect the ones they love, or walk with the dead and glimpse the world beyond – or those who can bend time, see the invisible, or save the world from ruin in their own unique ways – their powers are banked… until the instant in which they are kindled into something unforgettable.

These are ordinary people, living ordinary lives. They could be your grandmother, your brother, your neighbor, your friend.

They could be you.

Val Hall has been here for a hundred years. It is there still. It will always be there, for all who have need of it.

About the Author: Novelist, short story writer, editor and anthologist, resident of the Pacific Northwest of the USA with the obligatory two writer’s cats.

Table of Contents

(Stories marked with * are also collected in Val Hall: The Even Years; those marked with ^ are in Val Hall: The Odd Years. Those without a mark are new to this omnibus.)

• The First Hundred Years
  • Overture: The One About The Founding (1918)*
  • The One About Her Voice (1919)^
  • The One About The Dust Dragon (1935)^
  • The One About The Last Prayer (1939)^
  • The One About The Symphony (1942)*
  • The One About Radiant Shadows (1945)^
  • The One About The Promised Land (1968)*
  • The One About Ancient Bones (1974)*
  • The One About The Truth in Beauty (1977)^
  • The One About Ashes (1980)*
  • The One About The Face of God (1986)*
  • The One About Just Another End of the World (1999)^
  • The One About Tomorrow’s Yesterdays (2002)*
  • The One About One More Time (2018)*
  • Coda: The One About Passing the Torch (2019)^
• A New Century
  • The One About the Epidemic (2020)
  • The One About Gone to Flowers (2021)