The Gnoll Credo [signed] [first edition]

"We are born and we die. No one cares, no one remembers, and it doesn't matter. This is why we laugh." There are no such things as gnolls, they never kill and eat people, and they can't read or write -- much less write something so stark, so raw, so beautifully bleak. Right? Because if there were, someone might have risked a violent and painful death to find them, study them, and bring back this book. Then you might read it. And then you might have a joyous and bloody and terribly strange adventure, and you might find yourself laughing with the gnolls. And then what? From a world in which Avatar is Fight Club instead of Disney's Pocahontas, James Tiptree, Jr. wrote The Dice Man, and magic doesn't work any better than it does here... ...we bring you The Gnoll Credo. Sell that 'enchanted' sword and come join the hyena-people. Don't wear your good clothes.