Search Worlds Without End

WFA nominated short story. It originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, May 2008. The story can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best Fantasy 9 (2009), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, Unplugged: The Web's Best Sci-Fi & Fantasy: 2008 Download, (2010), edited by Rich Horton, and Realms 2: The Second Year of Clarkesworld Magazine (2010), edited by Sean Wallace and Nick Mamatas. It is included in the collection Ventriloquism (2010).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Troll's Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales (2009), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Four (2010), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2010, edited by Paula Guran. The story is included in the collection Ventriloquism (2010).

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing (2007), edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, November 2016. It is included in the collection Ventriloquism (2010).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, May 2012.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Locus Award nominated novella.

Sophia was made for him. Her perfect husband. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Everything is perfect.

It's just that he's away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.

But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband's face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can't quite meet her gaze....

But everything is perfect. Isn't it?

Koschei the Deathless is to Russian folklore what devils or wicked witches are to European culture: a menacing, evil figure; the villain of countless stories which have been passed on through story and text for generations. But Koschei has never before been seen through the eyes of Catherynne Valente, whose modernized and transformed take on the legend brings the action to modern times, spanning many of the great developments of Russian history in the twentieth century.

Deathless, however, is no dry, historical tome: it lights up like fire as the young Marya Morevna transforms from a clever child of the revolution, to Koschei's beautiful bride, to his eventual undoing. Along the way there are Stalinist house elves, magical quests, secrecy and bureaucracy, and games of lust and power. All told, Deathless is a collision of magical history and actual history, of revolution and mythology, of love and death, which will bring Russian myth back to life in a stunning new incarnation.

This novelette originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 18, September-October 2017. It is incuded in the collection The Future Is Blue (2018).

Read the full story for free at Uncanny.

Hugo, Nebula and Sidewise award nominated novelette. It was originally published in Clarkesworld Magazine, #71 August 2012. It can be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven (2013), edited by Jonathan Strahan and Clarkesworld: Year Six (2014), edited by Neil Clarke, Sean Wallace. The story is collected in The Melancholy of Mechagirl (2013) and The Bread We Eat in Dreams (2013).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Federations (2009), edited by John Joseph Adams, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, January 2018. The story can also be found in the anthology War & Space: Recent Combat (2012), edited by Rich Horton and Sean Wallace. It is included in the collection Ventriloquism (2010).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, August 2010. It can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 16 (2011), edited by Kathryn Cramer and David G. Hartwell, Lightspeed: Year One (2011), edited by John Joseph Adams, and Twenty-First Century Science Fiction (2013), edited by David G. Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden. It is included in the collection Ventriloquism (2010).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

In this provocative and rich retelling of the Greek myth, Orpheus, the musician son of Apollo and Calliope, successfully rescues his wife Eurydice from Hades after her untimely death.

Read the full story for free at Tor Reactor.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology The Future Is Japanese (2012), edited by Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2013, edited by Rich Horton. The story is included in the collections The Melancholy of Mechagirl (2013) and The Bread We Eat in Dreams (2013).

The Oracles of the ancient world spoke for the gods, they spoke for the future: but they could not speak for themselves. Here, their voices bubble up from the depths, enraged and sardonic, sorrowing and wild, finding themselves on new ground -- scattered across the American continent, marking a path for the seeker to follow, from New England universities to Hawaiian volcanoes, from dilapidated factories to Chinatown kitchens, from the Old East to the New West...

Osmo Unknown hungers for the world beyond his small town. With the life that Littlebridge society has planned for him, the only taste Osmo will ever get are his visits to the edge of the Fourpenny Woods where his mother hunts. Until the unthinkable happens: his mother accidentally kills a Quidnunk, a fearsome and intelligent creature that lives deep in the forest.

None of this should have anything to do with poor Osmo, except that a strange treaty was once formed between the Quidnunx and the people of Littlebridge to ensure that neither group would harm the other. Now that a Quidnunk is dead, as the firstborn child of the hunter who killed her, Osmo must embark on a quest to find the Eightpenny Woods--the mysterious kingdom where all wild forest creatures go when they die--and make amends.

Accompanied by a very rude half-badger, half-wombat named Bonk and an antisocial pangolin girl called Never, it will take all of Osmo's bravery and cleverness to survive the magic of the Eightpenny Woods to save his town... and make it out alive.

In the Cities of Coin and Spice and In the Night Garden introduced readers to the unique and intoxicating imagination of Catherynne M. Valente. Now she weaves a lyrically erotic spell of a place where the grotesque and the beautiful reside and the passport to our most secret fantasies begins with a stranger's kiss....

Between life and death, dreaming and waking, at the train stop beyond the end of the world is the city of Palimpsest. To get there is a miracle, a mystery, a gift, and a curse-a voyage permitted only to those who've always believed there's another world than the one that meets the eye. Those fated to make the passage are marked forever by a map of that wondrous city tattooed on their flesh after a single orgasmic night. To this kingdom of ghost trains, lion-priests, living kanji, and cream-filled canals come four travelers: Oleg, a New York locksmith; the beekeeper November; Ludovico, a binder of rare books; and a young Japanese woman named Sei. They've each lost something important-a wife, a lover, a sister, a direction in life-and what they will find in Palimpsest is more than they could ever imagine.

This short story originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Issue Four, May-June 2015. It can also be found in the anthology The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016, edited by Karen Joy Fowler and John Joseph Adams. It is incuded in the collection The Future Is Blue (2018).

Read the full story for free at Uncanny.

Radiance is a decopunk pulp SF alt-history space opera mystery set in a Hollywood - and solar system - very different from our own.

Severin Unck's father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate 1986 in which talking movies are still a daring innovation due to the patent-hoarding Edison family. Rebelling against her father's films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars. For this is not our solar system, but one drawn from classic science fiction in which all the planets are inhabited and we travel through space on beautiful rockets. Severin is a realist in a fantastic universe.

But her latest film, which investigates the disappearance of a diving colony on a watery Venus populated by island-sized alien creatures, will be her last. Though her crew limps home to earth and her story is preserved by the colony's last survivor, Severin will never return.

Radiance is a solar system-spanning story of love, exploration, family, loss, quantum physics, and silent film.

Hugo- and Nebula-nominated Novella

Fantastist Catherynne M. Valente takes on the folklore of artificial intelligence in this brand new, original novella of technology, identity, and an uncertain mechanized future.

Neva is dreaming. But she is not alone. A mysterious machine entity called Elefsis haunts her and the members of her family, back through the generations to her great-great grandmother-a gifted computer programmer who changed the world. Together Neva and Elefsis navigate their history and their future, an uneasy, unwilling symbiote. But what they discover in their dreamworld might change them forever...

Read this story online for free at Clarkesworld: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Hugo- and Nebula-nominated Novella

From New York Times bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente comes a brilliant reinvention of one the best known fairy tales of all time. In the novella Six-Gun Snow White, Valente transports the title's heroine to a masterfully evoked Old West where Coyote is just as likely to be found as the seven dwarves.

A plain-spoken, appealing narrator relates the history of her parents--a Nevada silver baron who forced the Crow people to give up one of their most beautiful daughters, Gun That Sings, in marriage to him. With her mother's death in childbirth, so begins a heroine's tale equal parts heartbreak and strength. This girl has been born into a world with no place for a half-native, half-white child. After being hidden for years, a very wicked stepmother finally gifts her with the name Snow White, referring to the pale skin she will never have. Filled with fascinating glimpses through the fabled looking glass and a close-up look at hard living in the gritty gun-slinging West, readers will be enchanted by this story at once familiar and entirely new.

This novelette originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 11, July-August 2016. It is incuded in the collection The Future Is Blue (2018).

Read the full story for free at Uncanny Magazine.

If you go looking for it, just about halfway uptown and halfway downtown, there's this hotel stuck like a pin all the way through the world. Down inside the Artemisia it's this mortal coil all over. Earthly delights on every floor.

The hotel Artemisia sits on a fantastical 72nd Street, in a decade that never was. It is home to a cast of characters, creatures, and creations unlike any other, including especially Zelda Fair, who is perfect at being Zelda, but who longs for something more. The world of this extraordinary novella--a bootlegger's brew of fairy tales, Jazz Age opulence, and organized crime--is ruled over by the diminutive, eternal, sinister Al. Zelda holds her own against the boss, or so it seems. But when she faces off against him and his besotted employee Frankie in a deadly game that just might change everything, she must bet it all and hope not to lose...

Multiple-award-winning, New York Times' bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente once again reinvents a classic in ''Speak Easy,'' which interprets ''The Twelve Dancing Princesses'' if Zelda Fitzgerald waltzed in and stole the show. This Prohibition-Era tale will make heads spin and hearts pound. It's a story as old as time, as effervescent as champagne, and as dark as the devil's basement on a starless night in the city.

Subterranean Press proudly presents a major new collection by one of the brightest stars in the literary firmament. Catherynne M. Valente, the New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and other acclaimed novels, now brings readers a treasure trove of stories and poems in The Bread We Eat in Dreams.

In the Locus Award-winning novelette 'White Lines on a Green Field,' an old story plays out against a high school backdrop as Coyote is quarterback and king for a season. A girl named Mallow embarks on an adventure of memorable and magical politicks in 'The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland--For a Little While.' The award-winning, tour de force novella 'Silently and Very Fast' is an ancient epic set in a far-flung future, the intimate autobiography of an evolving A.I. And in the title story, the history of a New England town and that of an outcast demon are irrevocably linked.

The twenty-six pieces collected here explore an extraordinary breadth of styles and genres, as Valente presents readers with something fresh and evocative on every page. From noir to Native American myth, from folklore to the final frontier, each tale showcases Valente's eloquence and originality.

Table of Contents:

• The Consultant - (2013) - shortstory
• White Lines on a Green Field - (2011) - novelette
• The Bread We Eat in Dreams - (2011) - shortstory
• The Melancholy of Mechagirl - (2011) - poem by Catherynne M. Valente
• A Voice Like a Hole - (2011) - shortstory
• The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland -- For a Little While - (2011) - novelette
• How to Raise a Minotaur - (2013) - shortstory
• The Shoot-Out at Burnt Corn Ranch Over the Bride of the World - (2013) - shortstory
• Mouse Koan - (2012) - poem
• The Blueberry Queen of Wiscasset - (2013) - shortstory
• In the Future When All's Well - (2011) - shortstory
• Fade to White - (2012) - novelette
• Aeromaus - (2013) - shortstory
• Red Engines - (2009) - poem
• The Wolves of Brooklyn - (2011) - shortstory
• One Breath, One Stroke - (2012) - shortstory
• Kallisti - (2013) - shortstory
• The Wedding - (2013) - shortstory
• The Secret of Being a Cowboy - (2011) - poem
• Twenty-Five Facts About Santa Claus - (2013) - shortstory
• We Without Us Were Shadows - (2013) - novelette
• The Red Girl - (2013) - shortstory
• Aquaman and the Duality of Self/Other, America, 1985 - (2012) - poem
• The Room - (2013) - shortstory
• Silently and Very Fast - (2011) - novella
• What the Dragon Said: A Love Story - (2012) - poem

This short story originally appeared in Apex Magazine, November 2011. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2012, edited by Paula Guran. The story is included in the collection The Bread We Eat in Dreams (2013).

Read the full story for free at Apex.

Subterranean Press is thrilled to present a major new collection from one of the most dazzling, distinctive voices in the literary world. Catherynne M. Valente, the New York Times bestselling and multiple-award-winning author of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and other acclaimed novels, now brings readers thirteen stories unlike any others.

In the title story, Theodore Sturgeon Award-winning novelette "The Future Is Blue," an outcast girl named Tetley lives on floating Garbagetown, in a world that dreams of the long lost land. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos is explored and reinvented in style in "Down and Out in R'lyeh." In the novelette "The Limitless Perspective of Master Peek, or, the Luminescence of Debauchery," Perpetua masquerades as a man in order to continue her father's business as a glassblower and must fashion a special eye for a queen. And in "The Beasts Who Fought for Fairyland Until the Very End," the wyvern A-Through-L, the warrior Green Wind and his giant cat the Leopard of Little Breezes cope with their broken-hearted disappointment over politicks as the evil Marquess ascends to rule.

Of her previous collection, The Bread We Eat in Dreams, the New York Times said, "Valente's writing DNA is full of fable, fairy tale and myth drawn from deep wells worldwide." With The Future Is Blue she continues to build and invent unforgettable worlds and characters with lyrical abandon, creating stories that feel old and new at once.

The Future is Blue also includes three never-before-printed stories, for almost 30,000 words of work exclusive to this collection: "Major Tom," "Two and Two is Seven," and the long novelette "Flame, Pearl, Mother, Autumn, Virgin, Sword, Kiss, Blood, Heart, and Grave."

Table of Contents:

• The Future Is Blue
• No One Dies in Nowhere
• Two and Two is Seven
• Down and Out in R'lyeh
• The Limitless Perspective of Master Peek, or, the Luminescence of Debauchery
• Snow Day
• Planet Lion
• Flame, Pearl, Mother, Autumn, Virgin, Sword, Kiss, Blood, Heart, and Grave
• Major Tom
• The Lily and the Horn
• The Flame After the Candle
• The Long Goodnight of Violet Wild
• The Beast Who Fought for Fairyland Until the Very End

Charlotte and Emily must enter a fantasy world that they invented in order to rescue their siblings in this adventurous and fiercely intelligent novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.

Inside a small Yorkshire parsonage, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne Brontë have invented a game called Glass Town, where their toy soldiers fight Napoleon and no one dies. This make-believe land helps the four escape from a harsh reality: Charlotte and Emily are being sent away to a dangerous boarding school, a school they might not return from. But on this Beastliest Day, the day Anne and Branwell walk their sisters to the train station, something incredible happens: the train whisks them all away to a real Glass Town, and the children trade the moors for a wonderland all their own.

This is their Glass Town, exactly like they envisioned it...almost. They certainly never gave Napoleon a fire-breathing porcelain rooster instead of a horse. And their soldiers can die; wars are fought over the potion that raises the dead, a potion Anne would very much like to bring back to England. But when Anne and Branwell are kidnapped, Charlotte and Emily must find a way to save their siblings. Can two English girls stand against Napoleon's armies, especially now that he has a new weapon from the real world? And if he escapes Glass Town, will England ever be safe again?

Together the Brontë siblings must battle with a world of their own creation if they are to make it back to England alive in this magical celebration of authorship, creativity, and classic literature from award-winning author Catherynne M. Valente.

Here Monsters are hidden...

A lyrical anti-quest through a conscious maze without center, borders, or escape--a dark pilgrim's progress through a landscape of vicious Angels, plague houses, crocodile-prophets, tragic chess-sets, and the mind of an unraveling woman, driven on by the mocking guide who seeks to destroy as much as save.

Enter the world of the Labyrinth, where Doors do not wait to be opened, but hunt you in the night. This is Zarathustra in Wonderland, a puzzle which defies solution, a twisted path through language and madness...

But where will you hide?

This short story originally appeared in Fantasy Magazine, December 2015 (Issue 59)--Queers Destroy Fantasy! Special. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Ten (2016), edited Jonathan Strahan, and The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2016, edited by Paula Guran. It is incuded in the collection The Future Is Blue (2018).

Short story originally published serialized in Clarkesworld Magazine issues #100 (January 2015) and #102 (March 2015). The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year' Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2016 edited by Rich Horton, and Clarkesworld Year Nine: Volume One (2018), edited by Sean Wallace and Neil Clarke. It is incuded in the collection The Future Is Blue (2018).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld (part 1, part 2).

A woman who dreams of machines. A paper lantern that falls in love. The most compelling video game you've never played and that nobody can ever play twice. This collection of Catherynne M. Valente's stories and poems with Japanese themes includes the lauded novella "Silently and Very Fast" and the award-nominated "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time," and "Ghost of Gunkanjima"--which originally appeared in a book smaller than your palm, published in a limited edition of twenty-four.

Also included are two new stories: the semiautobiographical metafictional, and utterly magical "Ink, Water, Milk" and the cinematic, demon-haunted "Story No.6."

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Teruyuki Hashimoto
• The Melancholy of Mechagirl - (2011) - poem
• Ink, Water, Milk - shortfiction
• Fifteen Panels Depicting the Sadness of the Baku and the Jotai - (2010) - shortfiction
• Ghosts of Gunkanjima - (2005) - shortstory
• Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time - (2010) - shortstory
• One Breath, One Stroke - (2012) - shortstory
• Story No. 6 - shortfiction
• Fade to White - (2012) - novelette
• The Emperor of Tsukayama Park - (2005) - poem
• Killswitch - (2007) - shortstory
• Memoirs of a Girl Who Failed to Be Born from a Peach - (2005) - poem
• The Girl with Two Skins - (2008) - poem
• Silently and Very Fast - (2011) - novella
• Afterword: The Melancholy of a Modern Girl, or, Love and Hegemony - (2013) - essay

This short story originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, August 2009. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2010, edited by Rich Horton, Clarkesworld: Year Three (2013), edited by Sean Wallace and Neil Clarke, and The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women (2014), edited by Alex Dally MacFarlane. It is included in the collection Ventriloquism (2010).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

The lives of six female superheroes and the girlfriends of superheroes. A ferocious riff on women in superhero comics

From the New York Times bestselling author Catherynne Valente comes a series of linked stories from the points of view of the wives and girlfriends of superheroes, female heroes, and anyone who's ever been "refrigerated": comic book women who are killed, raped, brainwashed, driven mad, disabled, or had their powers taken so that a male superhero's storyline will progress.

In an entirely new and original superhero universe, Valente subversively explores these ideas and themes in the superhero genre, treating them with the same love, gravity, and humor as her fairy tales. After all, superheroes are our new fairy tales and these six women have their own stories to share.

This short story originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, August 2010. It can also be found in the anthologies Clarkesworld: Year Four (2013), edited by Sean Wallace and Neil Clarke, and Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology (2015), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. The story is included in the collections Ventriloquism (2010) and The Melancholy of Mechagirl (2013).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

This short story originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, #3 December 2006. It can also be found in the anthologies Realms: The First Year of Clarkesworld Magazine (2007), edited by Sean Wallace and Nick Mamatas, and Mermaids and Other Mysteries of the Deep (2015), edited by Paula Guran. The story is included in the collection Ventriloquism (2010).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Novelette originally published in Subterranean Press Magazine. It can also be found in the collection The Bread We Eat in Dreams (2013) and the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Six (2012), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and Mythic Journeys (2019), edited by Paula Guran.

Read the full story for free at Subterranean.

In the mind of Ayako, an old woman in exile on a mountain in medieval Japan, nothing is certain, and nothing holds a familiar shape for long. This is a map of a psyche exalted and destroyed by solitude, and on its contorted surface Shinto philosophy, Greek mathematics, Hawaiian goddesses, Egyptian legend, quantum physics, and Babylonian myth meet and merge... In Catherynne M. Valente's second novel since the critically acclaimed The Labyrinth, language and myth construct a strange new geography of the self. This is The Book of Dreams: open it and walk the shadowy paths of this extraordinary landscape.

This is the story of a place that never was: the kingdom of Prester John, the utopia described by an anonymous, twelfth-century document which captured the imagination of the medieval world and drove hundreds of lost souls to seek out its secrets, inspiring explorers, missionaries, and kings for centuries. But what if it were all true? What if there was such a place, and a poor, broken priest once stumbled past its borders, discovering, not a Christian paradise, but a country where everything is possible, immortality is easily had, and the Western world is nothing but a dim and distant dream?

Brother Hiob of Luzerne, on missionary work in the Himalayan wilderness on the eve of the eighteenth century, discovers a village guarding a miraculous tree whose branches sprout books instead of fruit. These strange books chronicle the history of the kingdom of Prester John, and Hiob becomes obsessed with the tales they tell. The Habitation of the Blessed recounts the fragmented narratives found within these living volumes, revealing the life of a priest named John, and his rise to power in this country of impossible richness. John's tale weaves together with the confessions of his wife Hagia, a blemmye--a headless creature who carried her face on her chest--as well as the tender, jeweled nursery stories of Imtithal, nanny to the royal family.

Hugo and World Fantasy award nominee Catherynne M. Valente reimagines the legends of Prester John in this stunning tour de force.

When the mysterious daughter of Prester John appears on the doorstep of her father's palace, she brings with her news of war in the West--the Crusades have begun, and the bodies of the faithful are washing up on the shores of Pentexore. Three narratives intertwine to tell the tale of the beginning of the end of the world: a younger, angrier Hagia, the blemmye-wife of John and Queen of Pentexore, who takes up arms with the rest of her nation to fight a war they barely understand, Vyala, a lion-philosopher entrusted with the care of the deformed and prophetic royal princess, and another John, John Mandeville, who in his many travels discovers the land of Pentexore--on the other side of the diamond wall meant to keep demons and monsters at bay. These three voices weave a story of death, faith, beauty, and power, dancing in the margins of true history, illuminating a place that never was.

This original short story tells the tale of how a girl named Mallow defeated King Goldmouth with the help of the Red Wind, Mr. Map, and many fairyland friends new and old--from Catherynne M. Valente, author of the children's fantasy sensation The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.

This story is anthologized in Rich Horton's The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2012 (2012 )and collected in The Bread We Eat in Dreams (2013).

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Twelve-year-old September lives in Omaha, and used to have an ordinary life, until her father went to war and her mother went to work. One day, September is met at her kitchen window by a Green Wind (taking the form of a gentleman in a green jacket), who invites her on an adventure, implying that her help is needed in Fairyland. The new Marquess is unpredictable and fickle, and also not much older than September. Only September can retrieve a talisman the Marquess wants from the enchanted woods, and if she doesn't... then the Marquess will make life impossible for the inhabitants of Fairyland. September is already making new friends, including a book-loving Wyvern and a mysterious boy named Saturday.

With exquisite illustrations by acclaimed artist Ana Juan, Fairyland lives up to the sensation it created when the author first posted it online. For readers of all ages who love the charm of Alice in Wonderland and the soul of The Golden Compass, here is a reading experience unto itself: unforgettable, and so very beautiful.

September has longed to return to Fairyland after her first adventure there. And when she finally does, she learns that its inhabitants have been losing their shadows--and their magic--to the world of Fairyland Below. This underworld has a new ruler: Halloween, the Hollow Queen, who is September's shadow. And Halloween does not want to give Fairyland's shadows back.

Fans of Valente's bestselling, first Fairyland book will revel in the lush setting, characters, and language of September's journey, all brought to life by fine artist Ana Juan. Readers will also welcome back good friends Ell, the Wyverary, and the boy Saturday. But in Fairyland Below, even the best of friends aren't always what they seem....

September misses Fairyland and her friends Ell, the Wyverary, and the boy Saturday. She longs to leave the routines of home and embark on a new adventure. Little does she know that this time, she will be spirited away to the moon, reunited with her friends, and find herself faced with saving Fairyland from a moon-Yeti with great and mysterious powers.

Twelve-year-old September lives in Omaha, and used to have an ordinary life, until her father went to war and her mother went to work. One day, September is met at her kitchen window by a Green Wind (taking the form of a gentleman in a green jacket), who invites her on an adventure, implying that her help is needed in Fairyland. The new Marquess is unpredictable and fickle, and also not much older than September. Only September can retrieve a talisman the Marquess wants from the enchanted woods, and if she doesn't... then the Marquess will make life impossible for the inhabitants of Fairyland. September is already making new friends, including a book-loving Wyvern and a mysterious boy named Saturday.

September has been crowned as Queen of Fairyland but the Kingdom is in chaos. The magic of a Dodo egg has brought every King, Queen, or Marquees of Fairyland back to life, each with a claim on the throne and their own plots and histories. In order to make sense of it all, and to save their friend from a job she doesn't want, A-Through-L and Saturday devise a Royal Race, a Monarchical Marathon, in which every would-be ruler will chase the Stoat of Arms across the nation, and the first to seize the poor beast will be crowned. Caught up in the madness are September's parents, who have crossed the universe to find their daughter.

Locus and Strugeon Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology Drowned Worlds (2016), edited by Jonathan Strahan. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Eleven (2017), edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2017, edited by Paula Guran, and The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017, edited by John Joseph Adams and Charles Yu. It is incuded in the collection The Future Is Blue (2018).

This story comprises the first quarter of the book The Past Is Red and it can be read for free at Clarkesworld.

The future is blue. Endless blue... except for a few small places that float across the hot, drowned world left behind by long-gone fossil fuel-guzzlers. One of those patches is a magical place called Garbagetown.

Tetley Abednego is the most beloved girl in Garbagetown, but she's the only one who knows it. She's the only one who knows a lot of things: that Garbagetown is the most wonderful place in the world, that it's full of hope, that you can love someone and 66% hate them all at the same time.

But Earth is a terrible mess, hope is a fragile thing, and a lot of people are very angry with her. Then Tetley discovers a new friend, a terrible secret, and more to her world than she ever expected.

The first quarter of this book was published as the novelette The Past Is Red and it can be read for free at Clarkesworld.

A century ago, the Sentience Wars tore the galaxy apart and nearly ended the entire concept of intelligent space-faring life. In the aftermath, a curious tradition was invented -- something to cheer up everyone who was left and bring the shattered worlds together in the spirit of peace, unity, and understanding.

Once every cycle, the civilizations gather for Galactivision -- part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part continuation of the wars of the past. Instead of competing in orbital combat, the powerful species that survived face off in a competition of song, dance, or whatever can be physically performed in an intergalactic talent show. The stakes are high for this new game, and everyone is forced to compete.

This year, though, humankind has discovered the enormous universe. And while they expected to discover a grand drama of diplomacy, gunships, wormholes, and stoic councils of aliens, they have instead found glitter, lipstick and electric guitars. Mankind will not get to fight for its destiny -- they must sing.

A one-hit-wonder band of human musicians, dancers and roadies from London - Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes -- have been chosen to represent Earth on the greatest stage in the galaxy. And the fate of their species lies in their ability to rock.

The Metagalactic Grand Prix -- part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part continuation of the wars of the past returns and the fate of the Earth is once again threatened.

The civilizations opposed to humanity have been plotting and want to take down the upstarts.

Can humanity rise again?

Secreted away in a garden, a lonely girl spins stories to warm a curious prince: peculiar feats and unspeakable fates that loop through each other and back again to meet in the tapestry of her voice. Inked on her eyelids, each twisting, tattooed tale is a piece in the puzzle of the girls own hidden history. And what tales she tells! Tales of shape-shifting witches and wild horsewomen, heron kings and beast princesses, snake gods, dog monks, and living starseach story more strange and fantastic than the one that came before. From ill-tempered mermaid to fastidious Beast, nothing is ever quite what it seems in these ever-shifting tales even, and especially, their teller. Adorned with illustrations by the legendary Michael Kaluta, Valente's enchanting lyrical fantasy offers a breathtaking reinvention of the untold myths and dark fairy tales that shape our dreams. And just when you think you've come to the end, you realize the adventure has only begun.

Catherynne M. Valente enchanted readers with her spellbinding In the Night Garden. Now she continues to weave her storytelling magic in a new book of Orphan's Tales--an epic of the fantastic and the exotic, the monstrous and mysterious, that will transport you far away from the everyday....

Her name and origins are unknown, but the endless tales inked upon this orphan's eyelids weave a spell over all who listen to her read her secret history. And who can resist the stories she tells? From the Lake of the Dead and the City of Marrow to the artists who remain behind in a ghost city of spice, here are stories of hedgehog warriors and winged skeletons, loyal leopards and sparrow calligraphers. Nothing is too fantastic, anything can happen, but you'll never guess what comes next in these intimately linked adventures of firebirds and djinn, singing manticores, mutilated unicorns, and women made entirely of glass and gears. Graced with the magical illustrations of Michael Kaluta, In the Cities of Coins and Spice is a book of dreams and wonders unlike any you've ever encountered. Open it anywhere and you will fall under its spell. For here the story never ends and the magic is only beginning....