Search Worlds Without End

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, August 1990. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighth Annual Collection (1991), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Nebula Awards 26 (1992), edited by James Morrow.

"All my past is accepted."

Science fiction's most eloquent creator of visions of tomorrow, Brian Aldiss, spins out his most fascinating story yet: his own.

Born in 1925, Aldiss is representative of the unique generation that reached adolescence in the era of World War II. Growing up in the rural hells of Norfolk and Devon, the son of a department store owner, he was formed and altered by wartime, serving three years in Burma and Asia with the Forgotten Army. Intrigued by science fiction and the near-apocalyptic imagery of the London Blitz, Aldiss became intoxicated by the beautiful lands, tropical climate, and horrific brutality he discovered in Burma and Sumatra, an "enchanted zone" that later provided the catalyst for much of his work.

Poignantly and passionately, Aldiss recalls the camaraderie of the army and the sobriety of postwar England; bookselling in Oxford; marital breakdown and financial impoverishment; life as a struggling novelist and literary editor; his seminal role in the science fiction's New Wave in the 1960s; and his friendships with Kingsley Amis, J.G. Ballard, Doris Lessing, and Michael Moorcock, among others.

Versatile, prolific, and outspoken, Aldiss writes revealingly on many issues and experiences, from literary inspiration to childhood illness, from mental breakdown to the critical attitudes toward science fiction.

For most of his life, Brian Aldiss has concerned himself with re-creating our present. In this moving, candid, and compelling autobiography, he reflects on a future that, in the twinkling of an eye, has become the past.

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy, Winter 1989. The story can also be found in the anthology The Best of Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine (1994), edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

An imaginative story of a woman caught in an alternate world--where she will need to learn the skills of magic to survive

Nora Fischer's dissertation is stalled and her boyfriend is about to marry another woman. During a miserable weekend at a friend's wedding, Nora wanders off and walks through a portal into a different world where she's transformed from a drab grad student into a stunning beauty. Before long, she has a set of glamorous new friends and her romance with gorgeous, masterful Raclin is heating up. It's almost too good to be true.

Then the elegant veneer shatters. Nora's new fantasy world turns darker, a fairy tale gone incredibly wrong. Making it here will take skills Nora never learned in graduate school. Her only real ally--and a reluctant one at that--is the magician Aruendiel, a grim, reclusive figure with a biting tongue and a shrouded past. And it will take her becoming Aruendiel's student--and learning magic herself--to survive. When a passage home finally opens, Nora must weigh her "real life" against the dangerous power of love and magic.

For lovers of Lev Grossman's The Magicians series (The Magicians and The Magician King) and Deborah Harkness's All Souls Trilogy (A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night).

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Broken Time Blues: Fantastic Tales in the Roaring '20s (2011), edited by Erika Holt and Jaym Gates. It was reprinted in Lightspeed, March 2014.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

"On the basis of Lord Stink and Other Stories, Judith Berman is a skillful, passionate writer who proceeds at her own measured pace to produce quality craftsmanship from her workshop. Two stories here, the title piece and "Dream of Rain" are mythic, fairytale-like fantasies that evoke the best of Ursula Le Guin. The heretofore unpublished "Election Day," by contrast, is a madcap Tim-Powersish romp involving talking mirrors, reanimated corpses and a touchingly awkward, nascent love affair. Finally, "The Window" moves into Carol Emshwiller territory with its tale of an Earth overrun by the Grubs, and how humanity fares as pets. Berman exhibits a sure hand and a sharp imagination. Seeing more of her work will be a pleasure, especially at possibly longer lengths."
- Paul Di Filippo, Asimov's

Table of Contents:

• Lord Stink - (1997) - novelette
• The Window - (1999) - novelette
• Dream of Rain - (2000) - short story
• Election Day - short fiction

Adam Link, Robot (1965) is a fix-up of stories first published in the late 1930s and early 1940s, all written by Otto Binder but published under the Eando Binder pen-name.

"To anyone fond of the robot story in science fiction, ADAM LINK is of extraordinary interest. The robot-with-emotion has rarely been handled so well." --Isaac Asimov.

Adam Link, the first of the robot race, has photoelectric eyes, an iridium-sponge brain, and the soul of a man! An electronic marvel gifted with incredible skills, Adam Link faces a series of challenges that would stagger a mere mortal, culminating in a fierce struggle to save Earth from destruction at the hands of an alien race.

Ed Carter, a New York reporter on his way to his home town in Omaha for a short vacation, saw the missile in the last moments in its journey back to earth. A sweller on the brink, like all of us, he had no doubt about what it was; Oh God, he thought, this is it. The blast of the impact flung him some distance, and when he regained consciousness, his first reaction was one of surprised to find himself still alive, and not, it seemed, even badly hurt. Presumably the missile had been directed at the big Air Force base nearby, and should have destroyed everything and everyone within a radius of miles. Could it have failed to explode?

Carter sees the remains of part of the missile in an adjacent field and hobbles over to it. A minute or two later several Air Force officers arrive. They examine the remains, and find the burned-up body of a pilot. In other worlds, the missile was not Russia's first shot in the Third World War, but a failure to launch a man into space. But Carter knows that the Distant Early Warning line will have reported the missile; that the senior Air Force officers, in accordance with plan, will have taken to the air - in the country's interest, their lives must, of course, be preserved if possible; that by now the retaliatory American bombers will have passed the point of no recall; and that the Third World War has begun. Not so, Colonel Ben Goldwater tells him: "I called the bombers back."

Goldwater, the man who had been left in command, has saved the world - for at least a little longer. So he becomes a world hero? Not a bit of it. On the contrary: a nightmare looms ahead both for him and for Ed Carter, and the reader watches it all with growing fury...

This short story originally appeared in the anthology The Williamson Effect (1996), edited by Roger Zelazny. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 2 (1997), edited by David G. Hartwell.

In the 23rd Century, corporations have replaced nations, and executives have absolute rule. But when an underground enclave of independent workers threatens the system, executive Dominic Jedes must negotiate with them face to face.

I scurry up the ladder to tug at his ankles. This time he can t keep his cry to himself. As I dislodge one of his feet from the rung they re desperate to stay on, he lunges upwards to clutch at the gutter. I m down the ladder in a moment, and in another I ve snatched it away. It clatters at full length on the concrete as its owner dangles from the flimsy gutter. Help, he screams. Look what he s done. Christ, someone help. He s saying more than he needs to, as so many of them do. You d think they ve taken a vow to use up all the oxygen they can, but he won t for much longer. I watch him struggle to haul himself up and find a handhold on the roof. His hand slips off the wet tiles, and the gutter emits a creak that sounds as if it s splintering. I might enjoy watching him dangle and wave his helpless legs for however many seconds he has left . . .

David Botham just wants a quiet ordinary life his job at the travel agency, his relationship with his girlfriend Stephanie. He doesn t want to be a writer, and he certainly doesn t think he s one. The online blog that uses a title he once thought up has nothing to do with him. He has no idea who is writing it or where they get their information about a series of violent deaths in Liverpool. If they re murders, how can the killer go unseen even by the security cameras? Perhaps David won t know until they come too close to him until he can t ignore the figure from his past that is catching up with him. Perhaps denying it isn t just the worst thing he can do but fatal...

In Ramsey Campbell and the Twenty-First-Century Weird Tale Richard Bleiler argues that Campbell has brought the new century into supernatural fiction. Following The Grin of the Dark and The Seven Days of Cain, Think Yourself Lucky finds new demons online. But perhaps they are ourselves . . .

In the year 2034, a young woman named Mozelle Moi learns that her work as a test subject in a top-secret tachyon transmission project will soon be terminated. The purpose of the project has never been revealed to her; she only knows that she is in love with David Kadin, a man she has met only through the tachyon cyberlink. Desperate not to lose her chance at love, she conspires with a programmer friend to join her with Kadin through the tachyon transmitter.

She succeeds--but the truth that awaits her at the end of the tachyon beam is one that will shatter not only her own ambitions of love, but the plans of a secret government program to establish contact with visitors from the stars. Trapped by her love for Kadin, and caught in a telepathic link with the ancient Talenki voyagers, Mozy's personal odyssey becomes irrevocably entwined with the fate of all of Humanity.

Combining visionary scientific speculation with passionate human characters, THE INFINITY LINK is an epic work of transcendent science fiction and an exploration into the very nature of humanity.

Fifteen original stories about our fear of and fascination with artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence has captured the imaginations of writers, readers, and scientists alike, from Karl Capek's R.U.R. to Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, from Robby the Robot to The Terminator and The Bicentennial Man, and, of course, Arthur C. Clarke's Hal 9000.

Now some of the most innovative thinkers in science fiction offer an intriguing variety of tales featuring the many forms of AI, from frightening to funny. These authors confront one of contemporary mankind's deepest concerns, what do we do when the machines we created evolve beyond us?

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Paul J. McAuley
• Tempest 43 - novelette by Stephen Baxter
• The Highway Code - novelette by Brian Stableford
• Salvage Rites - short story by Eric Brown
• The Kamikaze Code - short story by James Lovegrove
• Adam Robots - short story by Adam Roberts
• Seeds - novelette by Tony Ballantyne
• Lost Places of the Earth - short story by Steven Utley
• The Chinese Room - short story by Marly Youmans
• Three Princesses - short story by Robert Reed
• The New Cyberiad - novelette by Paul Di Filippo
• That Laugh - short story by Patrick O'Leary
• Alles In Ordnung - short story by Garry Kilworth
• Sweats - novelette by Keith Brooke
• Some Fast Thinking Needed - short story by Ian Watson
• Dragon King of the Eastern Sea - novelette by Chris Roberson
• About the Authors - essay by uncredited

The Oxford Inklings tells the story of the friendships, mutual influence, and common purpose of the Inklings - the literary circle which congregated around C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Meeting in pubs or Lewis's college rooms, they included an influential array of literary figures. They were, claimed poet and novelist John Wain, bent on 'the task of redirecting the whole current of contemporary art and life'.

Tolkien and Lewis expert Colin Duriez unpacks the Inklings' origins, relationships, and the nature of their collaboration. He shows how they influenced, encouraged, and moulded each other. Duriez also covers the less celebrated Inklings, neglected, he claims, for too long. What did they owe - and offer - to the more acknowledged names? What brought them together? And what, eventually, drove them apart from their initial focus upon each other's writings?

Vampire romance takes a snarky turn in this humorous novel from Sarah Beth Durst.

Pearl is a sixteen-year-old vampire...fond of blood, allergic to sunlight, and mostly evil...until the night a sparkly unicorn stabs her through the heart with his horn. Oops.

Her family thinks she was attacked by a vampire hunter (because, obviously, unicorns don't exist), and they're shocked she survived. They're even more shocked when Pearl discovers she can now withstand the sun. But they quickly find a way to make use of her new talent. The Vampire King of New England has chosen Pearl's family to host his feast. If Pearl enrolls in high school, she can make lots of human friends and lure them to the King's feast--as the entrées.

The only problem? Pearl's starting to feel the twinges of a conscience. How can she serve up her new friends--especially the cute guy who makes her fangs ache--to be slaughtered? Then again, she's definitely dead if she lets down her family. What's a sunlight-loving vamp to do?

Keisha Lewis mourned the loss of her wife, Alice, who disappeared two years ago. There was a search, there was grief beyond what she thought was possible. There was a funeral.

But then Keisha began to see her wife, again and again, in the background of news reports from all over America.

Alice isn't dead. And she is showing up at the scene of every tragedy in the country.

Keisha shrugs off her old life and hits the road as a trucker - hoping on some level that travelling the length of the country will lead her to the person she loves.

What she finds are buried crimes and monsters (both human and unimaginable), government conspiracies, haunted service stations and a darkness far older than the highway system it lies beneath.

Inspired by the eponymous podcast, Alice Isn't Dead is a story about loving, about searching - and about the courage you need when what you find is terrifyingly unexpected.

In his second novel Garfinkle shows again his own brand of large-scale imagination. All of an Instant is a groundbreaking SF novel that chronicles the discovery of a medium of existence outside of time--the Instant--from which one can influence all past and future history. War dominates this strange, abstract place--war among forces contending for control of all times and places.

A thousand years after Alexander the Great, the Greek Empire has expanded over the world with the help of advanced technology. Its plans for Total Domination of the entire planet will be complete once the war with the empire of the middle kingdom has been won.

The scientist Aias, commander of the celestial ship Chandra's Tear, prepares to embark on a secret mission to the sun, to steal a piece of the purest elemental fire. This ultimate piece of celestial matter will form the basis for a weapon capable of decisively ending the war with the Taoists of the Far East.

This novella was first published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, March/April 2023.

Read the full story for free here.

Sammi, TQ, Caryn, Letty, and Katsuko are floaters. None of them fits in with any particular group at Covington High School--except each other. One night, to cement their bond, the girls decide to get matching, unique tattoos. But when Sammi backs out at the last minute, everything changes. Faster than you can say "airbrush," Sammi is an outcast, and soon, her friends are behaving like total strangers. When they attack Sammi for trying to break up a brawl, Sammi spies something horrible on her friends' backs: the original tattoo has grown tendrils, snaking and curling over the girls' entire bodies. What has that creepy tattoo artist done to her friends? And what--if anything--can Sammi do to get them back?

Returning home through a bog late one night, sixteen-year-old Dick Dodds passes a trail that for some reason sends a chill up his spine. He feels the same inexplicable terror the next day when he explores the trail further and meets a girl, Helen Johnson, who saw something that looked like a man with no arms or legs moving and gliding across the landscape. The mystery deepens when a local widow, Mrs Knowles, becomes convinced that something evil has emerged from the river near her house. What is the secret of the strange and terrifying mystery of the bog? And what does it have to do with a local legend of a man who died there in the reign of King John while guarding a fabulous treasure? Dick and Helen are determined to find out, but they may soon find themselves in greater danger than they ever imagined.

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1966. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: 16th Series (1967), edited by Edward L. Ferman and A Science Fiction Argosy (1972), edited by Damon Knight.

When Toby Dexter falls for the woman on the train, the woman with the most perfect mouth in the world, he little realises that she isn't quite human: she lives in the magical world that exists alongside our own. And when he follows her to ask her out, he accidently slips from his own world, Veritie, into hers. She warns him that it's a dangerous thing to be a mortal in the magical world of Mysterie and that he must not fall in love with her: she's much older than she looks and mortal must not love immortal. But for Toby, it's too late.

Contents:

• 1 - Introduction: Robots, Computers, and Fear - (1984) - essay by Isaac Asimov
• 15 - Moxon's Master - (1899) - short story by Ambrose Bierce
• 29 - The Lost Machine - (1932) - novelette by John Wyndham
• 50 - Rex - (1934) - short story by Harl Vincent
• 68 - Robbie - (1950) - short story by Isaac Asimov (variant of Strange Playfellow 1940)
• 93 - Farewell to the Master - (1940) - novelette by Harry Bates
• 139 - Robot's Return - (1938) - short story by Robert Moore Williams (variant of Robots Return)
• 153 - Though Dreamers Die - (1944) - novelette by Lester del Rey
• 175 - Fulfillment - (1951) - novelette by A. E. van Vogt
• 209 - Runaround - [Mike Donovan] - (1942) - novelette by Isaac Asimov
• 233 - I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream - (1967) - short story by Harlan Ellison
• 251 - The Evitable Conflict - [Susan Calvin] - (1950) - novelette by Isaac Asimov
• 279 - A Logic Named Joe - (1946) - short story by Murray Leinster [as by Will F. Jenkins]
• 297 - Sam Hall - [Sam Hall Universe] - (1953) - novelette by Poul Anderson
• 332 - I Made You - (1954) - short story by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
• 345 - Triggerman - (1958) - short story by J. F. Bone
• 357 - War with the Robots - (1962) - short story by Harry Harrison
• 380 - Evidence - [Susan Calvin] - (1946) - novelette by Isaac Asimov
• 405 - 2066: Election Day - (1956) - short story by Michael Shaara
• 422 - If There Were No Benny Cemoli - (1963) - novelette by Philip K. Dick
• 448 - The Monkey Wrench - (1951) - short story by Gordon R. Dickson
• 461 - Dial F for Frankenstein - (1973) - short story by Arthur C. Clarke (variant of Dial "F" for Frankenstein 1965)
• 470 - The Macauley Circuit - (1956) - short story by Robert Silverberg
• 481 - Judas - (1967) - short story by John Brunner
• 491 - Answer - (1954) - short story by Fredric Brown
• 495 - The Electric Ant - (1969) - short story by Philip K. Dick
• 519 - The Bicentennial Man - (1976) - novelette by Isaac Asimov
• 565 - Long Shot - (1972) - short story by Vernor Vinge
• 581 - Alien Stones - (1972) - novelette by Gene Wolfe
• 616 - Starcrossed - (1973) - short story by George Zebrowski

Political exiles are desperate to escape from the impossible city that imprisons them, in this bloody and brilliant epic fantasy.

Thousands of years ago, the city of Athanor was set adrift in time and space by alchemists, called "the Curious Men". Ever since, it has accumulated cultures, citizens and species into a vast, unmappable metropolis.

Isten and her gang of half-starved political exiles live off petty crime and gangland warfare in Athanor's seediest alleys. Though they dream of returning home to lead a glorious revolution, Isten's downward spiral drags them into a mire of addiction and violence. Isten must find a way to save the exiles and herself if they are ever to build a better, fairer world for the people of their distant homeland.

A mysterious box that he cannot open is all that might save Adam's autistic son as they are plunged into a world of old corruptions and new terrors. In PAINKILLERS, Simon Ings deftly teases out his knotted story that, with its many conventional elements, could have run a risk of overfamiliarity: sinister Oriental Triad gangsters, their even more sinister wives, a speedy Hong Kong with its ruthless Brit yuppies and its nightlife ridden with drugs, strange sex and violence. Shooting back and forth between a glamorous Hong Kong, in 1990, and a straitened London, in 1998, Ings sustains suspense by dropping hints but never telling enough. Adam Wyatt and his wife Eva run a small cafe near Southwark Market. They bicker a lot, Adam drinks and visits to their autistic son Justin tend to go awry. But underneath Adam's drinking are secrets from their previous life in Hong Kong, when he worked for the Independent Commission Against Corruption and got in with some very dubious local society types; one of whom includes 'Call me Jimmy' Yao Sau-Lan, 'a big nasty man, in a big nasty suit', whose father just happened to kill Eva's grandfather. When Jimmy's widow and sons come calling, Adam knows he's in trouble.

Hugo Award winning and Nebula Award nominated novelette.

ony works for the government as a bodyguard to an alien ambassador, but is forced to resign in order to attend a funeral in Summit "Dakota". Not only is Summit populated by a cast of odd humans, but it also becomes the focal point of extra-terrestrial intrigue.

The story was originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, May 1997. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection (1998), edited by Gardner Dozois and the collection Dakota Dreamin' (1999).

Jada Morris was the fierce and resilient leader of a social movement against the theft of young women's uteruses before she committed a violent crime. Now, in 2040, the 24-year-old is serving time at The Center for Future Leaders, an alternative to prison for young leaders who committed crimes as a response to gender-based violence. The Center supposedly provides training, education, therapy, and reduced sentences to the convicted in order to return them to their communities as leaders. But as Jada begins her therapy, she realizes all is not as it seems, and memory is thorny at best. Can she trust her android therapist and the terrifying path down which she's taking her? And what will she find at the other end?

Jordan's novella is a gripping and terrifying look at our reproductive future that sends shudders through our reproductive present.

Tiptree nominated short story first published in Lisa Tuttle's Crossing the Border: Tales of Erotic Ambiguity (1998). Later collected in Partial Eclipse and Other Stories (2003)

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, November 2015.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Here is a story of another small family broken by the war, an only son, dead, and parents grieving, a father embittered, feeling him boy's life was wasted, a mother, saddened, but knowing life must go on. Then comes the shade of his grandfather, a friendly, warm-hearted ghost, who takes Law Marsh firmly in hand, leading back through the landmarks that marked his boy's full life, making him see that here was an America that must go on, though the price be high. (Kirkus Review)

Why is the government deliberately destroying all trace of Man's past?

Why are the laws of gravity and momentum strangely altered?

Why has the world's population continually increased without the predicted eco-crisis taking place?

Why is there an international conspiracy to conceal the future of the human race?

These are just some of the reality-shattering questions that face Manalone, a brilliant computer scientist, when he tries to find out exactly what has happened to humanity. Manalone, outcast from society, must fight the entire machinery of a ruthless police state to discover the truth. And the truth is an awful, chilling one, that sounds only too real in today's world.

FAILWAY- the organisation whose process could break through into an inferior energy level, transporting the people into other dimensions, bringing them pleasures simple, exciting, exotic or erotic...

FAILWAY- a police state, which tolerated no opposition. It was ruthless, thorough, and invariably fatal to its opponents...

FAILWAY- against whose other-world power stood one man...

DALROI

AKA: Transfinite Man

When Major Dam Stormdragon was chosen to serve as part of Castilia's military tithe to the Mother World he had no choice but to go - much as he loathed Terra and everything she stood for. He knew that given the combination of arrogance and paranoia that Terrans displayed towards all Colonials he was at best in for a miserable year - and that at worst he would find himself taking part in a military action against his fellow Colonials. He also knew that the increasing ferocity with which the Terrans responded to the slightest balking of the Imperial Will meant that one day soon the Hub Worlds would have to fight, or that Terra's madness would destroy them all.

What Stormdragon could not know was that the Mother World was already set on obliterating her children, and that he himself would be Terra's secret weapon in the most dreadful conflict in the history of Man.

Gerald, a mid-level employee of a New York--based public relations firm has been uploaded into the company's internal Slack channels--at least his consciousness has. His colleagues assume it's an elaborate gag to exploit the new work-from home policy, but now that Gerald's productivity is through the roof, his bosses are only too happy to let him work from... wherever he says he is.

Faced with the looming abyss of a disembodied life online, Gerald enlists his co-worker Pradeep to help him escape, and to find out what happened to his body. But the longer Gerald stays in the void, the more alluring and absurd his reality becomes.

Meanwhile, Gerald's colleagues have PR catastrophes of their own to handle in the real world. Their biggest client, a high-end dog food company, is in the midst of recalling a bad batch of food that's allegedly poisoning Pomeranians nationwide. And their CEO suspects someone is sabotaging his office furniture. And if Gerald gets to work from home all the time, why can't everyone? Is true love possible between two people, when one is just a line of text in an app? And what in the hell does the :dusty-stick: emoji mean?

In a time when office paranoia and politics have followed us home, Calvin Kasulke is here to capture the surprising, absurd, and fully-relatable factors attacking our collective sanity... and give us hope that we can still find a human connection.

Table of Contents:

• 7 - Introduction (Fiends and Creatures) - essay by Marvin Kaye
• 13 - Enoch - short story by Robert Bloch
• 29 - Babylon: 70 M. - short story by Donald A. Wollheim
• 37 - A Midnight Visitor - short story by John Kendrick Bangs
• 51 - The Vengeance of Nitocris - short story by Tennessee Williams
• 65 - The Three Infernal Jokes - short story by Lord Dunsany
• 73 - An Episode of Cathedral History - short story by M. R. James
• 91 - Damned Funny - short story by Marvin Kaye
• 105 - Interim - short story by Ray Bradbury
• 107 - The Bottle Imp - novelette by Baron Friedrich de La Motte Fouqué
• 131 - Crescendo - short story by Richard Matheson
• 141 - In the X-Ray - short story by Fritz Leiber
• 155 - The Generous Gambler - short story by Charles Baudelaire
• 159 - Captain Murderer - short story by Charles Dickens
• 163 - Bubnoff and the Devil - short story by Ivan Turgenev
• 171 - The Shadow Watchers - short story by Dick Baldwin
• 185 - The Faceless Thing - short story by Edward D. Hoch

This is a collection of more than 50 short horror stories, both classic and modern.

Table of Contents:

• "Introduction: In Search of Masterpieces", essay by Marvin Kaye
• "Fiends and Creatures", essay by Marvin Kaye
• "Dracula's Guest" [Dracula], short story by Bram Stoker (1914)
• "The Professor's Teddy Bear", short story by Theodore Sturgeon (variant of The Professor's Teddy-Bear) (1948)
• "Bubnoff and the Devil", short story by Ivan Turgenev (translation of 1916 story) (1975)
• "The Quest for Blank Claveringi", short story by Patricia Highsmith (1967)
• "The Erl-King", poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (translation of Der Erlkönig 1782) (1979)
• "The Bottle Imp", novelette by Robert Louis Stevenson (1891)
• "A Malady of Magicks", short story by Craig Shaw Gardner (1978)
• "Lan Lung", novelette by M. Lucie Chin (1980)
• "The Dragon Over Hackensack", poem by Richard L. Wexelblat (year unknown)
• "The Transformation", short story by Mary Shelley [as by Mary W. Shelley] (1830)
• "The Faceless Thing", short story by Edward D. Hoch (1963)
• "Lovers and Other Monsters", essay by Marvin Kaye
• "The Anchor", short story by Jack Snow (1947)
• "When the Clock Strikes", short story by Tanith Lee (1980)
• "Oshidori", short story by Lafcadio Hearn (1904)
• "Carmilla" [Martin Hesselius], novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu [as by Sheridan LeFanu] (1872)
• "Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory", novelette by Orson Scott Card (variant of Eumenides in the Fourth-Floor Lavatory) (1979)
• "Lenore", poem by Gottfried August Bürger (translation of Lenore 1774) (1985)
• "The Black Wedding", short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer (1958)
• "Hop-Frog", short story by Edgar Allan Poe (variant of Hop-Frog: Or, The Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs) (1849)
• "Sardonicus", novelette by Ray Russell (1961)
• "Graveyard Shift", short story by Richard Matheson (1960)
• "Wake Not the Dead", novelette by Ludwig Tieck [as by Johann Ludwig Tieck] (1823)
• "Night and Silence", short story by Maurice Level (1922)
• "Acts of God and Other Horrors", essay by Marvin Kaye
• "Flies", short story by Isaac Asimov (1953)
• "The Night Wire", short story by H. F. Arnold (1926)
• "Last Respects", short story by Dick Baldwin (1975)
• "The Pool of the Stone God", short story by A. Merritt (1923)
• "A Tale of the Thirteenth Floor", poem by Ogden Nash (1955)
• "The Tree", short story by Dylan Thomas (1955)
• "Stroke of Mercy", novelette by Parke Godwin (1981)
• "Lazarus", short story by Leonid Andreyev (translation of 1906 story) (1921)
• "The Beast Within", essay by Marvin Kaye
• "The Waxwork", short story by A. M. Burrage [as by Ex-Private X] (1931)
• "The Silent Couple", short story by Pierre Courtois (1826)
• "Moon-Face", short story by Jack London (1902)
• "Death in the School-Room", short story by Walt Whitman (1841)
• "The Upturned Face", short story by Stephen Crane (1900)
• "One Summer Night", short story by Ambrose Bierce (1906)
• "The Easter Egg", short story by Saki [as by H. H. Munro ] (1930)
• "The House in Goblin Wood" (non-genre), novelette by John Dickson Carr (1947)
• "The Vengeance of Nitocris", short story by Tennessee Williams (1928)
• "The Informal Execution of Soupbone Pew", short story by Damon Runyon (1911)
• "His Unconquerable Enemy", short story by W. C. Morrow (1889)
• "Rizpah", poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson (1895)
• "The Question", short story by Stanley Ellin (variant of The Question My Son Asked) (1962)
• "Ghosts and Miscellaneous Nightmares", essay by Marvin Kaye
• "The Flayed Hand", short story by Guy de Maupassant (translation of La main d'écorché) (1875)
• "The Hospice", novelette by Robert Aickman (1975)
• "The Christmas Banquet", short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1843)
• "The Hungry House", novelette by Robert Bloch (1951)
• "The Demon of the Gibbet", poem by Fitz-James O'Brien (1881)
• "The Owl", shortfiction by Anatole Le Braz (year unknown)
• "No. 252 Rue M. Le Prince", short story by Ralph Adams Cram (1895)
• "The Music of Erich Zann", short story by H. P. Lovecraft (1922)
• "Riddles in the Dark", short story by J. R. R. Tolkien (1937)
• "Afterword: Is Terror a Dying Art?", essay by Marvin Kaye
• "Miscellaneous Notes (Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural)", essay by Marvin Kaye
• "Selected Bibliography (Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural)", essay by Marvin Kaye

An abiding presence in myth and literature from around the world, the dragon has been reborn in modern fantasy fiction. The classic winged fire-breathing reptile often associated with evil (they do despoil villages and demand virgin sacrifices, after all) tends nowadays to be more kindly disposed to humankind, sometimes aloofly offering magical wisdom, sometimes actively involved in human lives, whether as a servant or friend. In this volume, originally compiled exclusively for the members of the Science Fiction Book Club and not available in stores, editor Marvin Kaye has skillfully gathered brand-new contributions to the hoard of dragon lore by five top fantasy authors.

Orson Scott Card---an expert at writing from a child's point of view, as evidenced in his bestselling Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow---offers a gothic yarn set in contemporary suburbia. "In the Dragon's House" tells about the mysterious dragon that lives in the wiring of an old house, palpable only to a young boy who in dreams shares its body and feels its true size and power. But what does it really want?

Mercedes Lackey, prolific author of the Valdemar saga, writes of a slave boy who is chosen to care for a warrior's dragon. Vetch (and the reader) will learn much about dragon behavior... and this special dragon's secrets may be the key to his freedom. (Lackey was so taken by young Vetch that she expanded his adventures into a novel with the same name as this story---"Joust.")

Tanith Lee is no stranger to dragons, which appear quite often in her award-winning fantasies. The fable "Love in a Time of Dragons" is imbued with her signature atmosphere---Old World, moody, erotic-as a kitchen maid goes a-questing with a handsome champion to slay the local drakkor. But the tale takes a surprising twist....

Elizabeth Moon, author of the popular Esmay Suiza and Heris Serrano series, takes a break from military science fiction to give us the tale of a young man forced by lies to flee his village... into an adventure of dwarfs and dragonspawn, of trust and wisdom, and, ultimately,
af0 "Judgment."

Rounding off the collection is Michael Swanwick's "King Dragon," a strange amalgam of twentieth-century technology and faery magic, in which the award-winning author invokes a truly sinister and repellent creature-a being with the soul of a beast and the body of a machine-part metal, part devil... all-merciless.

Six stories from some of the most famous names in fantasy-all with one commonthreat-"the fair folk." From blithe fairies to sinister fey, some are fair, some are foul, all are fantastic.

In "The Kelpie," by Patricia A. McKillip, a carefree circle of bohemian artists is confronted by a being more powerful than any muse.

Jane Yolen and Midori Snyder weave a tale of two sisters long-exiled from their magical realm who must survive in ours, in "Except the Queen."

In Tanith Lee's "UOUS," a young woman with a rotten family is granted three wishes by a handsome elf-and learns that nothing good comes free of charge.

A hapless slob finds his world turned upside-down when an eager brownie moves in and proceeds to clean house, in Megan Lindholm's "Grace Notes."

Kim Newman introduces an intrepid government investigator whose latest case pits him against a sinister brood of fairy folk known as "The Gypsies in the Wood."

And the serenity of the Elves is tested in a wry fable of a long-suffering magical apprentice who can't catch a break, in Craig Shaw Gardner's "The Embarrassment of Elves.

Contents:

• ix - Foreword (The Possession of Immanuel Wolf and Other Improbable Tales) - essay by Ted White
• 1 - The Possession of Immanuel Wolf - (1975) - novella and Brother Theodore
• 61 - Professor Lubermayer's Final Lecture - (1975) - short story
• 67 - A Smell of Sulphur - short story
• 73 - Helping Hand - short story
• 79 - Ms. Lipshutz and the Goblin - (1978) - short story
• 85 - O Yet I Do Repent - short story
• 105 - Grumblefritz - (1981) - short story
• 111 - Damned Funny - (1975) - short story
• 123 - Our Late Visitor - (1975) - short story
• 129 - The Old Man in the Window - short story
• 145 - Packaged Ogre - short story
• 159 - Ralph - short story

Hugo- and SF Chronicle-Award winning, Nebula- and HOMer-nominated Novelette

Intelligent dinosaurs from outer space offer humanity the chance to use their transporter technology to join the galactic culture, but at a terrible price. When a routine transport goes wrong, one man must face the consequences of becoming too much like an alien.

This story was originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1995, and later anthologized in Year's Best SF (1996), The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirteenth Annual Collection (1996), The Best New Science Fiction: 9th Annual Collection (1996), Nebula Awards 31 (1997), The Hard SF Renaissance (2002), The Savage Humanists (2008), The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction (2010), and collected in Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories (1997) and Masters of Science Fiction: James Patrick Kelly (2016).

This first major retrospective collects Kelly's finest short fiction from a 20-year career and includes a dazzling array of work, from hard science fiction and Twilight Zone-inspired fantasies to stark futuristic horror. The grim fable "Pogrom" presents a near-futuristic scenario in which internecine warfare has broken out between the aging boomer generation and a youthful dispossessed proletariat who must support them. The landmark novella "Mr. Boy" is the wildly inventive tale of a genetically stunted 12-year-old who literally lives inside his mother, who has turned herself into a three-quarter-scale model of the Statue of Liberty. "The First Law of Thermodynamics" is a remarkable evocation of the psychedelic sixties-the time of Vietnam, Kent State, and acid rock-in which, like that era itself, nothing is what it appears to be. The now-famous title story, "Think Like a Dinosaur," is a tale of a transporter beam maintained by aliens, through which humanity can visit the stars.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - essay by John Kessel
• Think Like a Dinosaur - (1995) - novelette
• Heroics - (1987) - short story by James Patrick Kelly
• Pogrom - (1991) - short story
• Faith - (1989) - novelette
• Big Guy - (1994) - short story
• Dancing with the Chairs - (1989) - short story
• Rat - (1986) - short story
• The First Law of Thermodynamics - (1996) - short story
• Breakaway, Backdown - (1996) - short story
• Standing in Line with Mister Jimmy - (1991) - novelette
• Crow - (1984) - short story
• Monsters - (1992) - novelette
• Itsy Bitsy Spider - (1997) - short story
• Mr. Boy - (1990) - novella

In 1990, three boys are born, unrelated but intertwined by circumstance: Dayo, Iseul, and Youssef. They are adopted as infants and share a bedroom perched atop a mosque in one of Staten Island's most diverse and underserved neighborhoods. The three boys are an inseparable trio, but conspicuous: Dayo is of Nigerian origin, Iseul is Korean, and Youssef indeterminately Middle Eastern. Youssef shares everything with his brothers, except for one secret: he sees a hallucinatory double, an imaginary friend who seems absolutely real, a shapeshifting familiar he calls Brother. Brother persists as a companion into Youssef's adult life, supporting him but also stealing his memories and shaking his grip on the world.

The boys' adoptive father, Imam Salim, is known in the community for his stirring and radical sermons, but at home he often keeps himself to himself, spending his evenings in his study with whiskey-laced coffee, reading poetry or writing letters to his former compatriots back in Saudi Arabia. Like Youssef, he too has secrets, including the cause of his failing health and the truth about what happened to the boys' parents. When, years later, Imam Salim's path takes him back to Saudi Arabia, the boys, now adults, will be forced to follow. There they will be captivated by an opulent, almost futuristic world, a linear city that seems to offer a more sustainable modernity than that of the West. But this conversion has come at a great cost, and Youssef and Brother too will have to decide if they should change to survive, or try to mount a defense of their deeply-held beliefs.

Stylistically brilliant, intellectually acute, and deft in its treatment of complex themes, Brother Alive is a remarkable debut by a hugely talented writer that questions the nature of belief and explores the possibility of reunion for those who are broken.

This short story originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 25, November-December 2018.

Read the full story for free at Uncanny.

When Suzy was born, her parents filled her mouth with sand. But this is normal and natural and the way things are always done. And if she finds it uncomfortable to keep it there, to eat with it there, to talk with it there, she's just going to have to learn to live with it.

Read the full story for free at Tor Reactor.

After dropping anchor for the night near a small island to the south of Japan, a crew of fishermen awaken to find that the island has vanished without a trace. An investigating scientist theorizes that the tiny island has succumbed to the same force that divided the Japanese archipelago from the mainland - and that the disastrous shifting of a fault in the Japan Trench has placed the entire country in danger of being swallowed by the sea.

Based on rigorous scientific speculation, Japan Sinks recounts a completely credible series of geological events. The story unfolds from multiple points of view, offering fascinating perspectives on the catastrophe's political, social, and psychological effects. Winner of the Mystery Writers of Japan Award and the Seiun Award, this prescient 1973 science-fiction novel foreshadowed the consequences of the 1995 Osaka-Kobe earthquake and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

This sad and funny novel, which deals with poverty as well as joy, was based on Kotzwinkle's job as a New York City department store Santa Claus.

A mysterious presence transforms the lives of a tyrannical chief executive officer, a nice young woman, a Santa Claus with an unsavory past, an earnest young man, and a spaced-out window decorator on Christmas Eve in Fontaine's department store.

There has never been a rat like Doctor Rat, PHD. Frenzied survivor of medicine's most vicious experiments; brilliant eunuch; insane prophet of progress through genocide.

Captivating audiences of all ages, this timeless story follows the unforgettable journey of a lost alien and the 10-year-old boy he befriends. Join Elliot, Gertie, and Michael as they come together to help E.T. find his way back home.

It is night in Singapore. Down dark twisting alleyways, past the opium dens and oracles' shops, drifting through ebony bars a,d along silken breezes, moves a mysterious female figure. Utterly irresistible, utterly evanescent, she appears to a man, then retreats, leaving him forever haunted by the vision of a paradise lost. But at whose behest is she here? And what is her secret purpose?

A rollicking space opera that twists breathlessly through a future of absurd decadence and immense possibility by a true American original.

Deep in the bowels of Junk Moon, the finest scientists of Planet Immortal are nearing completion of Project Amphora, which aims to unlock the secret of immortality. The Project is run by the Consortium, twelve of the planet's most influential movers and shakers, but they aren't the only ones after immortality. Commander Jockey Oldcastle, a wise-cracking space pirate, has heard about the Amphora Project from a banished scientist who is convinced it will lead to the end of the world.

Oldcastle sets off to find the project with Adrian Link, a timid botanist who wants only to tend to his plants on the Agricultural Plain, yet Oldcastle finds himself trying to unravel a strange mystery: It seems the Amphora Project is turning the citizens of Planet Immortal into crystal. As time runs out, it is up to Oldcastle and Link-- and Link's exotic, unlikely love interest --to stop their mysterious extradimensional enemy before their world is lost forever.

"An entertaining trip through an exotic future full of weird tech and plenty of heroics and adventure in the company of bizarre creatures" (Booklist), The Amphora Project "twists along at breakneck pace" (Publishers Weekly), combining elements of science fiction and fantasy while transcending the boundaries of both.

Hollywood film star David Caspian finds himself falling through a crack in time--into the back alleys of Hitler's Germany. The problem is--he's not David Caspian any longer and the Gestapo is after him.

This short story originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, August 2008. It can also be found in the anthologies Realms 2: The Second Year of Clarkesworld Magazine (2010), edited by Neil Clarke and Nick Mamatas, and Time Travel: Recent Trips (2014), edited by Paula Guran. The story is included in the collection Conservation of Shadows (2013).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Often at the conclusion of an author interview, a question is posed, one that allows the subject to announce or promote forthcoming projects and publications. In the case of Thomas Ligotti, the response has invariably been to the effect that he never has any idea what he is going to produce in the future, if anything. Since he began publishing in the early 1980s, this answer has perhaps seemed somewhat disingenuous. Some may have thought that it was an affectation or diversionary tactic. After all, books under his name have since appeared on a somewhat regular, if not exactly prolific, schedule. But as the years went by, it became more and more apparent that Ligotti's output was at best haphazard. A chapbook here, a slim or full-fledged story collection there, a book of poetry or unclassifiable prose out of nowhere, and then at some point a quasi-academic statement of his philosophical ideas and attitudes. Such a scattered crop of writings is not unheard-of, but for one who toils in the genre of horror, whose practitioners are commonly hard at work on a daily basis, it does seem as paltry as it is directionless.

Accordingly, the present volume is another unexpected contribution to Ligotti's desultory offerings. And no one could be as surprised by its appearance as he was. As anyone knows who has followed his interviews and obsessions as they appear in his fiction, Ligotti must take his literary cues from a lifetime of, let us say, whimsical pathologies. Other authors may suffer writer's block. In the present case, the reason may be dubbed "existence block," one that persisted for some ten years. This is less than an ideal development for anyone, but for a word-monger it can spell the end. And yet the end did not arrive. During 2012, it seemed that it might in the form of a sudden collapse and subsequent hospitalization prefigured—one might speculate—by the abdominal crisis suffered by the character Grossvogel in Ligotti's story "The Shadow, The Darkness." Yet like the agony endured by the aforementioned figure, the one in question led only to a revitalization of creativity. This revitalization may not be exactly spectacular, but all the same here it is.

Throughout Ligotti's "career" as a horror writer, many of his stories have evolved from physical or emotional crises. And so it was with the surgical trauma that led to the stories in The Spectral Link, an event that is marginally mentioned in the first of these stories, "Metaphysica Morum." In the second story, "The Small People," Ligotti returns, although not precisely in the usual fashion, to his fixation with uncanny representations of the so-called human being. Having nearly ceased to exist as he lay on the surgeon's table, the imposing strangeness of the nature and vicissitudes of this life form once again arose in his imagination. So what project and publications are forthcoming from Thomas Ligotti? As ever, not even he knows.

Table of Contents:

• Preface
• Metaphysica Morum
• The Small People

The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction explores the relationship between the ideas and themes of American science fiction and their roots in the American cultural experience. Science fiction in America has long served to reflect the country's hopes, desires, ambitions, and fears. The ideas and conventions associated with science fiction are pervasive throughout American film and television, comics and visual arts, games and gaming, and fandom, as well as across the culture writ large.

Through essays that address not only the history of science fiction in America but also the influence and significance of American science fiction throughout media and fan culture, this companion serves as a key resource for scholars, teachers, students, and fans of science fiction.

Contents:

• 1 - Introduction (The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction) - essay by Eric Carl Link and Gerry Canavan
• 17 - The Mightiest Machine: The Development of American Science Fiction from the 1920s to the 1960s - essay by Gary Westfahl
• 31 - Dangerous Visions: New Wave and Post-New Wave Science Fiction - essay by Darren Harris-Fain
• 44 - American Science Fiction after 9/11 - essay by David M. Higgins
• 58 - Afrofuturism in American Science Fiction - essay by Lisa Yaszek
• 70 - Feminist and Queer Science Fiction in America - essay by Alexis Lothian
• 83 - The Futures Market: American Utopias - essay by Mark Bould
• 99 - American Slipstream: Science Fiction and Literary Respectability - essay by Rob Latham
• 111 - Hollywood Science Fiction - essay by Sherryl Vint
• 125 - U.S. Superpower and Superpowered Americans in Science Fiction and Comic Books - essay by Matthew J. Costello
• 139 - Digital Games and Science Fiction - essay by Patrick Jagoda
• 153 - Fandom and Fan Culture - essay by Karen Hellekson
• 167 - American Frontiers - essay by John Rieder
• 179 - Science, Technology, and the Environment - essay by Priscilla Wald
• 194 - American Weird - essay by Roger Luckhurst
• 206 - After America - essay by Rebekah C. Sheldon

Author of more than forty novels and myriad short stories over a three-decade literary career, Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) single-handedly reshaped twentieth-century science fiction. His influence has only increased since his death with the release of numerous feature films based on his work, including Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall (based on "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"), Minority Report (based on "The Minority Report"), and Next (based on "The Golden Man").

In Understanding Philip K. Dick, Eric Carl Link introduces readers to the life, career, and work of this groundbreaking, prolific, and immeasurably influential force in American literature, media culture, and contemporary science fiction.

Dick was at times a postmodernist, a mainstream writer, a pulp fiction writer, and often all three simultaneously, but as Link illustrates, he was more than anything else a novelist of ideas. From this vantage point, Link surveys Dick's own tragicomic biography, his craft and career, and the recurrent ideas and themes that give shape and significance to his fiction. Link addresses Dick's efforts to break into the mainstream in the 1950s, his return to science fiction in the 1960s, and his move toward more theologically oriented work in his final two decades. Link finds across Dick's writing career an intellectual curiosity that transformed his science fiction novels from bizarre pulp extravaganzas into philosophically challenging explorations of the very nature of reality, and it is this depth of vision that continues to garner new audiences and fresh approaches to Dick's genre-defining tales.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (2003), edited by Michael Chabon, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, December 2012. It can also be found in the anthologies:

• The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 14 (2003), edited by Stephen Jones
• Year's Best Fantasy 4 (2004), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
• Tails of Wonder and Imagination (2010), edited by Ellen Datlow
• My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (2010), edited by Kate Bernheimer
• Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful (2012), edited by Paula Guran.

The story is included in the collection Magic for Beginners (2005).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

She has been hailed by Michael Chabon as "the most darkly playful voice in American fiction" and by Neil Gaiman as "a national treasure." Now Kelly Link's eagerly awaited new collection--her first for adult readers in a decade--proves indelibly that this bewitchingly original writer is among the finest we have.

Link has won an ardent following for her ability, with each new short story, to take readers deeply into an unforgettable, brilliantly constructed fictional universe. The nine exquisite examples in this collection show her in full command of her formidable powers. In "The Summer People," a young girl in rural North Carolina serves as uneasy caretaker to the mysterious, never-quite-glimpsed visitors who inhabit the cottage behind her house. In "I Can See Right Through You," a middle-aged movie star makes a disturbing trip to the Florida swamp where his former on- and off-screen love interest is shooting a ghost-hunting reality show. In "The New Boyfriend," a suburban slumber party takes an unusual turn, and a teenage friendship is tested, when the spoiled birthday girl opens her big present: a life-size animated doll.

Hurricanes, astronauts, evil twins, bootleggers, Ouija boards, iguanas, The Wizard of Oz, superheroes, the Pyramids... These are just some of the talismans of an imagination as capacious and as full of wonder as that of any writer today. But as fantastical as these stories can be, they are always grounded by sly humor and an innate generosity of feeling for the frailty--and the hidden strengths--of human beings. In Get in Trouble, this one-of-a-kind talent expands the boundaries of what short fiction can do.

Finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Table of Contents:

• The Summer People - (2011) - novelette by Kelly Link
• I Can See Right Through You - (2014) - novelette by Kelly Link
• Secret Identity - (2009) - novelette by Kelly Link
• Valley of the Girls - (2011) - shortstory by Kelly Link
• Origin Story - (2006) - novelette by Kelly Link
• The Lesson - (2015) - shortstory by Kelly Link
• The New Boyfirend - (2014) - novelette by Kelly Link
• Two Houses - (2012) - novelette by Kelly Link
• Light - (2007) - novelette by Kelly Link

WFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Fall 2014. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015, edited by Rich Horton, and The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, edited by Joe Hill and John Joseph Admas. It is included in the collection Get in Trouble: Stories (2015).

Read the full story for free at McSweeney's.

This novelette originally appeared in Tin House Magazine, Fall 2007. It can also be found in the anthologies Best American Fantasy 2, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, and Fantasy: The Best of the Year, 2008 Edition, edited by Rich Horton. The story is included in the collection Get in Trouble: Stories (2015).

Nebula Award winning novelette. It originally appeared in the collection Stranger Things Happen (2001). The story can aslo be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fifteenth Annual Collection (2002), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, Nebula Awards Showcase 2003, edited by Nancy Kress and Poe's Children: The New Horror: An Anthology (2008) edited by Peter Straub.

BSFA and Nebula Award winning and Hugo, WFA and Sturgeon Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in the collection Magic for Beginners (2005) and was reprinted in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September 2005. The story can also be found in the anthologies Best Short Novels 2006, edited by Jonathan Strahan, Other Worlds Than These (2012), edited by John Joseph Adams, and Ex Libris: Stories of Librarians, Libraries & Lore (2017), edited by Paula Guran. It is included in the collection Pretty Monsters (2008).

Kelly Link's engaging and funny stories riff on haunted convenience stores, husbands and wives, rabbits, zombies, weekly apocalyptic poker parties, witches, and cannons. Includes Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award winners. A Best of the Year pick from TIME, Salon.com, and Book Sense. Illustrated by Shelley Jackson.

Table of Contents:

• The Faery Handbag - (2004) - novelette
• The Hortlak - (2003) - novelette
• The Cannon - (2003) - shortstory
• Stone Animals - (2004) - novelette
• Catskin - (2003) - shortstory
• Some Zombie Contingency Plans - novelette
• The Great Divorce - shortstory
• Magic for Beginners - novella
• Lull - (2002) - novelette

Predatory kraken that sing with — and for — their kin; band members and betrayed friends who happen to be demonic; harpies as likely to attract as repel. Welcome to a world where humans live side by side with monsters, from vampires both nostalgic and bumbling to an eight-legged alien who makes tea. Here you'll find mercurial forms that burrow into warm fat, spectral boy toys, a Maori force of nature, a landform that claims lives, and an architect of hell on earth. Through these and a few monsters that defy categorization, some of today's top young-adult authors explore ambition and sacrifice, loneliness and rage, love requited and avenged, and the boundless potential for connection, even across extreme borders.

Table of Contents:

• Paolo Bacigalupi, Moriabe's Children
• Cassandra Clare, Old Souls
• Holly Black, Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (The Successful Kind)
• M. T. Anderson, Quick Hill
• Nathan Ballingrud, The Diabolist
• Patrick Ness, This Whole Demoning Thing
• Sarah Rees Brennan, Wings in the Morning
• Nalo Hopkinson, Left Foot, Right
• G. Carl Purcell, The Mercurials
• Dylan Horrocks, Kitty Capulet and the Invention of Underwater Photography
• Nik Houser, Son of Abyss
• Kathleen Jennings, A Small Wild Magic
• Kelly Link, The New Boyfriend
• Joshua Lewis, The Woods Hide in Plain Sight
• Alice Sola Kim, Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They Are Terrifying

This novelette originally appeared in the collection Pretty Monsters (2008). It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Three (2009), edited by Jonthan Strahan.

Kelly Link has lit up adult literary publishing and Viking is honored to publish her first YA story collection. Through the lens of Link's vivid imagination, nothing is what it seems, and everything deserves a second look. From the multiple award-winning "The Faery Handbag," in which a teenager?s grandmother carries an entire village (or is it a man-eating dog?) in her handbag, to the near-future of "The Surfer," whose narrator (a soccer-playing skeptic) waits with a planeload of refugees for the aliens to arrive, Link's stories are funny and full of unexpected insights and skewed perspectives on the world. Her fans range from Michael Chabon to Peter Buck of R.E.M. to Holly Black of Spiderwick Chronicles fame. Now teens can have their world rocked, too!

Table of Contents:

• The Wrong Grave - (2007) - novelette
• The Wizards of Perfil - (2006) - novella
• Magic for Beginners - (2005) - novella
• The Faery Handbag - (2004) - novelette
• The Specialist's Hat - (1998) - short story
• Monster - (2005) - novelette
• The Surfer - (2008) - novella
• The Constable of Abal - (2007) - short story
• Pretty Monsters - novelette

Later editions also include

• The Cinderella Game - (2008) - short story

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd (2009), edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2010 and Superheroes (2013), both edited by Rich Horton. The story is included in the collections Origin Stories (2012) and Get in Trouble: Stories (2015).

WFA nominated short story. It originally appeared in the collection 4 Stories (2000). The story is alos included in the collection Stranger Things Happen (2001).

Read the full story for free at Small Beer Press.

Imagine an alternate universe where romance and technology reign. Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and re-craft a world of automatons, clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that never were. Where scientists and schoolgirls, fair folk and Romans, intergalactic bandits, utopian revolutionaries, and intrepid orphans solve crimes, escape from monstrous predicaments, consult oracles, and hover over volcanoes in steam-powered airships. Here, fourteen masters of speculative fiction, including two graphic storytellers, embrace the genre's established themes and refashion them in surprising ways and settings as diverse as Appalachia, ancient Rome, future Australia, and alternate California. Visionaries Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant have invited all-new explorations and expansions, taking a genre already rich, strange, and inventive in the extreme and challenging contributors to remake it from the ground up. The result is an anthology that defies its genre even as it defines it.

Table of Contents

• Clockwork Fagin - novelette by Cory Doctorow
• Everything Amiable and Obliging - novelette by Holly Black
• Finishing School: A Colonial Adventure - shortfiction by Kathleen Jennings
• Gethsemane - novelette by Elizabeth Knox
• Hand in Glove - novelette by Ysabeau S. Wilce
• Nowhere Fast - novelette by Christopher Rowe
• Peace in Our Time - shortstory by Garth Nix
• Seven Days Beset by Demons - shortfiction by Shawn Cheng
• Some Fortunate Future Day - shortstory by Cassandra Clare
• Steam Girl - novelette by Dylan Horrocks
• The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor - novelette by Delia Sherman
• The Last Ride of the Glory Girls - novelette by Libba Bray
• The Oracle Engine - novelette by M. T. Anderson
• The Summer People - novelette by Kelly Link

Sturgeon Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Conjunctions #43. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Best American Short Stories 2005 edited by Michael Chabon and Katrina Kenison, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 16 (2005), edited by Stephen Jones and American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940's to Now (2009), edited by Peter Straub. It is included in the collection Magic for Beginners (2005).

Kelly Link has been called "the most impressive writer of her generation" by Peter Straub and "a national treasure" by Neil Gaiman. Publications from Time to the Village Voice, from Locus to Salon, have lauded her as wildly talented and widely influential. In 2001, Link caused the literary world to catch its breath with Stranger Things Happen, one of the first great single-author collections of the new century. When it debuted, the book broke new ground in fantastic literature, and still reads as fresh, provocative, and dazzlingly original.

These stories are strange, quirky, smart -- and like no others. In "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose," a dead man sends letters to his living wife. In "The Specialist"s Hat," the rhymes and games of two children and their babysitter come to define, but not explain, a uniquely haunted house. In "The Girl Detective," the case of the tap-dancing bank robbers means a trip to the underworld. Among the eleven stories gathered here, readers will find dictators and extraterrestrials, an apocalyptic beauty pageant and two women named Louise.

Stories from Stranger Things Happen won Nebula, World Fantasy, and Tiptree Awards, and the volume garnered widespread acclaim. Link continues to earn accolades and find new readers with each story she publishes.

Table of Contents:

• Stranger Things Happen - interior artwork by Kathleen Jennings
• Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose - (1998) - shortstory
• Water Off a Black Dog's Back - (1995) - shortstory
• The Specialist's Hat - (1998) - shortstory
• Flying Lessons - (1996) - novelette
• Travels with the Snow Queen - (1996) - novelette
• Vanishing Act - (1996) - shortfiction
• Survivor's Ball, or, The Donner Party - (1998) - shortfiction (variant of Survivor's Ball, or The Donner Party)
• Shoe and Marriage - (2000) - shortfiction
• Most of My Friends Are Two-Thirds Water - (2001) - shortstory
• Louise's Ghost - (2001) - novelette
• The Girl Detective - (1999) - novelette

Unexpected tales of the fantastic, & other odd musings.

Table of Contents:

• Travels with the Snow Queen - (1996) - novelette by Kelly Link
• Scotch: An Essay into a Drink - (1997) - essay by Gavin J. Grant
• Unrecognizable - (1998) - poem by David Findlay
• mehitobel was queen of the night - (1999) - poem by Ian McDowell
• Tan-Tan and Dry Bone - (1999) - shortstory by Nalo Hopkinson
• An Open Letter Concerning Sponsorship - (1999) - shortfiction by Margaret Muirhead
• I Am Glad - (1999) - poem by Margaret Muirhead
• Lady Shonagon's Hateful Things - (1999) - poem by Margaret Muirhead
• Heartland - (1988) - shortstory by Karen Joy Fowler
• What A Difference a Night Makes - (2000) - shortfiction by Gavin J. Grant
• Pretending - (2001) - shortstory by Ray Vukcevich
• The Film Column: Don't Look Now - (2003) - essay by William Smith
• A is for Apple: An Easy Reader - (2001) - poem by Amy Beth Forbes
• My Father's Ghost - (2001) - poem by Mark Rudolph
• What's Sure to Come - (2002) - shortstory by Jeffrey Ford
• Stoddy Awchaw - (2002) - shortstory by Geoffrey H. Goodwin
• The Rapid Advance of Sorrow - (2002) - shortstory by Theodora Goss
• The Wolf's Story - (2002) - poem by Nan Fry
• Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland - (2002) - shortstory by Sarah Monette
• Tacoma-Fuji - (2002) - poem by David Moles
• Bay - (2003) - shortfiction by David Erik Nelson
• How to Make a Martini - (2003) - essay by Richard Butner
• Happier Days - (2003) - shortfiction by Jan Lars Jensen
• The Fishie - (2003) - shortstory by Philip Raines and Harvey Welles
• Dear Aunt Gwenda (The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet) (1) - [Dear Aunt Gwenda] - (2004) - essay by Gwenda Bond
• The Film Column: Greaser's Palace - (2004) - essay by William Smith
• The Ichthyomancer Writes His Friend with an Account of the Yeti's Birthday Party - (2003) - shortfiction by David J. Schwartz
• Serpents - (2003) - shortfiction by Veronica Schanoes
• Homeland Security - (2003) - shortfiction by Gavin J. Grant
• For George Romero - (2003) - poem by David Blair
• Vincent Price - (2003) - poem by David Blair
• Music Lessons - (2004) - shortstory by Douglas Lain
• Telling Lives - (2004) - shortstory by James Sallis
• The Museum of Last Week - (2004) - shortstory by James Sallis
• Help Wanted - (2005) - shortstory by Karen Russell
• "Eft" or "Epic" - (2005) - shortstory by Sarah Micklem
• The Red Phone - (2005) - shortstory by John Kessel
• The Well-Dressed Wolf - (2005) - shortfiction by Lawrence Schimel
• - The Well-Dressed Wolf - (2005) - interior artwork by Sara Rojo
• The Mushroom Duchess - (2005) - shortstory by Deborah Roggie
• The Pirate's True Love - (2005) - shortstory by Seana Graham
• You Could Do This Too - (2005) - essay by Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link
• The Posthumous Voyages of Christopher Columbus - (2006) - poem by Sunshine Ison
• And If They Are Not Dead, They May Be Living Still - (2006) - poem by Sunshine Ison
• This Is the Train the Queen Rides On - (2006) - shortstory by Becca De La Rosa
• Dear Aunt Gwenda (The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet) (2) - [Dear Aunt Gwenda] - (2005) - essay by Gwenda Bond
• Bright Waters - (2005) - novelette by John Brown
• How the Burkina Faso Bicycle Fell Apart - (2006) - poem by K. E. Duffin
• Forwarding Address - (2006) - poem by K. E. Duffin
• Sliding - (2006) - poem by D. M. Gordon
• You Were Neither Hot Nor Cold, But Lukewarm, and So I Spit You Out - (2006) - shortstory by Cara Spindler and David Erik Nelson

Late one night, Laura, Daniel, and Mo find themselves beneath the fluorescent lights of a high school classroom, almost a year after disappearing from their hometown, the small seaside community of Lovesend, Massachusetts, having long been presumed dead. Which, in fact, they are.

With them in the room is their previously unremarkable high school music teacher, who seems to know something about their disappearance--and what has brought them back again. Desperate to reclaim their lives, the three agree to the terms of the bargain their music teacher proposes. They will be given a series of magical tasks; while they undertake them, they may return to their families and friends, but they can tell no one where they've been. In the end, there will be winners and there will be losers.

But their resurrection has attracted the notice of other supernatural figures, all with their own agendas. As Laura, Daniel, and Mo grapple with the pieces of the lives they left behind, and Laura's sister, Susannah, attempts to reconcile what she remembers with what she fears, these mysterious others begin to arrive, engulfing their community in danger and chaos, and it becomes imperative that the teens solve the mystery of their deaths to avert a looming disaster.

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 Pretty Monsters (2008).

This short story orginally appeared in The Coyote Road: Trickster Tales (2007), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, and was reprinted in Apex Magazine, July 2013. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Two (2008), edited by Jonathan Strahan. The story is included in the collection Pretty Monsters (2008).

Read the full story for free at Apex.

Locus, Hugo and Nebula Award winning and WFA and BSFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm (2004), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling. The story can also be found in the anthologies Fantasy: The Best of 2004 (2005) edited by Jonathan Strahan and Karen Haber, The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy for Teens: First Annual Collection (2005), edited by Jane Yolen and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Nebula Awards Showcase 2007, edited by Mike Resnick, Happily Ever After (2011), edited by John Klima, and Bloody Fabulous (2012), edited by Ekaterina Sedia. It is included in the collections Magic for Beginners (2005) and Pretty Monsters (2008).

Read the full story for free at the Small Beer Press website.

Sturgeon Award nominated short story. It originally appeard on Strange Horizons, October 17th 2015. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2016, edited by Rich Horton and The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection (2016), edited by Gardner Dozois.

Read the full story for free at Strange Horizons.

WFA nominated novelette. It originally appeared in the anthology The Dark: New Ghost Stories (2003), edited by Ellen Datlow. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Seventeenth Annual Collection (2004), edited by Ellen Datlow, Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link, and Zombies: The Recent Dead (2010), edited by Paula Guran. The story is inlcuded in the collection Magic for Beginners (2005).

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories (2014), edited by Stephanie Perkins. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Nine (2015), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and Year's Best Young Adult Speculative Fiction 2014 (2016), edited by Julia Rios and Alisa Krasnostein.

World Fantasy Award winning short story. It originally appeared on Event Horizon Online, Nov 15, 1998. The story can also be found in the anthologies:

• The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Twelfth Annual Collection (1999), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
• The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 10 (1999), edited by Stephen Jones
• Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic (2004), edited by F. Brett Cox and Andy Duncan
• Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology (2006), edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel
• Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror (2010), edited by Ellen Datlow
• The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories (2011), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
• Ghostly: A Collection of Ghost Stories (2015), edited by Audrey Niffenegger

The story is included in the collections Stranger Things Happen (2001) and Pretty Monsters (2008).

Read the full story for free at Small Beer Press.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories (2011), edited by Kelly Link and Gavin. J Grant. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2012, edited by Rich Horton. The story is included in the collection Get in Trouble: Stories (2015).

This novella originally appeared in Firebirds Rising: An Anthology of Original Science Fiction and Fantasy (2006), edited by Sharyn November. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume One (2007), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and The Way of the Wizard (2010), edited by John Joseph Adams. It is included in the collection Pretty Monsters (2008).

An anthology of unclassifiable short stories, all original to this anthology.

"No unblinkered, gloveless reader can resist the stream of associations unleashed by Ford's story and the rest of Trampoline: influences as disparate as science fiction, magic realism, pulp, and Twilight Zone morality plays."--The Village Voice

Table of Contents:

• The Force Acting on the Displaced Body - (2003) - shortstory by Christopher Rowe
• Well-Moistened With Cheap Wine, the Sailor and the Wayfarer Sing of Their Absent Sweethearts - (2003) - shortstory by Ed Park
• Angel - (2003) - shortstory by Shelley Jackson
• Impala - (2003) - shortstory by John Gonzalez
• Famous Men: The Periodic Table of Liquids - (2003) - shortstory by Samantha Hunt
• Famous Men: Igor and Igor and Igor and Igor - (2003) - shortstory by Samantha Hunt
• Famous Men: For Love - (2003) - shortstory by Samantha Hunt
• Gus Dreams of Biting the Mail Man - (2003) - shortstory by Alexander C. Irvine
• A Crowd of Bone - (2003) - novella by Greer Gilman
• Fuming Woman - (2003) - shortstory by Alan DeNiro
• Eight-Legged Story - (2003) - shortstory by Maureen F. McHugh
• King of Spain - (2003) - shortstory by Dave Shaw
• Bumpship - (2003) - shortstory by Susan Mosser
• The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet - (2003) - shortstory by Vandana Singh
• Shipwreck Beach - (2003) - novelette by Glen Hirshberg
• The Yellow Chamber - (2003) - shortstory by Jeffrey Ford
• Destroyer - (2003) - shortstory by Beth Adele Long
• Gods and Three Wishes - (2003) - shortstory by Carol Emshwiller
• Dead Boy Found - (2003) - shortstory by Christopher Barzak
• Insect Dreams - (2003) - novella by Rosalind Palermo Stevenson
• Ash City Stomp - (2003) - shortstory by Richard Butner
• King Rat - (2003) - shortstory by Karen Joy Fowler

The protagonist in "Travels with the Snow Queen" reconsiders her fairy-tale romance when she deconstructs the clichés of traditional fairy tales and realizes that their heroines inevitably sacrifice and suffer much more than their heroes do.

This story can be found in the following anthologies and collections:

• The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Twelfth Annual Collection
• Stranger Things Happen
• The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1
• The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet
• Beyond the Woods: Fairy Tales Retold

Read the full story for free at Uncanny Magazine.

Shirley Jackson Award nominated novelette. It originally appeaed in the anthology Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury (2012), edited by Mort Castle and Sam Weller. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven (2013), edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2013, edited by Rich Horton, and Hauntings (2013), edited by Ellen Datlow. The story is included in the collection Get in Trouble: Stories (2015).

This short story originally appeared in Subterranean Online, Summer 2011. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Six (2012), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and The Best of Subterranean (2017), edited by William Schafer. The story is included in the collection Get in Trouble: Stories (2015).

Read the full story for free at Subterranean.

This short story originally appeared in Century, Number 3, September-October 1995, and waa reprinted in Lightspeed, October 2014. It is included in the collection Stranger Things Happen (2001).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

even ingeniously reinvented fairy tales that play out with astonishing consequences in the modern world

Finding seeds of inspiration in the Brothers Grimm, seventeenth-century French lore, and Scottish ballads, Kelly Link spins classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers--characters on the hunt for love, connection, revenge, or their own sense of purpose.

In "The White Cat's Divorce," an aging billionaire sends his three sons on a series of absurd goose chases to decide which will become his heir. In "The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear," a professor with a delicate health condition becomes stranded for days in an airport hotel after a conference, desperate to get home to her wife and young daughter, and in acute danger of being late for an appointment that cannot be missed. In "Skinder's Veil," a young man agrees to take over a remote house-sitting gig for a friend. But what should be a chance to focus on his long-avoided dissertation instead becomes a wildly unexpected journey, as the house seems to be a portal for otherworldly travelers--or perhaps a door into his own mysterious psyche.

Twisting and winding in astonishing ways, expertly blending realism and the speculative, witty, empathetic, and never predictable--these stories remind us once again of why Kelly Link is incomparable in the art of short fiction.

Table of Contents:

• The White Cat's Divorce - (2019) - novelette
• Prince Hat Underground - novelette
• The White Road - novelette
• The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear - (2019) - short story
• The Game of Smash and Recovery - (2015) - short story
• The Lady and the Fox - (2014) - novelette
• Skinder's Veil - (2021) - novelette

Lorrain was an archetypal doomed decadent of the 1890s whose chosen drug, ether, killed him horribly, though not before it had inspired him to write a series of morbid tales which are translated and collected by Brian Stableford for the first time.

This stort story originally appeared in Lightspeed, August 2017.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

First published in serial form as Der Golem in the periodical Die weissen Blätter in 1913-14, The Golem is a haunting Gothic tale of stolen identity and persecution, set in a strange underworld peopled by fantastical characters. The red-headed prostitute Rosina; the junk-dealer Aaron Wassertrum; puppeteers; street musicians; and a deaf-mute silhouette artist.

Lurking in its inhabitants' subconscious is the Golem, a creature of rabbinical myth. Supposedly a manifestation of all the suffering of the ghetto, it comes to life every 33 years in a room without a door. When the jeweller Athanasius Pernath, suffering from broken dreams and amnesia, sees the Golem, he realises to his terror that the ghostly man of clay shares his own face....

The Golem, though rarely seen, is central to the novel as a representative of the ghetto's own spirit and consciousness, brought to life by the suffering and misery that its inhabitants have endured over the centuries. Perhaps the most memorable figure in the story is the city of Prague itself, recognisable through its landmarks such as the Street of the Alchemists and the Castle.

Note: this novel has been translated into English several times. Older editions may be abriged.

DO YOU HAVE THE STRENGTH TO FACE WHAT LIES BEYOND?

Seventeen-year-old Suzume lives with her aunt in a quiet port town in Kyushu. One day, on her way to school, she runs into a young man searching for something and follows him to a ruin in the hills. But inside, all she finds is a single white door among the rubble. As if pulled by an invisible force, she reaches out to open it... and begins an epic journey across Japan connecting the past, present, and future.

In the Cold War era of an alternate history, the Soviet Union has taken control of the northern island of Japan and cut it off from the rest of the country. Just south across the strait, a boy named Hiroki is fascinated by the mysterious tower the Soviets have constructed on the unreachable island, and he and his friend Takuya decide to build a plane that will take them over to see it. As they work, a girl named Sayuri becomes a part of their lives and the promise to one day fly to the tower. But when she disappears without a trace, their promise is left unfulfilled-possibly forever.

Award-winning director and author Makoto Shinkai offers a romantic sci-fi tale about young love and space adventure, based on his animated film. This new novel gives readers more insight into Mikako and Noboru's relationship.

The word, "world"...

I vaguely thought it meant anywhere there was cell phone reception.

It's the year 2046. Mikako Nagamine and Noboru Terao are middle school classmates, tentatively sharing an unspoken first love--but unbeknownst to him, Mikako has been recruited into the UN Space Force, and instead of going on to high school, will join the spacecraft Lysithea to search for alien Tarsians. As she travels further and further to the outer reaches of the solar system, the time it takes for a text message to reach the Earth grows longer and longer. Back on Earth, time passes normally for Noboru, but as the years pass he still can't forget the voice on the other side of the cell phone...

Longing to escape his island home, a boy named Hodaka runs away during his first summer of high school to find a new life in Tokyo. As rain falls for days on end and Hodaka struggles to adjust, he meets a girl named Hina who holds a mysterious power: With a single prayer, she can part the clouds and bring back the sun. But her power comes at a price, and as the weather spirals further and further out of control, they must choose what future they truly want for themselves.

This short story originally appeared in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, #30, September 2014. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015, edited by Rich Horton, and Year's Best Young Adult Speculative Fiction 2014, edited by Julia Rios and Alisa Krasnostein.

People send their dreams and wishes floating down the Mae Ping River with the hope that those dreams will be captured, read and come true. It is a surprise what some wish for and why. One can never know what's inside someone's heart - what they really truly want, and those dreams sometimes reveal our true selves.

Read the full story for free on Tor.com.

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, March-April 2017. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection (2018), edited by Gardner Dozois.

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Four Futures (1971), edited by Robert Silverberg. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction of the Year #1 (1972), edited by Terry Carr. The story is included in the collection Farewell to Yesterday's Tomorrow (1975).

Leonard's life at his new junior high is just barely tolerable until he becomes friends with the unusual Alan and with him shares an extraordinary adventure.

Things Victor loves: pizza with anchovies, grape soda, B movies aired at midnight, the evening news. And with his parents off at a resort and his older sister shirking her babysitting duties, Victor has plenty of time to indulge himself and to try a few things he's been curious about. Exploring the nearby city of Hogboro, he runs into a curious character known as the Chicken Man (a reference to his companion, an intelligent hen named Claudia who lives under his hat). The Chicken Man speaks brilliant nonsense, but he seems to be hip to the lizard musicians (real lizards, not men in lizard suits) who've begun appearing on Victor's television after the broadcast of the late-late movie. Are the lizards from outer space? From "other space"? Together Victor and the Chicken Man, guided by the able Claudia, journey to the lizards' floating island, a strange and fantastic place that operates with an inspired logic of its own.

Baltimore isn't safe. Not even for the predatory meat that stalks its nights. Searching for victims who won't be missed, meat doesn't feel regret or pain--only thirst. But the meat remembers something more... doesn't it? is there more to eternal life than finding another drink?

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Hugo Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Galaxy, July 1975. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Best from Galaxy, Volume IV (1976), edited by James Baen, and Life Among the Asteroids (1992), edited by Jerry Pournelle and John F. Carr. It is included in the collections High Justice (1977) and Exile--and Glory (2008).

In the four decades since his first book appeared in print, Terry Pratchett has become one of the world's best-selling and best-loved authors. Here for the first time are his short stories and other short form fiction collected into one volume. A Blink of the Screen charts the course of Pratchett's long writing career: from his schooldays through to his first writing job on the Bucks Free Press, to the origins of his debut novel, The Carpet People; and on again to the dizzy mastery of the phenomenally successful Discworld series.Here are characters both familiar and yet to be discovered; abandoned worlds and others still expanding; adventure, chickens, death, disco and, actually, some quite disturbing ideas about Christmas,all of it shot through with his inimitable brand of humour.

With an introduction by Booker Prize-winning author A.S. Byatt, illustrations by the late Josh Kirby and drawings by the author himself, this is a book to treasure.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - essay by A. S. Byatt
• The Hades Business - (1963)
• Solution - (1964)
• The Picture - (1965)
• The Prince and the Partridge
• The Prince and the Partridge
• Rincemangle, the Gnome of Even Moor
• Kindly Breathe in Short, Thick Pants - (1976)
• The Glastonbury Tales - (1977)
• There's No Fool Like and Old Fool Found in an English Queue - (1978)
• Coo, They've Given Me the Bird - (1978)
• And Mind the Monoliths - (1978)
• The High Meggas
• Twenty Pence, with Envelope and Seasonal Greeting - (1987)
• Incubust - (1988)
• Final Reward - (1988)
• Turntables of the Night - (1989)
• #ifdefDEBUG + 'world/enough' + 'time' - (1990)
• Hollywood Chickens - (1990)
• The Secret Book of the Dead - (1991)
• Once and Future - (1995)
• FTB - (1996)
• Sir Joshua Easement: A Biological Note - (2010)
• Troll Bridge - (1992)
• Theatre of Cruelty - (1993)
• The Sea and Little Fishes - (1998)
• The Ankh-Morpork National Anthem - (1999)
• Medical Notes - (2002)
• Thud: A Historical Perspective - (2002)
• A Few Words from Lord Havelock Vetinari - (2002)
• Death and What Comes Next - (2004)
• A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices - (2005)
• Minutes of the Meeting to Form the Proposed Ankh-Morpork Federation of Scouts - (2007)
• The Ankh-Morpork Football Association Hall of Fame Playing Cards - (2009)
• Deleted Extract from 'The Sea and Little Fishes'
• List of Illustrations

"I'm Thinking of Ending Things is one of the best debut novels I've ever read. Iain Reid has crafted a tight, ferocious little book, with a persistent tenor of suspense that tightens and mounts toward its visionary, harrowing final pages" (Scott Heim, award-winning author of Mysterious Skin and We Disappear).

You will be scared. But you won't know why...

I'm thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It's always there. Always.

Jake once said, "Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can't fake a thought."

And here's what I'm thinking: I don't want to be here.

In this smart, suspenseful, and intense literary thriller, debut novelist Iain Reid explores the depths of the human psyche, questioning consciousness, free will, the value of relationships, fear, and the limitations of solitude. Reminiscent of Jose Saramago's early work, Michel Faber's cult classic Under the Skin, and Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk about Kevin, I'm Thinking of Ending Things is an edgy, haunting debut. Tense, gripping, and atmospheric, this novel pulls you in from the very first page... and never lets you go.

This short story originally appeared in Galaxy Science Fiction, August 1955. It is included in the collections Caviar (1955), Alien Cargo (1984), and Bright Segment (2002).

For generations, the Kalotay family has guarded a collection of ancient and rare books. Books that let a person walk through walls or manipulate the elements--books of magic that half-sisters Joanna and Esther have been raised to revere and protect.

All magic comes with a price, though, and for years the sisters have been separated. Esther has fled to a remote base in Antarctica to escape the fate that killed her own mother, and Joanna's isolated herself in their family home in Vermont, devoting her life to the study of these cherished volumes. But after their father dies suddenly while reading a book Joanna has never seen before, the sisters must reunite to preserve their family legacy. In the process, they'll uncover a world of magic far bigger and more dangerous than they ever imagined, and all the secrets their parents kept hidden; secrets that span centuries, continents, and even other libraries...

A port city is in the grips of an ecological crisis. The river has filled with toxic algae, and a deadly "red wind" blows through the city, forcing everyone indoors at the sound of a siren. Those exposed to the wind fall ill; much of the coast has been evacuated, with rich people migrating inland to escape the wind, while others remain behind, sheltering in abandoned houses as blackouts and food shortages abound, and a black-market economy reigns.

The unnamed narrator is one of those who has stayed, looking after a boy who's been placed in her care. As the city outside continues to break down, she reflects on the collapse of her emotional ties, the uncertainty of this new world, and the emergence of a radical solitude.

This classic novel tells the phantasmagorical story of an alcoholic man and his search for his dead palm-wine tapster. As he travels through the land of the dead, he encounters a host of supernatural and often terrifying beings - among them the complete gentleman who returns his body parts to their owners and the insatiable hungry-creature. Mixing Yoruba folktales with what T. S. Eliot described as a 'creepy crawly imagination', The Palm-Wine Drinkard is regarded as the seminal work of African literature

A collection of Vance's early short stories, including The World Thinker (1944), I'll Build Your Dream Castle (1946), The God and the Temple Robber (1946), Men of the Ten Books (1949), Seven Exits from Bocz (1949), Telek (1951), The Secret (1951), Noise (1952), D.P. (1951), The Absent Minded Professor (1953), The Devil on Salvation Bluff (1954), The Phantom Milkman (1955), Where Hesperus Falls (1955), A Practical Man's Guide (1956), and The House Lords (1956).

Hugo Award-nominated Short Story

This story originally appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Issue 25, November-December 2018. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year: Volume Thirteen (2019), edited by Jonathan Strahan.

Read the full story for free at Uncanny.

Her name is Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me." America has lost its way. The strongest of people can be found in the unlikeliest of places. The future of the entire country will depend on them. All across the United States, people scramble to survive new, draconian policies that mark and track immigrants and their children (citizens or not) as their freedoms rapidly erode around them.

For the "inked"--those whose immigration status has been permanently tattooed on their wrists--those famous words on the Statue of Liberty are starting to ring hollow. The tattoos have marked them for horrors they could not have imagined within US borders. As the nightmare unfolds before them, unforeseen alliances between the inked--like Mari, Meche, and Toño--and non-immigrants--Finn, Del, and Abbie--are formed, all in the desperate hope to confront it.

Ink is the story of their ingenuity. Of their resilience. Of their magic. A story of how the power of love and community out-survives even the grimmest times.

This short story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 2004. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 10 (2005), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is included in the collection Boarding Instructions (2010).

Hugo, Nebula and Locus Award nominated short stoty. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, November 1994 and can aslo be found in the anthology Nebula Awards 30 (1996), edited by Pamela Sargent.

The unsettling dreams begin for small-town reporter Will Barbee not long after he first meets the mysterious and beautiful April Bell. They are vivid, powerful and deeply disturbing nightmares in which he commits atrocious acts. And, one by one, his friends are meeting violent deaths.

It is clear to Barbee that he is embroiled in something far beyond human understanding, something unspeakably evil. And it intimately involves the seductive, dangerously intoxicating April, and the question, 'Who is the Child of the Night?' When he discovers the answer to that, his world will change utterly.

A massive series of powerful earthquakes on a worldwide scale reduce towns and cities to rubble and plunge the survivors into barbarism. Most of western Europe is dramatically uplifted, transforming the English Channel into a muddy desert, while elsewhere lands are plunged below sealevel and flooded.

Matthew Cotter, a Guernsey horticulturalist, finds himself one of only a handful of survivors on the former island. Cotter decides to trek across the empty seabed to England, in the faint hope that his daughter has somehow survived.

Duwan had been foremost of the Drinker warriors in training, destined in time to become leader of all the valley's warriors. Then an accident had claimed his arm, leaving him unfit to lead. With no other choice, Duwan turned to Drinker legends for hope, legends of a lost homeland to the south, where the sun was so strong, the soil so rich, that a Sundrinker could regenerate a lost limb.

And so Duwan left the valley, seeking this fabled paradise. But what he found was the Enemy, the dominant, less evolved form of his species called Devourers, who lived by preying upon other life forms. The Devourers, who, ages ago, had driven the Drinkers from their homeland, intent on their total destruction. Yet to Duwan's horror, he found Drinkers too, Drinkers enslaved by cruel Devourer overlords! And suddenly Duwan understands why his destiny had brought him here-to lead his people to freedom!

C. S. Lewis is the 20th century's most widely read Christian writer and J.R.R. Tolkien its most beloved mythmaker. For three decades, they and their closest associates formed a literary club known as the Inklings, which met every week in Lewis's Oxford rooms and in nearby pubs. They discussed literature, religion, and ideas; read aloud from works in progress; took philosophical rambles in woods and fields; gave one another companionship and criticism; and, in the process, rewrote the cultural history of modern times.

In The Fellowship, Philip and Carol Zaleski offer the first complete rendering of the Inklings' lives and works. The result is an extraordinary account of the ideas, affections and vexations that drove the group's most significant members. C. S. Lewis accepts Jesus Christ while riding in the sidecar of his brother's motorcycle, maps the medieval and Renaissance mind, becomes a world-famous evangelist and moral satirist, and creates new forms of religiously attuned fiction while wrestling with personal crises. J.R.R. Tolkien transmutes an invented mythology into gripping story in The Lord of the Rings, while conducting groundbreaking Old English scholarship and elucidating, for family and friends, the Catholic teachings at the heart of his vision. Owen Barfield, a philosopher for whom language is the key to all mysteries, becomes Lewis's favorite sparring partner, and, for a time, Saul Bellow's chosen guru. And Charles Williams, poet, author of "supernatural shockers," and strange acolyte of romantic love, turns his everyday life into a mystical pageant.

Romantics who scorned rebellion, fantasists who prized reality, wartime writers who believed in hope, Christians with cosmic reach, the Inklings sought to revitalize literature and faith in the twentieth century's darkest years-and did so in dazzling style.

The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream

Ensign Joe Rate, captain of the experimental Navy yawl *Alice*, figured that everything that could happen to him in one day had already happened. First, after a freak electrical storm at sea the *Alice* had somehow been thrown a thousand years back in time, and it looked as if they were stranded in the past. They had provisions for two weeks at most. Then there was the voluptuous barbarian girl they'd saved from captivity--her presense on board a ship full of normal sailors wasn't likely to lessen the problems of the situation.

Then he saw the four Viking raiding ships bearing straight for him, and in a few minutes the first spear thunked into the *Alice*'s foredeck...

Stranger Than You Think

Contents:

• The Misfit
• From Caribou to Carry Nation
• The Galactic Calabash
• The Sign of the Goose
• The Country Boy
• The World Must Never Know
• The Third Bubble

The stories and poems in People Change illuminate the personal and feminist concerns evoked by classic horror movies and other aspects of popular culture. Mining the implications of figures like the Bride of Frankenstein, Samantha Stephens, and the Stepford Wives, the book explores such themes as family and misogyny. At times horror merges with autobiography, as in "It's a Universal Picture." The women and girls in Gwynne Garfinkle's stories variously seek the gift of flight and the gift of friendship, real and imaginary.

Contents:

• In Lieu of a Thank You - (2008) - short story
• The Paper Doll Golems - short story
• The Imaginary Friend - (2015) - short story
• Don't Look Back - (2017) - short story
• Man-Size - (2017) - short story
• The Hedgehog and the Pine Cone - (2016) - short story
• bell, book, candle - (2012) - poem
• she's alive, alive - (2014) - poem
• The Last Word - (2017) - poem
• ode to Dwight Frye - (2017) - poem
• Una O'Connor unleashes her scream - (2016) - poem
• It's a Universal Picture - (2014) - poem
• Ralph Touchett Awaits Revision - (2011) - poem
• levitation class - poem
• Dorothy's Prayer - (2015) - poem
• Witches of Childhood - (2014) - poem
• family (a form somehow must) - (2017) - poem
• Ginnie and the Cooking Contest - (2013) - poem
• Linda Blair Pantoum - (2016) - poem
• Bye Bye Love - poem
• The Pied Piper vs. the Sirens - (2012) - poem
• song for Mary Henry - (2016) - poem
• Irena in the Garden - poem
• Dybbuk Song - (2000) - poem
• The Golem of the Gravestones - (2017) - poem
• Flaxen Mane - poem
• Gojira / Godzilla - poem
• Thirteen Faces of Deathdream - poem
• Mildred's Villanelle - poem
• Misogyny - (2015) - poem
• shell - poem
• Champagne Ivy - (2016) - poem
• an American ending - (2002) - poem
• People Change: A Love Story - (2016) - poem
• 50 Foot - (2017) - poem
• love song from The Blob to Steve McQueen - poem
• a tipping point - (2013) - poem
• Poetess Strikes Again - (2016) - poem

People Minus X

But were they really human...? That was the question everyone was asking. It was an astonishing scientific achievement, one that mankind had passionately wanted for centuries--a process that restored life and wholeness to victims of disaster. This amazing new process was based partly on scientific records, partly on memories of those who knew the deceased.

Unfortunately, this new discovery had a small, fatal flaw. The restored people were the exact physical duplicates of their former selves. However, they seemed to lack an indefinable human quality--perhaps it was a soul or divine spark. Yet, they were physically and intellectually superior not only to their original incarnations but to their human creators as well! As time went by, the artificial people gravitated toward one another--they married, reproduced. Even their children were recognizable in an uncanny way as being apart from "normal" people.

As the number of new people grew, the rest of Earth's population drew away from them, and soon sprang fear and hatred between these two camps of humanity, with an ugly showdown seemingly inevitable...

Lest We Forget Thee, Earth

A hundred thousand years ago, there had been a planet called Earth. It had been a proud world ruling a thousand vassal stars, but its stellar empire had turned upon and annihilated their conquerors, and wiped the name of Earth from the maps of space.

But Earthmen still survived... a strange race of worldless men and women, by tradition advisers to rulers, but never themselves ruling. Wanderers through myriad planets, their origin was a half-forgotten legend.

That was the situation when a strange quirk of fate sent Earthman Hallam Navarre on an interstellar wild goose chase. He had to bring back a strictly mythical treasure to his alien ruler, or die.

The Plot Against Earth

NEVER FOLLOW A FALLING STAR!

The humanoid worlds of the galaxy were alarmed! Somehow, somewhere the mind-destroying hypnojewels were being trafficked in.

An uneasy Earth, newcomer to the ranks of the civilized planets, sent Lloyd Catton to the Interworld Crime Commission on Morilar to investigate. Although the Commission had made little progress until then, after his arrival things started to happen fast.

For it didn't take Catton long to realize that the hypnojewels were but the thin edge of a murderous wedge that was calculated to shove the Earth back again into the helpless isolation of a world returned to savagery

Recruit for Andromeda

Many had gone - none had returned.

The Twisted Men

Contains the following novelettes:

• The Twisted Men (1950)
• The Star-Saint (1951)
• The Earth Killers (1949)

One of Our Asteroids is Missing

They stole his world and his name.

A blend of fantasy tale and hard-boiled detective story set in Paris in 1861 features a French police detective who sets out to investigate a conjurer whose fortune-telling machine is sweeping Paris.

William Kotzwinkle, the esteemed author of The Fan Man and E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, is in top comic form in this outrageous and uproarious parable featring Hal Jam—a big black bear who finds a manuscript under a tree in the Maine woods, dons a suit and a tie, and heads off to the big city to seek his fame and fortune. What follows is a riotous magical romp with the buoyant Hal Jam as he leaves the quiet, nurturing world of the forest for the glittering and corrupt world of humans. New York and Hollywood and all that lies between serve as an expansive palette for Kotzwinkle's wickedly funny satiric brush. The Bear Went Over the Mountain skewers our age's obsession with money and fame in a delicious bedtime story for grown-ups.

Masters of the Lamp

Send a spy to find a god.

A Harvest of Hoodwinks

Collection including:

• Foreword - essay
• Archimedes' Lever - (1968) - shortstory
• Mar-ti-an - (1964) - shortstory
• The Star Party - (1964) - shortstory
• Futility Is Zuck - (1970) - shortstory
• Snowbird and the Seven Warfs - (1970) - shortstory
• The Locator - (1968) - shortstory
• Appointment at Ten O'Clock - (1964) - shortstory
• Only a God - (1970) - shortstory
• The Fall of All-Father - (1970) - shortstory
• Because of Purple Elephants - (1970) - shortstory
• Rolling Robert - (1970) - shortstory
• Debut - (1966) - shortstory

The poems in Numa tell the story of a shape-shifting numen. Numa, whose home body is that of a wild feline, learns by trial and error to take the form of other animals, plants, and the elements. As she grows up, she uses her skill to experience and share the divine in ordinary aspects of the world. She gives birth to a cub and begins raising her to shape-shift. Then an interloper appears, a young man on a quest for glory who believes he should defeat the "monster" in the forest.

Biopunk Dystopias contends that we find ourselves at a historical nexus, defined by the rise of biology as the driving force of scientific progress, a strongly grown mainstream attention given to genetic engineering in the wake of the Human Genome Project (1990-2003), the changing sociological view of a liquid modern society, and shifting discourses on the posthuman, including a critical posthumanism that decenters the privileged subject of humanism. The book argues that this historical nexus produces a specific cultural formation in the form of "biopunk", a subgenre evolved from the cyberpunk of the 1980s.

The analysis deals with dystopian science fiction artifacts of different media from the year 2000 onwards that project a posthuman intervention into contemporary socio-political discourse based in liquid modernity in the cultural formation of biopunk. Biopunk makes use of current posthumanist conceptions in order to criticize contemporary reality as already dystopian, warning that a future will only get worse, and that society needs to reverse its path, or else destroy all life on this planet.

As Rosi Braidotti argues, "there is a posthuman agreement that contemporary science and biotechnologies affect the very fibre and structure of the living and have altered dramatically our understanding of what counts as the basic frame of reference for the human today". The proposed book analyzes this alteration as directors, creators, authors, and artists from the field of science fiction extrapolate it from current trends.

A NOVEL OF BECKONING HORROR.

Aubrey House is waiting Old Charlotte Aubrey has died. Yet something still lives at Aubrey House, glowing with a strange blue light, breathing in the dark,waiting... Is it waiting for Richard Creighton, the brilliant philosopher who longs to forget the terrible accident that killed his wife and daughter?

For Drew Beltane, the world-famous phychic cursed with a hopelessly twisted body? For Vita Henry, searching for a last chance at lost youth? Or perhaps for Merlyn Aubrey herself, the exquisite woman-child who hovers dangerously on the brink of insanity, trying not to remember...

They are all at Aubrey House tonight, each determined to unlock its evil secrets, to break its deadly spell. Each is prepared to pay whatever the price might be...

The nightmare never ends, an evil presence once walked the halls of Aubrey House. First it seduced its victims, then destroyed them. Its ghostly holocaust left a bloody legacy of death, dismemberment and unbridled fear. No one dared to stay at Aubrey house again, except young Olivia Aubrey. Olivia wasn't afraid, until the dreams began. Terrifying dreams that tormented her.

Gridlinked is a science fiction adventure in the classic, fast-paced, action-packed tradition of Harry Harrison and Poul Anderson, with a dash of cyberpunk and a splash of Ian Fleming added to spice the mix.

Cormac is a legendary Earth Central Security agent, the James Bond of a wealthy future where "runcibles" (matter transmitters controlled by AIs) allow interstellar travel in an eye blink throughout the settled worlds of the Polity. Unfortunately Cormac is nearly burnt out, "gridlinked" to the AI net so long that his humanity has begun to drain away. He has to take the cold-turkey cure and shake his addiction to having his brain on the net.

Now he must do without just as he’s sent to investigate the unique runcible disaster that's wiped out the entire human colony on planet Samarkand in a thirty-megaton explosion. With the runcible out, Cormac must get there by ship, but he has incurred the wrath of a vicious psychopath called Arian Pelter, who now follows him across the galaxy with a terrifying psychotic killer android in tow. And deep beneath Samarkand's surface there are buried mysteries, fiercely guarded.

This is fast-moving, edge-of-the-seat entertainment, and a great introduction to the work of one of the most exciting new SF talents in years.

From the award winning author of Firedance, comes this new novel in the Ashlu Cycle. King Asp has died the ritual death, but may live if his sword can be reforged; and the young potter Moth may become a wizard if he can survive.

Her name is Pete Caldecott. She was just sixteen when she met Jack Winter, a gorgeous, larger-than-life mage who thrilled her with his witchcraft. Then a spirit Jack summoned killed him before Pete's eyes--or so she thought.

Now a detective, Pete is investigating the case of a young girl kidnapped from the streets of London. A tipster's chilling prediction has led police directly to the child... but when Pete meets the informant, she's shocked to learn he is none other than Jack.

Strung out on heroin, Jack is a shadow of his former self. But he's able to tell Pete exactly where Bridget's kidnappers are hiding: in the supernatural shadow-world of the fey. Even though she's spent years disavowing the supernatural, Pete follows Jack into the invisible fey underworld, where she hopes to discover the truth about what happened to Bridget--and what happened to Jack on that dark day so long ago...

Thirteen years ago, Jack Winter lay dying in a graveyard. Jack called upon a demon and traded his soul for his life... and now the demon is back to collect its due. But Jack has finally found something to live for. Her name is Pete Caldecott, and because of her, Jack's not going to Hell without a fight.

Pete doesn't know about Jack's bargain, but she does know that something bigger and far more dangerous than Jack's demon is growing in the Black. Old gods are stirring and spirits are rising--and Jack doesn't stand a chance of stopping them without Pete's help.

Witch hunts are on the rise and supernatural turf wars are reaching a boiling point. Then, just when it seems life couldn't get any worse for Pete, Jack reappears--but he's no longer the man she's always known. Hell has changed him forever. And he's brought back with him a whole world of trouble...

A cabal of necromancers are using ancient, unspeakable magic to turn the tide of war in their favor. Then, as the city is about to sink into chaos, Pete receives a chilling directive: To end the war, you must kill the crow-mage. Beset from all sides, Pete finds herself turning to an unholy source for help... even if doing so could destroy Black London--and life as she knew it--once and for all.

Pete Caldecott did everything she could to save Jack from Hell, even reigning in the dark machinations of the Morrigan to help bring him home. Still, Black London has not welcomed Jack back with open arms... So when a friend in Los Angeles asks for help tracking a sorcerous serial killer, Pete and Jack decide a change of scenery couldn't hurt...

But the shadow side of the City of Angels turns out to be more treacherous than they ever imagined. Together, Pete and Jack must navigate a landscape teeming with hostile magic-users-- and fight an unknown enemy. When their investigation leads to a confrontation with the demon Belial, Jack learns that he wasn't the only thing to escape from Hell. Now it's up to him and Pete to track and eliminate an evil older than the Black itself--before it turns L.A. into Hell on Earth. And destroys life as they know it back at home...

The crow-mage Jack Winter returns --to crash a secret gathering of ghost hunters, soul stealers, and other uninvited guests, both dead and alive...

Normally, Pete Caldecott stays far away from magical secret societies. But ever since her partner and boyfriend Jack Winter stopped a primordial demon from ripping into our world, every ghost, demon, and mage in London has been wide awake--and hungry. And the magical society in question needs their help putting things right.

SOUL TRADE
It all begins with an invitation. Five pale figures surround Pete in the cemetery to "cordially" invite her to a gathering of the Prometheus Club. Pete's never heard of them, but Jack has--and he's not thrilled about it. Especially the part that says, "Attend or die." The Prometheans wouldn't come to London unless something big's about to go down. So Pete and Jack decide to play it safe and make nice with the club--even if that means facing down an army of demons in the process. But now that they've joined the group, they're about to discover that membership comes at a cost...and has apocalyptic consequences.

Jack Winter and his girlfriend Pete Caldecott have encountered a lot of strange creatures in the Black--primordial demons, hungry ghosts, witch hunters, and the Prince of Hell himself, Belial. When Belial asks Jack for one last favor to help him keep his throne, Jack may have finally met his match because Belial's rival is something that no one--human or demon--has ever seen before...

There's a revolution brewing in Hell, and Jack might be the only one who can stop Belial's rival from ripping a hole between the Black and the mortal world--a catastrophe that could be worse than Armageddon. But to win, Jack will have to do the one thing he swore he never would: become a servant to the Morrigan, and risk losing everything he knows and loves... including Pete.

Two years ago Garreth Mikaelian was turned into a vampire by the seductive Lane Barber. He tracked her to a small Kansas town and when she tried to kill him, killed her. He thought. But a call comes from his old partner in San Francisco that seems to indicate Lane is still alive. Garreth goes to San Francisco to find out. He determines that she *is* dead. But now someone is killing vampires and friends of vampires and trying to frame Garreth for it. Is it the vampire who created Lane? Or maybe his partner's new partner who seems to know Garreth is a vampire and hates him for it? And as Garreth searches for the true killer, is a suspense novelist researching a new book an ally or foe?

Garreth Mikaelian thought he destroyed Lane Barber, the woman who made him a vampire. But did he? When he returns to San Francisco to see, he is relieved to find she is dead. But someone is killing vampires and friends of vampires... and trying to frame Garreth for it. Is it another vampire who wants vengeance for Lane's death? Or a detective who appears to hate vampires and knows Garreth is one? He needs to find the killer before the frame traps him... or he becomes the killer's next victim.

They were three: Maq Ancor, the master assassin, Macician Cherry, space illusionist, Sine Anura, mistress of the erotic.

Chosen for the great quest, the journey into the heart of mankind's greatest creation: Zeus.

Zeus who made the new worlds for Man, endlessly forming, linking, organising the spread of Man into the new Zeus-created lands. So great was the undertaking that it had passed beyond the control of Man. Zeus, obeying with ruthless logic its original program, was lethal in what it deemed to be its own defence.

For Man to regain control he had to understand what he had created.

This was the great quest, the ultimate journey of discovery.

Mercury Shell, Venus Shell, Earth, Mars, Asteroid, Jupiter, Saturn. Each shell concentric, studded with artificial planets, each planet embedded in its shell, spinning like a ball-bearing. The whole Zeus-created in the service of Man but now beyond his control.

Now mathematics and space physics, converging, suggested another shell, its existence hidden from Man. A shell of utter darkness, cold and silence where only extreme mutants could survive.

To find that shell, the three were journeying again: Maq Ancor, Master Assassin, Magician Cherry and Sine Anura, Mistress of the Erotic. Together, daring the all-seeing, all-sensing hostility of Zeus.

Earth's Stellar Commando has placed their secret agent Commander Bron on a planet where they hope he will be able to find out the coordinates of a rival space empire, the Destroyers. Bron is there to impersonate a famous scientist of interest to the Destroyers, and has been given implants through which a monitoring team can see what he sees, hear what he hears and talk to him, even when separated by interstellar distances.

The plot hinges on a fictional science, the study of the entropic patterns of Chaos, which allows predictions of events with an accuracy that was not before possible. Both Earth and the Destroyers--and specifically Bron himself--are discovered to be the target of an extraterrestrial interstellar murder campaign that was hatched 700 million years ago. He succeeds in joining together the Earth and Destroyer fleets and confronts the aliens, to discover that his destiny is inextricably entangled with theirs.

A sunflare, a meteorite strike, a tachyon storm - all natural disasters - were wiping out the best brains of mankind at a rate of a thousand times greater than normal.

The Director of ChaosCenter laid it out bluntly: "All our evidence suggests that a device that can alter probability exists. For want of a better name we call it the Chaos Weapon. Somebody, somewhere, wants us cut back - and hard. Unless we find that Chaos Weapon and destroy it, it's going to destroy us!"

Clouds are brewing over Cadogan House, and Merit the vampire can't tell if this is the darkness before the dawn, or the calm before the storm. With the city itself in turmoil over paranormals and the state threatening to pass a paranormal registration act, times have never been more precarious for the vampires. If only they could lay low for a bit...

Then magic rears its ugly head when Lake Michigan turns black. The mayor insists it's nothing to worry about, but Merit knows a panic is coming. She'll have to turn to friends old and new to find out who's behind this, and stop them before it's too late for both the vampires and humans.

This short story in Hodgell's Kencyrath-setting originally appeared on the Baen website. No other known publications are available at this time.

Read the full story for free at Baen.

Man loses control over the outcomes of a scientific experiment the only aim of which is to create a way for the greediest man on earth to become even richer. The experiment is conducted on Bermuda grass, a harmless plant in its initial form, but one that becomes murderous and powerful after the salesman protagonist of the novel applies a fertilizer spray called the Metamorphosizer created by a female chemist on it.

The metamorphosis of the grass is very quick - it starts growing with incredible speed and soon it turns out that nothing can destroy the new species of grass, it feeds on anything and grows over anything. In the beginning, the grass grows at the same pace as its owner rises to prominence and wealth, but things get out of control very soon and it takes a team of the bravest to stop the murderous plant.

Four-BEE was an utopian city. If you didn't mind being taken care of all your long long life, having a wild time as a "jang" teenagers able to do anything you wanted from killing yourself innumerable times, changing bodies, changing sex, and raising perpetual hell, it could be heaven.

But for one inhabitant there was always something askew. He/she had tried everything and yet the taste always soured. And then he/she succeeded in committing the one illegal act-and was thrown out of heaven forever.

But forever is not a term any native of that robotic utopia understood. And so he/she challenged the rules, declared independence, and set out to prove that a human was still smarter than the cleverest and most protective robot.

She was Brann, the Drinker of Souls, from whom all but the very brave and the very foolish fled in fear. Bonded to twin demonic shape-shifters, she roved the land in search of a rich life source to feed her demons' need.

But Brann too had a need that couldn't be denied, a quest to free her family from the evil king who'd enslaved them - a quest that would lead Brann and her unearthly allies into magical realms ruled by witches and werewolves, lawless lords and murderous villains, and the ever-present ghosts of the restless dead....

Brann has become a demonic spirit, but she is still bound by a code of honor that requires her to come to the assistance as gods and sorcerers duel for control of an enslaved people. To ensure their freedom, she must find a way to release the power of the Chained God.

When magic calls - not even Brann, the Drinker of Souls, can resist. And now the Chained God has drawn upon every spell at his command in a life-and-death struggle to break free of the energy-draining trap which holds him before he is driven into total dissolution.

To win release from his invisible prison, the Chained God must obtain six talismans of power, and he will use Brann and the demon children, the sorcerer Maksim, and all their former allies - as well as deadly predators from another dimension - as pawns in a desperate campaign to breach the strongholds of gods, shamans, wizards, and priests, and steal the magical orbs that are the vital focal points for a magical spell more powerful than any Brann's world has ever experienced. And should Brann and the rest fail to obtain even one of the precious talismans in time, not only will the Chained God's doom be sealed but a new and all-consuming evil will be released on Brann's own world!

Tinker, girl genius and inventor, lives in a near-future Pittsburgh which exists mostly in the land of the elves, where she tries to keep the local ambient level of magic down with her gadgets. When a pack of wargs chase an Elven noble into her scrapyard, life as she knows it takes a detour.

As far as Elkie's concerned, it's all over and her happy ending is just around the corner. She's on her way back to Wales having freed Ben from the clutches of the controlling Dr Olsen and ensured that Dave, her ex-everything, will never be in a position to kill again. She's even managed to find herself a (somewhat unwilling) father figure in Conn, the one werewolf in the world who seems to have his shit together. All she has to do is say "thank you" to the Valemon, a company so at odds with Olsen they were willing to support her, then get on a plane for home. Easy, right?

Warrior Priests are the holy crusaders of the Empire, crushing daemons, witches and heretics alike with righteous fury. These bold men wield death and damnation, with warhammers held high and the word of Sigmar on their lips. They provide the final bastion against the forces of darkness that would run rampant and forever turn the hearts of men. Jakob Wolff is one such warrior, and sets out to track down his brother, whose soul has been tainted by the Ruinous Powers. Family must be put to one side as he battles to prevent the Empire from sinking into Chaos, with only his strength of arms and the purity of his beliefs to call upon.

Brinkman is street-wise, moving with assurance down the mean streets of the future, through an America where life in the slums is an unrelenting grind of parsimonious welfare and petty thievery. He is determined to make a better life for himself; Brinkman is a young man who will go far...

Too far, in fact. Fleeing the police, he sneaks into an off-limits complex seeking refuge and finds a secret enclave of wealth and privilege hidden carefully from the world of poverty outside. And he finds Beth, a girl he once loved in the slums... and who died there long before.

Possessed of this "puzzling" and "dangerous" bit of information, Brinkman sets out to discover more, and gradually a life begins to piece itself together... Brinkman's own.

Ron Goulart's latest vision of America lives up to the reputation for zany, unforgettable novels that has won him the title of "the Woody Allen of Science Fiction."

Inch by inch, day by day, Scott Carey is getting smaller. Once an unremarkable husband and father, Scott finds himself shrinking with no end in sight. His wife and family turn into unreachable giants, the family cat becomes a predatory menace, and Scott must struggle to survive in a world that seems to be growing ever larger and more perilous--until he faces the ultimate limits of fear and existence.

Subsequently re-published as The Incredible Shrinking Man.

A Secret Binds the Colonists of HuteNamid, a secret for which they will risk everything--even genocide. Admiral Loren Cantrell, insystem to investigate disruptions in the vital interstellar data'Net, has only one clue: the code phrase Dena Cocheta. And only one source of information: Stephen Ridenour, the tormented, neurotic, and increasingly hostile young genius assigned to solve HuteNamid's mysteries.

The answers Cantrell seeks lie buried in Stephen's own tragic past. Is there a link between the madness that destroyed his homeworld and the growing insanity the grips HuteNamid? Probing Stephen's mind could destroy him and the colonists--perhaps all humankind. But one young man's life and the existence of one colony weigh very little against a threat to the 'Net itself--and the power that command Cantrell.

When washed-up journalist Harry Hendrick wakes with a hangover and a mysterious tattoo on his neck, he shrugs it off as a bad night out.

When more tattoos appear accompanied by visions of war-torn Afghanistan, bikies, boat people, murder, bar fights and a mysterious woman he begins to dig a little deeper.

Harry's search leads him to Jess McGrath. She's successful, married; they are drawn to each other, though they have nothing in common but unwanted tattoos and high definition nightmares. Together, they edge closer to unearthing the truth behind the sinister disappearance of an SAS hero and his girlfriend Kyla.

There's a federal election looming, with pundits tipping a landslide win for opposition leader Andrew Cardinal. Harry knows there's a link between these disturbing visions and Cardinal's shadowy past, and he is compelled to right wrongs, one way or another.

Freelance journalist Harry Hendrick is beginning to realise that you're only as good as your last exclusive, and buzz doesn't pay the bills, when he's blackmailed by the police into investigating a series of bizarre suicides.

Those investigations lead him into the web of Mistress Hel, who plies her dark arts from her luxurious suburban lair. With continuing challenges in his personal and professional life, can Harry resist her seductive power? Or the thrill of danger itself?

The first installment in a fabulous dark urban fantasy series--think Kill Bill with demons and gangsters instead of martial arts--from the award-winning author of the Iron Codex trilogy and Vertigo comic Coffin Hill.

Ava has spent the last hundred years as a hellhound, the indentured servant of a reaper who hunts errant souls and sends them to Hell. When a human necromancer convinces her to steal her reaper's scythe, Ava incurs the wrath of the demon Lilith, her reaper's boss.

As punishment for her transgression, Lilith orders Ava to track down the last soul in her reaper's ledger... or die trying.

But after a hundred years of servitude, it's time for payback. And Hell hath no fury like an avenging Ava....

After winning her freedom from a reaper and facing off against a fearsome demon boss, Ava is now a masterless hellhound. Her friend, Leo, has found a new life after death: He's returned as the Grim Reaper--the first in centuries. As both try to adjust to their new circumstances, Ava's dark past comes back to wreak havoc on her... and the entire world.

A breed of monsters as smart as vampires--but who behave like zombies--has been sighted in Kansas. Ava can't believe these "zompires" are back. She thought she'd kicked their asses for good when she first battled them in a Nazi death camp. Now, they're spreading their infection across America's heartland thanks to a nasty piece of business named Cain.

Free at last after being locked up in Hell for millennia, Cain has some scores to settle. To stop him, Ava must form an unholy alliance with some old foes... a bargain that will lead her to uncover deeply buried truths about her past--and Leo's future.

Al MacBharrais is both blessed and cursed. He is blessed with an extraordinary white moustache, an appreciation for craft cocktails--and a most unique magical talent. He can cast spells with magically enchanted ink and he uses his gifts to protect our world from rogue minions of various pantheons, especially the Fae.

But he is also cursed. Anyone who hears his voice will begin to feel an inexplicable hatred for Al, so he can only communicate through the written word or speech apps. And his apprentices keep dying in peculiar freak accidents. As his personal life crumbles around him, he devotes his life to his work, all the while trying to crack the secret of his curse.

But when his latest apprentice, Gordie, turns up dead in his Glasgow flat, Al discovers evidence that Gordie was living a secret life of crime. Now Al is forced to play detective--while avoiding actual detectives who are wondering why death seems to always follow Al. Investigating his apprentice's death will take him through Scotland's magical underworld, and he'll need the help of a mischievous hobgoblin if he's to survive.

There's only one Al MacBharrais: Though other Scotsmen may have dramatic mustaches and a taste for fancy cocktails, Al also has a unique talent. He's a master of ink and sigil magic. In his gifted hands, paper and pen can work wondrous spells.

But Al isn't quite alone: He is part of a global network of sigil agents who use their powers to protect the world from mischievous gods and strange monsters. So when a fellow agent disappears under sinister circumstances in Australia, Al leaves behind the cozy pubs and cafes of Glasgow and travels to the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria to solve the mystery.

The trail to his colleague begins to pile up with bodies at alarming speed, so Al is grateful his friends have come to help--especially Nadia, his accountant who moonlights as a pit fighter. Together with a whisky-loving hobgoblin known as Buck Foi and the ancient Druid Atticus O'Sullivan, along with his dogs, Oberon and Starbuck, Al and Nadia will face down the wildest wonders Australia--and the supernatural world--can throw at them, and confront a legendary monster not seen in centuries.

Al MacBharrais has a most unusual job: He's a practitioner of ink-and-sigil magic, tasked with keeping order among the gods and monsters that dwell hidden in the human world. But there's one supernatural mystery he's never been able to solve: Years ago, someone cast twin curses on him that killed off his apprentices and drove away loved ones who heard him speak, leaving him bereft and isolated.

But he's not quite alone: As Al works to solve this mystery, his friends draw him into their own eccentric dramas. Buck Foi the hobgoblin has been pondering his own legacy--and has a plan for a daring shenanigan that will make him the most celebrated hobgoblin of all. Nadia, goth queen and battle seer, is creating her own cult around a god who loves whisky and cheese.

And the Morrigan, a former Irish death goddess, has decided she wants not only to live as an ordinary woman but also to face the most perilous challenge of the mortal world: online dating.

Meanwhile, Al crosses paths with old friends and new--including some beloved Druids and their very good dogs--in his globe-trotting quest to solve the mystery of his curses. But he's pulled in so many different directions by his colleagues, a suspicious detective, and the whims of destructive gods that Al begins to wonder: Will he ever find time to write his own happy ending?

What if your dad loved books, owned a bookstore, and even called his cherished volumes "my little bookies"? You would probably despise books--just like the young protagonist in this deliciously bizarre story.

One summer vacation, while Odilon is working in the store and hoping shoplifters will ease his burden, he spots a weird, pale stranger drinking a book. With a straw. As soon as the ink drinker flees (at the sound of the boy's gasp), the young spy locates the customer's book and discovers that it is completely blank except for a letter or two! He races out of the store on the heels of this tough customer--all the way to the cemetery....

Can she write a world gone wrong?

A certain pen, a certain book, and a certain person can craft entirely new worlds through a branch of science called scriptology. Elsa comes from one such world that was written into creation, where her mother--a noted scriptologist--constantly alters and expands their reality.

But when her home is attacked and her mother kidnapped, Elsa is forced to cross into the real world and use her own scriptology gifts to find her. In an alternative Victorian Italy, Elsa finds a secret society of young scientists with a gift for mechanics, alchemy, or scriptology--and meets Leo, a gorgeous mechanist with a smart mouth and tragic past. She recruits the help of these fellow geniuses just as an assassin arrives on their doorstep.

In debut author Gwendolyn Clare's thrilling Ink, Iron, and Glass, worlds collide as Elsa unveils a deep political conspiracy seeking to unlock the most dangerous weapon ever created--and only she can stop it.

Worlds collide in this thrilling sequel to the epic, imaginative, acclaimed fantasy Ink, Iron, and Glass.

In an alternate 19th-century Italy, Elsa has an incredible gift: she can craft new worlds with precise lines of script written in books. But political extremists have stolen the most dangerous book ever scribed?one that can rewrite the Earth itself.

Now Elsa must track down the friend who betrayed her and recover the book before its destructive power is unleashed. Can she handle the secrets she'll uncover along the way?including the ones hiding in her own heart?

One cruel night, Meggie's father, Mo, reads aloud from INKHEART, and an evil ruler named Capricorn escapes the boundaries of fiction, landing instead in their living room. Suddenly, Meggie's in the middle of the kind of adventure she thought only took place in fairy tales. Somehow she must master the magic that has conjured up this nightmare. Can she change the course of the story that has changed her life forever?

The captivating sequel to INKHEART, the critically acclaimed, international bestseller by Cornelia Funke--available for the first time in a beautifully designed trade paperback!

Although a year has passed, not a day goes by without Meggie thinking of INKHEART, the book whose characters became real. But for Dustfinger, the fire-eater brought into being from words, the need to return to the tale has become desperate. When he finds a crooked storyteller with the ability to read him back, Dustfinger leaves behind his young apprentice Farid and plunges into the medieval world of his past. Distraught, Farid goes in search of Meggie, and before long, both are caught inside the book, too. But the story is threatening to evolve in ways neither of them could ever have imagined.

The Adderhead--his immortality bound in a book by Meggie's father, Mo--has ordered his henchmen to plunder the villages. The peasants' only defense is a band of outlaws led by the Bluejay--Mo's fictitious double, whose identity he has reluctantly adopted. But the Book of Immortality is unraveling, and the Adderhead again fears the White Women of Death. To bring the renegade Bluejay back to repair the book, the Adderhead kidnaps all the children in the kingdom, dooming them to slavery in his silver mines unless Mo surrenders. First Dustfinger, now Mo: Can anyone save this cursed story?

The fate of the wild fairies that inhabit the modern world lies in the hands of a young Toronto fiddler named Johnny Faw and a handful of human and not-so-human companions in the newest contemporary fantasty by the author of Moonheart. This sequel to Jack the Giant-Killer amply displays de Lint's innate charm and compelling storytelling.

ACROSS THE LETHAL NATIONS

Etjole Ehomba has led his companions through jungle, veldt, and desert. Now to reach the fabled port of Hamacassar, the simple herdsman must trek through deadly "civilized" lands where flowers wage war, dogs herd lightning, demons govern darkness, and Time itself can be held captive.

In this new world, the tribesman must rely upon his friends, wondrous weapons, and the magic of memories so potent they can raise the dead or bring the sea to dry land. But no matter where he goes, evey seer and sage Ehomba meets offers the same prophecy: his quest will end in failure... and death.

A Tale That Climbs Steadily to a Climax of Stark Terror

The Jules de Grandin series is not numbered but this is the first published story of such.

This novelette is included in the collection The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin volume 1 "Horror On The Links".

It first appeared in the October, 1925 Issue of Weird Tales, avilable on Internet Archives.

Lynda Hilburn writes paranormal fiction. More specifically, she writes stories about vampires, witches, psychics, ghosts and other supernatural characters. After a childhood filled with invisible friends, sightings of dead relatives and a fascination with the occult, turning to the paranormal was a no-brainer. In her other reality, she makes her living as a licensed psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, professional psychic/tarot reader, university instructor and workshop presenter.

For more information, visit Lynda's website: www.lyndahilburnauthor.com and her blog: www.paranormalityuniverse.blogspot.com.

Death and Tattoos in the Big Easy!

Having killed her last producer (SO not her fault, though), stuntwoman Lee Striga's next film shoot takes her to the voodoo-soaked bayous and haunted back alleys of New Orleans, where sinister supernatural figures stalk the streets. In a dark corner of the French Quarter, an arcane tattoo artist is using his clients in rituals that will open an inter-dimensional gateway for a demon god from beyond the stars.

Elke Veraart is in prison. She used to be an eco-terrorist, hunting down poachers to protect endangered species. Now she's facing the grim reality of life behind bars. Just as Elke is about to give up hope she is offered a chance to win back her freedom. All she has to do is find a missing dog.

Meisje is no ordinary dog. She's cybernetically enhanced, a valuable living weapon. She's also lost, hungry, and alone. As Elke closes in on Meisje she finds her admiration for the resourceful cyber-dog growing. And Meisje begins to wonder if she could trust the woman on her trail.

Then Elke discovers that she's not the only one hunting the cyber-dog, and that her orders have changed. She must do more than find Meisje. She has to kill her.

Elke has to make an impossible choice: her freedom, or Meisje's life. Or is there another way? It's risky, but Elke could use the secrets she's uncovered to save them both.

The Muara. A ruined sea-side resort, shattered by the weather, buried in sand. Three children scavenge a living on the abandoned beaches and in the sand-swamped houses. This is their home and its desolation is their security... but their safety is an illusion.

Under the sands of the Muara, in an underground room, is a secret that could destroy them and everything they know.

Constable Elke Veraart and her cyber-dog Meisje are peace keepers, patrolling the Babylon Eye. It's a good job, but there must be more to life than chasing smugglers and settling domestic disputes.

Then three children ask Elke to find their mother, who's been missing for more than a year. The search attracts the wrong kind of attention. Elke and her young friends are in desperate danger.

Unable to resist the powers that have been unleashed against her, Elke is swept out of the Babylon Eye and into another world. While she struggles to regain her freedom, the children are unprotected. They must face, all alone, a new danger that stalks the corridors of the Babylon Eye.

Because sometimes, it takes cleavage and big skirts to save the world from those crazy teenagers.

Kassa Daggersharp has been a pirate, a witch, a menace to public safety, a villain, a hero and a legend. These days, she lectures first year students on the dangers of magic, at the Polyhedrotechnical in Cluft.

Egg Friefriedsson is Kassa's teenage cousin, a lapsed Axgaard warrior who would rather stay in his room and draw comics all day than hang out with his friends. If only comics had been invented.

Aragon Silversword is missing, presumed dead.

All the adventures are over. It's time to get on with being a grownup. But when Egg's drawings come to life, including an evil dark city full of villains and monsters, everyone starts to lose their grip on reality. Even the flying sheep.

Kassa and Egg are not sure who are the heroes and who are the villains anymore, but someone has to step up to save Mocklore, one last time.

True love isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Happy endings don't come cheap.

All that magic is probably going to kill you.

You really can have too much black velvet.

Multiple Myth-Perceptions!

M.Y.T.H. Inc. is experiencing growing pains. Everyone is trying to contribute, and getting used to being partners instead of employees, but any time you fool around with business or magik, things can get dangerous. The Great Skeeve, the boss of the organization, has had many adventures with his scaly green demon mentor, Aahz, but each of the partners has his or her own take on the operation, and each has a personal tale of Myth-Adventure to relate:

• Guido's Tale
• Chumley's Tale
• Massha's Tale
• Aahz's Tale
• Gleep's Tale

The first book in a thrilling, addictive new series by a talented new voice in dark fantasy. Welcome to Nocturne City, where werewolves, black magicians, and witches prowl the streets at night...

Among them is Luna Wilder, a tough-as-nails police officer whose job is to keep the peace. As an Insoli werewolf, Luna travels without a pack and must rely on instinct alone. And she's just been assigned to find the ruthless killer behind a string of ritualistic murders--a killer with ties to an escaped demon found only in legend... until now.

But when she investigates prime suspect Dmitri Sandovsky, she can't resist his wolfish charms. Pack leader of a dangerous clan of Redbacks, Dimitri sends her animal instincts into overdrive and threatens her fiercely-guarded independence. But Luna and Dimiri will need to rely on each other as they're plunged into an ancient demon underworld and pitted against an expert black magician with the power to enslave them for eternity...

In the shadows of Nocturne City, witches lurk and demons prowl, and homicide detective Luna Wilder must keep the peace--while living life as a werewolf. Now bodies are turning up all over town, the brutal murders linked by a cryptic message: We see with empty eyes...

To make matters worse for Luna, she can't get wolfishly handsome Dmitri Sandovsky out of her mind. The last time he helped her with a case, Dmitri suffered a demon bite that infected him with a mysterious illness...and now his pack elders have forbidden him from associating with Luna. But she'll need his help when high-level witches start turning up slaughtered. Because a war is brewing between rival clans of blood witches and caster witches--a magical gang war with the power to burn Nocturne City to the ground.

When werewolves from Nocturne City's oldest packs start showing up shot through the head execution-style, police officer Luna Wilder must find out what's killing them and why... before she becomes the next victim.

Luna traces the killings to a band of shapeshifters made of smoke and shadow who drink the blood of their victims for strength. Believed to exist only in legend, their race is all too real--and now their leader, Lucas Kennuka, is out to wrest Luna's heart from her beloved Dmitri. To make matters worse, Dmitri is suffering from a mysterious illness brought on by a demon bite, and his condition grows more grave with each passing day. Now Luna must rely on Lucas to defeat an invisible enemy--a serial were-killer bringing death and destruction to all who stand in its path...

Someone, or something, is setting fire to the homes of the city's most infamous non-humans, racking up a body count that's growing by the day. And strange, otherworldly creatures no one has seen before--selkies trolls and harpies--are causing chaos throughout the city. Racing to stop the carnage, Luna turns to sexy federal agent Will Fagin for help. As they work to uncover the source of the bloodshed, Luna's attraction for Will deepens. But just as she learns Will's darkest secret, Nocturne City is thrust into total chaos--leaving Luna and Will in a path of destruction they may not be able to stop... or survive.

When the Dubois investigation turns up an unexpected connection to the Russian mob, Luna finds herself heading down a terrifying path of no return. Soon she is held captive by the very evil she hunts--one that reaches far across the borders of Nocturne City to the seedy brothels of Europe and beyond. Now, with street smarts, seduction, and a sixth-sense for danger as her only weapons, Luna will enlist the help of her former lover Dmitri--who has his own reasons for bringing down this crime ring--and risk it all in the ultimate showdown.

Regret was for people with nothing to defend, people who had no water.

Lynn knows every threat to her pond: drought, a snowless winter, coyotes, and, most important, people looking for a drink. She makes sure anyone who comes near the pond leaves thirsty, or doesn't leave at all.

Confident in her own abilities, Lynn has no use for the world beyond the nearby fields and forest. But wisps of smoke on the horizon mean one thing: strangers. The mysterious footprints by the pond, nighttime threats, and gunshots make it all too clear Lynn has exactly what they want, and they won't stop until they get it....

With evocative, spare language and incredible drama, danger, and romance, Mindy McGinnis depicts one girl's journey in a barren world not so different from our own.

The only thing bigger than the world is fear.

Lucy's life by the pond has always been full. She has water and friends, laughter and the love of her adoptive mother, Lynn, who has made sure that Lucy's childhood was very different from her own. Yet it seems Lucy's future is settled already--a house, a man, children, and a water source--and anything more than life by the pond is beyond reach.

When disease burns through their community, the once life-saving water of the pond might be the source of what's killing them now. Rumors of desalinization plants in California have lingered in Lynn's mind, and the prospect of a normal life for Lucy sets the two of them on an epic journey west to face new dangers: hunger, mountains, deserts, betrayal, and the perils of a world so vast that Lucy fears she could be lost forever, only to disappear in a handful of dust.

In this companion to Not a Drop to Drink, Mindy McGinnis thrillingly combines the heart-swelling hope of a journey, the challenges of establishing your own place in the world, and the gripping physical danger of nature in a futuristic frontier.

Not the hero they want, but the one they need!

A heavy mist has fallen over the world, twisting many humans into horrifying monsters. Humanity is losing the battle against these grotesque fiends, but it is not entirely without defenses. Leon Crossheart is an adventurer, a hero, a hunter of ghouls... and a ghoul himself! His strength and regenerative ability are unmatched, but this power comes at a price: He's reviled by the very people he strives to protect. However, there is one girl he saved who sees beyond his frightening appearance. Alice is so grateful that she wants to be his disciple, and she isn't taking no for an answer! Will she bring light into his dark and bloodstained life, or will he keep her-and therefore his own salvation-out of reach?

Meet Rinkitink--a kindhearted king who's as fat and jolly as old Saint Nick himself! When the jovial monarch sails for a visit to the island kingdom of Pingaree, he and his talking goat, Bilbil, are welcomed with open arms. Before long, Rinkitink's lighthearted ways and merry songs endear him to the king and queen of Pingaree, as well as to their son, Prince Inga.

But when the peaceful isle is invaded by fierce warriors, everyone from the rulers to the smallest child is taken off in chains. Only Prince Inga, Rinkitink, and Bilbil escape the conquerors. And so the three friends set out--aided by the magical Pearls of Pingaree--to rescue the prince's people.

Their perilous quest takes them across the vast Nonestic Ocean to the terrible islands of Regos and Coregos to the dark underground domains of the Nome King. Victories are followed by setbacks, which are in turn followed by strokes of good fortune. Just when it seems our friends have met their match in the clever Nome King, Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz arrive to lend a hand.

A study of the British science fiction and mystery author S. Fowler Wright, analyzing the author's strengths and weaknesses and discussing his varied fictional output.

Contents:

• 5 - An S. Fowler Wright Chronology - essay
• 9 - 1. Who Is S. Fowler Wright? - essay
• 15 - 2. The Short Stories - essay
• 27 - 3. The Mysteries - essay
• 39 - 4. Past and Future Warfare - essay
• 55 - 5. The Survivors - essay
• 81 - 6. Disaster: Deluge and Dawn - essay
• 95 - 7. Societies Far and Near - essay
• 115 - 8. Conclusion - essay

Grace Pizzelli is the average one, nothing like her brilliant older sister, Emily, who works for Rasmussem, creators of the world's best virtual reality games. The games aren't real, though--or at least they weren't. Now Emily has hidden herself inside a pink and sparkly game meant for little girls. No one knows why, or how to convince her to come back out, and the technology can't keep her safe for much longer. Grace may consider herself average, but she's the only one who can save Emily. So Grace enters the game, hoping to talk her sister out of virtual suicide before time runs out. Otherwise Emily will die--for real.

Bound in an unwanted marriage, Freya spends her days gutting fish, but dreams of becoming a warrior. And of putting an axe in her boorish husband's back.

Freya's dreams abruptly become reality when her husband betrays her to the region's jarl, landing her in a fight to the death against his son. To survive, Freya is forced to reveal her deepest secret: she possesses a drop of a goddess's blood, which gives her magic capable of repelling any attack. A magic that was foretold would unite the fractured nation of Skaland beneath a king-the one who controls the shield maiden's fate.

Believing he's destined to rule Skaland, the fanatical jarl binds Freya with a blood oath and orders his son, Bjorn, to protect Freya from their enemies. Desperate to prove her strength, Freya must train to fight and learn to control her magic, all while facing perilous tests set by the gods. Except the greatest test of all may be resisting her forbidden attraction to Bjorn. If Freya succumbs to her lust for the charming and fierce warrior, she risks not only her own destiny but the fate of all the people she swore to protect.

A stunning debut set in a world where reading is unheard-of, perfect for fans of Inkheart and Shadow and Bone

Sefia knows what it means to survive. After her father is brutally murdered, she flees into the wilderness with her aunt Nin, who teaches her to hunt, track, and steal. But when Nin is kidnapped, leaving Sefia completely alone, none of her survival skills can help her discover where Nin's been taken, or if she's even alive. The only clue to both her aunt's disappearance and her father's murder is the odd rectangular object her father left behind, an object she comes to realize is a book--a marvelous item unheard of in her otherwise illiterate society. With the help of this book, and the aid of a mysterious stranger with dark secrets of his own, Sefia sets out to rescue her aunt and find out what really happened the day her father was killed--and punish the people responsible.

With overlapping stories of swashbuckling pirates and merciless assassins, The Reader is a brilliantly told adventure from an extraordinary new talent.

Having barely escaped the clutches of the Guard, Sefia and Archer are back on the run, slipping into the safety of the forest to tend to their wounds and plan their next move. Haunted by painful memories, Archer struggles to overcome the trauma of his past with the impressors, whose cruelty plagues him whenever he closes his eyes. But when Sefia and Archer happen upon a crew of impressors in the wilderness, Archer finally finds a way to combat his nightmares: by hunting impressors and freeing the boys they hold captive.

With Sefia's help, Archer travels across the kingdom of Deliene rescuing boys while she continues to investigate the mysterious Book and the secrets it contains. But the more battles they fight, the more fights Archer craves, until his thirst for violence threatens to transform him from the gentle boy Sefia knows to a grim warrior with a cruel destiny. As Sefia begins to unravel the threads that connect Archer's fate to her parents' betrayal of the Guard so long ago, she and Archer must figure out a way to subvert the Guard's plans before they are ensnared in a war that will pit kingdom against kingdom, leaving their future and the safety of the entire world hanging in the balance.

Sefia is determined to keep Archer out of the Guard's clutches and their plans for war between the Five Kingdoms. The Book, the ancient, infinite codex of the past, present and future, tells of a prophecy that will plunge Kelanna in that bloody war, but it requires a boy--Archer--and Sefia will stop at nothing to ensure his safety. The Guard has already stolen her mother, her father, and her Aunt Nin. Sefia would sooner die than let them take anymore from her--especially the boy she loves.

But escaping the Guard and the Book's prophecy is no easy task. After all, what is written always comes to pass. As Sefia and Archer watch Kelanna start to crumble to the Guard's will, they will have to choose between their love and joining a war that just might tear them apart. Full of magic, suspense, and mystery, Traci Chee brings her Sea of Ink and Gold trilogy to a close in this spellbinding final installment.

The renegade Soul Drinkers continue their misguided campaign to free mankind from the tyranny of the Imperium in this second trilogy of novels by Ben Counter. In Chapter War, the Soul Drinkers, harried by loyalist Space Marines, fall into the grip of a devastating civil war. Hellforged sees the Chapter fleeing into the mysterious Veiled Regions where they encounter a new threat - the necrons. As they battle the undying aliens, the Soul Drinkers' past catches up with them as the Imperial Fists - their spiritual progenitors - arrive. Captured and put on trial, Sarpedon must find a way to save his warriors even as the Imperial Fists' mighty starfort Phalanx comes under attack from a horde of ravening daemons.

Contains: Chapter War, Hellforged, and Phalanx

Like all Space Marine Chapters, the Soul Drinkers are bound to serve the Imperium by ancient vows. But when an ancient relic of the Chapter is misappropriated, the Soul Drinkers face a terrible dilemma - betray the Imperium, or lose their honour? Their final choice, and its consequences, form the theme of this classic trilogy of SF stories set in the nightmare world of the 41st millennium.

The Soul Drinkers have served the Emperor loyally for thousands of years, but their obsessive desire to retrieve an ancient relic throws them into conflict with those that they are honour-bound to obey. Faced with an impossible choice, will this proud and noble chapter back down, or rebel to forge a new destiny for themselves among the stars?

Threatened with destruction by the Imperial agents, including hardline Inquisitor Thaddeus, whom they had once served loyally, the Soul Drinkers Space Marines are tormented by many mutations that afflict them, until their leader, Sarpedon, comes up with a way to eliminate the mutations and restore the company's honor in the face of the God-Emperor.

After replenishing their number with new recruits, the Soul Drinkers Chapter of Space Marines are once thrown into conflict with the forces of Chaos and the Imperium. This is the third volume in the trilogy dealing with the corruption of the Space Marine Chapter.

Having stabilised their gene-seed, and brought a halt to their mutation, the Soul Drinkers start rebuilding their Chapter with new recruits. But the recruits have their own ideas ? rather than protect the Imperium, they wish to wage war against it.

With the Imperial forces and the Inquisition closing in on the renegade Chapter, can Sarpedon rally his troops to face the true enemy?

The Space Marines are humanity's champions, their loyalty to the Emperor beyond question. When a Chapter falls from grace, the Imperium will stop at nothing to hunt them down and exterminate them. The disgraced Soul Drinkers Chapter attempts to elude their pursuers in a desolate area of space, but Sarpedon and his battle-brothers soon find themselves fighting for their lives against a deadly new enemy: the necrons!

The Soul Drinkers have been captured by the Imperial Fists, who intend to see them put on trial on the Phalanx, the Fists' vast space fortress. Inside, one of Iktinos' faithful breaks under interrogation and reveals the location of a vault hidden under Selaaca.

An Imperial Fists squad opens up an ancient vault below the planet's surface. Inside the vault is Daenyathos, kept alive in his dreadnought body. He is brought back to the Phalanx to face trial with the rest of the Soul Drinkers.

The Venette Convention has always remained independent, but it is about to become the flashpoint for a tense military standoff between the two power blocs now dominating interstellar space--the United Federation of Planets and the recently formed Typhon Pact. The Venetan government turns to the Typhon Pact's Tzenkethi Coalition for protection in the new order, and has agreed to allow three of their supply bases for Tzenkethi use.

But these bases--if militarized--would put Tzenkethi weapons unacceptably close to Federation, Cardassian, and Ferengi space. While Captain Ezri Dax and the crew of the U.S.S. Aventine are sent to investigate exactly what is happening at one of the Venette bases, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the U.S.S. Enterprise are assigned to a diplomatic mission sent to the Venette homeworld in order to broker a mutually acceptable resolution. But the Cardassian delegates don't seem particularly keen on using diplomacy to resolve the situation, which soon spirals out of control toward all-out war....

These are the voyages of the U.S.S. da Vinci. Their mission: to solve the problems of the galaxy, one disaster at a time. Starfleet veteran Captain David Gold, along with his crack Starfleet Corps of Engineers team lead by former Starship Enterprise engineer Commander Sonya Gomez, travel throughout the Federation and beyond to fix the unfixable, repair the irreparable, and solve the unsolvable.

Whether it's an artificial planetary ring that was damaged during the Dominion War, an out-of-control generation ship, a weapons inspection gone horribly wrong, shutting down a crashed probe, solving a centuries-old medical mystery, or clearing a sargasso sea of derelict ships, the S.C.E. is on the case!

But the problems they face aren't just technical; Tev must confront the demons of his past, Lense must confront the demons of her present, Gold faces a crisis of leadership on his own ship, and Gomez must lead an away team into the middle of a brutal ground war. Plus the da Vinci crew must find a way to work with their Klingon counterparts in a deadly rescue mission.

Contents:

• 1 - Ring Around the Sky - [Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers - 37] - (2004) - novella by Allyn Gibson
• 109 - Orphans - [Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers - 38] - (2004) - novella by Kevin Killiany
• 245 - Grand Designs - [Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers - 39] - (2004) - novella by Kevin Dilmore and Dayton Ward
• 337 - Failsafe - [Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers - 40] - (2004) - novella by David Mack
• 473 - Bitter Medicine - [Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers - 41] - (2004) - novella by Dave Galanter
• 537 - Sargasso Sector - (2004) - novella by Paul Kupperberg
• 629 - Author Bios (Grand Designs) - essay by uncredited

When something in the galaxy needs to be fixed, tweaked, investigated, or repaired, the Federation sends in the best: the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. Traveling throughout the quadrant on the Sabre-class U.S.S. da Vinci, Captain David Gold, former Starship Enterprise engineer Commander Sonya Gomez, and the crack S.C.E. team solve the problems of the galaxy, one disaster at a time.

Whether dealing with the legacy of Captain Jean-Luc Picard's decision regarding the Mariposa colony, stopping an alien predator from destroying a pre-warp culture, fixing a planet-wide power outage, or repairing the damage done by the Dominion to a former ally, the Corps of Engineers is on the case!

But not all problems are technical: Dr. Elizabeth Lense deals with the consequences of her unexpected pregnancy, Security Chief Domenica Corsi encounters a Prime Directive crisis, Dr. Bart Faulwell faces a personal crossroads, and Chief Vance Hawkins must try to lay the ghosts of the Dominion War to rest.

Contents:

• 1 - Out of the Cocoon - [Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers - 57] - (2005) - novella by William Leisner
• 151 - Honor - [Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers - 58] - (2005) - novella by Kevin Killiany
• 283 - Blackout - [Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers - 59] - (2005) - novella by Phaedra Weldon [as by Phaedra M. Weldon ]
• 405 - The Cleanup - [Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers - 60] - (2006) - novella by Robert T. Jeschonek

It's twenty years since the Evenfall swept across the Vellum and the bitmites took reality apart, twenty years since Phreedom Messenger disappeared into the wilderness and Seamus Finnan was imprisoned in his own past. Twenty years of chaos but the Dukes, the remnants of the Covenant, still cling to power in their enclaves of order in the bitmite-devastated wilderness... in their Havens in the Hinter. Across the folds of time and space, though, rogues and rebels are rising up against the Empire. From a mediaeval fortress where wandering mummers stage a Harlequin play based on Euripides's The Bacchae and performed in the Cant... to Kentigern where another Harlequin, Jack Flash, wreaks havoc on a fascist state that thought him dead.

From a 1939 Paris where Jack Carter and Seamus Finnan, heroes of the International Brigades, seek to rewrite history -- to a 1929 Berlin where a very different Jack seeks to save the world from a history he has helped make real. Locked in an eternal battle of chaos and order, it seems everyone must play their part now, as rebel or tyrant, hero or villain. 'It is, quite simply, stunning and the most powerful debut novel I've read since Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Norrell and Mr Strange' Forbidden Planet magazine

Seventeen-year-old Valeria is one of the only survivors of the freeze, a dark magical hold Knnot Mountain unleashed on her village. Everyone, including her family, is trapped in an unbreakable sheet of ice. Ever since, she's been on the run from the czar, who has set out to imprison anyone who managed to escape. Valeria finds refuge with the Thieves Guild, doing odd jobs with her best friend, Alik, the only piece of home she has left. That is, until he is brutally murdered.

A year later, she discovers Alik is alive and being held captive. To buy his freedom, she must lead a group of cutthroats and thieves on a perilous expedition to the very mountain that claimed her family. Only something sinister slumbers in the heart of Knnot. And it has waited years for release.

Surviving the ill-fated expedition to Knnot, Valeria, Alik, and the others have found refuge in Valeria's village. Though Val should find comfort in reuniting with her family, everything has changed--including herself. For now, Val is the Pale God's chosen champion. And she is ready for revenge on the Czar.

Gifted with the Pale God's power, Val will do whatever it takes to liberate her people. Even if that means stealing the Czar's son away from the safety of the Winter Palace. But as Alik watches Val struggle to maintain control over the god she holds captive, it becomes clear that the Pale God plans a revenge of his own.

The inevitable is coming: one final battle. And Valeria must be ready to sacrifice everything--even her love for Alik--to win.

Contents:

• The Cat's Elopement
• How the Dragon was Tricked
• The Goblin and the Grocer
• The House in the Wood
• Urashimataro and the Turtle
• The Slaying of the Tanuki
• The Flying Trunk
• The Snow Man
• The Shirt-Collar
• The Princess in the Chest
• The Three Brothers
• The Snow-queen
• The Fir-Tree
• Hans, the Mermaid's Son
• Peter Bull
• The Bird 'Grip'
• Snowflake
• I Know What I Have Learned
• The Cunning Shoemaker
• The King who would have a Beautiful Wife
• Catherine and her Destiny
• How the Hermit helped to win the King's Daughter
• The Water of Life
• The Wounded Lion
• The Man without a Heart
• The Two Brothers
• Master and Pupil
• The Golden Lion
• The Sprig of Rosemary
• The White Dove
• The Troll's Daughter
• Esben and the Witch
• Princess Minon-Minette
• Maiden Bright-eye
• The Merry Wives
• King Lindworm
• The Jackal, the Dove, and the Panther
• The Little Hare
• The Sparrow with the Slit Tongue
• The Story of Ciccu
• Don Giovanni de la Fortuna

The first of five volumes collecting the stories of Jules de Grandin, the supernatural detective made famous in the classic pulp magazine Weird Tales.

Today the names of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith, all regular contributors to the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the first half of the twentieth century, are recognizable even to casual readers of the bizarre and fantastic. And yet despite being more popular than them all during the golden era of genre pulp fiction, there is another author whose name and work have fallen into obscurity: Seabury Quinn.

Quinn's short stories were featured in well more than half of Weird Tales's original publication run. His most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave, often set in the small town of Harrisonville, New Jersey. In de Grandin there are familiar shades of both Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, and alongside his assistant, Dr. Samuel Trowbridge, de Grandin's knack for solving mysteries--and his outbursts of peculiar French-isms (grand Dieu!)--captivated readers for nearly three decades.

Collected for the first time in trade editions, The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, edited by George Vanderburgh, presents all ninety-three published works featuring the supernatural detective. Presented in chronological order over five volumes, and including all thirty-two original Weird Tales covers illustrated for de Grandin stories, this is the definitive collection of an iconic pulp hero.

The first volume, The Horror on the Links, includes all of the Jules de Grandin stories from "The Horror on the Links" (1925) to "The Chapel of Mystic Horror" (1928), as well as an introduction by Robert Weinberg.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction--George A. Vanderburgh and Robert E. Weinberg

1925

• The Horror on the Links (Weird Tales, October 1925)
• The Tenants of Broussac (Weird Tales, December 1925)

1926

• The Isle of Missing Ships (Weird Tales, February 1926)
• The Vengeance of India (Weird Tales, April 1926)
• The Dead Hand (Weird Tales, May 1926)
• The House of Horror (Weird Tales, July 1926)
• Ancient Fires (Weird Tales, September 1926)
• The Great God Pan (Weird Tales, October 1926)
• The Grinning Mummy (Weird Tales, December 1926)

1927

• The Man Who Cast No Shadow (Weird Tales, February 1927)
• The Blood-Flower (Weird Tales, March 1927)
• The Veiled Prophetess (Weird Tales, May 1927)
• The Curse of Everard Maundy (Weird Tales, July 1927)
• Creeping Shadows (Weird Tales, August 1927)
• The White Lady of the Orphanage (Weird Tales, September 1927)
• The Poltergeist (Weird Tales, October 1927)

1928

• The Gods of East and West (Weird Tales, January 1928)
• Mephistopheles and Company, Ltd. (Weird Tales, February 1928)
• The Jewel of Seven Stones (Weird Tales, April 1928)
• The Serpent Woman (Weird Tales, June 1928)
• Body and Soul (Weird Tales, September 1928)
• Restless Souls (Weird Tales, October 1928)
• The Chapel of Mystic Horror (Weird Tales, December 1928)

Two opponents must confront the cause of their obsessive fury in the latest Novel of the Elder Races...

As a harpy, Sentinel Aryal is accustomed to dealing with hate, but Sentinel Quentin Caeravorn manages to inspire in her a burning ire unlike anything she's ever known. Aryal believes the new Sentinel to be a criminal, and vows to take him out as soon as the opportunity arises. But the harpy's incessant wrath has pushed Quentin to the limit, and forces him to make a deadly vow of his own.

To put an end to the conflict, Dragos, Lord of the Wyr, sends them on a reconnaissance mission to the Elven land of Numenlaur. Forced to work together, Aryal and Quentin's mutual antagonism escalates. Each fight draws forth more passion--culminating in an explosively sexual confrontation. But when their quest reveals real danger, Aryal and Quentin must resolve their differences in ways beyond the physical, before the entire Wyr is threatened.

Rachel Caine rewrites history, creating a dangerous world where the Great Library of Alexandria has survived the test of time....

Ruthless and supremely powerful, the Great Library is now a presence in every major city, governing the flow of knowledge to the masses. Alchemy allows the Library to deliver the content of the greatest works of history instantly--but the personal ownership of books is expressly forbidden.

Jess Brightwell believes in the value of the Library, but the majority of his knowledge comes from illegal books obtained by his family, who are involved in the thriving black market. Jess has been sent to be his family's spy, but his loyalties are tested in the final months of his training to enter the Library's service.

When he inadvertently commits heresy by creating a device that could change the world, Jess discovers that those who control the Great Library believe that knowledge is more valuable than any human life--and soon both heretics and books will burn....

A DAY IN A LIFE OF AN EX-DEMON LORD

Lurking in the hallways of Laville National Academy is a beast even the instructors fear, one who goes by the name of Ard Meteor. His average day can take any form: working as a member of a secret organization serving the queen; going toe-to-toe with an ancient god slumbering in the school dungeon; saving a young girl brainwashed by an Evil God; protecting the school when all he's ever known is flipped on its head; even transforming the world--all for a certain champion. The typical nobody may pray for a normal life, but his daily errands prove his reality is anything but!

When being mediocre is the best-case scenario...

As the most powerful entity of all time, the Demon Lord Varvatos thinks life is a big fat snore. When he takes matters into his own hands and decides to reincarnate, he calibrates his magical strength to be perfectly average. But there is no way he could have predicted that everyone in the modern world would be weak as hell, which means he is totally overpowered once again! Reborn under the name Ard, he has ladies fawning over him, the royal family begging him to become the next king, and an ex-minion insisting on killing him?! But Ard has a one-track mind, and he won't stop at anything to achieve his ultimate goal!

Here Comes Trouble...

One of Lydia's former soldiers, Sylphy Marheaven, is starting to suspect that this "Ard" character might just be the reincarnated form of the Demon Lord. So when she discovers his whereabouts, she packs her bags and transfers into his academy, dead set on finding out his true identity. And as if Ard's hands aren't full enough, he's got the upcoming school festival to think about, which should be fun... besides Sylphy surveilling him around the clock and the threatening letter he's just received. But, of course, isn't everything a breeze when you're the greatest Demon Lord?

A BLAST TO THE PAST

Ard may think he's just gearing up for a little class trip, but the world always seems to have other plans for him. As he and his friends are riding along to their destination, a self-appointed "god" sweeps them back to ancient times-for reasons unknown. To return home, their best bet is to earn an audience with Varvatos, Ard's past self (which is definitely a little weird). Then they find out there's someone else in this version of history claiming to be the Demon Lord...! But if wading through this topsy-turvy mystery is the only way to get back to their era, so be it. Ard's never been one to back down from a challenge!

TO THE REAL JOURNEY!

A trip to the ancient world has undone the curse of Lydia the Champion, releasing Ard from a lifetime of agony. Now he can finally focus on the true adventure before them, their field trip to the old capital of Kingsglaive! However, it's becoming clear he can't stay out of trouble for long. A run-in with another chaotic ex-member of the Four Heavenly Kings seems to prove Ard's propensity for mishaps, and it certainly doesn't help that Ireena and Ginny have started brawling for his attention. Their school trip has only just begun! What else could possibly go wrong?

THE PAST ALWAYS COMES BACK TO HAUNT YOU

The end of one adventure marks the beginning of a new one. Ard and Ireena are summoned to serve as the queen's guards in the holy city of Megatholium. Just when Ard thinks he's managed to shake off one Heavenly King by leaving the city, another seems to take its place. This time, it's Lizer, the old general. Apparently, he's claiming he's the pope of a religion that worships the Demon Lord... and he intends to brainwash the people to achieve world peace. Ard and Ireena begin to expose his nefarious plan, but it seems the pope has plenty in store to keep them on their toes!

THE HEALING POWER OF FRIENDSHIP

The incident in Megatholium has ended with ties severed among the five superpowers. On the surface, things seem disturbingly quiet--until tensions mount between Laville and Asylas... and Ginny is taken as a hostage! It's up to Ard, Ireena, and Sylphy to save her, but things rarely go that smoothly, especially when their well acquainted nemeses are involved: Elzard and the masked figure. It's a race against time to rescue their dear friend... and stop a certain mastermind from wreaking havoc all over the world!

A rescue mission against all odds?

Racing through the city--a familiar landscape turned unrecognizable, devastated by magic and violence--Ard and his friends attempt to save Ireena from one of the Four Heavenly Kings, Lizer. After surviving back-to-back fights against the enemy, the heroes spot a single path forward to rescue their friend and save the world... But things turn from bad to worse when they run into Mephisto, an impossibly malicious character and the archnemesis of the Demon Lord. As Lizer torments the rescue party's psyches and tears open old wounds, he inches closer to completing his utopia... Is nothing sacred anymore?

In the transformed world, Demon Lord Ard squares off against Alvarto, mightiest of the Four Heavenly Kings. Yet, just as their fated showdown nears a brutal, tragic conclusion, the voice of someone dear to Ard sounds across the battlefield! The saga of the Demon Lord versus the Four Heavenly Kings is reaching its climax, but who will be left standing?

THE DAY EVIL TRIUMPHED

Mephisto has won. Somehow, he's broken free of his seal and taken everything Ard ever cared about in an instant. No one can defeat the Evil God--not even the reborn Greatest Demon Lord. However, there's still a chance. Mephisto will relent if Ard can prove that his bond with his friends is strong enough to resist the devil's control. But such a feat requires nothing short of a miracle. How will Ard reach out to his friends when everyone's under the spell of his worst enemy?

THE EX-DEMON LORD'S FINAL BATTLE

Against all odds, Ard has managed to free a few of his companions from Mephisto's control. However, Ireena is still the devil's prisoner in the Laville Academy of Magic. Saving her means confronting Mephisto, and Ard knows he'll have to do it alone. He's the only one powerful enough... right? But wasn't that strength the cause of his loneliness in his previous life? Perhaps fighting like the Demon Lord isn't the way to go. Maybe it's time to fight like a typical nobody!

In the city of Lovecraft, the Proctors rule and a great Engine turns below the streets, grinding any resistance to their order to dust. The necrovirus is blamed for Lovecraft's epidemic of madness, for the strange and eldritch creatures that roam the streets after dark, and for everything that the city leaders deem Heretical--born of the belief in magic and witchcraft. And for Aoife Grayson, her time is growing shorter by the day.

Aoife Grayson's family is unique, in the worst way--every one of them, including her mother and her elder brother Conrad, has gone mad on their 16th birthday. And now, a ward of the state, and one of the only female students at the School of Engines, she is trying to pretend that her fate can be different.

Everything Aoife thought she knew about the world was a lie. There is no Necrovirus. And Aoife isn't going to succomb to madness because of a latent strain--she will lose her faculties because she is allergic to iron. Aoife isn't human. She is a changeling--half human and half from the land of Thorn. And time is running out for her.

When Aoife destroyed the Lovecraft engine she released the monsters from the Thorn Lands into the Iron Lands and now she must find a way to seal the gates and reverse the destruction she's ravaged on the world that's about to poison her.

Aoife Grayson must face death to win back Dean--the love who was ripped from the Iron Lands of the living when he was shot in the arctic north. But getting to the Deadlands is something that Aoife can't do on her own. And if she can find a way there, Tremaine would surely never allow it. He has sworn to keep her in the Thorn Lands, the fairie home of her mother, Nerissa. But Aoife is determined to find her way out. And she has no trouble if that means she has to kill Tremain and his queen to do it.

The plague is coming. Every tribe of the Forest people can sense it, and they all know that their holistic and herbal medicines will have no effect. The City has medical technologies and pharmaceuticals that can fight the disease. But a Force Field surrounds it, and its inhabitants show no sign of wanting to help. What can the Forest people do?

Set in a post-holocaust USA, the first volume depicts a conflict between rural followers of a diseased mutant form of Christianity and a city in which a science-based world view is encapsulated; in the second, a personal drama and an interesting half-breed protagonist intensify the grain of narrative, but peculiarly diminish the sense, given off by the earlier book, of a large sf occasion.

On the heels of Hell and Earth...

Kit Marley, playwright and spy in the service of Queen Elizabeth, has been murdered. His true gift to Her Majesty was his way with words, crafting plays infused with a subtle magic that maintained her rule. He performed this task on behalf of the Prometheus Club, a secret society of nobles engaged in battle against sorcerers determined to destroy England. Assuming Marley's role is William Shakespeare- but he is unable to create the magic needed to hold the Queen's enemies at bay.

Resurrected by enchantment in Faerie, Marley is England's only hope. But before he can assist Will in the art of magic, he must uncover the traitor among the Prometheans responsible for his death...

After Vespa, Syrus, and Bayne defeated the Grue and restored order to their world in The Unnaturalists, they thought their future was secure. Empress Olivia, committed to peace and equality for humans and Elementals alike, was a fair and just ruler. And the Creeping Waste had vanished, giving them hope for the first time.

But rebellion is brewing in the far-off city of Scientia, and dark Elementals are plotting war in the ruins of New London. Before they know what's happening, Vespa, Syrus, and their friends are plunged into a new swamp of intrigue, deception and magic--and the cost of survival may be more than any of them are willing to pay.

For more than a decade, readers have turned to The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror to find the most rewarding fantastic short stories. Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link and Gavin Grant continue their critically acclaimed and award-winning tradition with another stunning collection of stories. The fiction and poetry here is culled from an exhaustive survey of the field-- nearly four dozen stories, ranging from fairy tales to gothic horror, from magical realism to dark tales in the Grand Guignol-style. Rounding out the volume are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantasy and horror and Year's Best sections--on comics, by Charles Vess, and on anime and manga, by Joan D. Vinge and on film and television by Edward Bryant. This is an indispensable reference as well as the best reading available in fantasy and horror.

*Terry Bisson *Kevin Brockmeier *Dan Chaon *Peter Crowther *Theodora Goss *Daphne Gottlieb *Glen Hirshberg *Brian Hodge *Nina Kiriki Hoffman *Kij Johnson *Paul LaFarge *Thomas Ligotti *Sara Maitland *Maureen F. McHugh *Steve Rasnic Tem *Benjamin Rosenbaum *Michael Marshall Smith *Michael Swanwick *Karen Traviss *Megan Whalen Turner

Table of Contents:

• Summation 2003: Fantasy - essay by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant
• Summation 2003: Horror - essay by Ellen Datlow
• Media of the Fantastic: 2003 - essay by Edward Bryant
• Comics and Graphic Novels: 2003 - essay by Charles Vess
• Anime and Manga: 2003 - essay by Joan D. Vinge
• Music of the Fantastic: 2003 - essay by Charles de Lint
• Obituaries: 2003 - essay by James R. Frenkel
• At the Mouth of the River of Bees - (2003) - shortstory by Kij Johnson
• Why I Became a Plumber - (2003) - shortstory by Sara Maitland
• Bread and Bombs - (2003) - shortstory by M. Rickert
• The Red Bow - (2003) - shortstory by George Saunders
• The Wife - (2003) - shortstory by Vandana Singh
• Only Partly Here - (2003) - novelette by Lucius Shepard
• Bone - (2003) - poem by Steve Rasnic Tem
• Old Virginia - (2003) - novelette by Laird Barron
• A Study in Emerald - (2003) - novelette by Neil Gaiman
• You Go Where It Takes You - (2003) - shortstory by Nathan Ballingrud
• L'Aquilone du Estrellas (The Kite of Stars) - (2003) - shortstory by Dean Francis Alfar
• Harvey's Dream - (2003) - shortstory by Stephen King
• Woeful Tales from Mahigul - (2003) - novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
• King Rat - (2003) - shortstory by Karen Joy Fowler
• The Hortlak - (2003) - novelette by Kelly Link
• With Acknowledgements to Sun Tzu - (2003) - novelette by Brian Hodge
• Ash City Stomp - (2003) - shortstory by Richard Butner
• King Dragon - (2003) - novelette by Michael Swanwick
• Invisible Geese: A Theory - (2003) - poem by Patrick O'Leary
• The Perfect City - (2003) - poem by Patrick O'Leary
• Bedfordshire - (2003) - novelette by Peter Crowther
• N0072-JK1 - (2003) - shortstory by Adam Corbin Fusco
• Cell Call - (2003) - shortstory by Marc Laidlaw
• The Fishie - (2003) - shortstory by Philip Raines and Harvey Welles
• Hunger: A Confession - (2003) - shortstory by Dale Bailey
• Mr. Sly Stops for a Cup of Joe - (2003) - shortstory by Scott Emerson Bull
• The Baby in the Night Deposit Box - (2003) - novelette by Megan Whalen Turner
• Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur - (2003) - shortstory by Paul LaFarge
• The Silence of the Falling Stars - (2003) - novelette by Mike O'Driscoll
• At the Mythical Beast - (2003) - poem by Jon Woodward
• The Fluted Girl - (2003) - novelette by Paolo Bacigalupi
• The Brief History of the Dead - (2003) - shortstory by Kevin Brockmeier
• Flotsam - (2003) - novelette by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
• The Bees - (2003) - shortstory by Dan Chaon
• Dancing Men - (2003) - novelette by Glen Hirshberg
• Lily, with Clouds - (2003) - shortstory by Theodora Goss
• The Man Who Did Nothing - (2003) - shortstory by Karen Traviss
• Husband - (2003) - shortstory by Shelley Jackson
• Open Doors - (2003) - shortstory by Michael Marshall Smith
• The Valley of Giants - (2004) - shortstory by Benjamin Rosenbaum
• Purity - (2003) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
• Ancestor Money - (2003) - shortstory by Maureen F. McHugh
• Final Girl II: The Frame - (2003) - poem by Daphne Gottlieb
• Almost Home - (2003) - novelette by Terry Bisson
• Honorable Mentions: 2003 - essay by uncredited
• The People Behind the Book - (2003) - essay by uncredited

For more than a decade, readers have turned to The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror to find the most rewarding fantastic short stories. The critically acclaimed and award-winning tradition continues with another stunning collection, including stories by M. T. Anderson, Laird Barron, Simon Bestwick, Simon Brown, Stepan Chapman, Douglas Clegg, D. Ellis Dickerson, Terry Dowling, Andy Duncan, Jean Esteve, John Farris, Mélanie Fazi, Jeffrey Ford, Christopher Fowler, Stephen Gallagher, Theodora Goss, Elizabeth Hand, Alice Hoffman, Shelley Jackson, John Kessel, Margo Lanagan, Tanith Lee, Bentley Little, Elizabeth A. Lynn, Gregory Maguire, China Miéville, Richard Mueller, Joyce Carol Oates, Frances Oliver, Chuck Palahniuk, Tina Rath, Philip Raines and Harvey Welles, M. Rickert, Anna Ross, Alison Smith, R.T. Smith, Peter Straub, Lucy Sussex, Catherynne M. Valente, Greg Van Eekhout, and Conrad Williams. Rounding out the volume are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantasy and horror, and sections on comics, by Charles Vess, on anime and manga, by Joan D. Vinge, on media, by Ed Bryant, and on music, by Charles de Lint. With a long list of Honorable Mentions, this is an indispensable reference as well as the best reading available in fantasy and horror.

Table of Contents:

• Summation 2004: Fantasy - essay by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant
• Summation 2004: Horror - essay by Ellen Datlow
• Fantasy and Horror in the Media: 2004 - essay by Edward Bryant
• Comics and Graphic Novels: 2004 - essay by Charles Vess
• Anime and Manga: 2004 - - essay by Joan D. Vinge
• Fantasy and Horror in Music: 2004 - essay by Charles de Lint
• Obituaries: 2004 - essay by James R. Frenkel
• The Oakthing - (2004) - novelette by Gregory Maguire
• Horton's Store - (2004) - poem by R. T. Smith
• Rite of Spring - (2004) - shortstory by Margo Lanagan
• A Hazy Shade of Winter - (2004) - shortstory by Simon Bestwick
• The Skin of the World - (2004) - shortstory by Douglas Clegg
• Zora and the Zombie - (2004) - novelette by Andy Duncan
• The Changeling - (2001) - poem by Theodora Goss
• Revenge of the Calico Cat - (2004) - novelette by Stepan Chapman
• Frozen Charlottes - (2003) - shortstory by Lucy Sussex
• Reports of Certain Events in London - (2004) - novelette by China Miéville
• House of Ice - (2004) - poem by Jean Esteve
• Restraint - (2004) - shortstory by Stephen Gallagher
• The Baum Plan for Financial Independence - (2004) - shortstory by John Kessel
• Dancing on Air - (2004) - shortstory by Frances Oliver
• Cold Fires - (2004) - shortstory by M. Rickert
• And the Sea Shall Give Up Its Dead - (2004) - shortstory by Richard Mueller
• A Trick of the Dark - (2004) - shortstory by Tina Rath
• The Bad Magician - (2004) - shortstory by Philip Raines and Harvey Welles
• Speir-Bhan - (2004) - shortstory by Tanith Lee
• Hunting Meth Zombies in the Great Nebraskan Wasteland - (2002) - shortstory by John Farris
• Guts - (2004) - shortstory by Chuck Palahniuk
• Water Babies - (2004) - novelette by Simon Brown
• Mr. Aickman's Air Rifle - (2004) - novella by Peter Straub
• We Find Things Old - (2004) - shortstory by Bentley Little
• Wonderwall - (2004) - shortstory by Elizabeth Hand
• Postcretaceous Era - (2004) - shortstory by D. Ellis Dickerson
• Watch and Wake - (2004) - shortstory by M. T. Anderson
• The Oracle Alone - (2004) - poem by Catherynne M. Valente
• A Night in the Tropics - (2004) - shortstory by Jeffrey Ford
• Clownette - (2004) - shortstory by Terry Dowling
• Stripping - (2004) - shortstory by Joyce Carol Oates
• Seven Feet - (2004) - shortstory by Christopher Fowler
• Singing My Sister Down - (2004) - shortstory by Margo Lanagan
• Bulldozer - (2004) - novelette by Laird Barron
• These Various Methods of Brightness - (2004) - poem by Anna Ross
• The Cajun Knot - (2004) - shortstory by Mélanie Fazi (trans. of Le noeud cajun 2000)
• Tales from the City of Seams - (2004) - shortstory by Greg van Eekhout
• The Specialist - (2004) - shortstory by Alison Smith
• Here Is the Church - (2004) - shortstory by Shelley Jackson
• The Witch of Truro - (2004) - shortstory by Alice Hoffman
• Lapland, or Film Noir - (2004) - shortstory by Peter Straub
• What Her Mother Said - (2004) - poem by Theodora Goss
• The Owl - (2004) - shortstory by Conrad Williams
• The Silver Dragon - (2004) - novelette by Elizabeth A. Lynn
• Honorable Mentions: 2004 - essay by uncredited
• The People Behind the Book - essay by uncredited

For nearly two decades, readers have turned to The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror to find the most rewarding fantastic short stories. Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link, and Gavin Grant continue this critically acclaimed and award-winning tradition with another stunning collection of stories. The fiction and poetry here is culled from an exhaustive survey of the field, nearly four dozen works ranging from fairy tales to gothic horror, from magic realism to dark tales in the Grand Guignol style. Rounding out the volume are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantasy and horror, and sections on graphic novels, by Charles Vess; on anime and manga, by Joan D. Vinge; on media, by Ed Bryant; and on music, by Charles de Lint. With a long list of Honorable Mentions, this is an indispensable reference as well as the best reading available in fantasy and horror.

Table of Contents:

• Summation 2005: Fantasy - essay by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant
• Summation 2005: Horror - essay by Ellen Datlow
• Fantasy and Horror in the Media: 2005 - essay by Edward Bryant
• Graphic Novels: 2005 - essay by Charles Vess
• Anime and Manga: 2005 - essay by Joan D. Vinge
• Music of the Fantastic: 2005 - essay by Charles de Lint
• Obituaries: 2005 - essay by James R. Frenkel
• Walpurgis Afternoon - (2005) - novelette by Delia Sherman
• The Mushroom Duchess - (2005) - shortstory by Deborah Roggie
• An Incident at Agate Beach - (2005) - novelette by Marly Youmans
• Among the Tombs - (2005) - shortstory by Reggie Oliver
• Obedience, or The Lying Tale - (2005) - poem by Jennifer Chang
• American Morons - (2005) - shortstory by Glen Hirshberg
• Shallaballah - (2005) - shortstory by Mark Samuels
• Night Train: Heading West - (2005) - poem by Sarah Monette
• Denial - (2005) - shortstory by Bruce Sterling
• Northwest Passage - (2004) - novelette by Barbara Roden
• Proboscis - (2005) - novelette by Laird Barron
• Kronia - (2005) - shortstory by Elizabeth Hand
• Omens - (2005) - poem by Kelly Everding
• Follow Me Light - (2005) - shortstory by Elizabeth Bear
• Boatman's Holiday - (2005) - shortstory by Jeffrey Ford
• The Horse of a Different Color (That You Rode In On) - (2005) - shortfiction by Howard Waldrop
• Where Angels Come In - (2005) - shortstory by Adam Nevill
• Twilight States - (2005) - shortstory by Albert E. Cowdrey
• Jolly Bonnet - (2005) - poem by Andrew Bonia
• The Last Ten Years in the Life of Hero Kai - (2005) - novelette by Geoff Ryman
• The Souls of Drowning Mountain - (2005) - shortstory by Jack Cady
• The Last One - (2005) - shortstory by Robert Coover
• The Ball Room - (2005) - shortfiction by China Miéville and Emma Bircham and Max Schaefer
• Nymphs Finding the Head of Orpheus - (2005) - poem by Theodora Goss
• Vacation - (2005) - shortstory by Daniel Wallace
• Cruel Sistah - (2005) - shortstory by Nisi Shawl
• Ding-Dong-Bell - (2005) - shortstory by Jay Russell
• A Case Study of Emergency Room Procedure and Risk Management by Hospital Staff Members in the Urban Facility - (2005) - shortstory by Stacey Richter
• The Scribble Mind - (2005) - novelette by Jeffrey Ford
• Scarecrow - (2005) - shortstory by Tom Brennan
• Going the Jerusalem Mile - (2005) - shortstory by Chaz Brenchley
• Grief - (2005) - poem by Willa Schneberg
• Boman - (2005) - shortstory by Pentti Holappa
• The Machine of a Religious Man - (2005) - shortstory by Ralph Robert Moore
• Hot Potting - (2005) - shortstory by Chuck Palahniuk
• My Father's Mask - (2005) - novelette by Joe Hill
• The Guggenheim Lovers - (2005) - shortstory by Isabel Allende
• A Statement in the Case - (2005) - shortstory by Theodora Goss
• The Pavement Artist - (2004) - shortstory by Dave Hutchinson
• The Gypsies in the Wood - (2005) - novella by Kim Newman
• Honorable Mentions: 2005 - essay by uncredited
• The People Behind the Book - essay by uncredited

For twenty years this award-winning compilation has been the nonpareil benchmark against which all other annual fantasy and horror collections are judged. Directed first by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling and for the past four years by Datlow and Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant, it consistently presents the strangest, the funniest, the darkest, the sharpest, the most original-in short, the best fantasy and horror. The current collection, marking a score of years, offers more than forty stories and poems from almost as many sources. Summations of the field by the editors are complemented by articles by Edward Bryant, Charles de Lint, and Jeff VanderMeer, highlighting the best of the fantastic in, respectively, media, music, and comics, as well as honorable mentions-notable works that didn't quite make the cut, but are nonetheless worthy of attention. The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Twentieth Annual Collection is a cornucopia of fantastic delights, an unparalleled resource and indispensable reference that captures the unique excitement and beauty of the fantastic in all its gloriously diverse forms, from the lightest fantasy to the darkest horror.

Table of Contents:

• Summation 2006: Fantasy - essay by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant
• Summation 2006: Horror - essay by Ellen Datlow
• The Year in Media of the Fantastic: 2006 - essay by Edward Bryant
• Fantasy in Comics and Graphic Novels: 2006 - essay by Jeff VanderMeer
• Music of the Fantastic: 2006 - essay by Charles de Lint
• Obituaries: 2006 - essay by James R. Frenkel
• Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter - (2006) - novelette by Geoff Ryman
• First Kisses from Beyond the Grave - (2006) - novelette by Nik Houser
• The Last to Be Found - (2006) - shortstory by Christopher Harman
• Fourteen Experiments in Postal Delivery - (2006) - shortstory by John Schoffstall
• Becoming the Villainess - (2006) - poem by Jeannine Hall Gailey
• Persephone and the Prince Meet Over Drinks - (2006) - poem by Jeannine Hall Gailey
• The Night Whiskey - (2006) - novelette by Jeffrey Ford
• In the House of the Seven Librarians - (2006) - novelette by Ellen Klages
• Drowning Palmer - (2006) - novelette by Sarah Monette
• Landfill - (2006) - shortstory by Joyce Carol Oates
• Another Word for Map is Faith - (2006) - shortstory by Christopher Rowe
• Lionflower Hedge - (2006) - shortstory by Ira Sher
• A Fearful Symmetry - (2006) - shortstory by Minsoo Kang
• Messages - (2006) - shortstory by Brett Alexander Savory
• Ballade - (2005) - poem by William Hope Hodgson
• My Babe, My Babe - (1912) - poem by William Hope Hodgson
• The Box - (2006) - shortstory by Stephen Gallagher
• Halfway House - (2006) - shortstory by Frances Hardinge
• La Fée Verte - (2006) - novelette by Delia Sherman
• Father Muerte & the Flesh - (2006) - shortstory by Lee Battersby
• Winkie - (2006) - shortstory by Margo Lanagan
• Tell - (2006) - poem by Nathalie Anderson
• Dog Person - (2006) - shortstory by Scott Nicholson
• The Extraordinary Limits of Darkness - (2006) - shortstory by Simon Clark
• Cup and Table - (2006) - shortstory by Tim Pratt
• The Churring - (2006) - shortstory by Nicholas Royle
• Dead Sea Fruit - (2006) - shortstory by Kaaron Warren
• Directions - (2006) - shortstory by Caleb Wilson
• La Profonde - (2006) - shortstory by Terry Dowling
• Journey into the Kingdom - (2006) - novelette by M. Rickert
• The Good Ones Are Already Taken - (2006) - novelette by Ben Fountain
• A Pig's Whisper - (2006) - shortstory by Margo Lanagan
• 31/10 - (2006) - shortstory by Stephen Volk
• Sob in the Silence - (2006) - shortstory by Gene Wolfe
• Yep, I Said Camel - (2006) - poem by Josh Bell
• Femaville 29 - (2006) - shortstory by Paul Di Filippo
• A Siege of Cranes - (2006) - novelette by Benjamin Rosenbaum
• Is Rain My Bearskin? - (2006) - poem by Jeanne Marie Beaumont
• The Lineaments of Gratified Desire - (2006) - novella by Ysabeau S. Wilce
• Raphael - (2006) - novelette by Stephen Graham Jones
• The Muldoon - (2006) - novelette by Glen Hirshberg
• Honorable Mentions: 2006 - essay by uncredited
• The People Behind the Book - essay by uncredited

As in every year since 1988, the editors tirelessly scoured story collections, magazines, and anthologies worldwide to compile a delightful, diverse feast of tales and poems. On this anniversary, the editors have increased the size of the collection to 300,000 words of fiction and poetry, including works by Billy Collins, Ted Chiang, Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth Hand, Glen Hirshberg, Joyce Carol Oates, and new World Fantasy Award winner M. Rickert. With impeccably researched summations of the field by the editors, Honorable Mentions, and articles by Edward Bryant, Charles de Lint and Jeff VanderMeer on media, music and graphic novels, this is a heady brew topped off by an unparalleled list of sources of fabulous works both light and dark.

Table of Contents:

• Summation 2007: Fantasy - essay by Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link
• Summation 2007: Horror - essay by Ellen Datlow
• The Year in Media of the Fantastic: 2007 - essay by Edward Bryant
• Fantasy in Comics and Graphic Novels: 2007 - essay by Jeff VanderMeer
• Music of the Fantastic: 2007 - essay by Charles de Lint
• Obituaries: 2007 - essay by James R. Frenkel
• The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics - (2007) - novelette by Daniel Abraham
• Vampires in the Lemon Grove - (2007) - shortstory by Karen Russell
• Holiday - (2007) - shortstory by M. Rickert
• Hum Drum - (2007) - shortstory by Gary McMahon
• Scenes of Hell - (2007) - poem by Billy Collins
• Splitfoot - (2007) - shortstory by Paul Walther
• The House of Mechanical Pain - (2007) - shortstory by Chaz Brenchley
• The Last Worders - (2007) - shortstory by Karen Joy Fowler
• The Monsters of Heaven - (2007) - shortstory by Nathan Ballingrud
• The Fiddler of Bayou Teche - (2007) - shortstory by Delia Sherman
• Monkey - (2007) - poem by Eliza Griswold
• Mr Poo-Poo - (2007) - shortstory by Reggie Oliver
• Winter's Wife - (2007) - novelette by Elizabeth Hand
• Troll - (2007) - poem by Nathalie Anderson
• The Tenth Muse - (2007) - shortstory by William Browning Spencer
• The Drowned Life - (2007) - novelette by Jeffrey Ford
• The Swing - (2007) - novelette by Don Tumasonis
• Follow Me Home - (2007) - poem by Sonya Taaffe
• The Forest - (2007) - novelette by Laird Barron
• Fragrant Goddess - (2007) - shortstory by Paul Park
• Up the Fire Road - (2007) - novelette by Eileen Gunn
• The Gray Boy's Work - (2007) - novelette by M. T. Anderson
• The Seven Devils of Central California - (2007) - poem by Catherynne M. Valente
• The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate - (2007) - novelette by Ted Chiang
• Valentine, July Heat Wave - (2007) - shortstory by Joyce Carol Oates
• A Thing Forbidden - (2007) - shortstory by Donald Mead
• A Reversal of Fortune - (2007) - shortstory by Holly Black
• Village Smart - (2007) - poem by Maggie Smith
• Rats - (2007) - shortstory by Veronica Schanoes
• A Perfect and Unmappable Grace - (2007) - shortstory by Jack M. Haringa
• The Boulder - (2007) - shortstory by Lucy Kemnitzer
• The Hill - (2007) - novelette by Tanith Lee
• Lovers: (Jaafar the Winged) - (2007) - poem by Khaled Mattawa
• The Ape Man - (2007) - shortstory by Alexander MacBride
• The Hide - (2007) - shortstory by Liz Williams
• England and Nowhere - (2007) - shortstory by Tim Nickels
• Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go to War Again - (2007) - novelette by Garth Nix
• Toother - (2007) - shortstory by Terry Dowling
• Closet Dreams - (2007) - shortstory by Lisa Tuttle
• The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change - (2007) - novelette by Kij Johnson
• Honorable Mentions: 2007 - essay by Ellen Datlow and Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link

Meg Murray, her little brother Charles Wallace, and their mother are having a midnight snack on a dark and stormy night when an unearthly stranger appears at their door. He claims to have been blown off course, and goes on to tell them that there is such a thing as a "tesseract," which, if you didn't know, is a wrinkle in time.

Meg's father had been experimenting with time-travel when he suddenly disappeared. Will Meg, Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin outwit the forces of evil as they search through space for their father?

Phex is a barista on a forgotten moon. Which is fine -- he likes being ignored and he's good at making drinks. Until one day an alien hears him singing and recruits him to become a god. Now Phex is thrust headfirst into the galaxy's most cutthroat entertainment industry, where music is visible, the price of fame can kill, and the only friends he has want to be worshiped.

Welcome to the divinity. Where there is no difference between celebrity and religion, love and belief, acolyte and alien. Where the right kind of obsession can drive a person crazy or turn them divine.

Prince Sigvald the Magnificent has struck a pact with his Slaaneshi masters that bestows incredible power and beauty, but drives him to ever greater acts of hedonism. Despite his pre-eminence, the champion of Chaos is tricked into an impossible war with the promise of a powerful artefact to slake his dark desires. After centuries of debauchery, Sigvald rouses his army and leads them to battle against the legions of the Blood God Khorne. Obsessed with the Brass Skull, the object of his misguided yearnings, Sigvald is unaware his enemies are closing in around him. In a hellish quest that drives him across the twisted landscape of the Chaos Wastes and culminates in an epic confrontation, he realise that the lures of Slaanesh can never be sated.

Award winning author Darius Hinks follow-up novel

At the heart the wood elves' kingdom of Athel Loren, the forest-king Orion slumbers through the winter months to be reborn each spring and resume his arboreal throne. However, this year he awakens to discover a foul canker at the core of his eternal spirit - he has been cursed, though by whom and for what reason he does not know. In the grip of a furious rage he leads the asrai to war, but as the corruption spreads to the woodland realm around him, he feels his power waning and must rely upon his loyal subjects to help him unmask the traitor within their ranks.

The story of the forest-king of Athel Loren continues

Winter approaches, and Orion leads the wild hunt one last time before he returns to his slumber. But a dark power is rising in the groves of Athel Loren, corrupting beasts and elves alike. As Orion's servants hunt for a new host for the forest king's spirit, the daemon Alkhor's plan comes to fruition, threatening not only the wood elves but the forest realm itself.

The final instalment in the Orion trilogy

Orion is dead, his mortal host killed before the forest king could resurrect. The halls of the wood elves are in ruins and Athel Loren has fallen under the corrupting shadow of Chaos. As the ancient accord between elf and forest collapses into conflict, daemons flock to the woodland domain, intent on creating a new Realm of Chaos in the heart of the Old World. As the seasons pass and Orion is finally reborn, he must rally all the defenders of the forest if any are to survive.

Pink Smog, the long-awaited prequel to Francesca Lia Block's groundbreaking novel Weetzie Bat, was praised as "an intoxicating mix of mystery, fantasy, and romance" by ALA Booklist in a starred review. Weetzie Bat is one of the seminal young adult novels of the '90s and continues to be an iconic treasure for teens everywhere. Now Pink Smog reintroduces a whole new generation to the eponymous Weetzie Bat--before she was Weetzie. Against the backdrop of a Los Angeles teeming with magical realism, Louise Bat struggles to find a way to deal with life after her father's unceremonious departure.

Longtime fans and newfound readers alike will fall in love with Francesca Lia Block's beautifully crafted and brutally honest world. Maggie Stiefvater, New York Times bestselling author of The Raven Boys, proclaimed "Pink Smog sparkles and obscures; it's a glorious mirage, like the city it pays homage to."

From the creators of the wildly popular Welcome to Night Vale podcast comes an imaginative mystery of appearances and disappearances that is also a poignant look at the ways in which we all struggle to find ourselves...no matter where we live.

"Hypnotic and darkly funny.... Belongs to a particular strain of American gothic that encompasses The Twilight Zone, Stephen King and Twin Peaks, with a bit of Tremors thrown in."--The Guardian

Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.

Nineteen-year-old Night Vale pawn shop owner Jackie Fierro is given a paper marked "KING CITY" by a mysterious man in a tan jacket holding a deer skin suitcase. Everything about him and his paper unsettles her, especially the fact that she can't seem to get the paper to leave her hand, and that no one who meets this man can remember anything about him. Jackie is determined to uncover the mystery of King City and the man in the tan jacket before she herself unravels.

Night Vale PTA treasurer Diane Crayton's son, Josh, is moody and also a shape shifter. And lately Diane's started to see her son's father everywhere she goes, looking the same as the day he left years earlier, when they were both teenagers. Josh, looking different every time Diane sees him, shows a stronger and stronger interest in his estranged father, leading to a disaster Diane can see coming, even as she is helpless to prevent it.

Diane's search to reconnect with her son and Jackie's search for her former routine life collide as they find themselves coming back to two words: "KING CITY". It is King City that holds the key to both of their mysteries, and their futures...if they can ever find it.

From the authors of the New York Times bestselling novel Welcome to Night Vale and the creators of the #1 international podcast of the same name, comes a mystery exploring the intersections of faith and science, the growing relationship between two young people who want desperately to trust each other, and the terrifying, toothy power of the Smiling God.

Nilanjana Sikdar is an outsider to the town of Night Vale. Working for Carlos, the town's top scientist, she relies on fact and logic as her guiding principles. But all of that is put into question when Carlos gives her a special assignment investigating a mysterious rumbling in the desert wasteland outside of town. This investigation leads her to the Joyous Congregation of the Smiling God, and to Darryl, one of its most committed members. Caught between her beliefs in the ultimate power of science and her growing attraction to Darryl, she begins to suspect the Congregation is planning a ritual that could threaten the lives of everyone in town. Nilanjana and Darryl must search for common ground between their very different world views as they are faced with the Congregation's darkest and most terrible secret.

In the town of Night Vale, there's a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone's home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from...until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of The Faceless Old Woman goes back centuries to reveal an initially blissful and then tragic childhood on a Mediterranean Estate in the early nineteenth century, her rise in the criminal underworld of Europe, a nautical adventure with a mysterious organization of smugglers, her plot for revenge on the ones who betrayed her, and ultimately her death and its aftermath, as her spirit travels the world for decades until settling in modern-day Night Vale.

Interspersed throughout is a present-day story in Night Vale, as The Faceless Old Woman guides, haunts, and sabotages a man named Craig. In the end, her current day dealings with Craig and her swashbuckling history in nineteenth century Europe will come together in the most unexpected and horrifying way.

Mitsuha, a high school girl living in a small town in the mountains, has a dream that she's a boy living in Tokyo. Taki, a high school boy in Tokyo, dreams he's a girl living in a quaint little mountain town. Sharing bodies, relationships, and lives, the two become inextricably interwoven--but are any connections truly inseverable in the grand tapestry of fate?

Written by director MAKOTO SHINKAI during the production of the film by the same title, your name. is in turns funny, heartwarming, and heart-wrenching as it follows the struggles of two young people determined to hold on to one another.

Mitsuha is a young girl living in a rural town named Itomori and is fed up with her life. One day, her family and friends notice she's suddenly acting strange. Little do they know, a high school boy from Tokyo named Taki Tachibana found himself randomly switching places with her when he fell asleep. But he has no clue how to act as a high school girl in an unfamiliar place! This is the story of the hit novel your name. from the perspective of Mitsuha's friends and family as they deal with her strange new quirks--and avoid disaster.