Search Worlds Without End

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

High school is a monster, and it's eating everyone Robin knows. It's the beginning of sophomore year, and Robin's Odd Squad friends couple up, won't stop talking about college and their future careers, and are obsessed with trying to act "normal." Robin knows that game well--she's been pretending for years, hoping nobody would notice the sarcastic polyglot French horn player with a bad perm in the back of the room. But there's one aspect of her identity that she knows for sure doesn't fit in with her image--Robin likes girls.

How is she supposed to be her true self in teeny-tiny Hawkins, Indiana? Robin is convinced the only way she can experience real life is by fleeing to Europe for the summer--aka Operation Croissant. But she has no money, no permission, and no one to share the adventure with--and it will take a heck of a lot more than that to escape Hawkins in one piece.

Lucas has been in the fight against the evil forces in his town since the beginning, but he is tired of feeling like an outsider. When the start of high school presents Lucas with options beyond D&D and being bullied, he wonders if he can be more than invisible. After connecting with one of the few other Black students at school, Lucas starts to learn more about himself apart from his friend group. And he begins to understand himself as a Black teen in Hawkins, which feels unlike anything--in this world or any other--he's ever experienced.

Meet Max. She's from California. She skateboards. Her family just dumped her in the middle of Indiana. And she's really not ready to call Hawkins her new home.

Whether she's facing off against her bully brother, Billy, the new kids at school, or monsters abound, Max tackles life with sass and grit. This must-read novel based on the hit Netflix series Stranger Things explores Max's past--with all the good and the bad it's given her--in the lead up to the thrilling season that introduces our favorite new member of the gang.

It's the summer of 1969, and the shock of conflict reverberates through the youth of America. As a student at a quiet college campus in the heartland of Indiana, Terry Ives couldn't be farther from the front lines of Vietnam or the protests in Washington.

But the world is changing, and Terry isn't content to watch. When word gets around about an important government experiment in the small town of Hawkins, she signs on as a test subject for the project, code-named MKULTRA. The remote lab, deep in the woods, contains a mystery Terry is determined to uncover.

Behind the walls of Hawkins National Laboratory--and the piercing gaze of its director, Dr. Martin Brenner--lurks a conspiracy greater than Terry could have ever imagined. To face it, she'll need the help of her fellow test subjects.

Amid the rising tensions of the new decade, Terry Ives and Martin Brenner have begun a different kind of war--one where the human mind is the battlefield.

Christmas, Hawkins, 1984. All Chief Jim Hopper wants is to enjoy a quiet first Christmas with Eleven, but his adopted daughter has other plans. Over Hopper's protests, she pulls a cardboard box marked "New York" out of the basement--and the tough questions begin. Why did Hopper leave Hawkins all those years ago? What does "Vietnam" mean? And why has he never talked about New York?

Although he'd rather face a horde of demogorgons than talk about his own past, Hopper knows that he can't deny the truth any longer. And so begins the story of the incident in New York--the last big case before everything changed....

Summer, New York City, 1977. Hopper is starting over after returning home from Vietnam. A young daughter, a caring wife, and a new beat as an NYPD detective make it easy to slip back into life as a civilian. But after shadowy federal agents suddenly show up and seize the files about a series of brutal, unsolved murders, Hopper takes matters into his own hands, risking everything to discover the truth.

Soon Hopper is undercover among New York's notorious street gangs. But just as he's about to crack the case, a blackout rolls across the boroughs, plunging Hopper into a darkness deeper than any he's faced before.