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Three smart young women -- the scholarly Ruth, her poet roommate Lucy, and their exotic, provocative neighbor Anna -- are obsessed with games of all kinds. They've devoted themselves to both the academic study of play and the design of games based on the secret history of the neighborhood around Columbia University, from Grant's Tomb to the former insane asylum that once stood where the campus is now.

When Anna's mysterious brother Anders gets involved and introduces live-action role-playing based on classic Greek tragedy, theory goes into practice and the stakes are raised. Told in a variety of formats -- including Gchat and blog posts -- that bring the fraught drama of Euripides screaming into the 21st century, The Magic Circle is an intellectual thriller like no other.

When Dan, 16, runs away from a terrible home life to join a circus, he has no idea what he's getting himself into. Based on Dante's Inferno, THE NINTH CIRCLE follows a young man's coming of age as he travels with the circus through nine states and discovers that the performers have uncanny abilities and extremely dark secrets, especially the person who is looking to destroy the circus from within.

The Circle is the exhilarating new novel from Dave Eggers, best-selling author of A Hologram for the King, a finalist for the National Book Award.

When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world's most powerful internet company, she feels she's been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users' personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company's modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can't believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world--even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman's ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.

1977: A gifted young actor, star of a top TV sitcom, is killed in a car crash that looks like suicide. 1967: a gorgeous blonde, an actress whose name is a synonym for sex, dies from an overdose of sleeping pills. 1957: a teen idol, a young rebel who stirred the hearts of teenagers everywhere, shoots himself with the gun he thought was unloaded. 1947, '37, '27 -- all the way back to the very birth of motion pictures, top movie stars have died mysterious deaths.

Coincidense?

Or something else...?

This short story was translated from Spanish by Amalia Gladhart. It originally appeared in the book Trafalgar (1979), and was reprinted in Lightspeed, March 2013.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Sorcerers fight for the right to exist and fall in love, in this extraordinary alternate world fantasy thriller by award-winning Israeli author Keren Landsman.

Throughout human history there have always been sorcerers, once idolised and now exploited for their powers. In Israel, the Sons of Simeon, a group of religious extremists, persecute sorcerers while the government turns a blind eye. After a march for equal rights ends in brutal murder, empath, moodifier and reluctant waiter Reed becomes the next target. While his sorcerous and normie friends seek out his future killers, Reed complicates everything by falling hopelessly in love. As the battle for survival grows ever more personal, can Reed protect himself and his friends as the Sons of Simeon close in around them?

When her cousin is slain by an unknown assassin, Ariel Behn becomes the sole heir to a family legacy: a sinister cache of manuscripts that thrusts her into the deadly center of international intrigue--and an age-old enigma that spans the centuries. Whoever assembles and interprets the cryptic clues of this ancient mystery will possess the power to control the fate of the world.

What strange powers lie hidden within the manuscripts? Splashed against a lavish backdrop that sweeps from the rise of the Roman Empire to the fall of the Berlin Wall, The Magic Circle finds one woman standing at the center of it all: Ariel Behn. As she races across continents to reveal the dark secrets buried in her family's past, she begins to unlock the chilling truth of the coming millennium....

H. P. Lovecraft was the eerily prescient genius who first electrified readers in Weird Tales magazine. His tales changed the face of horror forever and inspired the bloodcurdling offerings of a new generation. These brilliant dark visionaries forge grisly trails through previously uncharted realms of mortal terror.

Contents:

• ix - Preface (The New Lovecraft Circle) - essay by Ramsey Campbell
• xi - Introduction (The New Lovecraft Circle) - essay by Robert M. Price
• 3 - The Plain of Sound - (1964) - shortstory by Ramsey Campbell
• 14 - The Stone on the Island - (1964) - shortstory by Ramsey Campbell
• 25 - The Statement of One John Gibson - (1984) - shortstory by Brian Lumley
• 43 - Demoniacal - (1972) - shortstory by David Sutton
• 51 - The Kiss of Bugg-Shash - (1978) - shortstory by Brian Lumley
• 67 - The Slitherer from the Slime - (1958) - shortstory by Lin Carter and Dave Foley [as by H. P. Lowcraft]
• 75 - The Doom of Yakthoob - [The Book of Episodes - 1] - (1971) - shortstory by Lin Carter
• 77 - The Fishers from Outside - (1988) - shortstory by Lin Carter
• 91 - The Keeper of the Flame - shortstory by Gary Myers
• 95 - Dead Giveaway - (1976) - shortstory by J. Vernon Shea
• 112 - Those Who Wait - novelette by James Wade
• 136 - The Keeper of Dark Point - (1967) - novelette by John S. Glasby [as by John Glasby]
• 164 - The Black Mirror - novelette by John S. Glasby [as by John Glasby ]
• 190 - I've Come to Talk with You Again - (1995) - shortstory by Karl Edward Wagner
• 195 - The Howler in the Dark - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1984) - novelette by Richard L. Tierney
• 220 - The Horror on the Beach - (1976) - novelette by Alan Dean Foster
• 242 - The Whisperers - (1977) - shortstory by Richard A. Lupoff
• 257 - Lights! Camera! Shub-Niggurath! - novelette by Richard A. Lupoff
• 287 - Saucers from Yaddith - (1984) - shortstory by Robert M. Price
• 303 - Vastarien - (1987) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
• 316 - The Madness Out of Space - (1982) - novelette by Peter Cannon [as by Peter H. Cannon ]
• 347 - Aliah Warden - (1985) - shortstory by Roger Johnson
• 355 - The Last Supper - (1981) - shortstory by Donald R. Burleson
• 359 - The Church at Garlock's Bend - (1987) - shortstory by David Kaufman
• 372 - The Spheres Beyond Sound - (1987) - shortfiction by Stephen Mark Rainey [as by Mark Rainey]

Hugo Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, March 1993. The story can also be found in the anthologis Alternate Warriors (1993), edited by Mike Resnick and The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eleventh Annual Collection (1994). It is included in the collections An Alien Land (1998), New Dreams for Old (2005) and Win Some, Lose Some: The Hugo Award Winning (and Nominated) Short Science Fiction and Fantasy of Mike Resnick (2012).

Squaring the Circle presents 24 fantastic tales by Gheorghe Sasarman, originally published in Romanian, to readers in English, thanks to the efforts of Ursula K. Le Guin, a great admirer of Sasarman's tales. Each tale marvelously depicts the world of a city through the eloquence of its architecture.

Eleanor Arnason writes of these tales: "Squaring the Circle reminds me of some of my favorite books: Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, Angelica Gordodischer's Kalpa Imperial, and Ursula K LeGuin's Changing Planes. I don't know if there's a name for this kind of fiction Faux history? Fantastic geography? Imaginary anthropology? Whatever it is, I love it. Humans have always liked to hear about fabulous journeys and strange distant places. Othello told Desdemona, "of the Cannibals that each other eat, The Anthropophagi and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear Would Desdemona seriously incline." Maybe books like this meet our need for amazing stories, now that the world is mostly mapped.

At long last, the brilliant first novel from World Fantasy Award winning author, Zoran Živkovic is being published in English. The Fourth Circle takes the reader on an amazing journey from frescoed medieval monasteries to Buddhist temples to different planets to a paralyzed scientist's bedroom in London to the edge of black hole at the far reaches of the universe to a place not all the dissimilar from 221 B Baker Street. Živkovic's masterful voice cradles the reader safely from one place to the next and in the end deposits the reader carefully at the singular spot in which all the storylines coincide.

The Ministry of Whimsy edition of The Fourth Circle concludes with an afterword by Živkovic about the travails of writing his first novel, translating it into English, and then finding a publisher for it. All while war in Živkovic's native Serbia surrounded him.

Rose Knight Linsha Majere, working undercover for the Solamnics' Clandestine Circle, earns a place on the elite bodyguard of Hogan Bight, the mysterous lord governor of Sanction. She quickly learns the governor is not the only one who needs protection in a city threatened by an active volcando about to erupt, a death ship filled with an unknown plague, the ever-watchful Legion Steel, and the subversive Knights of Neraka. But who will protect Linsha from her own heart?

Modern-day New York: Glenna Ward is a strong, independent woman. She is also a witch, and knows that one day her powers will be put to the test. When the mysterious Hoyt Mac Cionaoith enters her life in the strangest of circumstances, Glenna finds herself irresistibly drawn to him. But even she is unprepared for the reason he has sought her out and the danger that lies ahead of them.

Twelfth-century Ireland: Hoyt Mac Cionaoith is visited by the goddess Morrigan and charged with the ultimate task: to save his and all future worlds. Hoyt's enemy is Lilith, the beatiful but deadly vampire queen who recruited Hoyt's twin brother, Cian. Five others must join Hoyt in his battle to defeat Lilith: 'the witch, the warrior, the scholar, the one of many forms, and the one you've lost'. Now he must find them, before it's too late. And Glenna is the first on his list...

Two months before Halloween. Two months before the final battle. But is the Circle ready to face its powerful enemy?

Blair Murphy is no stranger to a good fight. Tough, stubborn and brave, it's no wonder she has been recruited to the circle of six warriors charged with defeating Lilith, the vampire queen. But Blair also has her own personal battles to fight - the father who abandoned her and the fiancé who walked out after learning what she is: a demon hunter.

As if this wasn't enough, Blair has been thrown together with Larkin - the handsome, flirtatious and downright infuriating shapeshifter. After a couple of terrifying run-ins with one of Lilith's loyal followers, Blair begins to wonder - can she stay alive long enough to defeat Lilith's army? And can she protect her heart from Larkin's dangerous charms?

The six members of the Circle are united at last - and prepared for the final battle. Led by sorcerer Hoyt Mac Cionaoith, they stand shoulder to shoulder with the local people of Geall. Together they must defeat the vampire queen Lilith and her army: or lose the world to her dark embrace.

But one of the Circle is hiding a troubling secret. To lead her people into battle, Geall's scholar-princess Moira must follow her destiny and become their queen. But she must also deal with her growing feelings for Cian, the vampire - and a love as impossible and fraught with danger as the war they must face together...

Lady Sandrilene fa Toren knows all about unusual magic--she herself spins and weaves it like thread. But when she witnesses a boy dancing a spell, even she is confounded. To her dismay she gets news of a mysterious murderer stalking a clan of local merchants. The killer employs the strangest magic of all: the ability to reduce essence to nothingness. As the murders mount and the killer grows bolder, Sandry's teaching takes on a grave purpose. It becomes clear to everyone that the killings can only be stopped by the combined magic of two people: the young teacher and her even younger student.

Briar Moss been training four years as a plant mage, but he hasn't put his past behind him. He meets a street girl, Evvy, using powerful magic to polish stones for a merchant, and resolves to find her a teacher. But Briar understands the city's gangs as well as he understands Evvy. When gang warfare breaks out, he discovers that the fiercest gang is seeking a stone mage to lead them to hidden gems. Only Briar and his magic can offer Evvy protection. Swept up in a bloody conflict, Briar must decide if he's ready to make the final step away from his former life as a "street rat".

Daja and Frostpine expect to have a peaceful winter's visit with old friends in Kugisko, a port in the vast empire of Namon. But there is no peace when mysterious fires begin to blaze across the vulnerable city. Daja assists Bennat Ladradun, a local firefighter with a tragic past, to fight the flames. The two become fast friends-until they realize the fires have been deliberately set, and their relationship is deeply tested. Daja's magic helps her track down the firestarter, but no magic can protect her or Ben from the effects of madness and betrayal.

Kethlun Warder was a gifted glassmaker until his world was shattered in a freak accident. Now his remaining glass magic is mixed with lightning, and Tris must teach him to control it (if she can teach him to control his temper first). But there's more at stake than Keth's education. With his strange magic, he creates glass balls that reflect the immediate past and expose the work of a murderer. If he can harness his power properly, he'll be able to see the crimes as they take place. Keth and Tris race against time, and the local authorities, to identify a killer who's living in plain sight.

Daja, Briar, Tris, and Sandry have grown up and grown apart since their days together at Winding Circle, and Sandry's especially disappointed with the change. When Sandry's uncle requests that her three old friends accompany her on a visit to Sandry's vast lands within the Empire of Namorn, the young mages discover that they've landed in a trap. Namorn's iron-willed Empress has plans for Sandry and her companions, and she has wily and powerful mages to help her. But so, of course, does Sandry--if only she can get them to work together....

Evvy, a young stone mage in training, is accompanying her mentor, Rosethorn, and another dedicate from Winding Circle while they investigate mysterious happenings on the island of Starns. Her job is to listen and learn, but, being Evvy, she can't just keep quiet and do nothing. With the help of Luvo, the rock being she befriended at her home in Yanjing, Evvy discovers the source of the problem -- a long-dormant volcano. Now she and her friends must save the islanders from impending disaster -- if only Evvy can use her talents to avert the certain destruction that looms ahead.

The drums of war are beating...

Mages Briar, Rosethorn, and Evvy are visiting the mystical mountain kingdom of Gyongxe when they are suddenly called away. The emperor of Yanjing has invited them to see his glorious gardens. During their brief stay, though, the mages see far more than splendid flowers. They see the emperor's massive army, his intense cruelty, and the devastating magic that keeps his power in place.

When the mages discover the emperor's plans to invade Gyongxe, they race to protect its treasured temples. But duty, magic, and terror threaten to drive them apart. With time running out, can the mages come together to save their spiritual home?

One thousand years after "the time of fire," a gentle craftsman and flute player forsakes both his true love and birthright to seek the fabled Shining Sea. Stel, born of proud but rigid Pelbar culture, embarks on an epic quest across an America dramatically changed by a long-ago nuclear war. Following him is his beloved wife, Ahroe, equally determined to find Stel, avoid disgrace, and share her own precious secret.

The Ends of the Circle is the second novel in the highly praised Pelbar Cycle, a classic series of postapocalyptic novels about the people of the Pelbar. Imaginative and reflective, this rousing tale introduces Stel--engineer and poet, adventurer and musician--one of the most memorable characters in modern postapocalyptic fiction.

Continuing the tale that began in The Hidden Dragon, this is the story of three Terran brothers who discover a fascinating world where dragons are real - and worshiped as gods.

The Devil knows your name, David Aristarkhov.

As a teen, David Aristarkhov was a psychic prodigy, operating under the shadow of his oppressive occultist father. Now, years after his father's death and rapidly approaching his thirtieth birthday, he is content with the high-powered life he's curated as a Boston attorney, moonlighting as a powerful medium for his secret society.

But with power comes a price, and the Devil has come to collect on an ancestral deal. David's days are numbered, and death looms at his door.

Reluctantly, he reaches out to the only person he's ever trusted, his ex-boyfriend and secret Society rival Rhys, for help. However, the only way to get to Rhys is through his wife, Moira. Thrust into each other's care, emotions once buried deep resurface, and the trio race to figure out their feelings for one another before the Devil steals David away for good...

On the distant world of Zoe, an expedition finds DNA-based life. When alien invaders are also discovered, Glenn Hamilton calls on the U.S.S. Merrimack for help. But the Ninth Circle and the Palatine Empire have also found Zoe. Soon everyone will be on a collision course to determine the fate of this planet.