Search Worlds Without End

Aickman's 'strange stories' (his preferred term) are constructed immaculately, the neuroses of his characters painted in subtle shades. He builds dread by the steady accrual of realistic detail, until the reader realises that the protagonist is heading towards their doom as if in a dream.

First published in 1988, The Wine-Dark Sea contains eight stories that build towards disturbing yet enigmatic endings, including the classic story 'Your Tiny Hand is Frozen.'

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Peter Straub
• The Wine-Dark Sea - (1966)
• The Trains - (1951)
• Your Tiny Hand is Frozen - (1953)
• Growing Boys - (1977)
• The Fetch - (1980)
• The Inner Room - (1966)
• Never Visit Venice - (1968)
• The Next Glade - (1980)
• Into the Wood - (1968)
• Bind Your Hair - (1964)
• The Stains - (1980)

Someday. Tomorrow. When Earth fails man and man leaves Earth behind, the awesomeness is waiting Out There. Empty beyond all imagining, vast beyond all reckoning, as deep as Time and twice as cold, The Dark between the stars. Here collected for the first time are the most incredible and terrifying voyages of the acclaimed master of SF adventure. Voyages to the center of a universe dark with terror. And Beyond. Collection of 9 stories: "The Sharing of Flesh," nominated, 1968 Nebula award; winner, 1969 Hugo award, best novelette; "Fortune Hunter;" "Eutopia;" "The Pugilist;" "Night Piece;" "The Voortrekkers;" "Gibralter Falls," a Time Patrol story; "Windmill," and "Call Me Joe," which was voted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - essay
• The Sharing of Flesh - (1968) - novelette
• Fortune Hunter - (1972) - shortstory
• Eutopia - (1967) - novelette
• The Pugilist - (1973) - novelette
• Night Piece - (1961) - shortstory
• The Voortrekkers - (1974) - novelette
• Gibraltar Falls - (1975) - shortstory
• Windmill - (1973) - novelette
• Call Me Joe - (1957) - novelette

Hugo, Nebula and Locus Award winning novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1971. The story can also be found in the anthologies:

• The Best Science Fiction of the Year #1 (1972), edited by Terry Carr
• Nebula Award Stories Seven (1972), edited by Lloyd Biggle, Jr.
• The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: A Special 25th Anniversary Anthology (1974), edited by Edward L. Ferman
• The Hugo Winners, Volume 3: (1970-75) (1977), edited by Isaac Asimov
• The Arbor House Treasury of Modern Science Fiction (1980), edtied by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg
• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume IV (1986), edited by Terry Carr

It is included in the collections:

• The Queen of Air and Darkness and Other Stories (1973)
• The Many Worlds of Poul Anderson, aka The Book of Poul Anderson (1974)
• Winners (1981)
• New America (1985)
• The Armies of Elfland (1992)
• Going for Infinity (2002)
• The Queen of Air and Darkness (2009)

Science-based wonder is the core of science fiction. Yet the genre mostly cast science as either triumph or hubris. In To Shape the Dark, editor Athena Andreadis offers readers women heroes who are doing science not-as-usual. Scientists are astrogators who never sleep; and To Shape the Dark is part of that vigil.

Table of Contents:

• Astrogators Never Sleep - short story by Athena Andreadis
• Carnivores of Can't-Go-Home - novelette by Constance Cooper
• Chlorophyll Is Thicker Than Water - novelette by M. Fenn
• Sensorium - short story by Jacqueline Koyanagi
• From the Depths - novelette by Kristin Landon
• Fieldwork - novelette by Shariann Lewitt
• Of Wind and Fire - novelette by Vandana Singh
• Crossing the Midday Gate - novelette by Aliette de Bodard
• Firstborn, Lastborn - short story by Melissa Scott
• Building for Shah Jehan - short story by Anil Menon
• The Age of Discovery - short story by C. W. Johnson
• Recursive Ice - novelette by Terry Boren
• Ward 7 - short story by Susan Lanigan
• Two Become One - novelette by Kiini Ibura Salaam
• The Pegasus Project - short story by Jack McDevitt
• The Seventh Gamer - novelette by Gwyneth Jones

'I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle through another bout of insomnia, another white night in the great American wilderness.'

Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident in his daughter's house in Vermont. When sleep refuses to come, he lies in bed and tells himself stories, struggling to push back thoughts about things he would rather forget - his wife's recent death and the horrific murder, in Iraq, of his granddaughter's boyfriend, Titus. Brill, a retired book critic, imagines a parallel world in which America is not at war with Iraq but with itself. In this other America the Twin Towers did not fall on 9/11, and the 2000 election results led to secession, as state after state pulled away from the union and a bloody civil war ensued. As the night progresses, Brill's story grows increasingly intense, and what he is so desperately trying to avoid insists on being told. Joined in the early hours by his granddaughter, he gradually opens up to her and recounts another hidden story, this time of his own marriage. After she falls asleep, he at last finds the courage to revisit the trauma of Titus's death.

Passionate and shocking, political and personal: Man in the Dark is a novel that reflects the consequences of 9/11, that forces us to confront the blackness of night even as it celebrates the existence of ordinary joys in a world capable of the most grotesque violence.

1643: A small group of Parliamentarian soldiers are ambushed in an isolated part of Northern England. Their only hope for survival is to flee into the nearby Moresby Wood... unwise though that may seem. For Moresby Wood is known to be an unnatural place, the realm of witchcraft and shadows, where the devil is said to go walking by moonlight...

Seventeen men enter the wood. Only two are ever seen again, and the stories they tell of what happened make no sense. Stories of shifting landscapes, of trees that appear and disappear at will... and of something else. Something dark. Something hungry.

Today, five women are headed into Moresby Wood to discover, once and for all, what happened to that unfortunate group of soldiers. Led by Dr Alice Christopher, an historian who has devoted her entire academic career to uncovering the secrets of Moresby Wood. Armed with metal detectors, GPS units, mobile phones and the most recent map of the area (which is nearly 50 years old), Dr Christopher's group enters the wood ready for anything.

Or so they think.

Conrad Navarro is a champion of the Pageant, a gruesome modern day gladiatorial exhibition held in secret arenas across the globe. Indentured by a cabal of ultra-rich patrons, his world is one of blood and mayhem, an existence where savagery reigns supreme while mercy leads to annihilation.

Conrad's sister has vanished while traveling in Mexico. Imogene, a decorated special agent for the FBI, was hot on the trail of a legendary scientist whose vile eugenics experiments landed him on an international most-wanted list. Imogene left behind a sequence of bizarre clues that indicate she uncovered evidence of a Byzantine occult conspiracy against civilization itself -- a threat so vast and terrible, its ultimate fruition would herald an event more inimical to all terrestrial life than mere extinction.

Now, Conrad is on the hunt, searching for his missing sister while malign forces seek to manipulate and destroy him by turns. It is an odyssey that will send this man of war from the lush jungles of South America, to the debauched court of an Aegean Prince, to the blasted moonscape of the American desert as he becomes inexorably enmeshed within a web of primordial evil that stretches back unto prehistory. All the while struggling to maintain a vestige of humanity; for Conrad has gazed into an abyss where the light is the darkness, and he has begun the metamorphosis into something more than human.

This novelette originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, December 1998. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixteenth Annual Collection (1999), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Armageddons (1999), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois.

Regein was the first human colony struck by the Quarn - aliens never seen by man, yet who sow a strange death through man's crumbling empire. In humanity's wreckage, Ling Sanjen, a rare half-breed Caucasian, sets forth to find what - and who - has broken the spirit of mankind...

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeaed in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1969. The story can also be found in the anthology Sociology Through Science Fiction (1974) edited by Patricia Warrick, Joseph D. Olander, Martin H. Greenberg and John W. Milstead. It was later expanded to the full novel Deeper Than the Darkness (1970).

The Dark Side of the Earth (1964) contains the short stories:

• "Time is the Traitor"
• "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed" (Hugo Award Nominee)
• "Out of This World"
• "The Pi Man" (Hugo Award Nominee)
• "The Flowered Thundermug"
• "Will You Wait?"
• "They Don't Make Life Like They Used To"

The latest winner of the Ampersand Prize is a genre-smashing hostage drama about 14-year-old Tamara, who's faced with an impossible choice when she falls for her kidnappers.

Yet this is no ordinary kidnapping. Tamara has been living on a star freighter in deep space, and her kidnappers are terrifying Crowpeople -- the only aliens humanity has ever encountered. No-one has ever survived a Crowpeople attack, until now -- and Tamara must use everything she has just to stay alive.

But survival always comes at a price, and there's no handbook for this hostage crisis. As Tamara comes to know the Crowpeople's way of life, and the threats they face from humanity's exploration into deep space, she realises she has an impossible choice to make.

Should she stay as the only human among the Crows, knowing she'll never see her family again... or inevitably betray her new community if she wants to escape?

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they're destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she's found the thing she's been made for.

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries' seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.

At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointy as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.

Until one day, he does...

As the world turns upside down and a hero is needed to save them all, Hazel tries to remember her years spent pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?

Edith Nesbit, best known as the author of The Railway Children and other children's classics, was also the mistress of the ghost story and tales of terror. She was able to create genuinely chilling narratives in which the returning dead feature strongly. Sadly, these stories have been neglected for many years, but now, at last, they are back in print.

In this wonderful collection of eerie, flesh-creeping yarns, we encounter love that transcends the grave, reanimated corpses, vampiric vines, vengeful ghosts and other dark delights to make you feel fearful. These vintage spooky stories, tinged with horror, are told in a bold, forthright manner that makes them seem as fresh and unsettling as today's headlines.

Includes:

• Man-Size in Marble
• Uncle Abraham's Romance
• From the Dead
• The Three Drugs
• The Violet Car
• John Charrington's Wedding
• The Pavilion
• Hurst of Hurstcote
• In the Dark
• The Head
• The Mystery of the Semi-detached
• The Ebony Frame
• The Five Senses
• The Shadow
• The Power of Darkness
• The Haunted Inheritance
• The Letter in Brown Ink
• The House of Silence
• The Haunted House
• The Detective

Lucifer is enjoying his retirement in an obscure corner of Limbo when he learns of a plot by Gabriel, the current ruler of Hell, to use humanity's greatest weapon against it -- Television! Cue the hottest reality game-show ever conceived: Who Wants To Be The Prince Of Darkness? Gabriel orchestrates an "Infernal takeover" of Earth by stealing unwitting mortal souls and sending them to a mostly empty Hell, hoping to reinvigorate the Infernal Realm. Now Lucifer must find a living champion to seize control of Hell and free millions of stolen mortal souls before the theft becomes permanent. But who would ever want to be Hell's champion?

The speculative shines bright in the dark with these stories by Matthew Bright: a boy with a secret begins work at a strange library housing all the books never written; Dorian Gray's love of beauty struggles in the face of AIDs-era San Francisco and the Castro; the tomb of the Empress is adrift in space and hungry for the concubines aboard her; two men in an old film finally realize that they are trapped but still they seek the means for finally declaring their love for each other. These and other tales of the queer fantastic should be the perfect bedtime read.

• The Library of Lost Things
• In Search of Stars
• Golden Hair, Red Lips
• Croak Toad
• Nothing to Worry Aboutt
• Director's Cut
• The Concubine's Heart
• Antonia and Cleopatra
• By Chance, in the Dark
• The Last Drag Show On Earth
• No Sleep In Bethelehem

Ciudad de Cielo is the 'city in the sky', a space station where hundreds of scientists and engineers work in earth's orbit, building the colony ship that will one day take humanity to the stars.

When a mutilated body is found on the CdC, the eyes of the world are watching. Top-of the-class investigator, Alice Blake, is sent from Earth to team up with CdC's Freeman - a jaded cop with more reason than most to distrust such planetside interference.

As the death toll climbs and factions aboard the station become more and more fractious, Freeman and Blake will discover clues to a conspiracy that threatens not only their own lives, but the future of humanity itself.

For decades the lives of the Price family have been snarled with the fate of the ancient forest of Goodmanswood. There, Dr. Lennox Price discovered an hallucinogenic moss which quickly became the focus of a cult. Though the moss is long gone, the whole forest can now affect the minds of visitors.

After Lennox is killed trying to return to his beloved wood, his widow sees and hears him in the trees-or is it a dark version of the Green Man that caresses her with leafy hands? Lennox's grandson heeds a call to lie in his lover's arms in the very heart of the forest-and cannot help but wonder what the fruit of that love will be.

And Heather, Lennox's daughter, who turned her back on her father's mysteries and sought sanctuary in the world of facts and history? Goodmanswood summons her as well...

A former professor offers film critic Simon the chance of a lifetime-to write a book on one of the greatest long-lost comedians of the silent-film era, Tubby Thackeray. Simon is determined to find out the truth behind the jolly fat man's disappearance from film-and from the world.

Tubby's work carries the unmistakable stamp of the macabre. People literally laughed themselves to death during his performances. Soon, wherever Simon goes, laughter-and a clown's wide, threatening grin-follow. Is Simon losing his mind? Or is Tubby Thackeray waiting for him to open the door back to the world?

Cold sleep had given Earth the stars, but at what price?

Filled with the hope of a new life on a new world, many a voyager had entered the cryo-containers aboard the titanic starships sent to populate Jayvee 9, Earth's lone far-flung colony. For some that hope was fulfilled, for others there was no awakening at journey's end. And for those like ex-marshal Walker, a man permanently scarred by the madness and loneliness of seven years of cold sleep, the sole way to find peace was in space itself, flying the starways as a solitary mining pilot.

With the empathic alien Nis as his only companion, Walker combed the giant asteroid rings near Jayvee, searching for ore and returning periodically to his base at Hephaestus Station. It might not have been much of a life, but for Walker it was enough.

But the discovery of a massive derelict, the sleeper-ship E.S.S. Republic, found floating in the debris of Ring Belt 3 signaled an end to Walker's personal seclusion. Assigned to investigate this wreck which had been lost for more than a century, Walker and a team of anthropologists led by the renowned Dr. Elaine Bartlett, were about to confront an alien presence far more terrifying than Walker's most shocking cold-sleep nightmares!

Would-be journalist Emily Winters is summoned by a mysterious phone call to an isolated church, only to find herself caught up in a story she could never print in a newspaper. The stranger, Jehail, tells her of a supernatural conspiracy involving her family, which puts her in a position of great power - and great danger.

Accompanied by her neighbour, Brett, and under the dubious protection of Jehail, Emily seeks out the various clues to her family's true calling - opposing a sacred order of elemental magicians who seek her family's inherent power.

With the cabal closing in on her family, Emily must come to terms with her magical inheritance, and decide if she is prepared to give up love and the life she knows to champion her family's destiny. The outcome will be known when she and her allies storm the cabal's headquarters on a night of magic and blood.

This novel by Jason Nahrung is based on an unpublished novella written by Nahrung and Mil Clayton in 2000.

Introducing the Bolivian writer Liliana Colanzi, You Glow in the Dark glimmers with an unearthly light and a nearly radioactive power

The seven stories of You Glow in the Dark unfold in a Latin America wrecked and poisoned by human greed, and yet Colanzi's writing--at once sleek and dense, otherworldly and intensely specific--casts an eerily bright spell over the wreckage. Some stories seem to be set in a near future; all are superbly executed and yet hard to pin down; they often leave the reader wondering: was that realistic or fantastic-- Colanzi draws power from Andean cyberpunk just as much as from classic horror writers, and this daring is matched by her energizing simultaneous use of multiplicity and fragmentation--the book's stylistic trademarks. Freely mixing worlds, she uses the Bolivian altiplano as the backdrop for an urban dystopia and blends Aymara with Spanish.

Colanzi never gets bogged down; she can be brutal and direct or light-handed and subtle. Her materials are dark, but always there's the lift of her vivid sense of humor. You Glow in the Dark seizes the reader's attention (from the title on) and holds it: this is a book that announces the arrival of a major new talent.

At ten-thirty in the morning the skies over London were clear. Then an arrow formation of five bright points became visible. They appeared to be moving at an amazing speed in tight circles. They were spiralling down to about five thousand feet, and at that altitude their nature was easily discernable. They were the things most of us had discussed and dismissed at one time o another. Flying Saucers. Giant saucers, smooth and lustrous and blinding, more than a hundred yards in diameter. They hung over the city in a neat formation.

Table of Contents:

• 7 - The Unicorn - short story
• 15 - Six Eggs for Mafeking - short story
• 25 - The Boy David - short story
• 33 - The Mouse That Roared - short story
• 44 - I Am a Ghost - short story
• 62 - Nineteen Ninety-Four - short story
• 82 - Sentimental Journey - short story
• 91 - Burnt Umber - short story
• 100 - The Miller's Daughter - short story
• 111 - When the Saucers Came - short story
• 127 - The Lions and the Harp - short story
• 134 - The First Martian - short story
• 143 - Duet for One Finger - short story
• 148 - So I Never Left Home - short story
• 152 - The Last Act - short story

And Afterward, the Dark is a collection of stories by author Basil Copper. It was released in 1977 and was the author's second collection of stories published by Arkham House. It was published in an edition of 4,259 copies. One of the stories, "Camera Obscura", was produced in 1973 for the television series Night Gallery.

This volume contains the following stories:

• "The Spider"
• "The Cave"
• "Dust to Dust"
• "Camera Obscura"
• "The Janissaries of Emilion"
• "Archives of the Dead"
• "The Flabby Men"

WINNER of the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in an Anthology!
A Shirley Jackson and Locus Award Finalist! A World Fantasy Award Nominee!

From werewolves and vampires, to demons and aliens, the monster is one of the most recognizable figures in horror. But what makes something, or someone, monstrous?

Award-winning and up-and-coming authors like Richard Kadrey, Cassandra Khaw, Indrapramit Das, Priya Sharma, and more attempt to answer this question. These all-new stories range from traditional to modern, from mainstream to literary, from familiar monsters to the unknown... and unimaginable.

This chilling collection has something to please - and terrify - everyone, so lock your doors, hide under your covers, and try not to scream.

Table of Contents:

• You Have What I Need by Ian Rogers
• The Midway by Fran Wilde
• Wet Red Grin by Gemma Files
• The Virgin Jimmy Peck by Daryl Gregory
• The Ghost of a Flea by Priya Sharma
• Tha Atrocity Exhibitionists by Brian Hodge
• "The Father of Modern Gynecology": J. Marion Syms, M.D. (1913-1883) by Joyce Carol Oates
• Here Comes Your Man by Indrapramit Das
• Siolaigh by Siobhan Carroll
• What Is Love But the Quiet Moments After Dinner? by Richard Kadrey
• The Island by Norman Patridge
• Flaming Teeth by Garry Kilworth
• Strandling by Caitlin R. Kiernan
• The Special Ones by Chikodili Emelumadu
• Devil by Glen Hirshberg
• Crick Crack Rattle Tap by A. C. Wise
• Children of the Night by Stephen Graham Jones
• The Smell of Waiting by Kaaron Warren
• Now Voyager by Livia Llewellyn
• The Last Drop by Carole Johnstone
• Three Monthers Mountain by Nathan Ballingrud
• Widow-Light by Margo Langan
• Sweet Potato by Joe R. Lansdale
• Knock, Knock by Brian Evenson
• What Is Meat With No God? by Cassandra Khaw
• Bitten By Himself by Laird Barron
• Burial by Kristi DeMeester
• Beautiful Dreamer by Jeffrey Ford
• Blodsuger by John Langan

Modern audiences have long inured themselves to fear, trained themselves to shut off their childish nighttime terrors and scoff in the face of deliberate scares. But award winning anthologist Ellen Datlow--called "the genre's sharpest assembler of strange, dark fictions" by William Gibson, author of Neuromancer--was convinced that there was life in the ghost story yet. So she challenged a list of varied and talented contributors to scare the heck out of her.

The resultant collection singlehandedly redefines the ghost story, going far beyond the accustomed tropes and gore of horror stories to consider the only realm that still truly scares us: the unknown. The Dark takes a nuanced and disquieting look at the tormented and unquiet dead; the darkness in us, the living; and the sometimes tenuous boundary between the two.

Under the covers of The Dark, you will find a gathering of sixteen original, unique ghost stories, deftly penned by authors versed in the argot of the damned, including Ramsey Campbell, Jeffrey Ford, Glen Hirshberg, Tanith Lee, Kelly Link, Sharyn McCrumb, Joyce Carol Oates, Lucius Shepard, and Gahan Wilson. No two stories are alike; all are calculated to make it hard to be alone with the lights out. This is the stuff nightmares are made of.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Ellen Datlow
• The Trentino Kid - (2003) - shortstory by Jeffrey Ford
• The Ghost of the Clock - (2003) - novelette by Tanith Lee
• One Thing About the Night - (2003) - novelette by Terry Dowling
• The Silence of the Falling Stars - (2003) - novelette by Mike O'Driscoll
• The Dead Ghost - (2003) - shortstory by Gahan Wilson
• Seven Sisters - (2003) - novelette by Jack Cady
• Subway - (2003) - shortstory by Joyce Carol Oates
• Doctor Hood - (2003) - novelette by Stephen Gallagher
• An Amicable Divorce - (2003) - shortstory by Daniel Abraham
• Feeling Remains - (2003) - shortstory by Ramsey Campbell
• The Gallows Necklace - (2003) - shortstory by Sharyn McCrumb
• Brownie, and Me - (2003) - shortstory by Charles L. Grant
• Velocity - (2003) - shortstory by Kathe Koja
• Limbo - (2003) - novella by Lucius Shepard
• The Hortlak - (2003) - novelette by Kelly Link
• Dancing Men - (2003) - novelette by Glen Hirshberg

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark: Blackwood's Guide to Dangerous Fairies is a dark and disturbing illustrated novel based on the world of Guillermo del Toro's film "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark." Taking place a hundred years before the movie begins, the book chronicles the travels and explorations of Emerson Blackwood, a young and ambitious natural scientist who quickly discovers there is a mysterious world beyond what his education and peers understand.

Follow Blackwood as he travels, discovering more and more about this secret world and the creatures that inhabit it -- creatures that Blackwood quickly realizes are just as interested in him as he is in them, particularly a long-lived and dangerous group of beings that have had centuries of encounters with humanity, creatures that live by eating enamel and bone....

The book, co-written by del Toro and the award-winning Christopher Golden, features illustrations by the director of "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark," Troy Nixey.

Here is a collection of the most famous stories of this unparalleled writer: The Rats in the Walls, PIckman's Model, The Colour out of Space, The Call of Cthulhu and The Haunter of the Dark, plus other tales you would be advised to read late at night if you hope for untroubled sleep....

Contains:

• The Colour out of Space
• The Music of Eric Zann
• The Outsider
• The Rats in the Walls
• The Call of Clthulhu
• Pickman's Model
• The Dunwich Horror
• The Whisperer in Darkness
• The Thing on the Doorstep
• The Haunter of the Dark

It's been labelled a doomsday cult, but the Bastion might be humanity's last hope. Amidst all the lies and chaos, come hear their true story, in their own words.

On the rural coast of Puglia, Italy, Becca and Ric run the Bastion, offering solace and a home for lost souls. Each year they welcome new members to join the Open Feast, where they teach them to release their burdens and create a better world, in a journey of self-discovery and spiritual teachings.

But the Bastion has secrets. The Bastion has a destiny. Deep in the Inner Pinewood, a place of real magic and beauty, they are all that stands against the dark forces that would tear the sky wide open

And what of those who call Becca and Ric liars? Cult leaders and con artists? What of those who tried to leave the Bastion? As it becomes increasingly difficult to tell truth from fiction, who can you trust to save us all?

FROM THE HEART OF DARKNESS come no gentle wraiths, no pastel fantasies of bittersweet, seductive evil. This horror slams like a muzzle blast into its victim's awareness, carves its image with razor claws of violence as vivid as graphic as uncensored imagination. This horror comes from the center of the man soul, FROM THE HEART OF DARKNESS.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1983) - essay by Karl Edward Wagner
• Children of the Forest - (1976) - novelette
• The Barrow Troll - (1975) - short story
• Smokie Joe - (1977) - short story
• The Shortest Way - (1974) - short story
• Dragons' Teeth - (1975) - novelette
• Men Like Us - (1980) - novelette
• The Automatic Rifleman - (1980) - novelette
• Something Had to Be Done - (1975) - short story
• Out of Africa - (1983) - short story
• Best of Luck - (1978) - short story
• The Hunting Ground - (1976) - short story
• Than Curse the Darkness - (1980) - novelette
• Blood Debt - (1976) - short story
• The Dancer in the Flames - (1982) - short story
• The Red Leer - (1979) - short story
• Firefight - (1976) - novelette

Late one night, fate brings together DJ Aspirin and ten-year-old Alyona. After he tries to save her from imminent danger, she ends up at his apartment. But in the morning sinister doubts set in. Who is Alyona? A young con artist? A plant for a nefarious blackmailer? Or perhaps a long-lost daughter Aspirin never knew existed? Whoever this mysterious girl is, she now refuses to leave.

A game of cat-and-mouse has begun.

Claiming that she is a musical prodigy, Alyona insists she must play a complicated violin piece to find her brother. Confused and wary, Aspirin knows one thing: he wants her out of his apartment and his life. Yet every attempt to get rid of her is thwarted by an unusual protector: her plush teddy bear that may just transform into a fearsome monster.

Alyona tells Aspirin that if he would just allow her do her work, she'll leave him--and this world. He can then return to the shallow life he led before her. But as outside forces begin to coalesce, threatening to finally separate them, Aspirin makes a startling discovery about himself and this ethereal, eerie child.

In the small coastal town of Isolation Bay, a shadow hangs over the lives of Rohan Peters and his mother Eileen. Bound together by small town superstition, their lives are dominated by fear. Into this setting comes Rachel, a girl on the run from her own dark history. As Rohan and Rachel struggle to build a friendship amidst the paranoia of Isolation Bay, their pasts come crashing down on them in an event that will change both of their lives forever.

Etchison's fiction is justly famous for its creepy ambience, and explores the terrain mapped out by Philip K. Dick, Thomas Harris, and any number of black and white horror movies. This is his legendary first collection, carefully corrected by the author for this new edition. The title story won both the World Fantasy Award and the British Fantasy Award in 1982, the first time a single work received both major awards. Contents include 15 ground-breaking stories and an introduction by Ramsey Campbell.

Contents of this collection:

• It Only Comes Out at Night
• Sitting in the Corner, Whimpering Quietly
• The Walking Man
• We Have All Been Here Before
• Daughter of the Golden West
• The Pitch
• You Can Go Now
• Today's Special
• The Machine Demands a Sacrifice
• Calling All Monsters
• The Dead Line
• The Late Shift
• The Nighthawk
• It Will Be Here Soon
• Deathtracks
• The Dark Country

Sixteen years ago, Brigit Weylan's older sister, Emma, walked into the woods in their small hometown of Ellis Creek. She never walked out. People said she was troubled - in the months leading up to her death, she was convinced there was a monster in those trees. Marked by the tragedy, Brigit left town and never looked back.

Now Brigit travels around the country investigating paranormal activity (and faking the results) with her cameraman, Ian. But when she receives a call from Ellis Creek, she's thrust into the middle of a search for two missing teenagers. As Brigit and Ian are drawn further into the case, the parallels to Emma's death become undeniable. And worse, Brigit can't explain what's happening to her: trees appearing in her bedroom in the middle of the night, something with a very familiar laugh watching her out in the darkness, and Emma's voice on her phone, reminding Brigit to finish what they started.

More and more, it looks like Emma was right: there is a monster in Ellis Creek, and it's waited a long time for Brigit to come home.

When a U.S. Senator's seven-year-old grandson goes missing in the woods behind his home, the only witness, the boy's older brother, says, "The lights took him," and then never speaks again.

As police and the FBI launch a massive search, suspecting everything from domestic terrorism to kidnapping, only the boys' grandmother, Lynn Roseworth, fears she knows the truth.

Before she was a politician's wife, Lynn was a researcher of missing people who mysteriously vanished. But after a series of frightening encounters and great personal upheaval, she ran from that life, vowing never to think of it again.

Now, risking her husband's reputation and the exposure of her own controversial work, she must return to her past in order to find her grandson. Because only Lynn knows that the missing people who she once investigated all disappeared into lights from the heavens, and that her own father repeatedly warned her: "Never go in the woods."

This powerful novel from the award-winning author of Richard and Judy pick 'Eve Green' is a tale of love and the lore of the sea.The islanders of Parla are still mourning the loss of one of their own. Four years since that loss, and a man - un-named, unclothed - is washed onto their shores. Some say he is a mythical man from the sea - potent, kind and beautiful; others suspect him. For the bereft Maggie, this stranger brings love back to the isle. But as the days pass he changes every one of them - and the time comes for his story to be told...

Tender, lyrical and redemptive, 'The Silver Dark Sea' is the dazzling new novel from the author of 'Eve Green' (winner of Whitbred First Novel award). It is a story about what life can give and take from us, when we least expect it - and how love, in all its forms, is the greatest gift of all.

Returning to the Irish village of Ballymurroe one year after honeymooning there, John and Ann Milne are astonished when the once-friendly townspeople they knew greet them with hostility and two of their friends vanish.

Nebula nominated short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1991. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Ninth Annual Collection (1992), edited by Gardner Dozois, Nebula Awards 27 (1993), edited by James Morrow, The Best from Fantasy & Science Fiction: A 45th Anniversary Anthology (1994), edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Edward L. Ferman, and The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories (2012), edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer. It is collected in What I Didn't See and Other Stories (2012).

Sturgeon Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 2004. The story can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy for Teens: First Annual Collection (2005), edited by Jane Yolen and Patrick Nielsen Hayden. It is included in the collection The Involuntary Human (2007).

The world beyond tomorrow... the unopened future which lies at a point far distant from the early, fumbling attempts at space flight of our times.

It is the future of mankind among the stars -- but also a future of intrigue and treachery!

This is the story of a Galactic civilisation which has split against itself and on whose shambles a ruthless warlord of the stars has built a barbaric empire. Persistently striving to topple his autocratic power is the Mutant League, a band of mentally powerful supernormals who style themselves the "inheritors of wisdom and power".

Enter into this fantastic future in company with the man and the girl who dare to battle against the might of the New Empire -- and who hold a guarded, vital secret. Travel with them in their urgent, hunted and hounded flight across the far-flung void of interstellar space and among the myriad worlds of peril of the starways.

Something is wrong in Snakebite, Oregon. Teenagers are disappearing, some turning up dead, the weather isn't normal, and all fingers seem to point to TV's most popular ghost hunters who have just returned to town. Logan Ortiz-Woodley, daughter of TV's ParaSpectors, has never been to Snakebite before, but the moment she and her dads arrive, she starts to get the feeling that there's more secrets buried here than they originally let on.

Ashley Barton's boyfriend was the first teen to go missing, and she's felt his presence ever since. But now that the Ortiz-Woodleys are in town, his ghost is following her and the only person Ashley can trust is the mysterious Logan. When Ashley and Logan team up to figure out who--or what--is haunting Snakebite, their investigation reveals truths about the town, their families, and themselves that neither of them are ready for. As the danger intensifies, they realize that their growing feelings for each other could be a light in the darkness.

Poland's strong Catholic faith engendered in its literature a lively awareness of the Devil and a love of the supernatural and the fantastic. These stories are explorations of the extreme in human behaviour, where the bizarre chills the spine, and few authors can match Grabinski's depiction of seething sexual frenzy. The Dark Domain will introduce to English readers one of Europe's most important authors of literary fantasy.

This is an original collection which is comprised of stories originally written in Polish and subsequently translated.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Miroslaw Lipinski
• Fumes
• The Motion Demon
• The Area
• A Tale of the Gravedigger
• Szamota's Mistress
• The Wandering Train
• Strabismus
• Vengeance of the Elementals
• In the Compartment
• Saturnin Sektor
• The Glance
• Afterword: The Area - A Contemporary Horror Story? - (1993) - essay by Madeleine Johnson

On the day she was born, he left for the stars.

He watches her grow up on screens. Misses her first words. Misses her first steps. She's never kissed his scratchy cheek, or fallen asleep on his shoulder. He's never wiped away her tears, or sung her to sleep.

Now she's a toddler, and he's about to enter hibernation sleep -- and when he wakes nearly 150 years in the future, his family will be gone.

This is a short story for every father who never wants his daughter to grow up.

The author self-published this short story in 2014. It was reprinted in Lightspeed, January 2016.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

The royal city was gripped by sadness and terror. Only Langax, good and wise Emperor of the Iron Lands, stood between civilization and the hideous slimy creatures of The Terrible East. And now Langax was dying, growing ever weaker as the magic spell cast upon him grew more powerful. Unless they found the Dark Lady, breaker of evil spells, an ancient and honorable world would be plunged into oblivion. One man in all the Iron Lands could find the Dark Lady--Wulf, the mighty bladesman. Wulf who feared not for his life because--accused traitor that he was--his life was already lost.

Carl Bok is a citizen of Springworld, the heavy-gravity planet with monstrous and dangerous flora and fauna. Carl is well over two metres tall and weighs-in at 180 kilograms.

Now Carl has won a scholarship to Starschool. He'll spend a year on this touring school, visiting sixteen of the colonised planets. This will be the experience of a lifetime.

It's tough enough for Carl as the poor scholarship student among the rich kids. His problems get worse when they arrive at Earth. Carl finds himself in urgent need of big money and, since he's a pretty tough guy, becomes a paid fighter. He has to fight dangerous and deadly human and animal opponents. His fellow students, B'oosa, Miko, Alegria and Francisco "Pancho" Bolivar, get caught up in his exploits.

And then there are the aliens.

Magical heists. Deadly secrets. Come along for the ride... if you dare.

Evie Wilder is an orphan who has gone through most of her life unnoticed... until she's caught up in a dramatic heist and captures the attention of the Dark Fable. They have chosen her for a reason: she can turn invisible. This skill would make Evie a treasured asset to the legendary group of thieves known for spiriting away obscure and occult artifacts.

Evie cannot resist their allure and is eager to join this newfound family. But she discovers there are more skeletons in the Dark Fable's past than she could have ever imagined. And these secrets might be the answer to her own tragic past.

No one is who they seem to be and the price of uncovering the Dark Fable's cryptic history just might be fatal...

In The Dark Descent, hailed as one of the most important anthologies ever to examine horror fiction, editor David G. Hartwell traces the complex history of horror in literature back to the earliest short stories. The Dark Descent, which won the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology, showcases the finest of these ever written--from the time-honored classics of Edgar Allan Poe, D.H. Lawrence, and Edith Wharton to the contemporary writing of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Ray Bradbury.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by David G. Hartwell
• The Reach - (1981) - short story by Stephen King
• Evening Primrose - (1940) - short story by John Collier
• The Ash-Tree - (1904) - short story by M. R. James
• The New Mother - (1882) - short story by Lucy Clifford
• There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding - (1976) - novelette by Russell Kirk
• The Call of Cthulhu - (1928) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft
• The Summer People - (1950) - short story by Shirley Jackson
• The Whimper of Whipped Dogs - (1973) - short story by Harlan Ellison
• Young Goodman Brown - (1835) - short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Mr. Justice Harbottle - (1872) - novelette by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
• The Crowd - (1943) - short story by Ray Bradbury
• The Autopsy - (1980) - novella by Michael Shea
• John Charrington's Wedding - (1891) - short story by E. Nesbit
• Sticks - (1974) - novelette by Karl Edward Wagner
• Larger Than Oneself - (1966) - novelette by Robert Aickman
• Belsen Express - (1975) - short story by Fritz Leiber
• Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper - (1943) - short story by Robert Bloch
• If Damon Comes - (1978) - short story by Charles L. Grant
• Vandy, Vandy - (1953) - short story by Manly Wade Wellman
• The Swords - (1969) - novelette by Robert Aickman
• The Roaches - (1965) - short story by Thomas M. Disch
• Bright Segment - (1955) - novelette by Theodore Sturgeon
• Dread - (1984) - novelette by Clive Barker
• The Fall of the House of Usher - (1839) - novelette by Edgar Allan Poe
• The Monkey - (1980) - novelette by Stephen King
• Within the Walls of Tyre - (1978) - novelette by Michael Bishop
• The Rats in the Walls - (1924) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft
• Schalken the Painter - (1851) - short story by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
• The Yellow Wallpaper - (1892) - novelette by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• A Rose for Emily - (1930) - short story by William Faulkner
• How Love Came to Professor Guildea - (1897) - novella by Robert Hichens
• Born of Man and Woman - (1950) - short story by Richard Matheson
• My Dear Emily - (1962) - short story by Joanna Russ
• You Can Go Now - (1980) - short story by Dennis Etchison
• The Rocking-Horse Winner - (1926) - short story by D. H. Lawrence
• Three Days - (1984) - novelette by Tanith Lee
• Good Country People - (1955) - short story by Flannery O'Connor
• Mackintosh Willy - (1979) - short story by Ramsey Campbell
• The Jolly Corner - (1908) - novelette by Henry James
• Smoke Ghost - (1941) - short story by Fritz Leiber
• Seven American Nights - (1978) - novella by Gene Wolfe
• The Signalman - (1866) - short story by Charles Dickens
• Crouch End - (1980) - novelette by Stephen King
• Night-Side - (1977) - novelette by Joyce Carol Oates
• Seaton's Aunt - (1922) - novelette by Walter de la Mare
• Clara Militch - (1893) - novelette by Ivan Turgenev
• The Repairer of Reputations - (1895) - novelette by Robert W. Chambers
• The Beckoning Fair One - (1911) - novella by Oliver Onions
• What Was It? - (1859) - short story by Fitz-James O'Brien
• The Beautiful Stranger - (1968) - short story by Shirley Jackson
• The Damned Thing - (1893) - short story by Ambrose Bierce
• Afterward - (1910) - novelette by Edith Wharton
• The Willows - (1907) - novella by Algernon Blackwood
• The Asian Shore - (1970) - novelette by Thomas M. Disch
• The Hospice - (1975) - novelette by Robert Aickman
• A Little Something for Us Tempunauts - (1974) - novelette by Philip K. Dick

A blackness leaves its lair, and begins slowly to spread

It came like a malignant shadow with seductive promises of power. Somewhere in the night, a small girl smiled as her mother burned, asylum inmates slaughtered their attendants, and in slimy tunnels once-human creatures gathered. Madness raged as the lights began to fade, and humanity was attacked by an ancient, unstoppable evil.

The rain beats down on the hot New Orleans streets... A derelict staggers, no longer a man, but an empty vessel poured full of voodoo...

This is the land of lace curtains and Mardi Gras. This is the world of the bayou and sizzling crawfish and a man in white who can kill at any distance.

A storm of corporate greed and human cruelty has descended on New Orleans, on a young advertising executive who has sold more than products, on a weary ex-CIA man, and on a Caribbean servent on the run from enemies he cannot understand. Two powerful businessmen, one legitimate, one a criminal, have built a common empire. Now it is coming apart, scattering blood and broken bones, flooding the Delta with voodoo--the dark magic of dark saints...

For four years, Professor Matthew Tyler and his students in Psychology had been working on a project called a "Study in the Psychological Factors of Extraordinary Demnstration." The title of the project was deliberately vague, for they had to keep its real nature secret: the search for a genuine telepath--a person who could read the thoughts of others. It would be a great boon to psychotherapy, Tyler and his students knew: a telepath could explore the withdrawn mind sof the mentally ill and find just what it was that was making them withdeaw into various neuroses and psychoses. It would cut months, years off the usual courses of treatment and make it possible to uncover quirks and twists which still defied analysis.

The secret had been perfectly kept--until now. Now someonw had revealed it to the papers, and it was spread all over the nation; everyone knew. And Tyler was finished. the businessmen who had generously financed the project would now have no more to to with it, and the college would become a laughing-stock to a public who though all such research....

The Cobellans had conquered Earth by killing almost everyone.

The few survivors, weaponless, grief stricken and disorganized, were no match for the invaders. A few straggling bands of guerrilla fighters were allowed to survive only because the Cobellans wanted them to, for propaganda purposes.

Yet in the midst of the desolation, one man saw a way out. It would take a gigantic bluff, murder, treachery and betrayal.

If he won, Earth would be free.

If he lost... all of Earth would die with him.

Fortune hunter Billy Newman is not a man of great strength or physical courage. Like a young Johnny Depp, he gets by on his wit, wiles and good looks. And he's had quite a good run--striking gold in the Philippines and buying his very own island in the South Seas....

But there's trouble in paradise, and Billy's in the thick of it; The island's crops are failing; The island's people are dying; And the island's owner--Billy--is taking the heat; Why? Because he's angered the 75-foot-tall big-boss god of the island.

75-foot tall? To Billy, it's a laughable superstition--until he finds out just how serious the islanders are. They're out to sacrifice a beautiful young woman to the supposed god. The only way Billy can save her is to humor the locals and pretend to take the spirit on. But the joke may be on Billy, as he has to screw up some very real courage to face the very real Danger in the Dark.

Hubbard lived on Guam in 1927, while his father was assigned to the US naval station there. In his journals he describes a local superstition: the great cheese ghost named Tadamona. He wrote that the devil had the shape of a man, attained the height of coconut trees and was the cause behind all sickness and disease. To dispel the superstition, Ron descended into Tadamona's supposed abode, a great underground stream--an encounter reflected in Danger in the Dark.

Includes the fantasy adventures "The Room", in which Uncle Toby goes to his room, never to return, leaving it to his nephew to explore the magic and mystery of the place, and "He Didn't Like Cats", the story of one man's feline phobia and the hauntingly high price he pays for it.

Shirley Jackson Award-nominated Collection

Step into The Dark Dark, where an award-winning, acclaimed novelist debuts her first collection of short stories and conjures entire universes in just a few pages -- conjures, splits in half, mines for humor, destroys with absurdity, and regenerates. In prose that sparkles and haunts, Samantha Hunt playfully pushes the bounds of the expected and fills every corner with vibrant life, imagining numerous ways in which the weird might poke its way through the mundane. Each of these ten haunting, inventive tales brings us to the brink -- of creation, mortality and immortality, infidelity and transformation, technological innovation and historical revision, loneliness and communion, and every kind of love.

Laced with lyricism, hope, Hunt's characteristic sly wit, and her unflinching gaze into the ordinary horrors of human existence, The Dark Dark celebrates the mysteries and connections that swirl around us. It's never all the same, Hunt tells us. It changes a tiny bit every time. See for yourself.

An uncontrollable plague has left the city in ruins and trapped in perpetual quarantine. A thief hires a guide to lead him safely through the city's many dangers to the one person who can give him the travel papers he needs to escape.

Read the full story for free at Tor Reactor.

From the bestselling author of the Sandman Slim series, a lush, dark, stand-alone fantasy built off the insurgent tradition of China Mieville and M. John Harrison--a subversive tale that immerses us in a world where the extremes of bleakness and beauty exist together in dangerous harmony in a city on the edge of civility and chaos.

The Great War is over. The city of Lower Proszawa celebrates the peace with a decadence and carefree spirit as intense as the war's horrifying despair. But this newfound hedonism--drugs and sex and endless parties--distracts from strange realities of everyday life: Intelligent automata taking jobs. Genetically engineered creatures that serve as pets and beasts of war. A theater where gruesome murders happen twice a day. And a new plague that even the ceaseless euphoria can't mask.

Unlike others who live strictly for fun, Largo is an addict with ambitions. A bike messenger who grew up in the slums, he knows the city's streets and its secrets intimately. His life seems set. He has a beautiful girlfriend, drugs, a chance at a promotion--and maybe, an opportunity for complete transformation: a contact among the elite who will set him on the course to lift himself up out of the streets.

But dreams can be a dangerous thing in a city whose mood is turning dark and inward. Others have a vision of life very different from Largo's, and they will use any methods to secure control. And in behind it all, beyond the frivolity and chaos, the threat of new war always looms.

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

First published in 1999, this dramatic retelling of the legend of Count Dracula deals with issues of friendship, passion and betrayal. Over a hundred years ago, a young man known as The Ox is called into domestic service. It is not a summons he can ignore, as it comes from Castle Dracula. Inside the castle, Ox meets the Count, who is no supernatural monster, but a man driven by passions that are all too real. In his service, Ox finds sheer survival a challenge. Yet the two form the least likely of friendships: a bonding of night and day, of cruelty and kindness. But when a woman they both want - and both need - is is seduced into a life not of her choosing, Ox and the Count become locked in a passionate duel...

Talisha is shocked when she finds mechdream pills in the bottom of her husband's underwear drawer. Designed to create a unique virtual reality based on his wildest fantasies, they will allow him to plumb the depths of his pleasure centers. The only problem is, he's spending the rent money building his virtual paradise. Just what are her husband's deepest desires? Talisha isn't sure she wants to know.

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, April-May 2004. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 10 (2005), edited by David G. Hartwll and Kathryn Cramer.

The Dark Ride collects John Kessel's best short fiction, beginning with 1981's "Not Responsible! Park and Lock It!" and ending with 2021's "The Dark Ride." The stories range from flash pieces to novellas, from comedy to existential horror, from far future SF to Kafkaesque fantasy, including 40,000 words of never-before-collected fiction and extensive author's notes.

All his best are here, among them Nebula Award winners "Another Orphan" and "Pride and Prometheus," by the writer Sci-Fi Weekly called "quite possibly the best short story writer working in science fiction today."

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Not Responsible! Park and Lock It! - (1981) - novelette
• Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance - (2009) - novelette
• Pride and Prometheus - (2008) - novelette
• The Motorman's Coat - (2009) - short story
• The Closet - (2010) - short story
• Some Like It Cold - [Moment Universes] - (1995) - short story
• The Miracle of Ivar Avenue - [Moment Universes] - (1996) - novelette
• Spirit Level - (2020) - novelette
• Stories for Men - (2002) - novella
• The Pure Product - (1986) - novelette
• Gulliver at Home - (1997) - novelette
• Buddha Nostril Bird - (1990) - novelette
• Invaders - (1990) - novelette
• The Lecturer - (1984) - short story
• Buffalo - (1991) - short story
• Clean - (2011) - novelette
• Another Orphan - (1982) - novelette
• Consolation - (2015) - short story
• The Baum Plan for Financial Independence - (2004) - short story
• The Dark Ride - (2021) - novella
• Story Notes - essay by John Kessel

Creating George Stark was easy. Getting rid of him won't be...

The sparrows are flying again. The idea - unbidden, inexplicable - haunts the edge of Thad Beaumont's mind.

Thad should be happy. For years now it is his secret persona 'George Stark', author of super-violent pulp thrillers, who has paid the family bills. But now, Thad is writing seriously again under his own name, and his menacing pseudonym has been buried forever.

And yet... the sparrows are flying again, and something is terribly wrong in Thad Beaumont's world.

As a girl, Joanna Chase thrived on Rustling Willows Ranch in Montana until tragedy upended her life. Now thirty-four and living in Santa Fe with only misty memories of the past, she begins to receive pleas - by phone, through her TV, in her dreams: I am in a dark place, Jojo. Please come and help me. Heeding the disturbing appeals, Joanna is compelled to return to Montana, and to a strange childhood companion she had long forgotten.

She isn't the only one drawn to the Montana farmstead. People from all walks of life have converged at the remote ranch. They are haunted, on the run, obsessed, and seeking answers to the same omniscient danger Joanna came to confront. All the while, on the outskirts of Rustling Willows, a madman lurks with a vision to save the future. Mass murder is the only way to see his frightening manifesto come to pass.

Through a bizarre twist of seemingly coincidental circumstances, a band of strangers now find themselves under Montana's big dark sky. Their lives entwined, they face an encroaching horror. Unless they can defeat this threat, it will spell the end for humanity.

Alliance Against The Stars! Men came home to Earth, home from the stars...home to rule a world that they hated! But Earth was easy prey, for there was little left after the last of the atomic wars, except for pathetic mutants picking a living in the ruins...and others, creatures no longer even remotely human, who threatened to supplant the last strains of real man. The men from the stars moved in, bringing their star-born societies, setting themselves up as masters over the mutant world...a world of creatures not even fit to be slaves! But the mutants were still there, too many to kill off, and the new races plotted together against the masters from the stars!

Amy Redwing recklessly risks everything in her chosen field of dog rescue. When she confronts a violent drunk in order to rescue Nickie, a beautiful golden retriever, Amy has no misgivings. Dogs always do their best, and so will she. Whatever it takes.

Riding shotgun nervously is her friend and lover, Brian, an architect who would marry her if only she were not so committed to these crazy... heroics! He blames her work for her refusal to marry him. But everything is due to change in the Redwing household.

Someone is trying to destroy Amy. Subtle intrusions escalate into terrifying assaults on everything she holds dear. Amy believes her attacker is Wes Greeley, just released after an eighteen-month stretch, thanks to Amy's testimony, for egregious animal cruelty. But if Greeley is the culprit, it's clear he's not working alone.

At last Amy understands her need of Brian, and a lot more from her troubled past that has been hidden by her passion. Unable to turn to any authority, Amy and Brian are pressed to the edge of a precipice.

Tina Evans can think of no better time for a fresh start. It's been a year of unbelievable heartache since her son Danny's death. Now the Vegas show that she directed is about to premiere, so she vows to out her grief behind her. Only there is a message for Tina, scrawled on the chalkboard in Danny's room. Two words that will send Tina on a terrifying journey... NOT DEAD.

Hugo Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Vanguard Science Fiction, June 1958, The story can also be found in the anthology Dark Stars (1969), edited by Robert Silverberg. It is included in the collections A Mile Beyond the Moon (1958) and His Share of Glory: The Complete Works of C.M. Kornbluth (1997).

These things await you: Love and hope in the aftermath of a very personal environmental apocalypse. Fear that comes in being trapped in your own body, enslaved by your own faulty synapses. Dread in a cure that works in unexpected ways. Discovery of what you've always known, but couldn't face, about your own lover.

Explore these and more in the seven beautiful, wounded landscapes of Scenting the Dark, the first collection from Campbell Award-winner Mary Robinette Kowal. Her lean, vigorous style has been satisfying readers since 2006, including multiple appearances in Year's Best lists. The stories here lay bare the ways we try to prevent, contain and repair the damaged world around us, the further harm we can cause by trying, and why every moment of joyous, defiant struggle is worth it--if you have love enough, and hope.

Henry Kuttner's Sword and Sorcery classic returns to print at last! World War II veteran Edward Bond's recuperation from a disastrous fighter plane crash takes a distinct turn for the weird when he encounters a giant wolf, a red witch, and the undeniable power of the need-fire, a portal to a world of magic and swordplay at once terribly new and hauntingly familiar. In the Dark World, Bond opposes the machinations of the dread lord Ganelon and his terrible retinue of werewolves, wizards, and witches, but all is not as it seems in this shadowy mirror of the real world, and Bond discovers that a part of him feels more at home here than he ever has on Earth.

When the new librarian, Jane Kerry, receives a letter enclosing a 50-dollar bill and a note signed MOG (Master of Games) with a clue to another pay-off, she is hooked. But when violence begins to occur she has second thoughts and wants to quit, but MOG has other ideas.

In the woods are six dead trees. The Killing Trees. That's where they take them. Innocent travellers on the road in California. Seized and bound, stripped of their valuables and shackled to the Trees. To wait. In the woods. In the dark...

Early editions of this novel were heavily cut, as of 2008 editions bases on Laymon's original manuscript are available.

Growing up in Slater, Isadora Chang never felt at ease in the repressive small town, even before she realized she was bisexual - but after the deaths of two childhood friends, Slater went from feeling claustrophobic to suffocating. So, Isa took off before the town could swallow her, too. Even though it meant leaving everything she knew behind, including her last surviving friend, Mason.

When Isa's abusive father dies, however, she agrees to come back from art school just long enough to collect the inheritance. But then Mason turns up at the cemetery with a revelation and a plea: their friends were murdered by an evil that haunts the town, and he needs Isa to help stop it - before it takes anyone else.

When Isa begins to hear strange songs on the wind, and eerie artwork fills her sketchbook that she can't recall drawing, she's forced to stop running and confront her past. Because something is waiting in the shadows of Slater's valleys, something that feeds on the pain and heartbreak of its children. Whatever it is, it knows Isa's back... and it won't let her escape again.

Contents:

• Ministering Angels - (1955) - shortstory
• The Shoddy Lands - (1956) - shortstory
• Forms of Things Unknown - (1966) - shortstory
• After Ten Years (excerpt) - (1966) - shortfiction
• The Man Born Blind - (1977) - shortstory
• The Dark Tower - (1977) - shortfiction
• Notes to After Ten Years - (1966) - essay by Alastair Fowler
• Notes to After Ten Years - (1977) - essay by Roger Lancelyn Green
• A Note on The Dark Tower - (1977) - essay by Walter Hooper
• Preface (The Dark Tower and Other Stories) - (1977) - essay by Walter Hooper

In addition to his stellar Necroscope series, Brian Lumley is highly regarded for his short fiction, for which he has won the British Fantasy Award. Beneath the Moors and Darker Places, a companion to The Whisperer and Other Voices, collects nine of Lumley's best long short works, many of them unavailable for decades in any form.

Contents:

• Introduction (Beneath the Moors and Darker Places)
• Beneath the Moors
• David's Worm
• The Fairground Horror
• The Second Wish - [Cthulhu Mythos]
• Big "C"
• Dagon's Bell
• The Sun, the Sea, and the Silent Scream
• A Thing About Cars
• Rising with Surtsey - [Cthulhu Mythos]

Two amazing science fiction adventures by bestselling author L. E. Modesitt, Jr.!

Haze

What lies beneath the millions of orbiting nanotech satellites that shroud the world called Haze?

Major Keir Roget's mission reveals a culture on Haze seemingly familiar, yet frighteningly alien. But he isn't certain how much of what he sees is real--or how to convey a danger he cannot even prove to his superiors, if he can escape Haze.

The Hammer of Darkness

Martin Martel is an exile in trouble with the gods.

"You know about the gods, Martel. The ones like Apollo who can kill with a gesture, manipulate your feelings with a song, throw thunderbolts if they feel like it..."

Are the gods really gods? Or men and women with larger-than-life powers playing god over a planet that wasn't really a planet?

Whatever the answer, Martin Martel must battle the gods for his life, love, and the fate of the galaxy.

Martin Martel is an exile in trouble with the gods.

After finding out that he has unusual powers, he is banished from the planet Karnak. Martin is thrust into the tranquil world of Aurore, vacation paradise for the galaxy. There he finds that the reality of Aurore is much different from its serene veneer. The gods are wantonly cruel and indifferent to the chaos they cause: are they really gods or just men and woman with larger-than-life powers? Whatever the answer Martin Martel must challenge their supremacy to defend his life, love, and the fate of all mankind.

This novella was first published in Uncanny Magazine, September/October 2023.

Read the full story for free at the publisher's website here.

In the near future, disease will be a condition of the past. Most genetic defects will be removed at birth; the remaining during infancy. Unfortunately, there will be a generation left behind. For members of that missed generation, small advances will be made. Through various programs, they will be taught to get along in the world despite their differences. They will be made active and contributing members of society. But they will never be normal.

Lou Arrendale is a member of that lost generation, born at the wrong time to reap the awards of medical science. Part of a small group of high-functioning autistic adults, he has a steady job with a pharmaceutical company, a car, friends, and a passion for fencing. Aside from his annual visits to his counselor, he lives a low-key, independent life. He has learned to shake hands and make eye contact. He has taught himself to use "please" and "thank you" and other conventions of conversation because he knows it makes others comfortable. He does his best to be as normal as possible and not to draw attention to himself.

But then his quiet life comes under attack. It starts with an experimental treatment that will reverse the effects of autism in adults. With this treatment Lou would think and act and be just like everyone else. But if he was suddenly free of autism, would he still be himself? Would he still love the same classical music–with its complications and resolutions? Would he still see the same colors and patterns in the world–shades and hues that others cannot see? Most importantly, would he still love Marjory, a woman who may never be able to reciprocate his feelings? Would it be easier for her to return the love of a "normal"?

There are intense pressures coming from the world around him–including an angry supervisor who wants to cut costs by sacrificing the supports necessary to employ autistic workers. Perhaps even more disturbing are the barrage of questions within himself. For Lou must decide if he should submit to a surgery that might completely change the way he views the world... and the very essence of who he is.

Thoughtful, provocative, poignant, unforgettable, The Speed of Dark is a gripping exploration into the mind of an autistic person as he struggles with profound questions of humanity and matters of the heart.

In 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus.

Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects--a pig--develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.

These selected terrors range from the speculative to supernatural horror, encompass the infernal and the occult, and include stories inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Aickman and Ramsey Campbell.

Hasty for the Dark is the second short story collection from the award-winning and widely appreciated British writer of horror fiction, Adam L. G. Nevill. The author's best horror stories from 2009 to 2015 are collected here for the first time.

The hardest journeys in life and death are taken underground.
No blackmail is as ghastly as extortion from angels.
A swift reckoning often travels in handheld luggage.
Once considered inhumane and now derelict, this zoo may not be as empty as assumed.
A bad marriage, a killer couple, and part of a wider movement.
No sign of life aboard an abandoned freighter, but what is left below deck tells a strange story.
The origin of our species is not what we think.
In destitution, the future for revolution and mass murder is so bright.
Your memories may not be your own, and your life nothing more than a ritual that will compel you to perform an atrocity...

Table of Contents:

• On All London Underground Lines - (2010) - short fiction
• The Angels of London - (2013) - novelette
• Always in Our Hearts - (2013) - short fiction
• Eumenides (The Benevolent Ladies) - (2017) - short story
• The Days of Our Lives - (2016) - short story
• Hippocampus - (2015) - short story
• Call the Name - (2015) - short fiction
• White Light, White Heat - (2016) - short fiction
• Little Black Lamb - (2017) - short story

In this gripping sci-fi noir for fans of The Martian and Quentin Tarantino, when an anarchic android begins wreaking havoc on a moon-based penal colony and bodies start turning up, an exiled detective must decide who he can trust in a city of criminals.

Never bang your head against a wall. Bang someone else's.

Purgatory is the lawless moon colony of eccentric billionaire, Fletcher Brass and mecca for war criminals, murderers, and curious tourists alike. You can't find better drugs, cheaper plastic surgery, or a more ominous travel advisory anywhere in the universe. But trouble is brewing in Brass's black-market heaven. When an exiled cop comes to enact law and order in this wild new frontier, he finds himself the lead investigator in a series of high-profile murders that puts him toe to toe with the city's charismatic founder and his equally ambitious daughter.

Meanwhile, 2000 km away a memory-wiped android, Leonardo Black rampages across the lunar surface. Programmed with only the notorious "Brass Code"--a compendium of corporate laws that would make Ayn Rand blush--he journeys across the dark side of the moon with only one goal in mind: find Purgatory and conquer it.

This novelette originally appeared in Lightspeed, Issue 109, June 2019.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

The Dark Net is real. An anonymous and often criminal arena that exists in the secret, far reaches of the Web, some use it to manage Bitcoins, pirate movies and music, or traffic in drugs and stolen goods. And now, an ancient darkness is gathering there as well. These demons are threatening to spread virally into the real world unless they can be stopped by members of a ragtag crew:

Twelve-year-old Hannah, who has been fitted with the Mirage, a high-tech visual prosthetic to combat her blindness, wonders why she sees shadows surrounding some people.

A technophobic journalist named Lela has stumbled upon a story nobody wants her to uncover.

Mike Juniper — a one-time child evangelist who suffers from personal and literal demons — has an arsenal of weapons stored in the basement of the homeless shelter he runs.

And Derek, a hacker with a cause, believes himself a soldier of the Internet, part of a cyber army akin to Anonymous.

They have no idea what the Dark Net really contains.

Liska knows that magic is monstrous, and its practitioners are monsters. She has done everything possible to suppress her own magic, to disastrous consequences. Desperate to be free of it, Liska flees her small village and delves into the dangerous, demon-inhabited spirit-wood to steal a mythical fern flower. If she plucks it, she can use its one wish to banish her powers. Everyone who has sought the fern flower has fallen prey to unknown horrors, so when Liska is caught by the demon warden of the wood - called The Leszy - a bargain seems better than death: one year of servitude in exchange for the fern flower and its wish.

Whisked away to The Leszy's crumbling manor, Liska soon makes an unsettling discovery: she is not the first person to strike this bargain, and all her predecessors have mysteriously vanished. If Liska wants to survive the year and return home, she must unravel her taciturn host's spool of secrets and face the ghosts - figurative and literal - of his past. Because something wakes in the woods, something deadly and without mercy. It frightens even The Leszy... and cannot be defeated unless Liska embraces the monster she's always feared becoming.

In a digital laboratory on the shores of Puget Sound, a band of virtual-reality researchers races to complete the Cavern, an empty white room that can become a jungle, a painting, or a vast Byzantine cathedral. In a war-torn Mediterranean city, an American is held hostage, chained to a radiator in another empty white room. What can possibly join these two remote places? Only the shared imagination, a room that these people unwittingly build in common, where they are all about to meet.

Adie Klarpol, a skilled but disillusioned artist, comes back to life, revived by the thrill of working with cutting-edge technology. Against the collapse of Cold War empires and the fall of the Berlin Wall, she retreats dangerously into the cyber-realities she has been hired to create. On the other side of the globe, Taimur Martin, an English teacher recovering from a failed love affair, is picked up off the streets in Beirut by Islamic fundamentalists and held in solitary captivity.

What does the famous Herzwesten beer have to do with saving the entire western world from the invading Turkish armies? Brian Duffy, aging soldier of fortune, is the only man who can rescue the world from evil--if only he can figure out why the beer was so important to a mysterious old man called the Fisher King, and why his dreams are plagued with images of a sword and an arm rising from a lake . . .

DOM SALABOS HAD A LOT OF ADVANTAGES

As heir to a huge fortune, he had an excellent robot servant (with Man-Friday subcircuitry), a planet (the First Syrian Bank) as godfather, a security chief who even ran checks on himself, and on Dom's home world even death was not always fatal.

Why, then, in an age when prediction was a science, was his future in doubt?

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Boris Karloff
• The Test - (1920) - shortstory by Maurice Level
• "John Gladwin Says..." - (1928) - shortstory by Oliver Onions
• The Black Pool - (1917) - novelette by Frederick Stuart Greene
• The Scoop - shortstory by Leonora Gregory
• Femme et Chatte - poem by Paul Verlaine
• The Hanging of Alfred Wadham - (1928) - shortstory by E. F. Benson
• The Departure - (1937) - shortstory by Selma Robinson
• The Adventure of Second Lieutenant Bubnov - (1916) - shortstory by Ivan Turgenev
• In the Wheat - (1920) - shortstory by Maurice Level
• The Madman - shortstory by Guy de Maupassant
• The Storm - (1944) - shortstory by McKnight Malmar
• L'Amour après la Mort - (1884) - shortstory by Lafcadio Hearn
• Rizpah - (1895) - poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson
• One Who Saw - (1931) - shortstory by A. M. Burrage
• My Favorite Murder - (1888) - shortstory by Ambrose Bierce
• The Grove of Ashtaroth - (1910) - novelette by John Buchan
• The Case of Lady Sannox - (1893) - shortstory by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Black Godmother - (1912) - shortfiction by John Galsworthy
• The Stranger - (1927) - shortstory by Algernon Blackwood
• The Panelled Room - (1933) - shortstory by August Derleth
• The Mask - shortstory by F. Tennyson Jesse
• Richard Cory - poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson
• The Witness - (1910) - shortstory by Violet Hunt
• The Caged White Werewolf of the Saraban (excerpt) - shortfiction by William B. Seabrook
• Footsteps - shortstory by Eileen Verrinder
• The Island - (1924) - shortstory by L. P. Hartley
• The Red Lodge - shortstory by H. Russell Wakefield
• The Cyprian Cat - (1933) - shortstory by Dorothy L. Sayers
• An Official Position - shortstory by W. Somerset Maugham
• The Garden of Proserpine - poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
• Little Louise Roque - novelette by Guy de Maupassant
• The Sutor of Selkirk - (1937) - shortstory by uncredited
• The Idol with Hands of Clay - (1923) - shortstory by Sir Frederick Treves
• Another American Tragedy - (1940) - shortstory by John Collier
• The Razor of Pedro Dutel - (1917) - shortstory by Richard Matthews Hallet
• The Crucifixion of the Outcast - shortstory by William Butler Yeats
• Ulalume - (1847) - poem by Edgar Allan Poe
• Where Their Fire Is Not Quenched - (1922) - novelette by May Sinclair
• The Ghost - (1926) - shortstory by Richard Hughes
• Jenshih, or The Fox Lady - shortstory by Shen Chi-chi
• Three O'Clock - novelette by Cornell Woolrich
• The Mortal - (1926) - shortstory by Oliver Onions
• The Listeners - (1911) - poem by Walter de la Mare
• The Well - (1902) - shortstory by W. W. Jacobs
• The Horrible God - (1934) - shortstory by Thomas Burke
• Mrs. Adis - (1934) - shortstory by Sheila Kaye-Smith
• Telling - (1927) - shortstory by Elizabeth Bowen
• The Death of the Poor - poem by Charles P. Baudelaire
• A Maniac - (1920) - shortstory by Maurice Level
• An Illusion in Red and White - (1900) - shortstory by Stephen Crane
• A Modest Proposal - (1729) - essay by Jonathan Swift
• The Chaser - (1940) - shortstory by John Collier
• Where the Tides Ebb and Flow - (1908) - shortstory by Lord Dunsany
• My Last Duchess - (1842) - poem by Robert Browning
• Out of the Deep - (1923) - novelette by Walter de la Mare
• Perchance to Dream - (1930) - shortstory by Michael Joyce
• The Empty House - (1920) - shortstory by Maurice Level
• Browdean Farm - (1927) - shortstory by A. M. Burrage
• Breakdown - (1929) - novelette by L. A. G. Strong
• The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan - (1932) - shortstory by Clark Ashton Smith
• The Angelus - (1935) - shortstory by William Younger
• Song of the Shirt - poem by Tom Hood
• The Silver Mask - (1932) - shortstory by Hugh Walpole
• The Viy - (1835) - novelette by Nikolai Gogol
• Death - shortfiction by Dorothy Richardson
• Prospice - poem by Robert Browning
• The Woman's Ghost Story - (1907) - shortstory by Algernon Blackwood
• The Brute - (1906) - shortstory by Joseph Conrad
• The Thing on the Doorstep - (1937) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft

They used to say that no one could blend mystery and science fiction, but that theory was dashed decades ago with the publication of Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man and Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel. Since then, the two fields have crossbred, producing sf mysteries in every style, from locked-room to noir. We at the SFBC especially love the Chandler-esque tales, whose hard-bitten sleuths stalk crime down the dark alleys of space. So we jumped at Mike Resnick's suggestion that we do a book called Down these Dark Spaceways, featuring six original novellas exclusive to the Club. These stories have never been published anywhere else, and each one is written by a top-notch writer who shares our passion for a good sf mystery.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Mike Resnick
• Guardian Angel - novella by Mike Resnick
• In the Quake Zone - novella by David Gerrold
• The City of Cries - novella by Catherine Asaro
• Camouflage - novella by Robert Reed
• The Big Downtown - novella by Jack McDevitt
• Identity Theft - novella by Robert J. Sawyer

For 2,000 years, the starship Astron has search the galaxy for alien life - without success. Now, just as the ship is falling apart, the only direction left to explore is across the Dark, a 100-generation journey through empty space.The ship's captain - immortal, obessed - refuses to abandon the quest. He will cross the Dark, or destroy the ship trying.

Only Sparrow, a young crewman uncertain of his own past, can stand against the captain, and against the lure and challenge of the dark beyond the stars....

En route to their honeymoon in the Scottish Highlands, Paul and Carol Wilson lose their way in an unseasonable blizzard and are forced to take shelter in remote Ardvreck House.

But this sprawling, dilapidated Victorian mansion, with its reputation as the scene of violent unsolved mysteries, is also playing host to an eclectic and mysterious group of people who are engaged in a bizarre experiment. It soon becomes clear that even more threatening than the worsening storm outside are the dangers within: The Wilsons and the rest of the assembled company may not survive their stay, as Ardvreck House, home to a century-old evil, refuses to give up its long-buried secret - the devil in the darkness.

Renowned professor of astronomy Archie Roy was also a prominent researcher in the field of the paranormal. Drawing heavily on his own experience and investigations, Devil in the Darkness (1978) is a chilling haunted house story in the tradition of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and Richard Matheson's Hell House. This new edition makes Roy's sixth novel available in America for the first time and includes a new introduction by Greg Gbur.

escorted from prison under heavy guard, murderous psychopath Frank Snow is scheduled for an emergency brain scan at Tanglewood Memorial Hospital, an institution that is closing its doors after one final night of operation. But Snow has something far more terrifying planned. And once the lights go out, a fiendish game of hide-and-seek begins.

Alone in the dark with a homicidal madman who knows their fears, their secrets, and their every move, MRI technician Mike Huges, his wife and child, and the other unlucky souls trapped in the hospital have no choice but to duel with the devil incarnate. If they play by their stalker's twisted rules, some of them might just survive. But there's more to Frank Snow than the naked eye can see... or the sane mind can bear.

A thousand years in the future, the earth has been conquered by an alien race and covered by a single sea. Dovirr Stargan, who is disgusted with the servility of his life on the floating city of Vythain, longs to become one of the Sea-Lords, who roam the sea as powerful protectors of the cities. Dovirr gets his wish, but the return of the alien race brings unexpected and critically dangerous crises to his new life as he learns the real, sometimes terrible, significance of power.

Not just any fantasy, horror, and science fiction author could impress H. P. Lovecraft into calling him “unexcelled by any other writer, dead or living” or compel Fritz Lieber to employ the worthy term sui generis. Clark Ashton Smith—autodidact, prolific poet, amateur philosopher, bizarre sculptor, and unmatched storyteller—simply wrote like no one else, before or since. This new collection of his very best tales and poems is selected and introduced by supernatural literature scholar S. T. Joshi and allows readers to encounter Smith’s visionary brand of fantastical, phantasmagorical worlds, each one filled with invention, terror, and a superlative sense of metaphysical wonder.

Contents:

• ix - Introduction (The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies) - (2014) - essay by S. T. Joshi
• 3 - The Tale of Satampra Zeiros - [Satampra Zeiros] - (1931) - short story
• 16 - The Last Incantation - [Malygris] - (1930) - short story
• 21 - The Devotee of Evil - (1933) - short story
• 34 - The Uncharted Isle - (1930) - short story
• 45 - The Face by the River - (2004) - short story
• 52 - The City of the Singing Flame - (1940) - novelette
• 70 - The Holiness of Azédarac - [Averoigne] - (1933) - novelette
• 91 - The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis - [Mars (Clark Ashton Smith)] - (1932) - novelette
• 112 - Ubbo-Sathla - [Hyperborea] - (1933) - short story
• 120 - The Double Shadow - [Poseidonis] - (1933) - short story
• 133 - The Maze of the Enchanter - [Maal Dweb] - (1933) - short story (variant of The Maze of Maal Dweb)
• 149 - Genius Loci - (1933) - short story
• 167 - The Dark Eidolon - [Zothique] - (1935) - novelette
• 195 - The Weaver in the Vault - [Zothique] - (1934) - short story
• 208 - Xeethra - [Zothique] - (1934) - novelette
• 229 - The Treader of the Dust - (1935) - short story
• 238 - Mother of Toads - [Averoigne] - (1938) - short story
• 247 - Phoenix - (1954) - short story
• 261 - The Image of Bronze and the Image of Iron - (1965) - poem
• 262 - The Memnons of the Night - (1917) - poem
• 263 - The Demon, the Angel, and Beauty - (1922) - poem
• 264 - The Corpse and the Skeleton - (1965) - poem
• 266 - A Dream of Lethe - (1922) - poem
• 268 - Ennui - (1918) - poem
• 270 - The Litany of the Seven Kisses - (1922) - poem
• 271 - In Cocaigne - (1922) - poem
• 272 - The Flower-Devil - (1922) - poem
• 273 - The Shadows - (1922) - poem
• 274 - The Passing of Aphrodite - [Prose Pastels - 5] - (1934) - poem
• 276 - To the Daemon - [Prose Pastels - 6] - (1943) - poem
• 277 - The Abomination of Desolation - (1938) - poem
• 278 - The Mirror in the Hall of Ebony - [Prose Pastels - 2] - (1934) - poem
• 279 - The Touch-Stone - (1988) - poem (variant of The Touchstone 1965)
• 280 - The Muse of Hyperborea - [Prose Pastels - 3] - (1934) - poem
• 283 - The Last Night - (1912) - poem
• 283 - Ode to the Abyss - (1912) - poem
• 285 - A Dream of Beauty - (1911) - poem
• 286 - The Star-Treader - (1912) - poem
• 290 - Retrospect and Forecast - (1912) - poem
• 290 - Nero - (1912) - poem
• 293 - To the Daemon Sublimity - (1961) - poem (variant of To the Daemon of Sublimity)
• 293 - Averted Malefice - (1912) - poem
• 294 - The Eldritch Dark - (1912) - poem
• 294 - Shadow of Nightmare - (1912) - poem
• 295 - Satan Unrepentant - (1918) - poem
• 297 - The Ghoul - poem
• 298 - Desire of Vastness - (1922) - poem
• 298 - The Medusa of Despair - (1913) - poem
• 299 - The Refuge of Beauty - (1918) - poem
• 299 - The Harlot of the World - (1915) - poem
• 300 - Memnon at Midnight - (1918) - poem
• 300 - Love Malevolent - (1922) - poem
• 301 - The Crucifixion of Eros - (1918) - poem
• 302 - The Tears of Lilith - (1922) - poem
• 302 - Requiescat in Pace - (1920) - poem
• 303 - The Motes - (1922) - poem
• 304 - The Hashish-Eater: or, The Apocalypse of Evil - (1922) - poem
• 319 - A Psalm to the Best Beloved - (1922) - poem
• 320 - The Witch with Eyes of Amber - (1923) - poem
• 320 - We Shall Meet - (1923) - poem
• 322 - On Re-Reading Baudelaire - (1971) - poem (variant of On Reading Baudelaire 1923)
• 322 - To George Sterling: A Validation - poem
• 324 - Anterior Life - poem
• 325 - Hymn to Beauty - poem
• 326 - The Remorse of the Dead - poem
• 326 - Exorcism - (1971) - poem
• 327 - Nyctalops - (1929) - poem
• 328 - Outlanders - (1937) - poem
• 329 - Song of the Necromancer - (1937) - poem
• 330 - To Howard Philips Lovecraft - poem
• 331 - Madrigal of Memory - (1942) - poem
• 332 - The Old Wheel-Whell - poem
• 333 - The Hill of Dionysus - (1961) - poem
• 334 - If Winter Remain - (1971) - poem
• 335 - Amithaine - (1951) - poem
• 336 - Cycles - (1963) - poem
• 339 - Explanatory Notes (The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies) - essay by S. T. Joshi

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Lord of the Fantastic: Stories in Honor of Roger Zelazny (1998), edited by Martin H. Greenberg, and was reprinted in Clarkesworld Magazine, #94 July 2014. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixteenth Annual Collection (1999), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Dangerous Games (2007), edited by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann. The story is included in the collection The Ocean and All Its Devices (2006).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Table of Contents:

• Fire From the Wine-Dark Sea
• The Thirteenth Utopia
• A Child of Earth and Starry Heaven
• Somtow Sucharitkul: Interview I (interview of S. P. Somtow by Darrell Schweitzer)
• Kith of Infinity (poem)
• Sunsteps
• Aquila the God
• Comets and Kings
• Angels' Wings
• Messenger (poem)
• Meeting in Milan Cathedral (poem)
• On an Unfinished Pieta of Michelangelo (poem)
• Dear Caressa or This Towering Torment
• Absent Thee from Felicity Awhile...
• The What March? (essay)
• The Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine March (essay)
• Darktouch
• Coaster Time
• The Four Dragons and the Dying King (poem)
• The Last Line of the Haiku
• Somtow Sucharitkul: Interview II (interview of S. P. Somtow by Bob Halliday)
• Afterword: In Defense of Ozymandias

Pioneering science fiction writer Alice Sheldon, who found fame using the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr., among others, left behind a remarkable body of short fiction, much of it uncollected or out of print. Now The Voice That Murmurs in the Darkness, co-edited by Jeffrey D. Smith and two-time Booker Prize nominee Karen Joy Fowler, brings new light to some of Tiptree's best and overlooked stories.

The stories represented span Tiptree's career, and were primarily selected from a list made by Sheldon which she called "the cream of Tiptree," none of which were included in Her Smoke Rose Up Forever. With a title drawn from Sheldon's description of Tiptree as "the voice that murmurs in the darkness," among the wonders featured here are...

In "Excursion Fare," Dag and Philippa are about to be lost at sea in the wreckage of their balloon Sky-Walker, their grand adventure a failure, when a hospice ship called Charon rescues them, and they find themselves on a cruise exclusively for the dying--which may be carrying far stranger passengers. A surreal evening ensues

in "The Man Doors Said Hello To," when a tall man enters a bar, carrying miniature girls as tenants in his pockets, and takes the narrator with him on a strange rescue mission through secrets hiding in the corners and ledges of the city.

At nineteen, Jolyone Schram cries out in "Time-Sharing Angel," despairing when she glimpses a vision of overpopulation and resulting planetary devastation, only to be heard by an interstellar angel who produces a shocking, simple fix that affects children across Earth and changes the future.

And, in "Yanqui Doodle," a soldier undergoes a harrowing detox treatment from specialized drugs given to soothe the conscience during combat--a process that might itself be as painful as the memories of atrocities committed under their influence--and grows ever more unstable.

The Voice That Murmurs in the Darkness encompasses thirteen exceptional stories and one essay ("How to Have an Absolutely Hilarious Heart Attack"), covering the years 1968 to 1987, and includes an exclusive introduction from Karen Joy Fowler. Throughout this landmark new collection is Tiptree's remarkable prose, shot through with invention and big ideas, exploring classic themes of identity, politics, what it is to be human, and the miraculous oddity of life--from what lies inside us out to the very edges of the universe.

Contents:

• 7 - Introduction (The Voice That Murmurs in the Darkness) - (2023) - essay by Karen Joy Fowler
• 11 - Excursion Fare - (1981) - novelette
• 59 - The Snows Are Melted, the Snows Are Gone - (1969) - short story
• 73 - The Psychologist Who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats - (1976) - novelette
• 101 - Fault - (1968) - short story
• 109 - All the Kinds of Yes - (1972) - novelette
• 131 - The Man Doors Said Hello to - (1970) - short story
• 139 - Beam Us Home - (1969) - short story
• 155 - The Only Neat Thing to Do - [Rift] - (1985) - novella
• 215 - Time-Sharing Angel - (1977) - short story
• 229 - How to Have an Absolutely Hilarious Heart Attack - (2023) - essay
• 239 - What Came Ashore at Lirios - [Quintana Roo] - (1981) - novelette (variant of Lirios: A Tale of the Quintana Roo)
• 269 - Yanqui Doodle - (1987) - novelette
• 309 - Out of the Everywhere - (1981) - novelette
• 351 - In Midst of Life - (1987) - short story

This novel chronicles the future destruction and eventual rebirth of human civilization. It is linked to the future world of both Beloved Son and Drowning Towers, as well as others of his works.

About a hundred years in the future, two men, one of them a policeman, are investigating a death involving a large international genetic engineering corporation. They become bothersome to the corporate owners and are taken out of action not by being killed but by being put to sleep for hundreds of years. But this may be a fate worse than death. They awaken to a distant future in which contemporary industrial civilization has been "cleansed" from the earth and what humanity survives is learning to live a very low-technology lifestyle, being bred eugenically to this life.

The cleansing was done on purpose, an international plot by the rich and powerful who in fact rule the world - and who, in this distant future, are dying off.

This is a complex and morally tortuous vision, and Turner's characters find it nearly impossible to adapt without killing someone, perhaps even themselves.

A murder on the high seas. A remarkable detective duo. A demon who may or may not exist.

It's 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Travelling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent.

But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. A twice-dead leper stalks the decks. Strange symbols appear on the sails. Livestock is slaughtered. Anyone could be to blame. Even a demon.

And then three passengers are marked for death, including Samuel.

With Pipps imprisoned, only Arent can solve a mystery that connects every passenger. A mystery that stretches back into their past and now threatens to sink the ship, killing everybody on board.

Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle is the fabulous tale of Simbi, a rich and beautiful girl with a wonderful singing voice. She tires of her comfortable lifestyle, and decides that she must come to know poverty and punishment. The story tells, with terrifying imagination and comic invention, of how she achieves this experience and how, in the end, she escapes from it.

This novelette was originally published in Apex Magazine in January 2017.

Read this story for free at Apex Magazine.

AN ALL-NEW COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY CONSTRUCTED WORLDS IN ALL OF FICTION

Stephen King's bestselling multi-volume Dark Tower series is the author's most inspired and imaginative creation. The story of Roland Deschain of Gilead, the last gunslinger, and his lifelong quest to reach the tower and save humanity across infinite parallel worlds is one that has consumed King throughout his career as characters and concepts crossed back and forth between the series and the rest of his fictional universe. The mythos continues to be chronicled and expanded in graphic novels overseen by King, interactive adventures on his website, a proposed film adaptation, and in a new Dark Tower novel.

The Dark Tower Companion is the ultimate compendium to King's evolving magnum opus, presenting the mythology, history, and geography of this epic fantasy that has captivated generations of readers. Featuring interviews with Stephen King, Ron Howard, Dark Tower expert Robin Furth and others, Bev Vincent reveals The Dark Tower's influential literary origins, examines its connections to the vast majority of King's other novels, explores the expanded universe, catalogs the major characters, locations and concepts, and includes a travel guide to the story's real-world locations, giving fans who have followed Roland's journey--or those who are discovering it for the first time--a fascinating overview of the series and an inside look at the creative process of one of the world's most popular authors.

In 1970, Stephen King embarked on what would become the crowning achievement in his literary career- The Dark Tower. The seven-volume series, written and published over a period of 30 years, was inspired by Robert Browning's poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," as well as J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and the spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone.

With the full cooperation of Stephen King himself, The Road to the Dark Tower examines the epic journey of the author to complete a story that threatened to overwhelm him. In this indispensable companion, Bev Vincent presents a book-by-book analysis of each volume in the series, tracing the Dark Tower's connections to King's other novels including The Stand, Insomnia, and Hearts in Atlantis, and offering insights from the author about the creative process involved in crafting his lifelong work-a work that has consumed not only Stephen King, but his legion of devoted readers. This is essential reading for any Dark Tower-or Stephen King-fan.

Jayce's twenty-year-old daughter Emory is missing, lost in a dark, dangerous realm called Shadow that exists alongside our own reality. An enigmatic woman named Nicola guides Jayce through this bizarre world, and together they search for Emory, facing deadly dog-eaters, crazed killers, homicidal sex toys, and - worst of all - a monstrous being known as the Harvest Man. But no matter what Shadow throws at him, Jayce won't stop. He'll do whatever it takes to find his daughter, even if it means becoming a worse monster than the things that are trying to stop him.

Patricia is in love with Nicholas Devine who suddenly undergoes a mysterious change and becomes cold and calculating. Frightened by this, Patricia consults a psychologist, Dr. Carl Horker, to try and figure out what has happened..."

Giant jellyfish aliens invade Earth. The story follows one man as he attempts to find a weapon from the invaders themselves that will allow humanity to destroy them, and take back their lands.

A photographer's obsession with an unsettled subject exposes two friends to a darkness that won't be contained by frames...

This story was originally published on Tor.com's Reactor on 15 March 2023. Read it for free at Tor.com

A world's death cry! The space-distress call had sent Aaron Denton racing to his home planet of St. Paul. Yet long before he reached that sector of space, his world had died. Some had escaped the cataclysm that destroyed so many innocent lives. Some were the ruthless killers who had cold-bloodedly slain helpless women and children to insure their own places aboard the few spaceworthy ships left on St. Paul. Now Aaron had no qualms about using any means - inside the law or out - to track down and claim vengeance on their leader, the man who had give the order to fire and then abandoned St. Paul and its people to a terrifying doom.

Contents:

• ii - Black Pockets (frontispiece) - (2005) - interior artwork by Bob Eggleton
• xi - Foreword (Black Pockets and Other Dark Thoughts) - essay by Howard Waldrop
• 5 - Jumper - (1988) - shortstory
• 15 - The Wish in the Fear - (1995) - shortstory
• 30 - Hell Just Over the Hill - (1996) - shortstory
• 38 - The Alternate - (2006) - shortstory
• 45 - Earth Around His Bones - (2006) - shortstory
• 48 - Fire of Spring - (1981) - shortstory
• 55 - First Love, First Fear - (1972) - shortstory
• 64 - Passing Nights - (1994) - shortstory
• 67 - Takes You Back - (2003) - shortstory
• 85 - I Walked With Fidel - (1992) - shortstory
• 96 - General Jaruzelski at the Zoo - (1987) - shortstory
• 102 - The Soft Terrible Music - (1996) - shortstory
• 114 - My First World - (2004) - novelette
• 153 - Interpose - (1973) - shortstory
• 160 - The Coming of Christ the Joker - (2003) - novelette
• 178 - Nappy - (2004) - shortstory
• 191 - A Piano Full of Dead Spiders - (2005) - shortstory
• 206 - Black Pockets - (2006) - novella
• 261 - Lords of Imagination - (2006) - shortstory
• 267 - Afterword (Black Pockets) - (2006) - essay

Bow Down to Nul

When Earthman Gary Towler is off work, he is a pariah. For his task as chief interpreter for the corrupt and tyrannical nuls makes other humans avoid him as a traitor.

Nor is he trusted by the three-armed mammoth rulers themselves, especially when they learned than an envoy was on the way from their distant planetary headquarters to investigate charges of corruption on Earth. For the leaders realized that Gary knew too much.

When the humans leading the underground rebellion demanded Gary's aid or his life, he was caught between two untrustful forces. And his only way out was to make himself into a one-man third force against two worlds' plotters.

The Dark Destroyers

They brought a new ice age.

When the nanny to the young Darrow boys is found murdered on the outskirts of Blackfield, Charlotte Markham, the recently hired governess, steps in to take over their care. During an outing in the forest, they find themselves crossing over into The Ending, the place for the Things That Cannot Die, where Lily Darrow, the late mistress of Everton, has been waiting. She invites them into the ominous House of Darkling, a wondrous, dangerous place filled with enchantment, mystery and strange creatures that appear to be, but are not quite, human.

However, everything comes with a price, and as Charlotte begins to understand the unspeakable bargain Mrs. Darrow has made for a second chance at motherhood, she uncovers a connection to the sinister occurrences in Blackfield and enters into a deadly game with the master of Darkling, one whose outcome will determine not just the fate of the Darrows, but of the world itself.

Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling is a Victorian gothic tale about family ties, the realm beyond the living, and the price you pay to save those you love.

Alternate Orbits

Collection containing:

• Hall of Fame - (1969) - novelette (variant of The Kinsolving's Planet Irregulars)
• The Sister Ships - novelette (variant of Sister Ships)
• The Man Who Sailed the Sky - novelette
• The Rub - (1970) - novelette

The Dark Dimensions

Strange things happen near the Rim of Space. John Grimes meets John Grimes in a tale from the outside of time and space.

As children, they played the Dark Game.

When Nemo Raglan's father is murdered in one of the most vicious killings of recent years, Nemo must return to the New England island he thought he had escaped for good, Burnley Island...and the shadowy farmhouse called Hawthorn. But this murder was no crime of human ferocity. What butchered Nemo's father may in fact be something far more terrifying...Something Nemo and his younger brother, Bruno, and sister, Brooke, have known since childhood.

There are secrets buried on Burnley Island.

Within the rooms of Hawthorn, beautiful Brooke Raglan has begun to go mad. She sees faces at the windows and wanders the night, trying to find what she believes is a monster.

Bruno Raglan has wiped the memory of a terrible event from his mind. Now he compulsively picks apart Hawthorn and discovers that within its walls lies a forbidden secret.

As he unravels the mysteries of his past and a terrible night of his childhood, Nemo witnesses something unimaginable, and sees the true face of evil while Burnley Island comes to know the unspeakable horror that grows in the darkness.

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

And here comes a chopper to chop off your head."

Michael Cayle, PhD, moves his family into their new home in Ashborough, NH. But Ashbourough has a deep, dark secret . . . and it's living in the woods behind his home.

GATHER, DARKNESS! is a science-fiction classic. It tells the story of Armon Jarles, a man on the edge, living amidst the disputes of two rival powers at large in the world. 360 years after a nuclear holocaust ravaged mankind, throwing society back into the dark ages, the world is fraught with chaos and superstition. The new rulers over the masses of humanity are the techno-priests of the Great God, endowed with scientific knowledge lost to the rest of humanity. Jarles, originally of peasant descent, rises to become a priest of the Great God. He knows the gospel propagated by the priests to be a fraud, based on illusion and trickery. Even more offensive to him is the paucity of true believers among the priesthood. One day he rebels against his priestly training and attempts to incite the peasants to rise up and demand freedom, but they are not ready. Jarles is not the only dissenter trying to sabotage and expose the false theocracy of the priesthood - witchcraft is slowly gaining strength and support among the populace. Although Jarles is unaware, his rebellion against the power of the priests is about to throw him headlong into the middle of the greatest holy war the world has ever seen.

The Winds of Darkover

Dan Barron was a rational and efficient member of the Terran space-force - until nightmare visions drove him from the safety of the trade city into the unmapped heart of the Darkovan mountain ranges. Into an ancient battle that would shape the destiny of more than one world.

The Anything Tree

On Jensen's wold, the Tree is master and man the servant.

Conquerors from the Darkness

A thousand years in the future, the earth has been conquered by an alien race and covered by a single sea. Dovirr Stargan, who is disgusted with the servility of his life on the floating city of Vythain, longs to become one of the Sea-Lords, who roam the sea as powerful protectors of the cities. Dovirr gets his wish, but the return of the alien race brings unexpected and critically dangerous crises to his new life as he learns the real, sometimes terrible, significance of power.

Master of Life and Death

Global overcrowding, a new immortality serum and an unfriendly alien ambassador are only a few of the problems confronting Roy Walton, government's new Master of Life and Death in Robert Silverberg's early and accomplished novel. Praised by a distinguished critic, Anthony Boucher, for "its complete clarity and narrative drive" the novel retains its power today.

Through the Drowsy Dark collects ten stories and nine poems by Nebula- and Hugo-nominee Rachel Swirsky, "a terrific writer who's been making a name for herself with a string of intelligent, perceptive stories," as critic Jonathan Strahan characterizes her. In Through the Drowsy Dark, Swirsky's characters struggle with too much and too little emotional control, with heartbreak, with grief that has gone deep underground; they search for nothingness, for difference, for oneness. One commits a terrible crime because she believes it's the moral thing to do, while another digs up a dead dog because the very thought of kissing it on the lips makes her clitoris throb. Swirsky's explorations of the heart and mind are fearless--and dangerous fictions indeed.

Table of Contents:

• Those Who Wait Through the Drowsy Dark - (2010)
• Heartstrung - (2007)
• Mirror Images - (2008)
• Of Passage - (2010)
• Heat Engine - (2010)
• The Black Angel's Kiss - (2010)
• Detours on the Way to Nothing - (2008)
• Defiled Imagination - (2010)
• The Debt of the Innocent - (2007)
• No Longer You - (2009) by Katherine Sparrow and Rachel Swirsky
• A Season With the Geese - (2007)
• Pomegranate - (2010)
• Remembering the World - (2008)
• Insider Her Heart - (2010)
• The Dream Vacation - (2006)
• The Oracle on River Street - (2007)
• Dear Melody - (2007)
• Invitation to Emerald - (2007)
• The Fate of Hitler's Brain - (2006)

The Darkness Before Tomorrow by Robert Moore Williams. Were all humans their guinea pigs?

The Ladder in the Sky by Keith Woodcott (pseudonym for John Brunner). Black magic or unimaginable super-science?

The Dark Intruder & Other Stories

Collection includes:

• "The Dark Intruder" (Measureless to Man)
• "Jackie Sees a Star"
• "Exiles of Tomorrow"
• "Death Between the Stars"
• "The Crime Therapist"
• "The Stars Are Waiting"
• "Black and White"

Falcons of Narabedla

Two Men in One Body--Two Epochs in Conflict

He woke up to find himself in weird surroundings, guardedcby two strangers, one an old, old man, the other a slim sexless figure hidden completely under long blue veils.

These two called him Adric, a name he instinctively responded to, even though he knew he was Mike Kenscott, radio engineer in a governement laboratory. His rich crimson clothing was unfamiliar and he was shocked by the landscape he saw through the window--mountains bathed in a pinkish light whose source was not one but two brilliant suns.

Panic seized him then. Who were these people? What world was he in? And, most important, whom had he become?

Before Kuroyukihime graduates, Haruyuki makes it his mission to travel to the Castle with Sky Raker and learn the clear conditions of Brain Burst as well as what lies at the pinnacle of the Accelerated World. When they arrive, they are warmly received by the dark silhouette of the dual-bladed swordsman, Graphite Edge! But Haruyuki can't afford to be stopped at this critical juncture. For in addition to finding the answers he seeks, Haruyuki learns that the Castle is home to The Fluctuating Light!

Table of Contents:

• 1 - The Dark Dimensions
• 207 - The Rim Gods

The Dark Talent is the fifth action-packed fantasy adventure in the Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series for young readers by the #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson. This never-before-published, fast-paced, and funny novel is now available in a deluxe hardcover edition, illustrated by Hayley Lazo.

Alcatraz Smedry has successfully defeated the army of Evil Librarians and saved the kingdom of Mokia. Too bad he managed to break the Smedry Talents in the process. Even worse, his father is trying to enact a scheme that could ruin the world, and his friend, Bastille, is in a coma. To revive her, Alcatraz must infiltrate the Highbrary--known as The Library of Congress to Hushlanders--the seat of Evil Librarian power. Without his Talent to draw upon, can Alcatraz figure out a way to save Bastille and defeat the Evil Librarians once and for all?

In The Angel of Darkness, Caleb Carr brings back the vivid world of his bestselling The Alienist but with a twist: this story is told by the former street urchin Stevie Taggert, whose rough life has given him wisdom beyond his years. Thus New York City, and the groundbreaking alienist Dr. Kreizler himself, are seen anew.

It is June 1897. A year has passed since Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, a pioneer in forensic psychiatry, tracked down the brutal serial killer John Beecham with the help of a team of trusted companions and a revolutionary application of the principles of his discipline. Kreizler and his friends--high-living crime reporter John Schuyler Moore; indomitable, derringer-toting Sara Howard; the brilliant (and bickering) detective brothers Marcus and Lucius Isaacson; powerful and compassionate Cyrus Montrose; and Stevie Taggert, the boy Kreizler saved from a life of street crime--have returned to their former pursuits and tried to forget the horror of the Beecham case. But when the distraught wife of a Spanish diplomat begs Sara's aid, the team reunites to help find her kidnapped infant daughter. It is a case fraught with danger, since Spain and the United States are on the verge of war. Their investigation leads the team to a shocking suspect: a woman who appears to the world to be a heroic nurse and a loving mother, but who may in reality be a ruthless murderer of children.

Blind to the fact that he is a pawn in the Drakh's deadly strategy, Centauri prime minister Durla launches an overwhelming blitzkrieg, sending Centauri warships to devastate other races' homeworlds and pave the way for total conquest. Yet Durla is forced to fight a war on two fronts: even as he mobilizes the massive space fleet for its glorious attack, resistance leader Vir Cotto works feverishly to counter the Drakh's evil influence on Centauri Prime.

Emperor Londo Mollari possesses the key that can reveal the presence of the Drakh, but to do so would spell disaster, so he is forced to remain silent. But when the Drakh bring another pawn into play -- David Sheridan, son of Alliance president John Sheridan -- the time for silence may be past. If Vir and the Resistance are to prevail, it will be only through action, and with help from very strange allies...

Belisarius is all that stands between the alien Malwa and the domination of sixth-century Earth. The ruthless supermind that controls the Malwa intends first to rule the world and then to put its stamp upon all eternity. Guided by visions from a future that may never be, Belisarius and his companions must fight their way across Northern India, seeking the heart of the enemy's power. Against them are numbers, savagery and an icy inhuman intelligence that is without weakness or mercy. And Belisarius has another enemy to contend with, closer to home: in Constantinople, his own emperor, Justinian the Great, begins to see him as a threat...

She was old when the world was young. Her image appears in painting from before the Renaissance - but also from the Earth of 3,000 years from now, and from a dozen or more far-flung worlds around the galaxy. Who is she, and what is her secret? It remains for an alien art critic named Leonardo by his human associates to find the answer, and to put himself, his friends, and even some of those worlds at risk in the process.

The wind whines and howls with bitter breath. Lightning snarls and barks. Rage is an animate force upon the plain of glittering stone. Even shadows are afraid. At the heart of the plain stands a vast grey stronghold, unknown, older than any written memory. One ancient tower has collapsed across the fissure. From the heart of the vastness comes a great, deep, slow breath like that of a slumbering world-heart, cracking the olden silence.

Death is eternity. Eternity is stone. Stone is silence. Stone cannot speak, but stone remembers.

So begins the next movement of Glittering Stone.... The tale again comes to us from the pen of Murgen, Annalist and Standard Bearer of the Black Company, whose developing powers of travel through space and time give him a perspective like no other.

Led by the wily commander, Croaker, and the Lady, the Company is working for the Taglian government, but neither the Company nor the Taglians are overflowing with trust for each other. Arrayed against both is a similarly tenuous alliance of sorcerers, including the diabolical Soulcatcher, the psychotic Howler, and a four-year-old child who may be the most powerful of all.

Jaenelle Angelline now reigns as Queen-protector of the Shadow Realm. No longer will the corrupt Blood slaughter her people and defile her lands. But where one chapter ends, a final, unseen battle remains to be written, and Jaenelle must unleash the terrible power that is Witch to destroy her enemies once and for all.Even so, she cannot stand alone. Somewhere, long lost in madness, is Daemon, her promised Consort.

Nowhere is safe. Clare and Dorran scramble to secure their temporary sanctuary from the hungry things outside. The hollow ones, ravenous beings unaffected by the violent winter storms, patiently lie in wait. It's not a matter of if Clare and Dorran are attacked, but when. And Clare knows she'll have to venture out into the night soon...

Somewhere far away, Clare's sister Beth is trapped, with only hours to live. Hundreds of miles separate the sisters and the land between them is infested with monstrosities. There's a bitter deadline to this rescue mission, but Clare won't lose Beth without a fight.

She knows she can't survive the trip by herself. But even with Dorran at her side, can she truly hope to face the ruthless predators and make it to her desperate sister before it's too late? They all may be lost to the dark winter.

A bitter old woman's curse has set in motion events that have felled innocent lives across an already war-weary land. She has paid the ultimate price, and an end to the curse is at hand, but her evil has created chaos and destruction.

Qirsi all across the Southlands are dying from a plague that turns their own magic against them, allowing an Eandi army from Stelpana to boldly march into their territory. But magic has many faces, and the Qirsi aren't the only ones cursed; even as Stelpana's force wins battles, an insidious magic has corrupted the spells of their sorcerers, and what began as a military triumph is suddenly jeopardized. The future of the Southlands hangs in the balance, as the deeds of previous generations wreak terrible consequences on both sides in this misbegotten war.

The ballerina Violette Lenoir has fallen victim to the bite of the vampire Charlotte. Her fire and energy have fuelled a terrifying change and a dreadful realisation; that Violette has become Lilith, the demon mother of all vampires. Haunted by Violette's dark sensuality, Charlotte and her immortal lover Karl are drawn towards the dancer and the terrible destiny that has fallen on her shoulders.But other, far more dangerous shadows are gathering around Violette. She poses a threat to the vampire Sebastian and the heirs of Kristian, and their plans to bring all of mankind under their dark wings.

1927: In the turmoil and glamour of 1920s Europe, vampires Karl, Charlotte and Violette face threats to their very existence. Fiery, handsome dancer Emil achieves his dream to partner the legendary ballerina Violette Lenoir – until his forbidden desire for her becomes an obsession. Rejected, spiralling towards madness, he seeks solace with a mysterious beauty, Leyla. But she too is a vampire, with a hidden agenda.

Is Leyla more dangerous than the sinister activist, Goderich Mann? When Karl and Charlotte undertake an exotic, perilous journey to rescue Emil, they unearth secrets that threaten disaster for vampire-kind.

It's been several months since Lina and Doon escaped the dying city of Ember and, along with the rest of their people, joined the town of Sparks. Now, struggling through the harsh winter aboveground, they find an unusual book. Torn up and missing most of its pages, it alludes to a mysterious device from before the Disaster, which they believe is still in Ember. Together, Lina and Doon must go back underground to retrieve what was lost and bring light to a dark world.

In the fourth Book of Ember, bestselling author Jeanne DuPrau juxtaposes yet another action-packed adventure with powerful themes about hope, learning, and the search for truth.

THE DARK MIRROR is the first book in Juliet Marillier's Bridei Chronicles.

Bridei is a young nobleman fostered at the home of Broichan, one of the most powerful druids in the land. His earliest memories are not of hearth and kin but of this dark stranger who while not unkind is mysterious in his ways. The tasks that he sets Bridei appear to have one goal-to make him a vessel for some distant purpose. What that purpose is Bridei cannot fathom but he trusts the man and is content to learn all he can about the ways of the world.

But something happens that will change Bridei's world forever... and possible wreck all of Broichan's plans. For Bridei finds a child on their doorstep on a bitter MidWinter Eve, a child seemingly abandoned by the fairie folk. It is uncommonly bad luck to have truck with the Fair Folk and all counsel the babe's death. But Bridei sees an old and precious magic at work here and heedless of the danger fights to save the child. Broichan relents but is wary.

The two grow up together and as Bridei comes to manhood he sees the shy girl Tuala blossom into a beautiful woman. Broichan sees the same process and feels only danger... for Tuala could be a key part in Bridei's future... or could spell his doom.

A deadly plague engulfs East Asia - the rest of the world's governments look on callously, until the shadow of the new virus begins to sweep across the globe.

As the pandemic draws nearer to Britain shelters are hastily constructed, but when the death toll rises and the populace finds themselves sacrificed for the sake of the elite, the cry for revolution rings out amidst the sirens.

Charles Eric Maine's subversive novel shows that even the heroes may succumb to brutality as humanity descends into a desperate scramble for survival.

Cassandra Palmer can see the future and communicate with spirits--talents that make her attractive to the dead and the undead. The ghosts of the dead aren't usually dangerous; they just like to talk... a lot.

The undead are another matter.

Like any sensible girl, Cassie tries to avoid vampires. But when the bloodsucking mafioso she escaped three years ago finds Cassie again with vengeance on his mind, she's forced to turn to the vampire Senate for protection.

The undead senators won't help her for nothing, and Cassie finds herself working with one of their most powerful members, a dangerously seductive master vampire--and the price he demands may be more than Cassie is willing to pay....

Although she leads an overprotected life with the two old hags, Lilune knows she possesses a special gift. When she "calls" the musician, Lir, to her prison like castle, she knows she must avail herself of the opportunity to escape and explore the world. But traveling south of the castle, Lilune and Lir realize that they aren't alone - for an ancient, infectious evil accompanies them, which instils terror in everyone they meet. Lir dislikes arrogant Lilune, but finds himself intrigued by her and the source of evil. Is it within Lilune, or does it come from a deeper source? When the pair becomes separated, he carries on searching for her. Finally, Lilune returns to the castle in despair, believing that she must be imprisoned to protect the world from the evil within her. But Lir follows her, and discovers that the root of the evil lies deep beneath the castle...

A.D.30 - A.D.56

Battle, intrigue and Druidism followed to their brutal conclusions in the dark pre-Christian world of the Celts...

Caradoc and Gwydoc, two Celtic princes and rival heirs to the kingdom of the Belgae, a re driven from their lands into Siluria. Caradoc, who becomes the new king, desperately tries to rally the tribes of Britain against the invading Romans. But his real enemy is the slow erosion of the ideals and traditions of his youth.

Gwyndoc, at first loyal to his brother King, feels betrayed, and starts his own campaign to usurp Caradoc and turn the tide of the invaders.

In this starkly realistic and very human novel. Henry Treece explores a period in British history when magic and murder were matter-of-fact and the 'civilising' influence of Rome had yet to make headway against the dark and powerful undertow of the Celtic spirit.

Durandal--the dark sword, cruel instrument of death and affliction. Once she served Roland, and made him invincible on the battlefield. But now Roland is supposed dead. And in a land torn by bloodshed, many a man seeks Durandal's killing force for himself.

Hautville--a name despised throughout the land, for from it sprang evil Lord Ganelon. Now from Hauteville comes a black inhuman sorcery, ancient and unholy. From the magic is born treason in the highest circles of Charlemagne's court--and from treason is hatched a plot...

From the international and instant New York Times bestselling author John Connolly, the beloved and brilliant Charlie Parker series returns with a heart-wrenching crime only one man can solve.

In Maine, Colleen Clark stands accused of the worst crime a mother can the abduction and possible murder of her child. Everyone--ambitious politicians in an election season, hardened police, ordinary folk--has an opinion on the case, and most believe she is guilty.

But most is not all. Defending Colleen is the lawyer Moxie Castin, and working alongside him is the private investigator Charlie Parker, who senses the tale has another twist, one involving a husband too eager to accept his wife's guilt, a group of fascists arming for war, a disgraced psychic seeking redemption, and an old, twisted house deep in the Maine woods, a house that should never have been built.

A house, and what dwells beneath.

A plane carrying both the UK Prime Minister and US President goes missing over the Bermuda Triangle. Chris Godfrey and company investigate and are captured by strange creatures.

A great storm brews out at sea and batters the Devon coast, flooding vast swathes of land. At Wintercombe Abbey the preceding weeks have been spent in a ferment of experimentation, as Jake Wilde's father, David and Maskelyne work furiously on Operation Leah. They have been practising changing tiny events in the past, in preparation for the rescue of Venn's wife Leah from death, the culmination of their work with the Obsidian Mirror. But in the aftermath of the storm, the Abbey is a drowned house. Where is the Mirror? What has happened to the two halves of the Janus coin? Whose is the mysterious boat wrecked up on the nearby beach? And what plans of mischief and mayhem lay in store for Halloween -- the day chosen for Leah's return?

The Great Experiment has failed. The Ten Thousand Year Empire of the Han has lasted less than two centuries and now not a single stack remains of the great city of ice that once covered the habitable earth. Europe is DeVore's, America a brutal dictatorship, while the rest of the globe groans beneath the rule of callous warlords.

Li Yuan, once the most powerful man on earth, is now an exile in America. Sick at heart, he finds himself the unheard voice of experience in a viper's nest of political ambition. Banished to an endless round of tours and banquets, he unexpectedly finds a new role- a role which will once more tie him in to the destiny of Chung Kuo.

For DeVore these are frustrating times. Blockaded in space by the Americans, he must break their cordon or see his own scheme- no less than the seeding of the entire galaxy with his own kind- come to nothing.

And then there is Kim Ward, the Star-Seeker, the spider in the web. Will he leave Chung Kuo to its fate? Or will he turn his great fleet around and return to fight one final battle, winner takes all?

Here at last is a long-hinted-at chapter in the undead existence of the immortal Count Saint-Germain: the story of Ranegonda of Saxony, one of the three great loves of Saint-Germian's life.

937 A.D. The Saxon fortress of Leosan is under the almost unheard-of rule of a woman. The Gerefa of the fortress has become a monk, leaving his sister, Ranegonda, to rule in his name as best she can--and to deal with his embittered, headstrong wife as well. Into this tense and dire situation comes Saint-Germain. Shipwrecked on the Baltic shore, near the true death, he is found by Ranegonda, whom he will come to love for the gift of blood she gives him, and for her own indomitable spirit.

A thrilling new Victorian-era urban fantasy for fans of Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles, the Showtime series Penny Dreadful, and the Sherlock Holmes movies featuring Robert Downey, Jr.

The Crown and Key Society face their most terrifying villain yet: Gaios, a deranged demigod with the power to destroy Britain.

To avenge a centuries-old betrayal, Gaios is hell-bent on summoning the elemental forces of the earth to level London and bury Britain. The Crown and Key Society, a secret league consisting of a magician, an alchemist, and a monster-hunter, is the realm's only hope--and to stop Gaios, they must gather their full strength and come together as a team, or the world will fall apart.

But Simon Archer, the Crown and Key's leader and the last living magician-scribe, has lost his powers. As Gaios searches for the Stone of Scone, which will give him destructive dominion over the land, monster-hunter Malcolm MacFarlane, alchemist extraordinaire Kate Anstruther, gadget geek Penny Carter, and Charlotte the werewolf scramble to reconnect Simon to his magic before the world as they know it is left forever in ruins.

Secrets and betrayals, as the saga of Dark Angel continues!

In a chaotic world where the lines between good and evil often blur, and violent anarchy and brutal repression become commonplace, secrets can be deadly. So when Max discovers a shattering truth that Logan has kept concealed from her for years, the betrayal threatens the very essence of their trust.

Yet when Logan is kidnapped, all questions of truth and loyalty are cast aside. Max's search will lead her to a familiar, menacing enemy--and back into the shadow of the Snake Cult, which waits for her with chilling anticipation.

But the search will also lead her into wholly unexpected territory. Locked in the fight of her life, Max will discover a captive of the cult who can provide her with the one thing that has haunted her ever since she escaped from Manticore....

Omnibus edition collecting together the Path of the Dark Eldar trilogy

For millennia, Asdrubael Vect has ruled the dark city of Commorragh, crushing any who dare to cross him. His reach is long and his position unassailable... or so he thinks. A cabal of rebellious archons, allied with other darker forces, seek to unseat the tyrant and rule the city in his stead. But as their actions bring about a cataclysm and draw the attention of the mysterious Harlequins, they are cast into grave danger... and Vect is watching.

Earth faces final doom from another dimension, and Gavin Black is her only defender! The Gate of Darkness stood open between the worlds, and the men of Earth faced invasion - from Earth! Gavin Black, newsman, ex-soldier, found himself drafted by unseen forces to wage war against that other Earth, and the barbaric hordes that threatened to overwhelm his world. He dared not refuse. But he found a love, a woman from the other world, and now it was impossible for him to NOT refuse!

Gavin Black stands as Earth's only defender against the Masters of the Klekton!

Davi has done this all before. She's tried to be the hero and take down the all-powerful Dark Lord. A hundred times she's rallied humanity and made the final charge. But the time loop always gets her in the end. Sometimes she's killed quickly. Sometimes it takes a while. But she's been defeated every time.

This time? She's done being the hero and done being stuck in this endless time loop. If the Dark Lord always wins, then maybe that's who she needs to be. It's Davi's turn to play on the winning side.

The real invasion is about to begin.

An alien fleet is coming. Elle and her friends are the Hegemony's best chance for fighting back, but they'll need to head straight into enemy territory in order to identify the Darkness' origin.

The Hegemony is out of time... and the war may already be lost before it even starts. The only chance for salvation is the mysterious shard of the Master Crystal, supposedly capable of initiating a universal-scale reset. Except, no one knows what a reset of that magnitude might entail, or if it's possible.

Despite the risks, no step is too extreme in the frantic fight for survival. Elle and her friends must stop the insidious alien menace before every world is consumed.

When the Duke of Bari suddenly dies, the neighboring nation of Algarve, long seething over its defeat a generation ago in the Six Years' War, sees its chance to bring Bari into the fold...an action which the other countries surrounding Algarve cannot, by treaty, tolerate. As nation after nation declares war, a chain of treaties are invoked, ultimately bringing almost all the Powers of Derlavai into a war of unprecedented destructiveness.

For modern magic is deadlier than in ears past. Trained flocks of dragons rain explosive fire down on defenseless cities. Massed infantry race from place to place along a network of ley-lines. Rival powers harness sea leviathans to help sabotage one another's ships. The lights are going out all across Derlavai, and will not come back on in this lifetime.

Against this tapestry Harry Turtledove tells the story of an enormous cast of characters: soldiers and generals, washerwomen and scholars, peasants and diplomats. For all the world, highborn and low, is being plunged by world war...into the darkness.

A young Kaunian girl is forced to remain hidden while her Forthwegian savior braves the rough, Algarvian-controlled streets to earn their keep. The scholars of Kuusamo are no closer to understanding the bloodless magic that may win the war-and time is short. Kuusamo has joined into an unsteady alliance with Lagoas and Unkerlant. No one kingdom trusts another, but they must unite, for it is only together that they can defeat the Algarvian threat.

The war is no longer confined to soldiers and sorcerers. Common folk are joining together to fight from underneath their oppressors, whether they be Algarve or Unkerlant. What those farmer soldiers lack in skill, they make up for in dedication. A dedication that will carry them... through the darkness.

Beginning with Into the Darkness, Darkness Descending, and Through the Darkness, bestselling author Harry Turtledove ("The master of alternative history"-Publishers Weekly) has been telling an epic tale: the story of a world war, comparable to the terrible world wars of our own 20th century, in a world where magic works.

Imagine the drama and terror of the Second World War-only the bullets are beams of magical fire, the tanks are great lumbering beasts, and fighters and bombers are dragons raining fire upon their targets. Welcome to the world of the Derlavaian War, a world that is slowly but surely being conquered, mile by bloody mile, by the forces of the Algarvian empire... forces whose most terrible battle magics are powered by the slaughter of innocent people, the Kaunians, whom Algarve-like much of the world-holds in disdain.

In this, the fourth volume of the series which began with Into the Darkness, the war for the continent of Derlavai builds toward its crescendo as the mages of Kuusamo, aided by their former rivals from Lagoas, work desperately to create a newer form of magic that will change the course of the war. But this is really a story of ordinary people-on all sides of the conflict-forced by fate to rise to their heroic limits... or sink to the level of their darker natures.

Harry Turtledove's rousing saga of a fantastic world at war, which began in Into the Darkness and continued through Darkness Descending, Through the Darkness, Rulers of the Darkness, and Jaws of Darkness, draws to its climactic conclusion in Out of the Darkness.

As the Derlavaian War rages into its last and greatest battles, allied nations maneuver for positions against each other in a postwar world. But before that time can come, the forces of Algarve, Unkerlant, and their allies must clash a final time, countering army with army and battle magic with ever-more-powerful battle magic. In the midst of it all, the people the war has battered and reshaped must struggle to face their greatest individual challenges, as loves are shattered and found, terrible crimes avenged... and some journeys end forever.

And the end of the war may not bring peace...

An all-new collection of twenty-seven original tales by some of the finest authors of contemporary horror includes chilling works by Poppy Z. Brite, Peter Crowther, Edo van Belkom, Richard Laymon, Lucy Taylor, David Niall Wilson, Caitlin R. Kiernan, and other notables. Original.

Take a walk on the dark side

21 all-new horror stories from Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Hodge, Tim Lebbon and more

This fourth collection in the acclaimed series features 15 original horror stories by David Silva, Michael Reaves, Ramsey Campbell, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, John Pelan, Joseph Ezzo, Mark Samuels, David Wilson, Michael Laimo, Tony Richards, Joe Nassise, Paul Melniczek, Maria Alexander, Gerard Houarner, and Jeffrey Thomas.

Sixteen original tales of terror from Lucy Taylor, Brian Hodge, d.g.k. Goldberg, Michael Kelly, Gerard Houarner, Mark Samuels, and ten other talented storytellers in the latest collection of the continuing horror series.

In the enchanted realm of Merilon, magic is life. Born without magical abilities and denied his birthright, Joram is left for dead. Yet he grows to manhood in a remote country village, hiding his lack of powers only through constant vigilance and ever more skillful sleight-of-hand.

Forced to kill a man in self-defense, Joram can keep his secret from the townspeople no longer; he has no magic, no life. Fleeing to the Outlands, Joram joins the outlawed Technologists, who practice the long forbidden arts of science. Here he meets the scholarly catalyst Saryon, who has been sent on a special mission to hunt down a mysterious "dead man" and instead finds himself in a battle of wits and power with a renegade warlock of the dark Duuk-tsarith caste.

Together, Joram and Saryon begin their quest toward a greater destiny - a destiny that begins with the discovery of the secret books that will enable them to overthrow the evil usurper Blackloch... and forge the powerful magic-absorbing Darksword.

Born without magic, Joram was one of the Dead, denied the throne of Merilon. For years, he lived among outlaws, surviving by wit and sleight-of-hand. Now, wielding the powerful, magic absorbing Darksword, Joram retums to the enchanted Kingdom that once was his home to win revenge and claim his birthright. Here he will test Bishop Vanya and his fierce army of Duuk-tsarith in a battle unlike any their world has known. Joined by the scholarly catalyst Saryon, the young mage Mosiah, and the trickster Simkin, Jorma confronts the shattering secret of his past and discovers the ancient prophecy that puts the fate of the world in his hands--the hands that forged the Darksword.

Joram and his wife, Gwendolyn, return from beyond the Border to reclaim their rightful place in Merilon. Rejoined by Saryon, Mosiah and Simkin, Joram must confront the evil sorcerer, Menju, and his army of Technologists in a final apocalyptic battle to fulfill the ancient prophecy of the Darksword--to either save the world.

It is twenty years since the once-magical land of Thimhallan was shattered by the forging of the Darksword. The survivors of that catastrophe now live on Earth, bereft of magic and hope, forbidden to return home.

Only Joram remains behind on the world ravaged by his Darksword. Although the magic weapon has been destroyed--and with it, Joram's power--rumors have risen that Joram has forged a second Darksword.

Now, as a merciless alien race threatens Earth with annihilation, Earth's desperate leaders look to Joram as their only hope. But even as his old friend Saryon begins the perilous journey to seek his aid, the embittered Joram has his own plans for the weapon.

And Joram is not the only one. Soon a new menace looms, foreshadowing betrayal, enslavement, and death to humans and Thimhallans alike.

Returning to one of their best-loved fantasy series, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman bring alive a sweeping tale of intrigue and magic.

A murderous force threatens a far-off magical world, and an ordinary Californian is drawn into the battle to save mankind.

As a student of medieval history, Gil Patterson is a woman familiar with dark stories. She knows well the Crusades, the Black Death, and the other horrors of the Middle Ages, but it is another kind of atrocity that has begun to haunt her dreams. She sees forces of evil assaulting a beleaguered kingdom, whose kind people are on the brink of annihilation, and awakes each morning in a cold sweat.

Gil dismisses the dreams until a wizard appears in her apartment. He has crossed into her dimension, passing through the fraying fabric of the universe, to ask her help. For mankind to survive he must protect an infant prince, whom he plans to hide in Gil's world. The student of history is about to get much closer to evil than she ever imagined.

To protect their world from the savage demon hordes, the Black Sorcerer Pug and Midkemia's clandestine protectors, the Conclave of Shadows, forged an uneasy alliance of formidable magical talents. Together, this brave band of wizards, demon masters, warriors, and elves defeated the brutal Demon King Maarg and turned back the onrushing death tide.

But Maarg's fall has not stopped the demonic onslaught, and danger now looms greater than ever before. Amid the barren ridges of the Valley of Lost Men, in the shadows of an ancient Keshian fortress, the fearsome demon Dahun and the mad necromancer Belasco have joined forces, creating an unstoppable union of deathly black magics that even Pug and a united Conclave may not be strong enough to withstand.

Battling the Demon Legion has taken a heavy blood toll on the valiant and dedicated magician, claiming the lives of nearly all those he loves. Though he is racked by despair and rage, Pug knows that the time for mourning must wait. Putting aside his pain, he and the Conclave and their allies—the cold-blooded master spy Jim Dasher; the fearsome young Knight-Adamant Sandreena; her former lover the necromancer Amirantha; two renegade Star Elves; and Pug's surviving son, Magnus—must marshal their resources against this latest threat. None can forget the dozens of worlds overrun by the demon plague and the millions of dead left behind in their wake. At the gates of darkness, where shadows hide even deeper shadows, these magical defenders will face what is sure to be the bloodiest, nastiest fight their land has ever seen. And as evil, mayhem, and dark magic are unleashed, none can predict if they—and Midkemia itself—will survive.

A hilarious adventure about a fantasy world in danger of destruction from that most vile of threats... tourism .Winner of the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature in 1999.

A humorous fantasy from Diana Wynne Jones. In a world next door to ours, the tourist industry is devastating the population by its desire to experience all the fantasy clichés - Dark Lords, impoverished villages, dragons etc.

The Head of the University resolves to shut the tours down; the only problem being the ruthless tour-master - and his all-powerful demons. To save them all, the incompetent wizard Derk is appointed as Dark Lord in the hope that he will ruin the tours, and sure enough proceeds to fail at everything due to his general uselessness. But can failing at everything lead to a win this time?

When a passenger check-in desk at London's Heathrow Airport disappears in a ball of orange flame, the explosion is deemed an act of God. But which god, wonders holistic detective Dirk Gently? What god would be hanging around Heathrow trying to catch the 3:37 to Oslo? And what has this to do with Dirk's latest--and late-- client, found only this morning with his head revolving atop the hit record "Hot Potato"? Amid the hostile attentions of a stray eagle and the trauma of a very dirty refrigerator, super-sleuth Dirk Gently will once again solve the mysteries of the universe...

"He's one of my own people, Victoria, and he's hunting me."

Darkheart: a faded neutron star surrounded by dead planets. But there is life on one of these icy rocks -- the last enclave of the Earth Empire, frozen in the image of another time. As the rest of the galaxy enjoys the fruits of the fledgling Federation, these isolated imperials, bound to obey a forgotten ideal, harbour a dark obsession.

The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria arrive to find that the Federation has at last come to reintegrate this lost colony, whether they like it or not. But all is not well in the Federation camp: relations and allegiances are changing. The fierce Veltrochni -- angered by the murder of their kinsmen -- have an entirely different agenda. And someone else is manipulating the mission for his own mysterious reasons -- another time traveller, a suave and assured master of his work.

The Doctor must uncover the terrible secret which brought the Empire to this desolate sector, and find the source of the strange power maintaining their society. But can a Time Lord, facing the ultimate temptation, control his own desires?

The Doctor arrives just in time to lend a helping hand to a survey team of scientists drilling beneath the Moon's surface to discover the cause of an unusual power source. The adventure continues with deadly lunar dust and a Crystal that has been lost for centuries... Unfortunately it's just what the Darksmiths have been looking for and they have despatched an Agent to recover it. At any cost.

Convinced that the Doctor is Varlos, the Agent demands the return of the Eternity Crystal. But what happened on Mordane to make the Crystal too dangerous to be left on the Moon? The Doctor has to convince the Agent that he is not Varlos and doesn't know what happened on Mordane, then escape with the TARDIS and find out. The Doctor decides that the Eternity Crystal must be destroyed but before he can the Agent and the Crystal vanish. He has to find the Agent, which leaves the Doctor only one option, and he doesn't like it...

The Doctor travels to Karagula to meet the fabled Darksmiths in a bid to outwit the Agent and get the crystal. Can the Doctor uncover the mystery of the childless village? Who is the travelling Dreams-Merchant? Is there a link with the Dark Cathedral of the Darksmiths? Will the Agent arrive and identify the Doctor to the Darksmiths? Find out by reading the third exciting instalment of "The Darksmith Legacy"!

The Doctor arrives in an underwater base on the planet. Flydon Maxima - known locally as 'Despair' because hope is lost for all life there. The scientific base has for centuries been monitoring the results of planetary warming - the slow melting of the glaciers at the south pole and subsequent rise in sea levels. Curiously their most advanced monitoring equipment was created and donated by Varlos. The Doctor is helped by a little girl called Gisella. Why did Varlos risk coming here? What has caused the ice to crumble so rapidly now? Can the Doctor evade the rampaging Dreadbringers, and sort out the attacking sea monsters? Who is Gisella and will she and the Doctor manage to escape in the TARDIS? Don't miss this thrilling fourth installment of the Darksmith Legacy!

The Doctor decides it's safe to go back in time to find Varlos before he died. From what Gisella recalls of her father's plans, they head for Paris in 1895 where they discover a city in fear. Why will hardly anyone dare venture out after dark? Who is stealing time from their victims? What will the Doctor do when he realises the killer is also after him? Find out by reading the next thrilling adventure in... "The Darksmith Legacy".

The hunter becomes the hunted, as the Doctor tracks the Agent's journey from Paris across the Milky Way towards the Silver Devastation. Where is it heading? What force can destroy the crystal? Where is the robot Agent, and why did it come here? What is the strange and sinister game is taking place in an elegant house in the Home Counties? Find out by reading the next thrilling adventure in "The Darksmith Legacy".

The neutral ground of the usually lush and beautiful Ursulonamex, known as The Planet of Oblivion, is now scorched and charred. This is where the Darksmiths met their clients to discuss the Eternity Plan, but there is no sign of the clients now, nothing to suggest who they were! as though the mysterious clients have made sure of it. The Doctor and Gisella learn from the few survivors of the Rain of Fire, and that the only clues there might be of what happened could be stored in the observation stations in orbit round the planet. Do any of the observation stations still exist? Are the Doctor and Gisella as alone on board as they think? Who are the Dravidian Hive and are they as benign as they seem? What is a Dreadbringer? Find out by reading the next exciting installment of "The Darksmith Legacy!"

The Doctor finds himself on trial before the Shadow Proclamation where the Crystal is legally returned to Gisella. The Doctor is ready to continue his mission until Gisella betrays him, staying with the Darksmiths. But she accidentally reveals where the Darksmiths are meeting their client. The Doctor arrives on the chosen planet, and becomes involved in an adventure involving missing eyes and souls. Will the Doctor solve this mystery and stop the hand over of the Crystal?

The Darksmiths have the Eternity Crystal and are eager to finally fulfil their contract with their mysterious client. The Darksmiths have also reprogrammed Gisella, the robotic 'daughter' of Varlos, who now seems to be working for them. The Doctor learns that the Darksmiths are due to hand over the Crystal to their client as a secret rendezvous on present day Earth. Will the Doctor be able to intercept the transaction in time? Or will the Crystal begin a war that will continue for all eternity?

The Krashoks commissioned the Darksmith Collective to fashion a device that creates life. The Krashoks, after waiting for centuries, have finally had their contract fulfilled. They intend to detonate the Eternity Crystal unless the Doctor can stop them. To make matters worse, Gisella is trapped on board the Krashoks' ship. Can the Doctor save Gisella and destroy the Eternity Crystal once and for all?

Four young men come of age in a time of prophecy and war....

New York Times bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole is a recognized star of military fantasy. The Dark Glory War is a thrilling new tale set in a world threatened by an unstoppable foe....

In the sacred season of the Moon Month, four young men don the masks that herald their coming-of-age celebration, a time of testing, ritual, festival, and romance.

But for Tarrant Hawkins and his friends Leigh, Rounce, and Nay, their first test becomes a desperate struggle for survival. For they will encounter the vanguard of an invasion force poised to overrun their homeland of Oriosa, and all four will find their lives changed forever when they encounter a legendary weapon that brings its wielder invincibility. Yet the magic sword may prove more curse than blessing, signaling the arrival of a cataclysmic battle with ancient foes. And in the face of dire sorceries and terrible battles, these youths will come to manhood... or to death.

A talent for magic runs like fire through the blood of Dalamar Argent. Yet he is only a servant in the house of an elvish lord, not worthy of the High Art of Sorcery and denied all but the most grudging teaching.

As war simmers on the borders of Silvanesti, Dalamar will find a way to learn his art. His quest will take him along dark paths toward an awesome destiny.

The latest title from best-selling author and Dragonlance setting co-creator Margaret Weis, Amber and Ashes takes up where the War of Souls left off with the central character Mina. While following her story, this new trilogy will also explore the chaos that is post-war Krynn. This is Weis's first solo hardcover since the publication of the extremely popular Dragonlance title The Soulforge in 1998.

The world of Krynn is ever changing, and even the gods can be taken by surprise. And if that's true of the gods, what chance can a mere mortal have? Caught up in forces none of them could hope to face alone, a small but determined band of adventurers come together in a desperate attempt to stop an invasion.

Mina, as enigmatic as ever, escapes imprisonment to set off on a quest that will test even her considerable will. All the while, evil spreads across the land, gaining ground with each new day. With so much at stake, with the very soul of Krynn on the line, champions must be found even in the darkest places.

The Dark Disciple's fate will alter the future of Krynn.

In the concluding volume of this post-War of Souls trilogy, Mina learns the truth about herself and the terrible knowledge drives her insane. Rhys, the monk of Majere, accompanied by his dog Atta and the kender Nightshade, is given the dangerous assignment of guarding the crazed god, escorting her on a long, strange journey to the mysterious place known as Godshome, where Mina hopes to find the answer to the riddle of her existence. Their path is fraught with peril, for the undead Beloved want to make Mina their leader, even as the death knight Krell wants to seize her and Galdar tries to deliver Mina to her most hated enemy.

The long-awaited tale of the New York Times best-selling Dragonlance series' greatest villain--Takhisis, Queen of Darkness--follows her as she is worshipped by legions of evil beings and spends her time plotting to escape from the Abyss. Original.

World Fantasy Award-winning anthology

A celebration of Australia's current Golden Age of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and magical realism. Jack Dann the multi-award-winning author and co-editor of the classic Dreaming Down-Under, the anthology that has been credited with putting Australian writing on the international map and the first Australian book to win a World Fantasy Award, has collected a wonderfully eclectic range of short fiction that showcases what our best fantasists are doing right now at this genre-bending moment in time.

Table of Contents:

• Welcome to the Golden Age: An Introduction of Sorts - (2016) - essay by Jack Dann
• Sing, My Murdered Darlings - (2016) - short story by Sean Williams
• Falling Angel - (2016) - short story by Paul Brandon
• Martian Triptych - (2016) - short story by James Bradley
• Northerner's Farewell - (2016) - short story by Rjurik Davidson
• Midnight in the Graffiti Tunnel - (2016) - short story by Terry Dowling
• A Right Pretty Mate - (2016) - short story by Lisa L. Hannett
• Eromon No More - (2016) - short story by Jason Nahrung
• Luv Story - (2016) - short story by Kim Westwood
• The Luminarium Tower - (2016) - short story by Sean McMullen
• Neither Time nor Tears - (2016) - short story by Angela Slatter
• His Shining Day - (2016) - short story by Richard Harland
• The Liquid Palace - (2016) - short story by Adam Browne
• Heat Treatment - (2016) - short story by Venero Armanno
• Snowflakes All the Way Down - (2016) - short story by Rosaleen Love
• Served Cold - (2016) - novelette by Alan Baxter
• The Dog Who'd Been Dead - (2016) - short story by Anna Tambour
• Fade to Grey - (2016) - short story by Janeen Webb
• All Those Superpowers and What Are They Good For? - (2016) - short story by Garth Nix
• Burnt Sugar - (2016) - novelette by Kirstyn McDermott
• In Hornhead Wood - (2016) - short story by Kim Wilkins
• Moonshine - (2016) - novelette by Simon Brown

Screenwriter and noted film critic C. Robert Cargill continues the story begun in his acclaimed debut Dreams and Shadows in this bold and brilliantly crafted tale involving fairies and humans, magic and monsters--a vivid phantasmagoria that combines the imaginative wonders of Neil Gaiman, the visual inventiveness of Guillermo Del Toro, and the shocking miasma of William S. Burroughs.

Six months have passed since the wizard Colby lost his best friend to an army of fairies from the Limestone Kingdom, a realm of mystery and darkness beyond our own. But in vanquishing these creatures and banning them from Austin, Colby sacrificed the anonymity that protected him. Now, word of his deeds has spread, and powerful enemies from the past--including one Colby considered a friend--have resurfaced to exact their revenge.

As darkness gathers around the city, Colby sifts through his memories desperate to find answers that might save him. With time running out, and few of his old allies and enemies willing to help, he is forced to turn for aid to forces even darker than those he once battled.

Following such masters as Lev Grossman, Erin Morgenstern, Richard Kadrey, and Kim Harrison, C. Robert Cargill takes us deeper into an extraordinary universe of darkness and wonder, despair and hope to reveal the magic and monsters around us... and inside us.

Eddon is an interplanetary murder investigator, called to the backward world of Planet P-19. He doesn't much like his newly assigned assistant, a psychic called Vail ev Vessintor. But this is a case like no other; the first murders are only the beginning.

The ruins of Sol System have been empty for thousands of years. A place of death and mystery, it is shunned by all--until now.

DEADLINE TO DESTRUCTION:
Renegade intelligence agent Morgan Roche arrives hot on the heels of the clone warriors--enemies she has been charged by the High Humans to stop before they destroy everything. What she finds--the largest fleet assembled in half a million years, with no central authority, no-one in charge--threatens to stretch her resources beyond their limit.

There, under the light of the star called Sol, Morgan Roche will uncover the final truth about the AI called The Box, about the man called Adoni Cane, and about the High Human called the Crescend. That truth will cost her dearly...

This is the paperback version of the stunning new release of the classic R.A. Salvatore novel that begins the tale of his signature dark elf character, Drizzt Do-Urden.

As I became a creature of the empty tunnels, survival became easier and more difficult all at once. I gained in the physical skills and experience necessary to live on. I could defeat almost anything that wandered into my chosen domain. It did not take me long, however, to discover one nemesis that I could neither defeat nor flee. It followed me wherever I went -- indeed, the farther I ran, the more it closed in around me. My enemy was solitude, the interminable, incessant silence of hushed corridors.

- Drizzt Do'Urden

Now in paperback, the third installment in the classic tales of the Legend of Drizzt. When a lone drow emerges from the Underdark into the blinding light of day, the Forgotten Realms world will be changed forever.

Can the Crystal Shard be destroyed at last?

Drizzt is determined to destroy the evil Crystal Shard, and seeks out the help of the scholar-priest Cadderly. But instead, his worst fears are realized, and Crenshinibon falls into the hands of the dark elf mercenary Jarlaxle and his unlikely ally Artemis Entreri.

The Silent Blade is the book that brought Drizzt back to the Realms, and was a New York Times best seller on its initial release--and has been in print every day since. Like the rest of the Legend of Drizzt(R) reissues, The Silent Blade features beautiful new cover art by award-winning illustrator Todd Lockwood.

Join the world's most famous drow elf in the penultimate chapter of the Legend of Drizzt series!

Spending time in the unimaginable torture chambers of the Abyss for even a day would be enough to break even the heartiest soul, and the barbarian Wulfgar was there for years. When he returns, his friends find him a changed man, and not changed for the better. But Wulfgar's road to redemption is one he must travel on his own, even if it leads to the bottle.

The Legend of Drizzt comes to an end... for now!

The mighty warhammer Aegis-fang has found its way into the hands of the wicked pirate captain Sheila Kree, and Wulfgar is hot on her trail. When Drizzt and his companions leave Mithral Hall in search of Wulfgar, they find themselves on the trail of the warhammer as well, a trail that will lead them to a startling reunion, and the last battle for the heart and soul of Wulfgar.

The witch Ilvani's nightmares of a storm and a suffering soul are luring shadow creatures into Ikemmu, bent on hunting her down and killing her for reasons no one can ascertain. Ashok, however, is determined to find a way to stop it before the shadow creatures destroy the city he worked so hard to save. The trail leads him, the witch Ilvani, Cree, and Skagi along a caravan to Rashemen, where similarly strange attacks are happening among the secretive masked witches of the steppes.

Elizabeth Lavenza hasn't had a proper meal in weeks. Her thin arms are covered with bruises from her "caregiver," and she is on the verge of being thrown into the streets... until she is brought to the home of Victor Frankenstein, an unsmiling, solitary boy who has everything--except a friend.

Victor is her escape from misery. Elizabeth does everything she can to make herself indispensable--and it works. She is taken in by the Frankenstein family and rewarded with a warm bed, delicious food, and dresses of the finest silk. Soon she and Victor are inseparable.

But her new life comes at a price. As the years pass, Elizabeth's survival depends on managing Victor's dangerous temper and entertaining his every whim, no matter how depraved. Behind her blue eyes and sweet smile lies the calculating heart of a girl determined to stay alive no matter the cost... as the world she knows is consumed by darkness

Slithering from these pages are never-before-collected tales of suspense and wonder by the woman who invented modern-day dark fantasy: A man goes quietly to bed aboard the doomed Lusitania and awakens on a magical South Pacific Island just as the passenger liner is torpedoed. In a future where women rule the world, a sentient island becomes murderously jealous of a shipwrecked couple. Dire consequences await a human swept into the dark, magical world of elves. A deadly labyrinth coils around the dark heart of a picturesque landscape garden. Within an Egyptian sarcophagus lies the horrifying price of infidelity. Swirling unseen around us are loathsome creatures giving form to our basest desires and fears. A beautiful, veiled medium may hold the key to preventing unspeakable evil from slipping through the borderlands between life and death. On a lost island a woman pipe player and her monstrous dancing partner bring death and terror to five adventurers.

The stories in this collection have played an integral role in the development of modern dark fantasy, greatly influencing such writers as H. P. Lovecraft and A. Merritt.

Contents:

• ii - The Nightmare And Other Tales Of Dark Fantasy (frontispiece) - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• ix - Francis Stevens: The Woman Who Invented Dark Fantasy - essay by Gary Hoppenstand
• 1 - The Nightmare - (1917) - novella by Francis Stevens
• 1 - The Nightmare - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• 79 - The Labyrinth - (1918) - novel by Francis Stevens
• 79 - The Labyrinth - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• 193 - Friend Island - (1918) - shortstory by Francis Stevens
• 193 - Friend Island - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• 204 - Behind the Curtain - (1918) - shortstory by Francis Stevens
• 204 - Behind the Curtain - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• 212 - Unseen--Unfeared - (1919) - shortstory by Francis Stevens
• 212 - Unseen--Unfeared - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• 227 - The Elf Trap - (1919) - shortstory by Francis Stevens (variant of The Elf-Trap)
• 227 - The Elf Trap - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• 248 - Serapion - novel by Francis Stevens (variant of Possessed: A Tale of the Demon Serapion 2003)
• 248 - Serapion - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• 343 - Sunfire - (1926) - novella by Francis Stevens
• 343 - Sunfire - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd

After a meteor explosion, Rikardon wakes in a new body--and in a strange desert land named Gandalara, where a sacred gem known as the Ra'ira grants its owner the power to rule--or to destroy...

Rikardon and Tarani have the Ra'ira in their possession and plan to return it to the Council at Raithskar. But before they reach their destination, Rikardon is dealt a savage blow--Keeshah, his giant war cat, leaves to reunite with his own kind in the Valley of the Sha'um.

Newly vulnerable, Rikardon and Tarani are captured and brought back to Eddarta, where Tarani is forced to surrender the Ra'ira to the vicious High Lord Indomel. As Indomel's older sister, Tarani has a claim to his throne--and the gem. But to win the support of the other Lords, Rikardon and Tarani need more than birthright. They need an ancient talisman that can only be recovered by traveling to the poisonous crater known as the Well of Darkness--a journey that will test their courage and bond to the breaking point.

Gerard Sorme is a lonely young Londoner at work on his first novel, in which he intends to express his belief in the meaninglessness of life. His life changes suddenly in unexpected ways when he befriends Austin Nunne, a wealthy and charming gay man with violent sexual desires, and meets Austin's circle of friends: Gertrude, his well-meaning but naive Jehovah's Witness aunt, the ugly but kindly Father Carruthers, and a strange and fanatical artist named Oliver Glasp.

Meanwhile, someone else is busy exposing life's meaninglessness in a different way: a serial killer is brutally murdering women in Whitechapel in a manner reminiscent of the Jack the Ripper slayings. The police suspect a crazed sex maniac, but Gerard has his own theory of the killer's motives. As the killings continue and the investigation proceeds, Gerard suddenly finds himself haunted by a terrible suspicion: could his new friend Austin Nunne have anything to do with the crimes?

Genly Ai is an ethnologist observing the people of the planet Gethen, a world perpetually in winter. The people there are androgynous, normally neuter, but they can become male ot female at the peak of their sexual cycle. They seem to Genly Ai alien, unsophisticated and confusing. But he is drawn into the complex politics of the planet and, during a long, tortuous journey across the ice with a politician who has fallen from favour and has been outcast, he loses his professional detachment and reaches a painful understanding of the true nature of Gethenians and, in a moving and memorable sequence, even finds love...

In a world alive with fantasy and myth, far in our past - or perhaps far in our future - the Earth is peopled by elves, demons, wizards, humans, trolls, goblins, dwarves, and the Wee Folk, the Warrows.

The Dark Tide is a tale of three of the Wee Folk - Tuck, Danner, and Patrel - who, in a time of ominous rumor and dark portent, set off for Spindle Ford to stand guard and walk Wolf Patrol on their country's borders.

Far to the north from the barren Wastes of Gron, Evil Modru reaches forth with a spectral Shadowlight that cloaks his vile minions as they ravage southward, a dark tide drowning the land in a holocaust of war, destruction, and death.

Tuck, Danner, and Patrel are swept up in this maelstrom, not realizing that the fate of the world depends on their valor.

This book concludes the Iron Tower trilogy, the final chapter in the story that began with The Dark Tide and continued in Shadows of Doom - the chronicle of the Winter War as seen by a Warrow named Tuckerby Underbank - one of the Wee Folk. This epic struggle occurred in the Fourth Era of Mithgar, when an alliance of Men, Elves, Dwarves, and Warrows battled the malignant hordes of the ancient foe, Modru, the Evil One.

In The Darkest Day, Tuckerby is reunited with Merrilee, Danner, and Patrel. And, led by King Galen, Vidron's Legion of Wellenen, and Ubrik's Vanadurin - along with the Warrow scouts - they begin a desperate ride to Modru's fortress in Gron to attempt to upset the dreadful plan of the Evil One. For the Sun Death is coming, and with it, the Darkest Day...

A country house murder mystery with a supernatural twist (An Ishmael Jones Mystery).

Ishmael Jones is someone who can't afford to be noticed, someone who lives under the radar, who drives on the dark side of the road. He's employed to search out secrets, investigate mysteries and shine a light in dark places. Sometimes he kills people. Invited by his employer, the enigmatic Colonel, to join him and his family for Christmas, Ishmael arrives at the grand but isolated Belcourt Manor in the midst of a blizzard to find that the Colonel has mysteriously disappeared. As he questions his fellow guests, Ishmael concludes that at least one of them - not least Ishmael himself - is harbouring a dangerous secret, and that beneath the veneer of festive cheer lurk passion, jealousy, resentment and betrayal. As a storm sets in, sealing off the Manor from the rest of the world, Ishmael must unmask a ruthless murderer before they strike again.

The sudden appearance of a sinister black hole in the English countryside leads to a baffling murder investigation for Ishmael Jones.

"The past is England's dreaming, and not all of it sleeps soundly..."

Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny have been despatched to assist a group of scientists who are investigating a mysterious black hole which has appeared on a Somerset hillside. Could it really be a doorway to another dimension, an opening into another world?

When one of the scientists disappears into the hole - with fatal consequences - Ishmael must prove whether it was an accident - or murder. But with no clues, no witnesses and no apparent motive, he has little to go on. Is there an alien predator at large, or is an all-too-human killer responsible? Only one thing is certain: if Ishmael does not uncover the truth in time, more deaths will follow.

WFA and BFA winning short story. It originally appeared in the fanzine Fantasy Tales V4n8, Summer 1981. The story can also be found in the anhtology The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series X (1982), edited by Karl Edward Wagner. It is included in the collections The Dark Country (1982) and Talking in the Dark: Selected Stories (2001).

The sixth marvellous tale of high adventure and derring-do from the master of steampunk literature, set in the world of The Court of the Air.

A daring underwater chase ends in a battle for the Kingdom itself...

The streets of Middlesteel are under attack by an unseen enemy, leaving bloodless corpses in its trail. The newssheets scream vampire, but the truth is even more deadly than anyone knows.

Charlotte Shades, Mistress of Mesmerism, is a thief - and a darned good one at that. When two mysterious men ask her to steal King Jude's sceptre from the Parliament vaults, the challenge (and reward) is too great to pass up. After all, Charlotte's natural charm and the magic of the gem she wears - the mysterious Eye of Fate - have never failed her before.

Only consulting detective Jethro Daunt and his steamman companion Boxiron know there's more to these two men than meets the eye. Yet even as they rescue Charlotte from a fate worse than death, they are thrown into a plot thicker than even they realize. They escape beneath the waves in an ancient submarine led by Commodore Jethro Black, where they encounter stiff resistance from the strange people who inhabit the vast underwater kingdoms. But man, woman, seanore and gill-neck alike must band together if they are to defeat a danger that might not even be from this world...

When James Asher and his wife Lydia's baby daughter Miranda is kidnapped by the Master Vampire of London, the stakes are high: blindly follow the Master Vampire's instructions, keep out of the way of the human networks that serves the vampires, destroy the interloper who seeks to seize control of the London Nest, and find the key to the Nest's tortuous inner workings: The Book of the Kindred of Darkness.

Even with the vampire Don Simon Ysidro on their side, there's no guarantee that anything - or anyone - is who or what they appear to be. Nor is there any certainty that they'll see their child again - or survive the experience themselves.

Someone is sabotaging the Universal Transmitting Company's new technology--instantaneous transport of objects and people around the world. When Detective Jan Darzek investigates, the mystery seems inexplicable--out of this world.

Sinister, invisible forces of a secret mental weapon known only as The Dark are threatening the entire Primores galaxy, several transmitting leaps away from Earth. By the time a bizarre Mr. Smith comes to detective Jan Darzek's New York office, whole planets have been lain waste. Darzek is offered a million dollars by Smith to accept a job that will almost certainly be fatal: identify the incredible power that is about to overwhelm the few remaining planets in the beleagered galaxy, so that these worlds might somehow halt the rampage.

A superb science fiction novel by a master of the genre!

Jirel is snatched from her deathbed by Pav of the dark land of Romne.

The Jirel of Joiry series is not numbered but this is the fourth published story of such.

This novelette is included in the collection "Jirel of Joiry".

It first appeared in the January, 1936 Issue of Weird Tales, available free on Internet Archives.

A crackling, highly imaginative thriller debut in the vein of W.E.B. Griffin and Philip Kerr, set in German-occupied London at the close of World War II, in which a hardened British detective jeopardizes his own life to save an innocent soul and achieve the impossible--redemption.

London, 1946. The Nazis have conquered the British, and now occupy Great Britain, using brutality and fear to control its citizens. John Henry Rossett, a decorated British war hero and former police sergeant, has been reassigned to the Office of Jewish Affairs. He now answers to the SS, one of the most powerful and terrifying organizations in the Third Reich.

Rossett is a man accustomed to obeying commands, but he's now assigned a job he did not ask for--and cannot refuse: rounding up Jews for deportation, including men and women he's known his whole life. But they are not the only victims, for the war took Rossett's wife and son, and shattered his own humanity.

Then he finds Jacob, a young Jewish child, hiding in an abandoned building, who touches something in Rossett that he thought was long dead.

Determined to save the innocent boy, Rossett takes him on the run, with the Nazis in pursuit. But they are not the only hunters following his trail. The Royalist Resistance and the Communists want him, too. Each faction has its own agenda, and Rossett will soon learn that none of them can be trusted... and all of them are deadly.

Thunstone runs across his arch-enemy Rowley Thorne at a symposium on American folklore. On Thorne's side is a coven of witches, on Thunstone's are his comrades Judge Persuivant, Ruben Manco and more.

Helen must make a choice: Save her reputation, or save the world.

London, 1812. Eighteen-year-old Lady Helen Wrexhall is on the eve of her debut presentation at the royal court of George III. Her life should revolve around gowns, dancing, and securing a suitable marriage. Instead, when one of her family's maids disappears, she is drawn into the shadows of Regency London.

There, she meets Lord Carlston, one of the few able to stop the perpetrators: a cabal of demons that has infiltrated all levels of society. Carlston is not a man she should be anywhere near, especially with the taint of scandal that surrounds him. Yet he offers her help and the possibility of finally discovering the truth about the mysterious deaths of her parents.

Soon the two of them are investigating a terrifying conspiracy that threatens to plunge the newly Enlightened world back into darkness. But can Helen trust a man whose own life is built on lies? And does she have the strength to face the dangers of this hidden world and her family's legacy?

Set in the glittering social world of the Regency upper-crust, the Dark Days Club is a supernatural adventure that introduces New York Times best-selling author Alison Goodman's Lady Helen Wrexhall--another heroine whom, like Eona, readers can take to their hearts.

Also published as The Dark Days Club

Summer, 1812.

After the scandalous events at her presentation ball in London, Lady Helen has taken refuge at the fashionable seaside resort of Brighton, banished from her family and training as a Reclaimer with the covert Dark Days Club. She must learn to fight the dangerous energy-wielding Deceivers and prepare to face their master, the elusive Grand Deceiver.

As she struggles to put aside her genteel upbringing, Helen realizes that her mentor, Lord Carlston, is fighting his own inner battle. Has the foul Deceiver energy poisoned his soul, or is something else driving him towards violent bouts of madness? Either way, Helen is desperate to help the man with whom she shares a deep but forbidden connection.

When Mr. Pike, the hard bureaucratic heart of the Dark Days Club, arrives in Brighton, he has a secret mission for Helen: find the journal left by a mad rogue Reclaimer, before it falls into the hands of the Deceivers. Coerced by Pike, Helen has no choice but to do as ordered, knowing that the search for the journal may bring about Lord Carlston's annihilation.

Bath, December 1812. With her wedding just weeks away, Lady Helen Wrexhall is staying with friends while preparations are finalised. But Helen's focus is far from her forthcoming nuptials. Time is running out to find the Bath Deceiver, who holds vital information that the Dark Days Club will need if they are to stand any chance of defeating their unknown foe, the Grand Deceiver.

Helen knows that much of this essential information is also locked away in her own mind from when she absorbed the power of the Ligatus. She and her mentor, Lord Carlston, form the two halves of the Grand Reclaimer, and they must find a way to retrieve the information in time so that they can use their bond to fight the Grand Deceiver. Yet the very power and knowledge that Helen possesses is creating a rift in her mind and threatening to destroy her.

As Helen tries desperately to juggle the demands of her double life and resist her feelings for Carlston, an old enemy arrives in Bath bringing death and destruction. The final confrontation between the Grand Deceiver and the Grand Reclaimer is set in motion, and Lady Helen's story races towards a shocking conclusion full of passion, betrayal and heartbreak.

Ringil Eskiath, a reluctant hero viewed as a corrupt degenerate by the very people who demand his help, has traveled far in search of the Illwrack Changeling, a deathless human sorcerer-warrior raised by the bloodthirsty Aldrain, former rulers of the world. Separated from his companions - Egar the Dragonbane and Archeth - Ringil risks his soul to master a deadly magic that alone can challenge the might of the Changeling. While Archeth and the Dragonbane embark on a trail of blood and tears that ends up exposing long-buried secrets, Ringil finds himself tested as never before, with his life and all existence hanging in the balance.

In the aftermath of a devastating clash between gods and men, two unlikely allies--one immortal and one human--must band together to survive in the sequel to the epic fantasy debut The Song of All.

The war between men and immortals that raged across the frozen Northland of Davvieana has ended. For men, the balance of power between Believer and Brethren, between honoring the gods and honoring the sword, has shifted to favor priests over Hunters.

But it is the legacy of one man's love for his son that shapes the lives of all who survived.

While Irjan, the once-legendary immortal hunter, has saved his son's life, he cannot save Marnej from the men who will make him a killer, nor can he save the immortal girl he'd promised to protect from the secret of her birth.

Raised by Irjan among the immortals, Dárja has been trained to fight by a man who once hunted her kind. Prisoner among the humans, her hatred for them is challenged by the chance to give Irjan what he has always wanted--his son Marnej returned to him.

Together, Marnej and Dárja, human and immortal, must find a way to trust one another if they are to live long enough to learn the truth behind the secrets and lies that have forged their lives.

What would intelligent life-forms on another planet look like? Would they walk upright? Would they wear clothes? Or would they be hulking creatures on six legs that wallow in their own excrement?

Upon first contact with the Utod -- intelligent, pacifist beings who feel no pain -- mankind instantly views these aliens as animals because of their unhygienic customs. This leads to the slaughter, capture and dissection of the Utod. But when one explorer recognizes the intelligence behind their habits, he must reevaluate what it actually means to be "intelligent."

With a New Introduction from the Author!

Seventeen-year-old Nedra Brysstain leaves her home in the rural, northern territories of Lunar Island to attend the prestigious Yugen Academy with only one goal in mind: master the trade of medicinal alchemy. A scholarship student matriculating with the children of Lunar Island's wealthiest and most powerful families, Nedra doesn't quite fit in with the other kids at Yugen.

Until she meets Greggori "Grey" Astor. Grey is immediately taken by the brilliant and stubborn Nedra, who he notices is especially invested in her studies. And that's for a good reason: a deadly plague has been sweeping through the north, and it's making its way toward the cities. With her family's life--and the lives of all of Lunar Island's citizens--on the line, Nedra is determined to find a cure for the plague.

Grey and Nedra grow close, but as the sickness spreads and the body count rises, Nedra becomes desperate to find a cure. Soon, she finds herself diving into alchemy's most dangerous corners--and when she turns to the most forbidden practice of all, necromancy, even Grey might not be able to pull her from the darkness.

The Galactic Hegemony has been around a long time, and it likes stability--the kind of stability that member species like the aggressive, carnivorous Shongairi tend to disturb. So when the Hegemony Survey Force encountered a world whose so-called "sentients"-"humans," they called themselves-were almost as bad as the Shongairi themselves, it seemed reasonable to use the Shongairi to neutralize them before they could become a second threat to galactic peace. And if the Shongairi took a few knocks in the process, all the better.

Now, Earth is conquered. The Shongairi have arrived in force, and humanity's cities lie in radioactive ruins. In mere minutes, more than half the human race has died.

Master Sergeant Stephen Buchevsky, who thought he was being rotated home from his latest tour in Afghanistan, finds himself instead prowling the back country of the Balkans, dodging alien patrols and trying to organize scattered survivors without getting killed. And in the southeastern US, firearms instructor and former Marine Dave Dvorak finds himself at the center of a growing network of resistance-putting his extended family at lethal risk, but what else can you do?

On the face of it, Buchevsky's and Dvorak's chances look bleak, as do prospects for the rest of the surviving human race. But it may well be that Shongairi and the Hegemony alike have underestimated the inhabitants of that strange planet called Earth...

The Shongairi conquered Earth. In mere minutes, half the human race died, and our cities lay in shattered ruins.

But the Shongairi didn't expect the survivors' tenacity. And, crucially, they didn't know that Earth harbored two species of intelligent, tool-using bipeds. One of them was us. The other, long-lived and lethal, was hiding in the mountains of eastern Europe, the subject of fantasy and legend. When they emerged and made alliance with humankind, the invading aliens didn't stand a chance.

Now Earth is once again ours. Aided by the advanced tech the aliens left behind, we're rebuilding as fast as we can.

Meanwhile, a select few of our blood-drinking immortals are on their way to the Shongairi homeworld, having commandeered one of the alien starships...the planet-busting kind.

In a universe teeming with predators, humanity needs friends. And fast...

We've come a long way in the forty years since the Shongairi attacked Earth, killed half its people, and then were driven away by an alliance of humans with the other sentient bipeds who inhabit our planet.

We took the technology they left behind, and rapidly built ourselves into a starfaring civilization. Because we haven't got a moment to lose. Because it's clear that there are even more powerful, more hostile aliens out there, and Earth needs allies.

But it also transpires that the Shongairi expedition that nearly destroyed our home planet... wasn't an official one. That, indeed, its commander may have been acting as an unwitting cats-paw for the Founders, the ancient alliance of very old, very evil aliens who run the Hegemony that dominates our galaxy, and who hold the Shongairi, as they hold most non-Founder species, in not-so-benign contempt.

Indeed, it may turn out to be possible to turn the Shongairi into our allies against the Hegemony. There's just the small matter of the Shongairi honor code, which makes bushido look like a child's game. We might be able to make them our friends -- if we can crush their planetary defenses in the greatest battle we, or they, have ever seen...

On a moon of the ruined planet Akoshemon, an age-old terror is about to be reborn. Something that remembers the spiral of war, pestilence and deprivation - and rejoices in it. The Fifth Doctor joins a team of archaeologists searching for evidence of the planet's infamous past, and uncovers more than just ancient history. Forced to confront his own worst fears, even the Doctor will be pushed to breaking point - and beyond.

This book chosen to represent the Fifth Doctor in the 50th Anniversary Collection.

At a remote Tibetan monastery, FBI Special Agent Pendergast must find a powerful and ancient artifact before it falls into the wrong hands.

A luxury ocean liner on its maiden voyage across the North Atlantic, awash in wealth and decadence...

An ancient Tibetan box, its contents unknown, sealed with a terrifying warning...

An FBI agent destined to confront what he fears most--himself...

Neville Folliot, a 19th century explorer, goes missing and his brother Clive sets out to find him. He stumbles across "The Dungeon", a place of strange atmospheric conditions, beings from distant galaxies and hidden pockets of time.

Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion—in just four centuries' time. The aliens' human collaborators may have been defeated, but the presence of the sophons, the subatomic particles that allow Trisolaris instant access to all human information, means that Earth's defense plans are totally exposed to the enemy. Only the human mind remains a secret. This is the motivation for the Wallfacer Project, a daring plan that grants four men enormous resources to design secret strategies, hidden through deceit and misdirection from Earth and Trisolaris alike. Three of the Wallfacers are influential statesmen and scientists, but the fourth is a total unknown. Luo Ji, an unambitious Chinese astronomer and sociologist, is baffled by his new status. All he knows is that he's the one Wallfacer that Trisolaris wants dead.

Translated by Joel Martinsen

Note: first published in China in 2008.

Bound by his promise to Glaeken, Jack has refrained from making any direct moves against Rasalom. But things have changed so there's nothing holding Jack in check any longer. Other changes are occurring as well. Jack is healing at an accelerated rate--much like Glaeken did when he was immortal. This can only mean that Glaeken's time is almost up and when he dies, Jack takes his place.

Rasalom continues to plot against the Lady. Twice she has died and returned; a third time and she will be gone, leaving a clear path for the Otherness to infiltrate this reality. But Ernst Drexler, formerly Rasalom's go-to guy for logistical support, fears he will be left out in the cold when the Change comes. He forms an uneasy alliance with Jack, who is preparing to face their old enemy.

Meanwhile, Dawn Pickering is searching for her supposedly dead baby. The trail leads her to a mansion in a remote Long Island coastal town, where she discovers a truth she could have never imagined.

Now the stage is set for Jack's massive assault on Rasalom. Jack knows he's got just one shot. But it's not just a matter of taking out Rasalom: he also must safely retrieve Dawn's child and minimize collateral damage. So, he comes up with a foolproof plan.

But fools are always with us....

Once more Wren Valere's game plan has taken an unexpected direction. She'd agreed to a bargain with one supersecret magic-watching outfit to protect her and her partner on their last job. But now the Silence is trying to wedge them apart.

On the one hand, ever since she and Sergei began to talk about their "relationship," things have been tricky. On the other, though... Well, no one better try to stand between Wren and Sergei when danger is near!

So now they are off to Italy in search of a missing artifact, without any information other than the fact that it's very old, very dangerous and everyone who gets too close disappears. Still, when compared with what's going on at home (lonejacks banding together, a jealous demon, tracking bugs needing fumigation, etc.) maybe disappearing wouldn't be so bad....

As if!

Jason Morgan is a troubling mystery to friends and enemies alike: once a starship captain and trader, then Joined to the most powerful member of the Clan, Sira di Sarc, following her and her kind out of known space.

Only to return, alone and silent.

But he's returned to a Trade Pact under seige and desperate. The Assemblers continue to be a threat. Other species have sensed opportunity and threaten what stability remains, including those who dwell in the M'hir. What Morgan knows could save them all, or doom them.

For not all of the Clan followed Sira. And peace isn't what they seek.

Time is running out for Rónán and his psychically-linked twin brother, Darragh. In two weeks, at the Autumn Solstice in their own reality, the Queen of the Faerie will transfer the Undivided power to the new-found heirs and the older twins will die.

But Darragh is trapped in 2001 Dublin and Rónán in a reality where the Undivided are not Druids, but Shinto warriors. The twins need to get home before the transfer takes place - not only to save their own lives, but to break the curse on Trása, who is destined to remain trapped by Marcroy Tarth's spell, and to rescue Hayley from the Faerie Lord's seductive embrace.

With Darragh caught in a reality without magic, and Ronan stranded in one with plenty of magic but no idea how to use it, the brothers must prove that even across realities, they truly are the Undivided.

Danger turns her on.
Desire turns her dangerous...

Riley Jenson hunts evildoers--and does it with a style all her own. With vamp blood coursing her through her veins, and a werewolf's uncanny instinct for danger, Riley wears snakeskin stilettos and pure, in-your-face attitude when she plunges into her latest case: hunting down a killer whose victims are high-society strumpets--and the rich and powerful men they've dated.

But for Riley, the case takes a chilling turn when a second killer starts trailing mutilated bodies of his own: a crazed young vamp choosing victims from a past marked by tragedy. Riley knows she's got the skill and cunning to catch two serial killers at once... until one of them strikes inside her own tight-knit clan--and a sexy beast of a vampire reenters her life to aid in the hunt. His name is Quinn. He's lived forever, shed blood, and shared pleasure... and he's the only man over whom Riley has absolutely no control....

Twenty years after the elemental conflict that nearly tore apart the cosmos in The Saga of Seven Suns, a new threat emerges from the darkness. The human race must set aside its own inner conflicts to rebuild their alliance with the Ildiran Empire for the survival of the galaxy.

In Kevin J. Anderson's The Dark Between the Stars, galactic empires clash, elemental beings devastate whole planetary systems, and factions of humanity are pitted against each other. Heroes rise and enemies make their last stands in the climax of an epic tale seven years in the making.

For seven long years, while she was imprisoned on a debtor's ship, Amaya Chandra had one plan: to survive. But now, survival is not enough. She has people counting on her; counting on her for protection, for leadership, for vengeance. And after escaping Moray by the skin of her teeth, she's determined to track down the man who betrayed her and her friends.

Cayo Mercado has lost everything: his money, his father, his reputation. Everything except his beloved sister. But he's well on his way to losing her, too, with no way to afford the treatment for her deadly illness. In a foreign empire also being consumed by ash fever, Cayo has no choice but to join Amaya in uncovering the mystery of the counterfeit currency, the fever, and how his father was involved in their creation. But Cayo still hasn't forgiven Amaya for her earlier deception, and their complicated feelings for each other are getting harder and harder to ignore.

Through glittering galas, dazzling trickery, and thrilling heists, Cayo and Amaya will learn that the corruption in Moray goes far deeper than they know, and in the end the only people they can trust are each other.

The child of The Light, Glimmer, is taken from her mother's arms and forced into exile on Magoria, the Waterworld. Her only connection with her native land is Pagan, her Champion and Guardian, who must use his wits and powers to protect Glimmer from detection and hide the evidence of her true destiny.

Meanwhile on Atheyre (the Airworld), Princess Khatrene and her lover Talis watch on helplessly, unable to protect Glimmer from the dangerous and bloody power play that is taking place. Kraal, the evil God of Haddash, and Djahr, the Lord of the Dark, are plotting the violent death of baby Glimmer so that they can gain total control of the four elemental worlds.

But the universe is rebelling. Ever so slowly the Maelstrom is building momentum, threatening to obliterate the four worlds and all who inhabit them. Glimmer must return to the land of her birth and fight the fiercest battle of her young life to right the terrible wrongs of the past, defeat the enemies who threaten to destroy her and restore peace.

Once again, Louise Cusack weaves an intricate web of intrigue, magic, erotica and horror to create a tale of pure fantasy.

Joshua Wolfe has four sworn enemies: the Chitet cult, a power-mad baron, the Federation government, and the alien "virus" that is slowly invading the known universe.

And he has one hope: the Ur-Lumina, the legendary power-enhancing crystal of the vanished race, the Al'ar.

But the Ur-Lumina is in the hands of a ruthless gangster. And Wolfe isn't on her good list at the moment...

The vampiric sorcerer Uctebri has at last got his hands on the Shadow Box and can finally begin his dark ritual--a ritual that the Wasp-kinden Emperor believes will grant him immortality--but Uctebri has his own plans for both the Emperor and the Empire.

The massed Wasp armies are on the march, and the spymaster Stenwold must see which of his allies will stand now that the war has finally arrived. This time the Empire will not stop until a black and gold flag waves over Stenwold's own home city of Collegium.

Tisamon the Weaponsmaster is faced with a terrible choice: a path that could lead him to abandon his friends and his daughter, to face degradation and loss, that might possibly bring him before the Wasp Emperor with a blade in his hand--but is he being driven by Mantis-kinden honor, or manipulated by something more sinister?

In the empire of Aramtesh, scent has power.

Seventeen-year-old Rahil has a great talent for fragrances, but her scentlore skills aren't enough to heal her dying father; a plague is spreading across the land. She leaves her desert village for the city of Aphara in a desperate attempt to save him. Instead, she finds herself indentured to the head priestess at the temple, who holds many secrets - cryptic, ancient tales as well as buried truths from Rahil's past.

Royal bodyguard Ash is sworn to protect First Prince Nisai, and the imperial prince protects him in turn, by keeping Ash's true identity hidden.

One fateful night, the temple's precious scented flowers are set ablaze, and Prince Nisai is found poisoned. Caught in the smoke, Rahil realizes that she is the prime suspect - and that she holds the only clue to finding an antidote. And any chance for a cure is a risk that Ash is willing to take, even if it means disobeying orders, partnering with a fugitive, and going on the run.

Before the poison takes hold, the unlikely pair must race across the empire to save the prince, themselves, and everything they hold dear.

Every one of us has the beast inside. But for Kyrie Smith, the beast is no metaphor. Since she was 15, when she first shape-shifted into a savage, black panther, Kyrie has questioned her humanity and moved from town to town, searching for a way to feel human again.

Kyrie's lonely life changes forever while waitressing at a cheap diner. Investigating screams from the parking lot, Kyrie stumbles upon a blood-spattered dragon crouching over a mangled human corpse. The dragon changes back into her co-worker, Tom, naked, dazed and unable to remember how he got there.

Thrust into a world of shape-shifting dragons, giant cats and other beasts waging a secret war behind humanity's back, Kyrie may find the answers she seeks - with help from Tom, a mythical object called the Pearl of Heaven, and her own inner beast.

ALL PATHS LEAD TO VENGEANCE

These are dark times for the Kingdom of Khalad. As the magical mists of the Veil devour the land, the populace struggles beneath the rule of ruthless noble houses and their uncaring immortal king.

Kat doesn't care about any of that. A talented thief, she's pursuing one big score that will settle the debt that destroyed her family. No easy feat in a realm where indentured spirits hold vigil over every vault and treasure room. However, Kat has a unique gift: she can speak to those spirits, and even command them. She'll need every advantage she can get.

Kat's not a hero. She just wants to be free. To have her old life back. But as rebellion rekindles and the war for Khalad's future begins, everyone - Kat included - will have to pick a side.

Set in the same world as Faith Hunter's New York Times bestselling Jane Yellowrock novels, the third, thrilling Soulwood novel stars Nell Ingram, who draws her powers from deep within the earth.

Nell Ingram has always known she was different. Since she was a child, she's been able to feel and channel ancient powers from deep within the earth. When she met Jane Yellowrock, her entire life changed, and she was recruited into PsyLED--the Homeland Security division that polices paranormals. But now her newly formed unit is about to take on its toughest case yet.

A powerful senator barely survives an assassination attempt that leaves many others dead--and the house he was visiting burns to the ground. Invisible to security cameras, the assassin literally disappears, and Nell's team is called in. As they track a killer they know is more--or less--than human, they unravel a web of dark intrigue and malevolent motives that tests them to their limits and beyond.

Adam Christopher's dazzling first novel, Empire State, was named the Best Book of 2012 by SciFi Now magazine. Now he explores new dimensions of time and space in The Burning Dark.

Back in the day, Captain Abraham Idaho Cleveland had led the Fleet into battle against an implacable machine intelligence capable of devouring entire worlds. But after saving a planet, and getting a bum robot knee in the process, he finds himself relegated to one of the most remote backwaters in Fleetspace to oversee the decommissioning of a semi-deserted space station well past its use-by date.

But all is not well aboard the U-Star Coast City. The station's reclusive Commandant is nowhere to be seen, leaving Cleveland to deal with a hostile crew on his own. Persistent malfunctions plague the station's systems while interference from a toxic purple star makes even ordinary communications problematic. Alien shadows and whispers seem to haunt the lonely corridors and airlocks, fraying the nerves of everyone aboard.

Isolated and friendless, Cleveland reaches out to the universe via an old-fashioned space radio, only to tune in to a strange, enigmatic signal: a woman's voice that seems to echo across a thousand light-years of space. But is the transmission just a random bit of static from the past--or a warning of an undying menace beyond mortal comprehension?

"Builds tension expertly. Claustrophobic in mood but with the scope of great space opera, this is SF you will want to read with the light on."--Library Journal, starred review, on The Burning Dark

The Alpha Quadrant is mired in crisis.

Within the United Federation of Planets, a terrorist strike on the shipyards of Mars has led to the shutdown of all relief efforts for millions of Romulans facing certain doom from an impending supernova. But when the USS Titan is drawn into a catastrophic incident on the Romulan-Federation border, Captain William Riker, his family, and his crew find themselves caught between the shocking secrets of an enigmatic alien species and the deadly agenda of a ruthless Tal Shiar operative. Forced into a wary alliance with a Romulan starship commander, Riker and the Titan crew must uncover the truth to stop a devastating attack--but one wrong move could plunge the entire sector into open conflict!

Contents:

• 1 - Labyrinth of Evil - (2005) - novel by James Luceno
• 343 - Revenge of the Sith - (2005) - novel by Matthew Stover
• 759 - Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader - (2005) - novel by James Luceno

An epic clash between the forces of light and dark, between the Galactic Republic and the Separatists, between brave heroes and brilliant villains?the fate of the galaxy is at stake in the Emmy Award-winning animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. In this exciting anthology, eleven authors who are also fans of the series bring stories from their favorite show to life. Gathered here are memorable moments and stunning adventures, from attempted assassinations to stolen bounties, from lessons learned to loves lost. All of your favorite characters from The Clone Wars are here: Anakin Skywalker, Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, Captain Rex, Darth Maul, Count Dooku and more!

One year after the tragic events of The Fallen Star, the Jedi fight to break the Nihil's control over the galaxy.

The galaxy is divided. Following the shocking destruction of Starlight Beacon, the Nihil have established an impenetrable barrier called the Stormwall around part of the Outer Rim, where Marchion Ro rules and his followers wreak havoc at his every whim. Jedi trapped behind enemy lines, including Avar Kriss, must fight to help the worlds being pillaged by the Nihil while staying one step ahead of the marauders and their Nameless terrors.

Outside the Nihil's so-called Occlusion Zone, Elzar Mann, Bell Zettifar, and the other Jedi work alongside the Republic to reach the worlds that have been cut off from the rest of the galaxy. But every attempt to breach the Stormwall has failed, and even communication across the barrier is impossible. The failures and losses weigh heavily upon both Elzar and Bell as they search desperately for a solution.

But even if the Republic and Jedi forces manage to breach the Stormwall, how can the Jedi fight back against the Nameless creatures that prey on the Jedi's connection to the Force? And what other horrors does Marchion Ro have in store? As desperation for both the Jedi and the Republic grows, any hope of reuniting the galaxy could be all but extinguished....

Long before the First Order, before the Empire, before even The Phantom Menace...Jedi lit the way for the galaxy in The High Republic.

Padawan Reath Silas is being sent from the cosmopolitan galactic capital of Coruscant to the undeveloped frontier--and he couldn't be less happy about it. He'd rather stay at the Jedi Temple, studying the archives. But when the ship he's traveling on is knocked out of hyperspace in a galactic-wide disaster, Reath finds himself at the center of the action.

The Jedi and their traveling companions find refuge on what appears to be an abandoned space station. But then strange things start happening, leading the Jedi to investigate the truth behind the mysterious station, a truth that could end in tragedy...Enjoy more adventures from the all-new era of storytelling of the glorious High Republic:

Sun Wolf knew he had the power of magic, but he needed a master wizard to teach him to fully use his skills. But there was no one who could do the job. When he was called upon to help old friends against the ancient wizard, he did - thus ensuring a curse that would be executed, unless Sun Wolf could harness his own powers and find a way out....

Ireland's greatest hero, legendary warrior and lover, heir to a world of strife and sorcery, this is Finn MacCumhal. With steel and courage, he sets off on a perilous quest to save a desperate land and to free his beloved from the shadowy magic and thunderous evil of the one known as the Dark Druid.

Flint's talent for imaginative retelling brings new life to old myths in this third novel in a series that includes Challenge of the Clans and Storm Shield.

At last--after decades--one of the most famous heroes in literature is back! Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, returns with a vengeance in this brand-new, action-packed adventure by Philip José Farmer, Hugo Award-winning author of the incredible Riverworld saga.

Tarzan's beloved mate, Jane, has been kidnapped, and the furious ape-man will let nothing stand in the way of rescuing her--not even a sinister safari whose target is Tarzan himself. With fierce Masai trackers leading the chase, a trio of white hunters are hellbent on capturing the Jungle Lord. But as the pursuers, and their uncanny half-human tracker, close in from behind, Tarzan races toward even greater danger ahead.

For the trail leads to a bizarre, long-forgotten land boasting a multitude of strange and terrifying mysteries: the City Built by God, the Hideous Hunter, the One to Avoid, and most shocking of all, the Crystal Tree of Time--whose seductive powers could ultimately spell Tarzan's doom . . .

Philip José Farmer, a descendant of the actual Greystoke family, is famous for his adventure novels starring Tarzan characters. Now, for the first time, he lends his vast imagination to the authorized legend of the Lord of the Apes himself!

Before the events of Battlemage, the gruff and mysterious warrior known as Vargus has meant many things to many people over the course of his long life. But when he hears of mauled livestock and strange disappearances in the village of Morgan's Creek, he must once again take up the mantle of the Gath - the people's protector - before any more children go missing.

'I can command storms, summon fire and unmake stone,' Balfruss growled. 'It's dangerous to meddle with things you don't understand.'

BALFRUSS is a battlemage, sworn to fight and die for a country that fears his kind.
VARGUS is a common soldier - while mages shoot lightning from the walls of his city, he is down on the front line getting blood on his blade.
TALANDRA is a princess and spymaster, but the war will force her to risk everything, and make the greatest sacrifice of all.

The people of Perizzi have survived the battlemage war, but their future is looking darker than ever.

BYRNE is a Guardian of the Peace, investigating a series of murders in which the corpses were drained entirely of life.

FRAY's expertise with magic is needed to catch the killer, but working with the Guardians destroyed his father, years before.

CHOSS, renowned as a fighter, must work for peace, to diffuse a war in the underworld that threatens to turn the streets red with rivers of blood.

KATJA must use her skills as a spy to try to prevent a massacre that will topple two dynasties and destroy the fragile peace in the city for ever.

Guardians and spies, assassins and criminals will clash on the streets in this magic-fuelled adventure from the author of Battlemage.

Voechenkais a city under siege. Decimated by the Battlemage War, its dead now walk the city at night, attacking survivors, calling their names and begging the living to join them beyond the grave.

Tammy is a watchman sent to the city to investigate, so the ruling powers can decide whether to help Voechenka or leave it to its grisly fate.

Zannah is a pariah in Voechenka - making up for her people's war crimes by protecting refugees who fear her far more than they fear their unearthly attackers.

Balfruss is a scholar, a traveler... and the infamous mage who single-handedly ended the war.

No one else may enter or leave the city - so if this ragtag group of survivors can't figure out what is going on, they'll live out their last few, short days within its walls.

And night is coming on fast...

The Age of Darkness approaches.
Five lives stand in its way.
Who will stop it... or unleash it?

For generations, the Seven Prophets guided humanity. Using their visions of the future, they ended wars and united nations?until the day, one hundred years ago, when the Prophets disappeared.

All they left behind was one final, secret prophecy, foretelling an Age of Darkness and the birth of a new Prophet who could be the world's salvation... or the cause of its destruction. With chaos on the horizon, five souls are set on a collision course:

A prince exiled from his kingdom.
A ruthless killer known as the Pale Hand.
A once-faithful leader torn between his duty and his heart.
A reckless gambler with the power to find anything or anyone.
And a dying girl on the verge of giving up.

One of them--or all of them--could break the world. Will they be savior or destroyer?

The Last Prophet has been found, yet he sees destruction ahead.

In this sequel to the critically-acclaimed There Will Come a Darkness, kingdoms have begun to fall to a doomsday cult, the magical Graced are being persecuted, and an ancient power threatens to break free. But with the world hurtling toward its prophesized end, Anton's haunting vision reveals the dangerous beginnings of a plan to stop the Age of Darkness.

As Jude, Keeper of the Order of the Last Light, returns home in disgrace, his quest to aid the Prophet is complicated by his growing feelings for Anton. Meanwhile, the assassin known as the Pale Hand will stop at nothing to find her undead sister before she dies for good, even if it means letting the world burn. And in Nazirah, Hassan, the kingdom-less Prince, forms a risky pact to try to regain his throne. When the forces of light and darkness collide in the City of Mercy, old wounds are reopened, new alliances are tested, and the end of the world begins.

Following the destruction of the City of Mercy, an ancient god has been resurrected and sealed inside Beru's body. Both are at the mercy of the Prophet Pallas, who wields the god's powers to subjugate the Six Prophetic Cities. But every day, the god grows stronger, threatening to break free and sow untold destruction.

Meanwhile, far away from Pallas Athos, Anton learns to harness his full powers as a Prophet. Armed with the truth about how the original Prophets killed the god, Anton leads Jude, Hassan, and Ephyra on a desperate quest to the edge of the world. With time running out, the group's tenuous alliance is beset by mounting danger, tumultuous romance, and most of all by a secret that Anton is hiding: a way to destroy the god at the price of an unbearable sacrifice. But the cost of keeping that secret might be their lives?and the lives of everyone in the Six Prophetic Cities.

Table of Contents:

• Editor's Introduction (Rick Katze)
• Poul Anderson by Mike Resnick
• The Queen of Air and Darkness
• Jennifer's Lament
• Industrial Revolution
• Cradle Song
• Operation Afreet
• On Imaginary Science
• Upon the Occasion of Being Asked at a Court of Love to Declare That About His Lady Which Pleases Him the Most
• The Longest Voyage
• Brave to Be a King
• Midsummer Song
• Christa McAuliffe
• Brake
• Jennifer's Song
• The Hardness of Hard Science Fiction
• The Burning Bridge
• Veleda Speaks
• Science Fiction and History
• A World Called Maanerek
• The Pirate
• To Build a World
• Say It with Flowers
• My Object All Sublime
• Innocent at Large
• Route Song of the Winged Folk
• The Corkscrew of Space
• A Little Knowledge
• Marque and Reprisal
• Uncleftish Beholding
• The Critique of Impure Reason
• Science and Creation
• Of the Sea
• Epilogue
• Tanka

This story, "To See the Invisible Man," written in June of 1962, marks the beginning of my real career as a science-fiction writer, I think. The 1953-58 stories collected in To Be Continued, the first of this series of volumes, are respectable professional work, some better than others but all of them at least minimally acceptable--but most of them could have been written by just about anyone. Aside from a few particularly ambitious items, they were designed to slip unobtrusively into the magazines of their time, efficiently providing me with regular paychecks. But now, by freeing me from the need to calculate my way around the risk of rejection, Fred Pohl allowed--indeed, required--me to reach as deep into my literary resources as I was capable of doing. I knew that unless I gave him my very best, the wonderful guaranteed-sale deal I had with him would vanish as quickly as it had appeared. Therefore I would reach deeper and deeper, in the years ahead, until I had moved so far away from my youthful career as a hack writer that latecomers would find it hard to believe that I had been emotionally capable of writing all that junk, let alone willing to do it. In "To See the Invisible Man" the distinctive Silverberg fictional voice is on display for just about the first time.

--Robert Silverberg

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• To See The Invisible Man
• The Pain Peddlers
• Neighbor
• The Sixth Palace
• Flies
• Halfway House
• To The Dark Star
• Hawksbill Station
• Passengers
• Bride 91
• Going Down Smooth
• Fangs of the TREES
• Ishmael in Love
• Ringing the Changes
• Sundance
• How It Was When the Past Went Away
• A Happy Day in 2381
• (Now + n, Now - n )
• After the Myths Went Home
• The Pleasure of Their Company
• We Know Who We Are

The stories collected here, written between August of 1987 and May of 1990, demonstrate that I still believe in the classical unities. Of course, what seems to us a unity now might not have appeared that way when H. G. Wells was writing his wonderful stories in the nineteenth century. Wells might have argued that my "To the Promised Land" is built around two speculative fantasy assumptions, one that the Biblical Exodus from Egypt never happened, the other that it is possible to send rocketships to other worlds. But in fact we've seen plenty of rocketships to other worlds by now, so only my story's alternative-world speculation remains fantasy today. Technically speaking the space-travel element of the plot has become part of the given; it's the other big assumption that forms the central matter of the story.

--Robert Silverberg, from his Introduction

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• The Dead Man's Eyes
• Enter A Soldier. Later: Enter Another
• To The Promised Land
• Chip Runner
• A Sleep And A Forgetting
• In Another Country
• The Asenion Solution
• We Are For The Dark
• Lion Time in Timbuctoo
• A Tip On A Turtle

From Publishers Weekly:

"In 'The Dead Man's Eyes,' a jealous husband goes on the run after the thoughtless murder of his wife's lover. Anorexia is the means to a computer-obsessed boy's end in 'Chip Runner.' Hugo-winner 'Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another' and 'A Sleep and a Forgetting' explore the issues that might arise if scientists created the technology to recreate famous men from history. Alternate history is also represented; 'To the Promised Land' considers what the 20th century would be like if the Roman Empire hadn't fallen, and "Lion Time in Timbuctoo" examines a world where the Black Death has completely changed the fortunes of the world's great empires."

From SF Site:

"We Are For the Dark doesn't exhaust Silverberg's work in the late 80s, and, of course, in the more than twenty years since 'A Tip on a Turtle' was published in Amazing Stories, Silverberg has published more than fifty additional stories, leaving several additional volumes in the series, each of which will demonstrate that Silverberg continues to be innovative in his story-telling."

The third 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, this is the definitive collection of an iconic pulp hero.

The third volume, The Dark Angel, includes all of the Jules de Grandin stories from "The Lost Lady" (1931) to "The Hand of Glory" (1933), as well as The Devil's Bride, the only novel featuring de Grandin, which was originally serialized over six issues of Weird Tales.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction--George A. Vanderburgh and Robert E. Weinberg
• Jules de Grandin: "The Pillar of Weird Tales"--Darrell Schweitzer

1931

• The Lost Lady (Weird Tales, January 1931)
• The Ghost Helper (Weird Tales, February-March 1931)
• Satan's Stepson (Weird Tales, September 1931)

1932

• The Devil's Bride (Weird Tales, February-July 1932)
• The Dark Angel (Weird Tales, August 1932)
• The Heart of Siva (Weird Tales, October 1932)
• The Bleeding Mummy (Weird Tales, November 1932)
• The Door to Yesterday (Weird Tales, December 1932)

1933

• A Gamble in Souls (Weird Tales, January 1933)
• The Thing in the Fog (Weird Tales, March 1933)
• The Hand of Glory (Weird Tales, July 1933)

Celeste Jackson has fought all her life against a fog of hallucination and substance abuse, but it's not until she meets her protector, Azrael, an angel who has left the safety of the Light, that she learns of the evil forces that have been trying to ruin her, and why.

A fierce battle for control of the mortal realm is brewing, and only Celeste - with the help of the Remnant, her half-human, half-angel brethren - can stand in the way. Together, Celeste and Azrael must gather an army of sensitives to defeat the dark powers that have ruled humanity for centuries, but time is running out. If Azrael surrenders to his growing desire for Celeste, he risks being trapped among humanity forever. But the longer he stays, the harder she is to resist.

To save the world, Celeste must draw on her own dark experiences with addiction to help Azrael overcome the one temptation that could possibly make him an eternal prisoner- his obsession with her.

Celeste Jackson never had much hope for the future - and certainly never imagined that she would be living in an abandoned warehouse in Philadelphia with her magnificent protector Azrael, the angel of death, and a fierce battalion of warrior angels. But although her powers have bestowed the angels with the freedom to return to the Light or stay within the mortal realm, they need her more than ever.

Celeste is one of the few remaining half-human, half-angel Remnant, with a unique ability to locate others of her kind. The search leads Azrael and his celestial brothers to Egypt to recover a powerful relic that can raise an army of bloodthirsty fallen if it falls into the wrong hands. It is a relic the dark angel Asmodeus will do anything to possess - and his quest puts Celeste in mortal danger. Soon Azrael faces an impossible decision: Can he surrender the woman who has become his salvation... or will he save her and allow all of humanity to perish?

Humanity has emerged, blinking, from the Age of Misrule into a world substantially changed: cities lie devasted, communications are limited, anarchy rages across the land. Society has been thrown into a new Dark Age where superstition holds sway. The Tuatha De Danaan roam the land once more, their terrible powers dwarfing anything mortals have to offer. And in their wake come all the creatures of myth and legend, no longer confined to the shadows.

Fighting to find their place in this new world, the last remnants of the Christian Church call for a group of heroes: a new Knights Templar to guard the priesthood as they set out on their quest for souls. But as everything begin to fall apart, the Knights begin to realise their only hope is to call on the pagan gods of Celtic myth for help

A new Dark Age has fallen across Britain; gods and monsters walk the land. In this new time, myth and legend has become realtity; nothing is as it seems. The plague came without warning. Nothing could stop its progress: the first sign of the disease is black spots at the base of the fingers; an agonising death quickly follows. But this is no ordinary disease ...

Caitlin Shepherd, a lowly GP, is allowed to cross the veil into the mystical Celtic Otherworld in search of a cure; her search takes her on a quest to the end of a land of dreams and nightmares to petition the gods. Caitlin is humanity's last hope, but she carries a terrible burden: a consciousness shattered into five distinct personalities ...and one of them may not be human.

THE QUEEN OF SINISTER is the latest instalment in Mark Chadbourn's riveting 'Dark Age' sequence: a masterful blend of Celtic myth and Arthurian legend in a modern setting.

The Hounds of Avalon are coming...

These are the twilight days, when eternal winter falls and the gods destroy themselves in civil war; when an invasion force of ghastly power threatens to eradicate all life. Humanity's last chance lies with two friends, as different as night and day, bound together by an awesome destiny. Hunter: a warrior, a rake, an assassin; Hal: a lowly records clerk in a Government office. They must pierce a mystery surrounding the myths of King Arthur to find the dreaming hero who will ride out of the mists of legend to save the world. But time is running out, for when the Hounds of Avalon appear, all hope is lost...

HOUNDS OF AVALON is the latest instalment in Mark Chadbourn's brilliant new sequence: exciting, evocative, terrifying and awe-inspiring.

In an age of exploration, the crew of the freetrader Pelquin's Comet set out to claim a cache of alien technology that will make them rich, but they are not the only interested party and find themselves in competition with a major corporation. They are also lumbered with an unwelcome passenger - an agent of the bank funding their expedition - who may be a great deal more than he seems. High octane adventure, dark secrets, hidden agendas and double-cross lie in store for the Comet and her motley crew as they pursue their goal to very edge of human space.

As Drake receives his most unusual assignment yet - one which he suspects is a trap but knows he can't refuse - his former crew, the notorious Dark Angels, are being hunted down one by one and murdered. Determined to find those responsible before they find her, Leesa teams up with another former Dark Angel, Jen, and together they set out to thwart the mysterious organization known as Saflik, little dreaming where that path will lead them.

The Dark Angels -- a notorious band of brigands turned folk heroes who disbanded a decade ago -- are all that stands between humanity and disaster. Reunited with their ship, The Ion Raider, Drake, Leesa, Jen and their fellow Angels must prevent a resurrected Elder, last of a long dead alien race from reclaiming the scientific marvels of his people.

The resurrected alien, Mudball, has discovered the whereabouts of the ultimate Elder cache, long considered to be a myth. Supported by an outlawed military regiment and a star-spanning criminal organisation, Mudball is intent on using the scientific marvels stored there to establish itself as God over all of humankind.

Can one ship of reluctant heroes hope to stop them? The Dark Angels know they have little choice but to try.

The Shadowhunters of Los Angeles star in the first novel in Cassandra Clare's newest series, The Dark Artifices, a sequel to the internationally bestselling Mortal Instruments series. Lady Midnight is a Shadowhunters novel.

It's been five years since the events of City of Heavenly Fire that brought the Shadowhunters to the brink of oblivion. Emma Carstairs is no longer a child in mourning, but a young woman bent on discovering what killed her parents and avenging her losses.

Together with her parabatai Julian Blackthorn, Emma must learn to trust her head and her heart as she investigates a demonic plot that stretches across Los Angeles, from the Sunset Strip to the enchanted sea that pounds the beaches of Santa Monica. If only her heart didn't lead her in treacherous directions...

Making things even more complicated, Julian's brother Mark--who was captured by the faeries five years ago--has been returned as a bargaining chip. The faeries are desperate to find out who is murdering their kind--and they need the Shadowhunters' help to do it. But time works differently in faerie, so Mark has barely aged and doesn't recognize his family. Can he ever truly return to them? Will the faeries really allow it?

Glitz, glamours, and Shadowhunters abound in this heartrending opening to Cassandra Clare's Dark Artifices series.

Emma Carstairs has finally avenged her parents. She thought she'd be at peace. But she is anything but calm. Torn between her desire for her parabatai Julian and her desire to protect him from the brutal consequences of parabatai relationships, she has begun dating his brother, Mark. But Mark has spent the past five years trapped in Faerie; can he ever truly be a Shadowhunter again?

And the faerie courts are not silent. The Unseelie King is tired of the Cold Peace, and will no longer concede to the Shadowhunters' demands. Caught between the demands of faerie and the laws of the Clave, Emma, Julian, and Mark must find a way to come together to defend everything they hold dear--before it's too late.

What if damnation is the price of true love?

Innocent blood has been spilled on the steps of the Council Hall, the sacred stronghold of the Shadowhunters. In the wake of the tragic death of Livia Blackthorn, the Clave teeters on the brink of civil war. One fragment of the Blackthorn family flees to Los Angeles, seeking to discover the source of the disease that is destroying the race of warlocks. Meanwhile, Julian and Emma take desperate measures to put their forbidden love aside and undertake a perilous mission to Faerie to retrieve the Black Volume of the Dead. What they find in the Courts is a secret that may tear the Shadow World asunder and open a dark path into a future they could never have imagined. Caught in a race against time, Emma and Julian must save the world of Shadowhunters before the deadly power of the parabatai curse destroys them and everyone they love.

A modern Britain
An age-old cruelty

Britain's magically skilled aristocracy compels all commoners to serve them for ten years - and now it's the Hadleys' turn. Abi Hadley is assigned to England's most ruthless noble family. The secrets she uncovers could win her freedom - or break her heart. Her brother Luke is enslaved in a brutal factory town, where new friends' ideals might cost him everything.

Then while the elite vie for power, a young aristocrat plots to remake the world with his dark gifts. As Britain moves from anger to defiance, all three must take sides. And the consequences of their choices will change everything, forever.

A corrupted city
A dark dream of power

Luke is a prisoner, condemned for a murder he didn't commit. Abi is a fugitive, desperate to free him before magic breaks his mind. But as the Jardines tighten their grip on a turbulent Britain, brother and sister face a fight greater than their own.

New alliances and old feuds will remake the nation, leaving Abi and Luke questioning everything - and everyone - they know. And as Silyen Jardine hungers for the forgotten Skill of the legendary Wonder King, the country's darkest hour approaches. Freedom and knowledge both come at a cost. So who will pay the price?

As the dystopian trilogy that began with Gilded Cage and Tarnished City concludes, the people of Britain rise up against their magically gifted masters. They must break the system--or be broken.

MAGIC RUINS. WE RISE.

The rules are simple, the system cruel: the lower classes must give ten years in service to Britain's powerfully gifted rulers. With one uprising crushed by the glittering elite, commoners and aristocrats alike now take sides for a final confrontation.

At the center of it all are two ordinary siblings: Abi Hadley and her brother, Luke. Each has reason to hate the ruling Jardine family. Abi, who was once their servant, now seeks revenge for a terrible wrong. Luke was imprisoned on their whim--but his only hope may be an alliance with the youngest and most powerful of the clan, the cold and inscrutable Silyen Jardine.

Risking everything to end a bright and shining tyranny, Abi, Luke, and Silyen find themselves bound by a single destiny. Their actions will change their fates--and change the world. But at a cost almost too terrible to contemplate.

What price would you pay for freedom?

The Four Realms--Life, Death, Light, and Darkness--all converge on the City of Dusk. For each realm there is a god, and for each god there is an heir.

But the gods have withdrawn their favor from the once vibrant and thriving metropolis. And without it, all the realms are dying.

Unwilling to stand by and watch the destruction, the four heirs--Angelica, an elementalist with her eyes set on the throne; Risha, a necromancer fighting to keep the peace; Nikolas, a soldier who struggles to see the light; and Taesia, a shadow-wielding rogue with a reckless heart--will become reluctant allies in the quest to save their city.

But their rebellion will cost them dearly.

A cataclysmic battle to save the city of Nexus has left the four noble heirs scattered across the realms.

Taesia, the shadow-wielding rebel of House Lastrider, and Nikolas, the reluctant soldier of House Cyr, have been cast into Noctus, the realm of eternal night. But they are not alone. The dangerous and unpredictable god of light has traveled with them, and he will do anything in his power to destroy Noctus in his bid for cosmic control.

Risha, the peacekeeping necromancer of House Vakara, must navigate her way through Mortri, the realm of death. But still she cannot help the wayward spirits, nor does she have any idea how to return home. All she knows is that no mortal can survive for long in Mortri. And the creatures that prowl the realm of death don't take kindly to the living.

Angelica, the stubborn elementalist of House Mardova, is on her own in Vitae, trying to keep Nexus from unraveling. But Angelica secretly suffers from an illness that her god left in her veins. And when she is sent on a delicate diplomatic mission, she knows that any weakness will have disastrous repercussions for her family, her kingdom, and her dreams of the throne.

All will encounter old friends and new enemies as they attempt to restore the balance of the universe. But the gods grow stronger. And their descendants will need more than their magic and their wits to survive the war that is coming...

Would you be prepared to work for free? How would you like to bust your hump for a large corporation 60-plus hours a week without a wage or a single day off for the vague promise of some mysterious perks in the distant future? You'd refuse point blank, wouldn't you? But what if the job in question was playing a state-of-the-art fantasy MMORPG game? And what if this was the only thing you're really good at? Especially considering that your in-game partner is someone really special to you - and this person already lives a virtual life? Knowing all this, would you consider the mysterious future bonus worth your while? I dare you to try it!

When Timothy finally found work as a tester for a popular online MMORPG, his lifelong dream was fulfilled. And now, he earns money (and pretty good money, at that) just for doing what he loves - playing a beautiful and realistic computer game. But he isn't some typical run-of-the-mill player, like the millions of others. Timothy is truly capable and talented, and stands out from the crowd. In fact, the faceless masses consider him far too lucky and successful. Many players dislike him for his achievements and hunt him down ruthlessly just because they feel envious or because he looks different. So, what is he to do now when the whole world is against him, and his only allies are his beloved sister and a few trusted friends? Make peace? Sink down to their level? Or just fly ever higher on the wings of success? It's all up to Timothy!

The great hunt is over. In the end, Timothy managed to keep his invaluable prize. A victory? Perhaps. But glory and adrenaline are very powerful narcotics, and tolerance builds quickly. Once deprived of them, life immediately becomes gray and bleak. What's more, his beautiful lover (to be more accurate, both of them) is beginning to transparently hint that she could find herself a more interesting beau. What is a talented player to do in this case?

The solution suggests itself: rush headlong into the most dangerous adventures, taking risks and walking the blade of a knife. Timothy must do everything in his power to survive in places where making a clean escape is entirely impossible, delighting the viewers with his utterly unique playing style and proving decisively to his lady (to be more accurate both of them), that his previous success was no mere coincidence.Will it be hard? Very! But old reliable friends are still by his side, and that means victory is possible!

What is it like for a small flap-eared goblin herbalist to play the role of the Dark Sovereign, the main antagonist for Boundless Realm's hundreds of millions of players? What is it like to find one's self the standard bearer for an army of man-eating giants, cyclopes, skeletons, ghosts and other hellspawn, who don't give a damn about their modest little ruler?

Our hero didn't desire such an unenviable fate, but there is no way back now. He'll just have to tighten the straps and play the ghastly overlord to the innumerable hordes that now threaten all Boundless Realm. But the longer our hero plays, the better he understands that this world is much more complicated than it seems at first glance and he is just a pawn in someone else's game. And lots of things depend on whether he can figure all of it out in the short time he has left, including his own life.

In the 23rd century, there is a radiant world of endless summer where peace is maintained through emotional surveillance performed by a peculiar device called the Intercept. When Violet Crowley, the sixteen-year-old daughter of New Earth's Founding Father, is smuggled an artifact covered mysterious markings, it's up to her and her friends to decipher the message.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

When the state controls your emotions, how hard will you fight to feel free?

In a radiant world of endless summer, the Intercept keeps the peace. Violet Crowley, the sixteen-year-old daughter of New Earth's Founding Father, has spent her life in comfort and safety. Her days are easy thanks to the Intercept, a crime-prevention device that monitors emotion. But when her long-time crush, Danny Mayhew, gets into a dangerous altercation on Old Earth, Violet launches a secret investigation to find out what he's hiding. An investigation that will lead her to question everything she's ever known about Danny, her father, and the power of the Intercept.

Much like the device itself, The Dark Intercept will get under your skin.

"I DID NOT KNOW THAT YOU CHILDREN WOULD BE THE ONES TO FIND IT. OR WHAT DANGER YOU WOULD BE PUTTING YOURSELVES IN."

Throughout time, the forces of good and evil have battled continuously, maintaining the balance. Whenever evil forces grow too powerful, a champion of good is called to drive them back. Now, with evil's power rising and a champion yet to be found, three siblings find themselves at the center of a mystical war.

Jane, Simon, and Barney Drew have discovered an ancient text that reads of a legendary grail lost centuries ago. The grail is an object of great power, buried with a vital secret. As the Drews race against the forces of evil, they must piece together the text's clues to find the grail -- and keep its secret safe until a new champion rises.

On the Midwinter Day that is his eleventh birthday, Will Stanton discovers a special gift -- that he is the last of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to keeping the world from domination by the forces of evil, the Dark. At once, he is plunged into a quest for the six magical Signs that will one day aid the Old Ones in the final battle between the Dark and the Light. And for the twelve days of Christmas, while the Dark is rising, life for Will is full of wonder, terror, and delight.

"AND THOSE WHO ARE CROSSED, OR BARREN, OR WHO WOULD MAKE ANY WISH, MUST TOUCH THE GREENWITCH"

The Dark has stolen an object of great power -- a golden grail that holds a vital secret. Will embarks on a new quest to reclaim the grail, and to drive back the Dark once again. But first he will need the help of three former grail seekers: Jane, Simon, and Barney Drew.

Learning to work together, they must take back the grail and retrieve the missing manuscript that unlocks its mystical secret. But the manuscript is located at the bottom of the sea, and their only hope of obtaining both grail and script is entangled in the mysterious ritual of the Greenwitch....

"Fire on the Mountain Shall Find the Harp of Gold Played to Wake the Sleepers, Oldest of the Old..."

With the final battle between the Light and the Dark soon approaching, Will sets out on a quest to call for aid. Hidden within the Welsh hills is a magical harp that he must use to wake the Sleepers - six noble riders who have slept for centuries.

But an illness has robbed Will of nearly all his knowledge of the Old Ones, and he is left only with a broken riddle to guide him in his task. As Will travels blindly through the hills, his journey will bring him face-to-face with the most powerful Lord of the Dark - the Grey King. The King holds the harp and Sleepers within his lands, and there has yet to be a force strong enough to tear them from his grasp...

"And Where the Midsummer Tree Grows Tall by Pendragon's Sword the Dark Shall Fall."

The Dark is rising in its last and greatest bid to control the world. Six individuals have come together to drive it back for good: Will, the Sign seeker; Bran, the raven boy; Jane, Simon, and Barney, the grail seekers; and Merriman, the wise mentor who unites them all. Together they stand ready to face the Rider and the full force of the Dark.

But the last object of power must first be found. A sword of legend magically forged of pure crystal remains hidden in the Welsh hills. Without it, the Light has no hope against the Dark. Will and his companions must travel through time and space in an epic clash of magical powers that will decide the fate of us all.

Writer/artist Frank Miller completely reinvents the legend of Batman in this saga of a near-future Gotham City gone to rot, 10 years after the Dark Knight's retirement. Forced to take action, the Dark Knight returns in a blaze of fury, taking on a whole new generation of criminals and matching their level of violence. He is soon joined by a new Robin--a girl named Carrie Kelley, who proves to be just as invaluable as her predecessors.

But can Batman and Robin deal with the threat posed by their deadliest enemies, after years of incarceration have turned them into perfect psychopaths? And more important, can anyone survive the coming fallout from an undeclared war between the superpowers--or the clash of what were once the world's greatest heroes?

In this sequel to Frank Miller's seminal graphic novel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns , it's three years later and the DC Universe is at peace. At least on the surface. And Batman must return once again to save the world from themselves.

Still, the world looks fine: a perfectly choreographed, pretty little world where everything that's ugly, or even potentially disturbing, is all nicely wrapped up with neat little ribbons and swept under the carpet. Only Batman knows better. He's watched it fester to near-breaking point, and it's time for the only free man left who can effect any real change to bring it all down around their ears once and for all.

The Dark Knight returns once again with a vitality unseen since the first years of his war on crime. Together with his army of Bat-soldiers, including Carrie Kelley--formerly Robin, and now the new Catgirl--the Dark Knight wages a new war on a diseased world that's become completely lost.

Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again features appearances by such DC icons as Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter, the Atom, the Question and more. But are they still the World's Greatest Heroes or part of the conspiracy?

In 1986, Frank Miller introduced his iconic take on Batman and changed the face of comics forever. Now, three decades after BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, Miller himself has returned with a third chapter to his groundbreaking saga.

It's been three years since the Batman defeated Lex Luthor and saved the world from tyranny. Three years since anyone has seen Gotham City's guardian alive. Wonder Woman, Queen of the Amazons... Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern... Superman, the Man of Steel... all of the Dark Knight's allies have retreated from the front lines of the war against injustice.

But now a new war is beginning. An army of unimaginable power led by Superman's own daughter is preparing to claim Earth as their new world.

The only force that can stop this master race--Batman--is dead.

Long live the new Batman...

Seven years after the conclusion of the High Druid of Shannara trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Terry Brooks at last revisits one of the most popular eras in the legendary epic fantasy series that has spellbound readers for more than three decades.

Tumultuous times are upon the world now known as the Four Lands. Users of magic are in conflict with proponents of science. The dwindling Druid order is threatened with extinction. A sinister politician has used treachery and murder to rise as prime minister of the mighty Federation. Meanwhile, poring through a long-forgotten diary, the young Druid Aphenglow Elessedil has stumbled upon the secret account of an Elven girl's heartbreak and the shocking truth about the vanished Elfstones, which once warded the lands and kept evil at bay. But never has a little knowledge been so very dangerous--as Aphenglow quickly learns when she's set upon by assassins. Yet there can be no turning back from the road to which fate has steered her. Whoever captures the Elfstones and their untold powers will surely hold the advantage in the devastating clash to come.

The adventure that started in Wards of Faerie takes a thrilling new turn, in the second novel of Terry Brooks's brand-new trilogy--The Dark Legacy of Shannara!

The quest for the long-lost Elfstones has drawn the leader of the Druid order and her followers into the hellish dimension known as the Forbidding, where the most dangerous creatures banished from the Four Lands are imprisoned. Now the hunt for the powerful talismans that can save their world has become a series of great challenges: a desperate search for kidnapped comrades, a relentless battle against unspeakable predators, and a grim race to escape the Forbidding alive. But though freedom is closer than they know, it may come at a terrifying price.

Back in the village of Arborlon, the mystical, sentient tree that maintains the barrier between the Four Lands and the Forbidding is dying. And with each passing day, as the breach between the two worlds grows larger, the threat of the evil eager to spill forth and wreak havoc grows more dire. The only hope lies with a young Druid, faced with a staggering choice: cling to the life she cherishes or combat an army of darkness by making the ultimate sacrifice.

For centuries the Four Lands enjoyed freedom from its demon-haunted past, protected by magic-enhanced borders from the dark dimension known as the Forbidding and the profound evil imprisoned there. But now the unthinkable is happening: The ancient wards securing the barrier between order and mayhem have begun to erode--and generations of bloodthirsty, monstrous creatures, fueled by a rage thousands of years in the making, are poised to spill forth, seeking revenge for what was done to them.

Young Elf Arling Elessedil possesses the enchanted means to close the breach and once more seal the denizens of the Forbidding in their prison. But when she falls into the hands of the powerful Federation's diabolical Prime Minister, her efforts may be doomed. Only her determined sister, Aphen, who bears the Elfstones and commands their magic, has any hope of saving Arling from the hideous fate her captor has in store.

Meanwhile, Railing Ohmsford--desperate to save his imprisoned brother--seeks to discover if his famed but ill-fated ancestor Grianne is still alive and willing to help him save the world... no matter the odds or the consequences.

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1980. In a slightly revised form, this story is included as the second chapter in the The Gunslinger (1982), the opening volume in King's Dark Tower series.

In The Gunslinger (originally published in 1982), King introduces his most enigmatic hero, Roland Deschain of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting, solitary figure at first, on a mysterious quest through a desolate world that eerily mirrors our own. Pursuing the man in black, an evil being who can bring the dead back to life, Roland is a good man who seems to leave nothing but death in his wake.

King released a revised edition of The Gunslinger in 2003. In the introduction of the new edition, King states that he felt that the original version was 'dry' and difficult for new readers to access. He also made the storytelling more linear as well as making the plot of the book more consistent with the series' ending. Other changes were made in order to resolve continuity errors introduced by later volumes. The added material is about 35 pages in length.

The Man in Black is dead, and Roland is about to be hurled into 20th-century America, occupying the mind of a man running cocaine on the New York/Bermuda shuttle. A brilliant work of dark fantasy inspired by Browning's romantic poem, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came."

The Third Volume in the Epic Dark Tower Series, The Waste Lands. Roland, the last gunslinger, moves ever closer to the Dark Tower of his dreams and nightmares as he travels through city and country in Mid-World -- a macabre world that is a twisted image of our own. With him are those he has drawn to this world: street-smart Eddie and courageous, wheelchair-bound Susannah. Ahead of him are mind-bending revelations about who and what is driving him. Against him is arrayed a swelling legion of foes," both more and less than human....

The Dark Tower beckons Roland, the Last Gunslinger, and the four companions he has gathered along the road. And, having narrowly escaped one world, they set out on a terrifying journey across the scarred urban wasteland to brave a new world where hidden dangers lie at every junction: a malevolent computer-run monorail hurtling towards self-destruction, Roland's relentlessly cunning old enemy, and the temptation of the wizard's diabolical glass ball, a powerful force in Roland's first love affair. This is a tale of long-ago love and adventure involving a beautiful and quixotic woman named Susan Delgado. And the Tower is closer...

Roland Deschain and his ka-tet are bearing southeast through the forests of Mid-World, the almost timeless landscape that seems to stretch from the wreckage of civility that defined Roland's youth to the crimson chaos that seems the future's only promise. Readers of Stephen King's epic series know Roland well, or as well as this enigmatic hero can be known. They also know the companions who have been drawn to his quest for the Dark Tower: Eddie Dean and his wife, Susannah Jake Chambers, the boy who has come twice through the doorway of death into Roland's world and Oy, the Billy-Bumbler.

In this long-awaited fifth novel in the saga, their path takes them to the outskirts of Calla Bryn Sturgis, a tranquil valley community of farmers and ranchers on Mid-World's borderlands. Beyond the town, the rocky ground rises toward the hulking darkness of Thunderclap, the source of a terrible affliction that is slowly stealing the community's soul. One of the town's residents is Pere Callahan, a ruined priest who, like Susannah, Eddie, and Jake, passed through one of the portals that lead both into and out of Roland's world.

As Father Callahan tells the ka-tet the astonishing story of what happened following his shamed departure from Maine in 1977, his connection to the Dark Tower becomes clear, as does the danger facing a single red rose in a vacant lot off Second Avenue in midtown Manhattan. For Calla Bryn Sturgis, danger gathers in the east like a storm cloud. The Wolves of Thunderclap and their unspeakable depredation are coming. To resist them is to risk all, but these are odds the gunslingers are used to, and they can give the Calla-folken both courage and cunning. Their guns, however, will not be enough.

Susannah Dean is possessed, her body a living vessel for the demon-mother Mia. Something is growing inside Susannah's belly, something terrible, and soon she will give birth to Mia's "chap." But three unlikely allies are following them from New York City to the border of End World, hoping to prevent the unthinkable. Meanwhile, Eddie and Roland have tumbled into the state of Maine -- where the author of a novel called 'Salem's Lot is about to meet his destiny....

Set in a world of extraordinary circumstances, filled with stunning visual imagery and unforgettable characters, The Dark Tower series is unlike anything you have ever read. The final book opens like a door to the uttermost reaches of Stephen King's imagination. You've come this far. Come a little farther. Come all the way. The sound you hear may be the slamming of the door behind you. Welcome to The Dark Tower.

For those discovering the epic bestselling Dark Tower series for the first time-and for its legions of dedicated fans-an immensely satisfying stand-alone novel and perfect introduction to the series.

Beginning in 1974, gaining momentum in the 1980s and coming to a thrilling conclusion when the last three novels were published in 2003-2004, the Dark Tower epic fantasy saga stands as Stephen King's most beguiling achievement. It has been the basis for a long-running Marvel comic series.

Now, with The Wind Through the Keyhole, King has returned to the rich landscape of Mid-World. This story within a story within a story finds Roland Deschain, Mid-World's last gunslinger, in his early days during the guilt-ridden year following his mother's death. Sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape-shifter, a "skin-man," Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, a brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast's most recent slaughter. Roland, himself only a teenager, calms the boy by reciting a story from the Book of Eld that his mother used to read to him at bedtime. "A person's never too old for stories," he says to Bill. "Man and boy, girl and woman, we live for them."

Sure to captivate the avid fans of the Dark Tower epic, this is an enchanting introduction to Roland's world and the power of Stephen King's storytelling magic.

The servant girl Aeriel must choose between destroying her vampire master for his evil deeds or saving him for the sake of his beauty and the spark of goodness she has seen in him.

Painfully aware that her husband Irrylath is still not free of the White Witch's spell, Aeriel sets out on a dangerous quest to gather the winged steeds that Irrylath and his brothers need to do battle against the powerful witch.

With the aid of a shimmering pearl, Aeriel battles the White Witch to free her husband Irrylath and discovers her own true destiny.

Vesper Vale is the daughter of revolutionaries. Failed revolutionaries. When her mother was caught by the queen's soldiers, they gave her a choice: death by the hangman's axe, or death by the Storm that surrounds the city and curses anyone it touches. She chose the Storm. And when the queen's soldiers--led by a paranoid prince--catch up to Vesper's father after twelve years on the run, Vesper will do whatever it takes to save him from sharing that fate.

Even arm herself with her father's book of dangerous experimental magic.

Even infiltrate the prince's elite squad of soldier-sorcerers.

Even cheat her way into his cold heart.

But when Vesper learns that there's more to the story of her mother's death, she'll have to make a choice if she wants to save her city: trust the devious prince with her family's secrets, or follow her mother's footsteps into the Storm.

Vesper Vale sacrificed everything to save her city from the cursed storm. After becoming a vessel of The Great Queen, Vesper awakes from a slumber three years after her life altering choice.

What she finds isn't a home freed from the terror of the storm, but one where its citizens are besieged by the even more sinister force of The Great King and his growing army of the lightstruck--once regular citizens who are now controlled by the ominous light encroaching on the city. And the people are all looking to Vesper, now revered as a goddess after her sacrifice, as their city's only hope.

To save the rings from the Great King, Vesper must contend with the obligations of being a deity to her people and the growing chasm between her and Dalca, the prince she swore never to love. Haunted by the guilt of their past choices and faced with the pressures of a city near ruin, Vesper and Dalca find themselves torn between the growing factions within the city and the royal court.

But in order to save her city from the light, Vesper must face the power most outside of her control--the goddess within.

From the hit series that's soon to be a major motion picture starring Amandla Stenberg and Mandy Moore--now with a stunning new look and an exclusive sneak peek at The Darkest Legacy, the new novel in the Darkest Minds series!

Don't miss this breathtaking collection of stories set in the world of the best-selling Darkest Minds trilogy, now in paperback:

IN TIME
A desperate young man is forced to make a terrible choice between his own survival and the future of a little girl who won't speak, but who changes his life in ways he could never imagine.

SPARKS RISE
A spark of light brightens a brutal world when a girl named Sam encounters her childhood best friend at the government-run "rehabilitation" camp, Thurmond. Lucas and Sam form a risky escape plan, but sometimes even love isn't powerful enough to overcome unspeakable cruelty.

BEYOND THE NIGHT
The camps are closed. A tyrant president has been deposed. But for many Psi kids living rough, there is no home to return to, no place for them in a country devastated by the past and anxious about the future. Every day is a struggle for Sam, who knew all the rules at Thurmond and has been thrown into a terrifying and uncertain new life. But there's more at stake than Sam's own survival. She once made a promise to someone she loves, and the time has come to fulfill it.

From New York Times best-selling author Alexandra Bracken comes a collection of three hauntingly beautiful novellas set in the world of the Darkest Minds series. In the most harrowing of times, it takes a ferocious strength not only to survive, but to stand up for those who cannot fight their own battles. The characters in these stories--some new, some familiar--face impossible missions, and the hardest of all may be protecting the last flicker of hope in a seemingly endless night.

When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government "rehabilitation camp." She might have survived the mysterious disease that's killed most of America's children, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control.

Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones.

When the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. Now she's on the run, desperate to find the one safe haven left for kids like her--East River. She joins a group of kids who escaped their own camp. Liam, their brave leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him, Ruby can't risk getting close. Not after what happened to her parents.

When they arrive at East River, nothing is as it seems, least of all its mysterious leader. But there are other forces at work, people who will stop at nothing to use Ruby in their fight against the government. Ruby will be faced with a terrible choice, one that may mean giving up her only chance at a life worth living.

Ruby never asked for the abilities that almost cost her her life. Now she must call upon them on a daily basis, leading dangerous missions to bring down a corrupt government and breaking into the minds of her enemies. Other kids in the Children's League call Ruby 'Leader', but she knows what she really is: a monster.

When Ruby is entrusted with an explosive secret, she must embark on her most dangerous mission yet: leaving the Children's League behind. Crucial information about the disease that killed most of America's children and turned Ruby and the others who lived into feared and hated outcasts has survived every attempt to destroy it. But the truth is only saved in one place: a flashdrive in the hands of Liam Stewart, the boy Ruby once believed was her future and who now wouldn't recognize her.

As Ruby sets out across a desperate, lawless country to find Liam and answers about the catastrophe that has ripped both her life and America apart she is torn between old friends and the promise she made to serve the League. Ruby will do anything to protect the people she loves. But what if winning the war means losing herself?

Ruby can't look back. Fractured by an unbearable loss, she and the kids who survived the government's attack on Los Angeles travel north to regroup. With them is a prisoner: Clancy Gray, son of the president, and one of the few people Ruby has encountered with abilities like hers. Only Ruby has any power over him, and just one slip could lead to Clancy wreaking havoc on their minds.

They are armed only with a volatile secret: proof of a government conspiracy to cover up the real cause of IAAN, the disease that has killed most of America's children and left Ruby and others like her with powers the government will kill to keep contained. But internal strife may destroy their only chance to free the "rehabilitation camps" housing thousands of other Psi kids.

Meanwhile, reunited with Liam, the boy she would-and did-sacrifice everything for to keep alive, Ruby must face the painful repercussions of having tampered with his memories of her. She turns to Cole, his older brother, to provide the intense training she knows she will need to take down Gray and the government. But Cole has demons of his own, and one fatal mistake may be the spark that sets the world on fire.

The long-awaited new novel in the New York Times best-selling Darkest Minds series, now a major motion picture.

Five years after the destruction of the so-called rehabilitation camps that imprisoned her and countless other Psi kids, seventeen-year-old Suzume "Zu" Kimura has assumed the role of spokesperson for the interim government, fighting for the rights of Psi kids against a growing tide of misinformation and prejudice. But when she is accused of committing a horrifying act, she is forced to go on the run once more in order to stay alive.

Determined to clear her name, Zu finds herself in an uncomfortable alliance with Roman and Priyanka, two mysterious Psi who could either help her prove her innocence or betray her before she gets the chance. But as they travel in search of safety and answers, and Zu grows closer to the people she knows she shouldn't trust, they uncover even darker things roiling beneath the veneer of the country's recovery. With her future?and the future of all Psi?on the line, Zu must use her powerful voice to fight back against forces that seek to drive the Psi into the shadows and save the friends who were once her protectors.

Amongst our modern world lies another, an archaic and hidden world of tradition, sorcery and magic. As dark demons awaken from our past, the last remaining wizards are being hunted and murdered by a changeling of terrifying strength. Attacked and drained of most of his powers, a dying sorcerer must race against time to save himself, and the fate of all, from an enemy intent on cleansing the planet of humanity... Darkness spreads as friendships, betrayals and horrifying truths await...

Appeared in Amazing Science Fiction Stories, November 1958, and later in slightly edited form in Ace Double F-153 (1962).

Planet Savers is the first novel set in the world of Darkover in which the Terrans of Gottman IV desperately seek a cure to a disease of epidemic proportions.

Originally appeared in Ace Double F-153 (1962).

After Lew Alton unwittingly roused the fire demon Sharra, the Sword of Aldones was the only weapon that could lay her to rest again. But only one man could wield the sword, and getting it was an even bigger problem.

As a member of the Terran Spaceforce, Jeff Kerwin returns to Darkover, where he had spent his early years in an orphanage, and searches for clues about his true identity.

Star of Danger is a work that stands as a foundation for the bestselling Darkover series, introducing many loyal fans to this wonderful, mysterious world. Two natives of Darkover are forced to combine Darkover matrix magic with Terran technology to stand against a shared enemy.

Originally appeared in Ace Double #89250 (1970).

Dan Barron was a rational and efficient member of the Terran space-force - until nightmare visions drove him from the safety of the trade city into the unmapped heart of the Darkovan mountain ranges. Into an ancient battle that would shape the destiny of more than one world.

The wild and beautiful planet of Darkover becomes the target of the World Wreckers, an intergalactic company that destroys the ecology and economy of a planet so that Terran investors can make a profit in restoring it.

A lost ship from Terran mistakenly lands on a planet with a distant red star. That planet will come to be called Darkover, in this novel that details the crucial early days of the the land readers have grown to love. Although published in 1972, "Darkover Landfall" is viewed as the first novel in the history of Darkover.

Earthmen on Darkover stayed within the shelter of their specially constructed space port. Beyond lay uncharted territory - wild, inhospitable and sinister.

But for space traveller Andrew Carr the desolate planet held an attraction he could not resist. Darkover drew him. Darkover haunted him. And it was the planet's irresistible force that lured his craft to destruction among the unexplored mountains, leaving him alone among the magical people of the ancient planet....

Kennard Alton made the choice to marry a half-Terran, half-Aldaran woman. His two sons, Lewis and Marius, as a result are unable to fit into the Six Domains of the Comyn, the renegade "Seventh Domain" of Aldaran, or the world of the Terrans. This, in turn, leads Lew to his participation in the infamous Sharra Rebellion.

Meanwhile, the orphaned Regis Hastur is caught between following his heart and going on one of the Terran starships, and doing his duty to his grandfather and his family by taking his place in the Comyn Council and marrying. In the end, Lew's desire to break away from family and tradition leaves him closer than ever to his father, even as he wishes he could blame his father for leading him into the tragedy of the Sharra Rebellion.

On the planet of Darkover, the role of women is extremely circumscribed. The women of the Domains are almost entirely ruled by their male relatives, while the women of the Dry Towns are actually chained at the wrists to prevent them from assuming any independence. One of the few ways a woman can gain a measure of freedom is to join the popularly reviled Guild of Renunciates, an organization sworn to reject the oppression--and the protection--of men.

Jaelle n'ha Melora, the daughter of a Domains noblewoman and a Dry Towner, is a Renunciate. Magdalen Lorne, who was raised on Darkover, is an Intelligence operative for the Terran Empire. When Magda's ex-husband is kidnapped by Darkovan bandits, the paths of Jaelle and Magda cross, with profound implications for both women--and both worlds.

On the planet Darkover, a Keeper--the center of a working psychic circle, the manipulator of colossal psychic forces--has traditionally been a virgin female. Callista, powerful Keeper of Arilinn Tower, has resigned her office to marry the Terran, Andrew Carr, who rescued her from her abductors in the previous book, THE SPELL SWORD.

As she struggles to throw off the years of conditioning that kept her mind and body under frighteningly rigid control, her new husband has his own battle with crippling culture shock. Meanwhile, Callista's brother-in-law Damon is conducting his own researches in an attempt to help her; his work, which suggests that a Keeper need not be virgin--nor female--could shake the very foundations of Darkovan society.

The great epic of Darkover did not begin with the Terrans' arrival. For in those years, the power of the matrix was first learned--and misused in a power struggle that could have made Darkover a duplicate of Terra.

What forces would operate if there were two objects that were absolutely identical in form and substance? This problem has occupied both workers in magic and the scientists of physics and psychology. It is the pivot of Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel of Darkover during the final flaming days of the Ages of Chaos.

This is the story of the era when the planet of the Bloody Sun was divided into a hundred warring kingdoms and civilization teetered on the edge of oblivion.

It is the story of Bard di Asturien, ambitious soldier-outlaw, and of his opponent, Varzil the good, who struggled to establish the Compact. And it is also the story of a man from distant Terra named Paul Harrell who was the exact duplicate of Varzil's enemy.

Two to Conquer is a novel of social forces in combat, of the use and misuse of science, of war, of rape, and of witchcraft.

The most dangerous matrix on all Darkover was the legendary Sharra. Embodied in the image of a chained woman, wreathed in flames, it was the last remaining weapon of the Age of Chaos that had almost destroyed civilization on the planet of the Bloody Sun. The Sharra had been exiled off-planet among the far stars of the Terran Empire in the custody of Lew Alton... until he found himself called back to his homeworld to contest his rights.

But once the Sharra was back, the flaming image spread far and wide---and set in motion events that were to change the land, the domains, and the future of Darkover forever....

She had rejected her noble birthright and embraced the freedom only a man could claim. She was Romilly who lived among the beasts of hill and forest and communicated with them, who tried humanity and turned it down for its evils and jealousies. She had the MacAran Gift, the rare Iaran that conferred mastery over hawk and horse.

A romantic fantasy set in a futuristic society divided by two cultures, one male dominated and one egalitarian, where the roles of male and female, love and marriage and justice and injustice are brought sharply into focus.

Part of the multi-volume DARKOVER series, CITY OF SORCERY is the third novel to feature Darkovan Renunciate Jaelle and the Terran Intelligence Agent Magda.

Seven years after the events of THENDARA HOUSE, Jaelle and Magda have acknowledged their profound bond by taking the oath of freemates. They are leading a quiet, fairly uneventful life until they receive evidence that the legendary Dark Sisterhood--a community of wise, psychic women, who observe and manipulate the fates of the people of Darkover--may actually exist. It is said that if anyone manages to reach their ancient, practically inaccessible city, she will get the answers to her most profound questions and have her heart's desire realized.

Jaelle and Magda organize an expedition of Terran and Darkovan women to find this mysterious city of wisdom. But it is no simple journey. The women will find themselves tested by the harsh environment; the unreliable locals they meet along the way; a sinister cabal that has set itself against the Sisterhood; and, most devastatingly, their own doubts and fears.

During the age of The Hundred Kingdoms, a feud between the Hammerfell and Storn leads to the murder of the duke of Hammerfell, the flight of the duchess and her twin sons, Alastair and Conn, and the separation of the twins, an event that could lead to a new beginning -- or destruction.

Leonie Hastur, a powerful telepath and daughter of one of the most powerful ruling clans of Darkover, becomes disturbed by a premonition that something is about to happen that will forever change her world.

Haunted by childhood memories of a strange silver man and a woman in flames, Margaret Alton returns to Darkover, the planet of her birth, where her memories lead her into a trap set centuries before her birth.

After spending her youth in the Terran Empire, Margaret Alton returns to Darkover, the planet of her birth. There she discovers she has the Alton Gift--forced rapport and compulsion--one of the strongest and most dangerous of the inherited "Laran" gifts of the telepathic Comyn--the ruling families of Darkover. And even as she struggles to control her newfound powers, Margaret finds herself falling in love with the Regent to the royal Elhalyn Domain, a man she has been forbidden to marry, for their alliance would irrevocably alter the power balance of their planet!

Traitor's Sun continues the epic saga of Darkover, the award-winning series by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Her most brilliant and popular creation, the Darkover books take readers to a planet torn by rebellion--and struggling for freedom...

Regis Hastur, lord of the most powerful of the seven domains of Darkover, learns that the Terran Federation's operatives are pressuring Darkover to give up its closed world status and become a full member of this intergalactic empire. But Regis knows that if Darkover joins the Federation his beloved home planet will become nothing more than a military hub, sapped of its resources and cultural heritage. Still there are those among Darkover's ruling families who are tempted by the promise of increased technology that membership in the Federation would bring.

Meanwhile, Regis learns that he has an older illegitimate brother, Rinaldo. But his joy in finding his sibling is short-lived, as Regis's enemies try to force him to abdicate leadership of Darkover in favor of his older brother. They hope to manipulate Rinaldo into agreeing to join the Federation. But unbeknownst to anyone, Rinaldo has a plan of his own...

A follow-up to The Ages of Chaos omnibus, Thunderlord is a brand-new novel of the genre-bending Darkover universe, expanded by Marion Zimmer Bradley's collaborator Deborah J. Ross.

Far in Darkover's past, the Ages of Chaos were a time of constant warfare, when immensely powerful psychic weapons ravaged the land and slaughtered entire armies. Perhaps none was more dangerous and unpredictable than the mental Gift to sense--and control--thunderstorms. When the realm of Aldaran and their Scathfell cousins came to blows, that Gift turned the tide of battle, and Aldaran prevailed.

A generation later, the heir to Scathfell, Gwynn, has grown up in the shadow of that conflict, his life shaped by the loss of his entire family. Now he plots his revenge for his family's humiliating defeat by seeking to marry a woman who carries the storm control Gift, so that his sons will be able to wield the terrible power of storms against Aldaran.

Since childhood, Kyria has been able to sense approaching storms. She had never expected to marry a rich man; independent and athletic, she defied tradition by donning her brother's castoff clothing and trapping small game to keep her family from starvation. When Gwynn's emissary arrives with a marriage proposal that will secure her family's financial future, she agrees. Along with her younger sister as her companion, she sets out for Scathfell, where she will be formally wed.

During their passage through rugged mountains, a blizzard drives them to seek shelter in a traveler's hut, where they meet Edric, the young heir to Aldaran.

Edric has inherited the storm control, but he has never dared to use it. His whole life, he has been warned against the consequences, not just to his enemies but to everyone he loves. Now, disguised as an ordinary traveler, he journeys home after years of study, disciplining himself to control his powers.

When he meets Kyria, he senses the presence of the same storm power, but unschooled and dormant. They know each other only as Edric and Kyria--for under shelter truth, all identities are concealed--and are drawn to one another.

Thus begins the saga of two kingdoms, divided by bitter history and present-day suspicions, one armed with devastating power and the other determined to overcome it, no matter what the price. Can their love and resourcefulness overcome even the overwhelming power of a Thunderlord?

A land under occupation. A legendary sword. A young man's journey to find his destiny.

Aren has lived by the rules all his life. He's never questioned it; that's just the way things are. But then his father is executed for treason, and he and his best friend Cade are thrown into a prison mine, doomed to work until they drop. Unless they can somehow break free...

But what lies beyond the prison walls is more terrifying still. Rescued by a man who hates him yet is oath-bound to protect him, pursued by inhuman forces, Aren slowly accepts that everything he knew about his world was a lie. The rules are not there to protect him, or his people, but to enslave them. A revolution is brewing, and Aren is being drawn into it, whether he likes it or not.

The key to the revolution is the Ember Blade. The sword of kings, the Excalibur of his people. Only with the Ember Blade in hand can their people be inspired to rise up... but it's locked in an impenetrable vault in the most heavily guarded fortress in the land.

All they have to do now is steal it...

A BAND OF REBELS.
A TRAITOR IN THEIR MIDST.
A REVOLUTION ABOUT TO BEGIN.

It's been three years since Aren seized the Ember Blade. Three years since they struck the spark they hoped would ignite the revolution. But the flame has failed to catch. The Krodans have crushed Ossia in an iron grip of terror. The revolution seems further away than ever.

Far in the north, the Dawnwardens seek to unite the fractious clans of the Fell Folk and create a stronghold from which to retake their land. But even if they can overcome the danger of treachery from within, they still have to contend with the dreadknights. Only the druidess Vika can resist these near-unstoppable foes, and there's only one of her.

But what if there was a weapon that could destroy the dreadknights? A weapon of such power it could turn the tide? A weapon that, if it fell into the wrong hands, might mean the end of all hope?

The Shadow Casket has returned from out of the past, and it will save or damn them all.

After taking up his enchanted sword against the dark sorcerer Arcannen, Paxon Leah has become the sworn protector of the Druid order. Now a critical hour is at hand, as a beloved High Druid nears the end of her reign and prepares to pass from the mortal world to the one beyond. There is little time for Paxon to mourn his friend and benefactor before duty summons him. For in a distant corner of the Four Lands, the magic of the wishsong has been detected. Paxon must accompany a Druid emissary to find its source--and ensure the formidable power is not wielded by the wrong hands.

But danger is already afoot in the village of Portlow. Gentle traveling minstrel Reyn Frosch possesses the uncanny gift, and curse, of the wishsong. And now his coveted abilities have captured the malevolent interest of none other than Arcannen--whose quest for power is exceeded only by his thirst for vengeance. The lone survivor of a brutal assault on a notorious pirate city, the sorcerer is determined to retaliate against the Federation's elite military guard--and use the devastating power of the wishsong as his ultimate weapon.

Naira and Tarquin have escaped vicious counter-revolutionaries, misprinted monsters and the pull of a dying planet. Now, bound together to find the truth behind the blight that has been killing habitable planets, they need to hunt out the Mercator family secrets.

But, when the head of Mercator disappears, taking the universe's remaining supply of starship fuel with him, chaos breaks loose between the ruling families. Naira's revolution must be put aside for the sake of humanity's immediate survival.

Darkness cannot be caged.

In the land of Cymria, humans and griffins rule side by side. Arren Cardockson is a Northerner, a member of a race that was conquered and enslaved centuries ago. By freak chance he became a griffiner, chosen by a griffin to live beside her and work alongside her to gain power and privilege. But Arren and his partner Eluna live surrounded by those who hate and fear them, and their dreams of grandeur will only lead to betrayal and death. And meanwhile, out in the wildnerness, a savage black griffin with no name hunts for something he cannot name - something that will bring himself and Arren together. But when they meet, only disaster can follow.

The Dark Griffin is a story of prejudice, hatred and revenge. Not the story of a hero, but of a villain.

As the Unraveller's armies march to battle and a plague-filled rain devastates the planet, the warriors of Light call upon one of the most ancient powers of evil to aid them in their struggle.

Krona and her Regulators survived their encounter with Charbon, the long-dead serial killer who returned to their city, but the illusions of their world were shattered forever.

Allied with an old friend they will battle the elite who have ruled their world with deception, cold steel, and tight control of the magic that could threaten their power, while also confronting beasts from beyond the foggy barrier that binds their world.

Now they must follow every thread to uncover the truth behind the Thalo, once thought of as only a children's tale, who are the quiet, creeping puppet masters of their world.

There are many things that Annah would like to forget: the look on her sister's face before Annah left her behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, her first glimpse of the Horde as they swarmed the Dark City, the sear of the barbed wire that would scar her for life. But most of all, Annah would like to forget the morning Elias left her for the Recruiters.

Annah's world stopped that day, and she's been waiting for Elias to come home ever since. Somehow, without him, her life doesn't feel much different than the dead that roam the wasted city around her. Until she meets Catcher, and everything feels alive again.

But Catcher has his own secrets. Dark, terrifying truths that link him to a past Annah has longed to forget, and to a future too deadly to consider. And now it's up to Annah: can she continue to live in a world covered in the blood of the living? Or is death the only escape from the Return's destruction?

Fear stalks our lives. In the press. On the television. Over the airwaves. Across the internet. Everywhere we go, someone somewhere is always watching. Waiting for the mistake that will reveal secrets, truths, lies, the real story or what they want to believe.No longer is anonymity a given right.

We are being controlled without our knowledge and we don't appear to care. Daily we sacrifice little freedoms that will never be returned. We are all victims.

They are some who will fight to the death to protect those freedoms. They will not allow the forces of commerce and ideology to dictate their lives. They are off the grid. Gabriel Corrigan is one such man. The system doesn't like it. It says that you cannot opt out, that you have to participate. And it will do whatever it takes to return Gabriel to the fold - alive or dead. He can run but he can't hide - forever...

Gordon Dahlquist transfixed readers across the world with his dazzling literary debut, the epic Victorian tale The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters. Now the internationally bestselling author continues an adventure like no other, featuring three heroes you will never forget.

Awakening from a fevered delirium, Celeste Temple finds herself in a fishing village on the remote Iron Coast. She has no idea where her companions, Cardinal Chang and Doctor Svenson, might be - nor whether any of her enemies survived the dirigible crash that marked her last conscious moment. And while her body seems intact, she cannot say the same for her mind. For she must contend not only with the possibility that peril awaits her but with the memory of her traitorous fiancé's murder at sea...along with thousands of other memories that now live within her - courtesy of a bewitching glass book.

Hunted by murderous opportunists and cruel mercenaries of every kind, Miss Temple, Chang, and the Doctor are soon propelled into a quest that will draw them one by one into a realm of reckless, lawless terror. At every turn lies another enigma - and the stench of indigo clay, the raw material used to enslave even the most steadfast soul. Now they alone stand in the path of a diabolical conspiracy involving the books - one that will mean an alarming new world where once-free-roaming minds are wiped completely clean... if they live long enough. As Miss Temple, Cardinal Chang and Dr. Svenson uncover the devilish schemes of their deadly enemies, the terrifying secrets contained in The Dark Volume will be revealed one by one. For the blue glass is more lethal than they'd ever imagined - and those who possess it, as well as those who pursue it, are playing with fire.

Pulsing with electrifying suspense, this uniquely thrilling feat of the imagination will grip readers in its dark thrall long after the final page is devoured.

THE DARKLING WIND

In the long dark age that followed, the High Inquest would be remembered as a golden age. For the Inquestors had harnessed the unfathomable power of the heart of stars, sailing the overcosm in their delphinoid ships and tachyon bubbles to dance on the faces of suns.

But the Inquest had its darker side as well. For these beings played a ruthless game with billions of lives, snuffing out worlds as chessplayers take pawns. Waging an unending war on the false utopias that tempt mankind, they sought to free humanity by enslaving it.

At last, after countless centuries, the Inquest was torn apart. This is the story of the fall of that great empire, and of the rebel Inquestor who hastened its end.

A mysterious archive. A powerful enemy. And a cunning plan.

Danger is part of the day job for a Librarian spy. So Irene's hoping for a relaxing weekend. However, her jaunt to Guernsey proves no such thing. Instead of retrieving a rare book, she's almost assassinated, Kai is poisoned and Vale barely escapes with his life. Then the attacks continue in London – targeting those connected with the Fae-dragon peace treaty.

Irene knows she must stop the plot before the treaty fails. Or someone dies. But when Irene and friends are trapped underground, in a secret archive, things don't look so good. Then an old enemy demands vengeance, and a shocking secret is revealed. Can Irene really seize victory from chaos?

New Orleans was nearly the death of Jeremiah Hunt, between a too-close brush with the FBI and a chilling, soul-searing journey through the realm of the dead that culminated with a do-or-die confrontation with Death himself.

Hunt survived, but found no peace. When he performs an arcane ritual to reclaim the soul of the magically gifted, beautiful women who once saved him, he must flee the law once again, to the temporary sanctuary of Los Angeles, city of angels.

In L.A., Hunt must contend with Carlos Fuentes, who sees in the blind exorcist a means to obtain the mystical key that opens the gates of Hell. Fuentes knows Hunt's weakness is his loyalty - to the woman he loves and to another supernaturally gifted friend - and threatens to torture them in order to get Hunt help complete his dreadful quest.

Hunt has learned a lot since his life was irrevocably hijacked by faith months ago. But when enigmatic Preacher calls in his marker for helping Hunt in New Orleans, Hunt knows that all his newfound experience and ability will go for naught unless he can keep both the Preacher and Fuentes at bay long enough to somehow find a way to free his friends from mortal peril.

In WATCHER OF THE DARK, take a trip to the dark underbelly of the City of Angels to experience an engrossing mix of fantasy, thriller, and horror. This book is sure to leave you sleeping with the lights on!

THE BEGINNING OF END

When a sickly boy succumbs to illness only to awaken as a lowly undead named End, his initial reaction is not horror but joy. No longer weak and bedridden, he is eager to experience the freedom of a properly functioning body. Sadly, his delight is cut short when he realizes the shackles of his previous life have simply been replaced by new ones--specifically, the powerful necromancer who revived him. To gain true freedom, he'll need to overcome the many obstacles in his way... starting with his dark master!

Compelled step by step to actions whose consequences they could neither see nor prevent, Thomas Covenant and Linden Avery have fought for what they love in the magical reality known only as "the Land." Now they face their final crisis. Reunited after their separate struggles, they discover in each other their true power--and yet they cannot imagine how to stop the Worm of the World's End from unmaking Time. Nevertheless they must resist the ruin of all things, giving their last strength in the service of the world's continuance.

The High Throne of Erkynland is tottering, its royal family divided and diminished. Queen Miriamele has been caught up in a brutal rebellion in the south and thought to have died in a fiery attack. Her grandson Morgan, heir to the throne, has been captured by one of Utuk'ku's soldiers in the ruins of an abandoned city. Miriamele's husband, King Simon, is overwhelmed by grief and hopelessness, unaware that many of these terrible things have been caused by Pasevalles, a murderous traitor inside Simon's own court at the Hayholt.

Meanwhile, a deadly army of Norns led by the ageless, vengeful Queen Utuk'ku, has swept into Erkynland and thrown down the fortress of Naglimund, slaughtering the inhabitants and digging up the ancient grave of Ruyan the Navigator. Utuk'ku plans to use the Navigator's fabled armor to call up the spirit of Hakatri, the evil Storm King's brother.

Even the Sithi, fairy-kin to the Norns, are helpless to stop Utuk'ku's triumph as her armies simultaneously march on the Hayholt and force their way into the forbidden, ogre-guarded valley of Tanakirú - the Narrowdark - where a secret waits that might bring Simon's people and their Sithi allies salvation - or doom.

Travis Wilder and Grace Beckett have returned to modern Earth to get medical help for Beltan, a knight from the otherworld of Eldh. But as Beltan lies unconscious in the ICU of a Denver hospital, a shadowy organization plots to kidnap him, and sinister forces of dark magic cross the boundary from Eldh in a murderous search for Travis and Grace.

Meanwhile, in Eldh, a young baroness, her witch companion, and their mortal and immortal friends journey to a dying city, there to confront a nameless evil that has begun to annihilate the very gods.

Somehow Travis and Grace must save Beltan and themselves, then make their way back to Eldh. For only there can they hope to defeat a demonic enemy that can shatter time, devour space, and turn existence into nothingness.

In the court of every city in the lands of Ro, a sorceress sits. And in the minds of that city's people, each sorceress weaves a song. She and her sisters sing of the liberation of the land, the taming of the highland tribes, and the birth of a precious new race: the children of a dead god.

Of course, they do not sing of the death of young Prince Christophe at the hands of that god. Particularly as his replacement dances so well to their tune.

Yet all songs have an end. An ending speeded when the assassin Rham Jas Rami accepts a commission from Bromvy Black Guard, traitor duke of Canarn.

The rebellion of Ro has begun...

Tom Harlan brings his Oath of Empire series to a shattering conclusion in The Dark Lord.

In what would be the 7th Century AD in our history, the Roman Empire still stands, supported by the twin pillars of the Legions and Thaumaturges of Rome. The Emperor of the West, the Augustus Galen Atreus, came to the aid of the Emperor of the East, the Avtokrator Heraclius, in his war with the Sassanad Emperor of Persia. But despite early victories, that war has not gone well, and now Rome is hard-pressed. Constantinople has fallen before the dark sorceries of the Lord Dahak and his legions of the living and dead. Now the new Emperor of Persia marches on Egypt, and if he takes that ancient nation, Rome will be starved and defeated.

But there is a faint glimmer of hope. The Emperor Galen's brother Maxian is a great sorcerer, perhaps the equal of Dahak, lord of the seven serpents. He is now firmly allied with his Imperial brother and Rome. And though they are caught tight in the Dark Lord's net of sorcery, Queen Zoe of Palmyra and Lord Mohammed have not relinquished their souls to evil.

Strikingly original in its conception, ambitious in scope, with characters engrossingly and vividly drawn, the first book in R. Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing series creates a remarkable world from whole cloth—it's language and classes of people, its cities, religions, mysteries, taboos, and rituals—the kind of all-embracing universe that has thrilled readers of Stephen R Donaldson and George R.R. Martin.

It's a world scarred by an acopalyptic past, evoking a time both two thousand years past and two thousand years into the future, as untold thousands gather for a crusade. Travelling among them, two men and two women are ensnared by a mysterious traveler, Anasurimbor Kellhus—part warrior, part philosopher, part sorcerous, charismatic presence—from lands long thought dead. The Darkness that Comes Before is a history of this great holy war, and like all histories, the survivors write its conclusion.

With this stunning debut, R. Scott Bakker is poised to become one of the next great fantasy writers of his generation. The Darkness that Comes Before proves again that epic fantasy can be intelligent, majestic, and terrifying.

Long ago, the machines had rebelled, wiping out most of humanity and exiling the survivors in widely scattered reservations. Master System ruled unchallenged, the key to breaking its power--five microchips disguised as gold rings, carefully hidden away. But then an Amerindian called Hawks stumbled across information about the five rings, and suddenly Master System developed an interest in seeing Hawks dead....

The River into Darkness omnibus editon. Collects Beneath the Vaulted Hills and The Compass of the Soul.

The last of the world's great mages, the enigmatic Lord Eldrich has dedicated his life to eradicating all remaining vestiges of magic in the world. But the fanatical Tellerites--followers of a long-dead mage-apprentice--oppose Eldrich, desiring the hidden knowledge of the magical arts and with it the coveted key to immortality. Drawn into this conflict against his will is Erasmus Flattery, who as a boy dwelt with Eldrich, and is still haunted by the memories of what transpired during his stay with the mage. Now Erasmus must lead as expedition to search for a secret taht has remained hidden since the time of the first Mages!

In his quest to destroy all magic in the world, the last great mage, Lord Eldrich, has sent Erasmus Flattery to find and eradicate Anna, the leader of the Tellerites, a group of finatics desperate to preserve the magic--including the key to immortality--Eldrich wants to eliminate. Torn by his resentment of Eldrich's manipulations and his strange loyalty to Anna, Erasmus willl undergo a magical and spiritual journey which will cause him to question all he believes to be true...and rock the foundations of his world!

Years have passed on Riverworld. Entire nations have risen, and savage wars have been fought--all since the dead of Earth found themselves resurrected in their magnificent new homeworld. Yet the truth about the Ethicals, the powerful engineers of this mysterious "afterlife," remains unknown. But a curious cross-section of humanity is determined to change that situation... at any cost.

Intrepid explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton leads the most remarkable voyage of discovery he has ever undertaken. Hot on his heels are Samuel Clemens, King John of England, and Cyrano de Bergerac. Spurred by the promise of ultimate answers, they chart a course across the vast polar sea--and toward the awesome tower that looms above it. But getting there will be more than half the battle. For death on Riverworld has become chillingly final...

The Gospel of Shadows enabled the Catholic Church to control all manner of supernatural beings for centuries. When the book was destroyed -- and the ruling body of the Church with it -- it enabled the Shadows, the vampires of legend, to learn the hidden truth of their triple nature: part human, part demonic, part divine. But it also weakened the barriers that exist between the worlds, and now beings of pure evil are breaking through -- creatures from other dimensions for which Hell is just a name.

Peter Octavian, once a powerful Shadow, now restored to humanity, is the only man with sufficient knowledge to stop them. Aided by a earthwitch, a vampire and a priest, and calling on the magical forces of mother nature herself, Octavian stands between the Earth and apocalypse, as entire cities are plunged into the abyss...

Chrysantha Stathos has won.

By hiding her intelligence and ambition behind the mask of a beautiful air-headed girl, she has become a wealthy duchess. And, once her elderly husband dies, she will have all the freedom, money, and safety she's ever wanted. Or so she thought.

A man claiming to be the estranged grandson of Chrysantha's lecherous late husband has turned up to steal her inheritance. To make matters worse, her little sister is going to be queen and is rubbing it in her face.

Chrysantha decides that the only thing to do is upstage Alessandra at her own wedding. And as for this grandson, he has to go. Never mind that he's extremely handsome and secretive with mysterious powers... No, Chrysantha wants Eryx Demos dead, and in the end, a Stathos girl always gets what she wants.

A brilliant new novel from a 25-year-old debut author, Racing the Dark is set in a land of volcanoes and earthquakes, plagues and typhoons, of island nations bound by fear of the spirits they imprisoned to control their volatile environment. Lana, a teenaged girl on a nameless backwater island, finds an ominous blood-red jewel that marks her as someone with power, setting in motion events that drive her away from her family and into an apprenticeship with a mysterious one-armed witch. Lana begins to learn the spells and incantations, each of which requires some form of sacrifice from the person who employs it. As Lana becomes more powerful, she is deceived into a sacrifice she is unwilling to make — the life of her own mother. When Lana dares to use a dark, ancient spell to save her mother's life, she is set onto a path toward becoming a creature beyond her wildest imaginings. This is an unforgettable coming-of-age story set in a world where wielding the power of magic requires understanding the true meaning of sacrifice.

War has its cost, and the Servants of the Bright Heart and the Servants of the Dark Heart have been locked in a struggle that has defined life--and death--for millennia. But the end is coming, and only the Lady who has served the Bright Heart for the whole of her immortal life has seen it, in a vision that spans time and demands the highest of prices.

Erin is a healer, and against the nature of her birthright she has learned to wield a sword and use it to bring death to the enemies of her people. Scarred by the losses that war always demands, she is the chosen champion of Light and the enemy of darkness.

But no magical sword or simple quest awaits Erin. Her journey and her doom lie in the Dark Heart's stronghold, and in the hands of her people's greatest enemy.

There s a place past all the stars that s so dark you have to make your eyes light up to see, Toby said. There s a creature that lives in the dark, only maybe the dark s what he is. Or maybe the dark is his mouth that s like a black hole or what black holes are trying to be. Maybe they re just thoughts he has, bits of the universe he s thinking about. And he s so big and hungry, if you even think about him too much he ll get hold of you with one of them and carry you off into the dark...

More than thirty years have passed since the events of The Searching Dead. Now married with a young son, Dominic Sheldrake believes that he and his family are free of the occult influence of Christian Noble. Although Toby is experiencing nocturnal seizures and strange dreams, Dominic and Claudine have found a facility that deals with children suffering from his condition, which appears to be growing widespread. Are their visions simply dreams, or truths few people dare envisage? How may Christian Noble be affecting the world now, and how has his daughter grown up? Soon Dominic will have to confront the figures from his past once more and call on his old friends for aid against forces that may overwhelm them all. As he learns the truth behind Toby s experiences, not just his family is threatened but his assumptions about the world...

Born to the Dark is the second volume of Ramsey Campbell s Brichester Mythos trilogy.

Zeus has punished his son Apollo - god of the sun, music, archery, poetry, and more - by casting him down to earth in the form of a gawky, acne-covered sixteen-year-old mortal named Lester.

The only way Apollo can reclaim his rightful place on Mount Olympus is by restoring several Oracles that have gone dark. What is affecting the Oracles, and how can Apollo/Lester do anything about them without his powers?

After experiencing a series of dangerous - and frankly, humiliating - trials at Camp Half-Blood, Lester must now leave the relative safety of the demigod training ground and embark on a hair-raising journey across North America.

Somewhere in the American Midwest, he and his companions must find the most dangerous Oracle from ancient times: a haunted cave that may hold answers for Apollo in his quest to become a god again - if it doesn't kill him or drive him insane first.

The Virtual World of Barliona is a place of rest and entertainment - but not for everyone. It has become a survival arena for Daniel Mahan after he was sentenced to 8 years in its virtual jail. Mahan has been through it all: the back-breaking work in the mines, betrayal by other prisoners, and finally, the retrial which has released him into Barliona's common world. What more could one want? Mahan could have kept a low profile and enjoy relative freedom while serving the rest of his time. But being a Shaman, he can't help himself. Soon he's a clan leader, taking fifty of the continent's top players to claim the secrets of the Dark Forest.

Darkness surrounds us. We can find darkness anywhere: in a strange green stone etched with mysterious symbols; at a small town's annual picnic; in a ghostly house that is easy to enter but not so easy to leave; behind the dumpster in the alley where a harpy lives; in The Nowhere, a place where car keys, toys, people disappear to; among Polar explorers; and, most definitely, within ourselves. Darkness flies from mysterious crates; surrounds children whose nightlights have vanished; and flickers between us at the movie theater. Darkness crawls from the past and is waiting in our future; and there's always a chance that Halloween really is a door opening directly into endless shadow. Welcome to the dark. You may never want to leave. This inaugural volume of the year's best dark fantasy and horror features more than 500 pages of dark tales from some of today's finest writers of the fantastique. Chosen from a variety of sources, these stories are as eclectic and varied as the genre itself.

Table of Contents:

• What the Hell Do You Mean By "Dark Fantasy and Horror?" - essay by Paula Guran
• The Horrid Glory of Its Wings - (2009) - short story by Elizabeth Bear
• Lowland Sea - (2009) - novelette by Suzy McKee Charnas
• Copping Squid - (2009) - novelette by Michael Shea
• Monsters - (2009) - novelette by Stewart O'Nan
• The Brink of Eternity - (2009) - short story by Barbara Roden
• Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre - (2009) - short story by Seth Fried
• Sea-Hearts - (2009) - novella by Margo Lanagan
• A Haunted House of Her Own - (2009) - short fiction by Kelley Armstrong
• Headstone in Your Pocket - (2009) - short story by Paul Tremblay
• The Coldest Girl in Coldtown - (2009) - novelette by Holly Black
• Strange Scenes from an Unfinished Film - (2009) - short story by Gary McMahon
• A Delicate Architecture - (2009) - short story by Catherynne M. Valente
• The Mystery - (2009) - short fiction by Peter Atkins
• Variations on a Theme from Seinfeld - (2009) - short story by Peter Straub
• The Wide, Carnivorous Sky - (2009) - novella by John Langan
• Certain Death for a Known Person - (2009) - novelette by Steve Duffy
• The Ones Who Got Away - (2009) - short fiction by Stephen Graham Jones
• Leng - (2009) - short fiction by Marc Laidlaw
• Torn Away - (2009) - short fiction by Joe R. Lansdale
• The Nowhere Man - (2009) - short story by Sarah Pinborough
• The Bone's Prayer - (2009) - short story by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• The Water Tower - (2009) - short story by John Mantooth
• In the Porches of My Ears - (2009) - short story by Norman Prentiss
• The Cinderella Game - (2009) - short story by Kelly Link
• The Jacaranda Smile - (2009) - short story by Gemma Files
• The Other Box - (2009) - short fiction by Gerard Houarner
• White Charles - (2009) - novelette by Sarah Monette
• Everything Dies, Baby - (2009) - short story by Nadia Bulkin
• Bruise for Bruise - (2009) - short story by Robert Davies
• Respects - (2009) - short story by Ramsey Campbell
• Diamond Shell - (2009) - short story by Deborah Biancotti
• Nub Hut - (2009) - short story by Kurt Dinan
• The Cabinet Child - (2009) - short fiction by Steve Rasnic Tem
• Cherrystone and Shards of Ice - (2009) - short story by Ekaterina Sedia
• The Crevasse - (2009) - short story by Nathan Ballingrud and Dale Bailey
• Vic - (2009) - short fiction by Maura McHugh
• Halloween Town - (2009) - novella by Lucius Shepard
• The Long, Cold Goodbye - (2009) - novelette by Holly Phillips
• What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night - (2009) - short story by Michael Marshall Smith

This incomparable annual compilation of the best short fiction and novellas features an unmatched variety of the quietly weird, the merely eerie, high fantasy, modern Lovecraftian horror, nightmarish near-future scenarios, the darkly humorous, the supernatural, and the monstrously mundane from the brightest new talent, legendary authors like Joe R. Lansdale, Tanith Lee, and Gene Wolfe, and bestsellers such as Holly Black, Neil Gaiman, and Sarah Langan. Includes a 36,000 word novella by George R.R. Martin set in his A Song of Fire and Ice universe.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Back to the Dark - essay by Paula Guran
• Lesser Demons - (2010) - novelette by Norman Partridge
• Raise Your Hand If You're Dead - (2010) - shortstory by John Shirley
• As Red as Red - (2010) - shortstory by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• Tragic Life Stories - (2010) - shortfiction by Steve Duffy
• The Naturalist - (2010) - novelette by Maureen F. McHugh
• The Broadsword - (2010) - novella by Laird Barron
• A Thousand Flowers - (2010) - novelette by Margo Lanagan
• Frumpy Little Beat Girl - (2010) - shortstory by Peter Atkins
• The Stars Are Falling - (2010) - novelette by Joe R. Lansdale
• Hurt Me - (2010) - shortstory by M. L. N. Hanover
• Are You Trying To Tell Me This Is Heaven? - (2010) - shortstory by Sarah Langan
• Sea Warg - (2010) - shortfiction by Tanith Lee
• Crawlspace - (2010) - shortfiction by Stephen Graham Jones
• Mother Urban's Booke of Dayes - (2010) - shortstory by Jay Lake
• Brisneyland by Night - (2010) - novelette by Angela Slatter
• The Thing About Cassandra - (2010) - shortstory by Neil Gaiman
• He Said, Laughing - (2010) - shortstory by Simon R. Green
• Bloodsport - (2010) - shortfiction by Gene Wolfe
• Oaks Park - (2010) - shortfiction by M. K. Hobson
• Thimbleriggery and Fledglings - (2010) - shortfiction by Steve Berman
• You Dream - (2010) - shortstory by Ekaterina Sedia
• Red Blues - (2010) - shortfiction by Michael Skeet
• The Moon Will Look Strange - (2010) - shortstory by Lynda E. Rucker
• The Things - (2010) - shortstory by Peter Watts
• Malleus, Incus, Stapes - (2010) - shortfiction by Sarah Totton
• The Return - (2010) - shortfiction by S. D. Tullis
• The Dog King - (2010) - shortstory by Holly Black
• How Bria Died - (2009) - shortstory by Michael Aronovitz
• The Dire Wolf - (2010) - shortfiction by Genevieve Valentine
• Parallel Lines - (2010) - shortstory by Tim Powers
• The Mystery Knight: A Tale of the Seven Kingdoms - (2010) - novella by George R. R. Martin

Take a journey into darkness. Visit places where one might expect to find the dark-in a house where love was shared and lost, a milky-white pool in an Australian cave, the trenches of World War I, the deep woods. You would not be surprised to find the dark in a cheap apartment on the wrong side of town, down mean streets, under a gallows-tree, along dank passageways, trapped underground, in the neat future, or among the mysteries of old New Orleans. Dunes, lakes, isolated cabins, old books, and Old West saloons-well, the darkness might easily be there. But we've also found locales you thought were safe from shadows-at rib joint with good blues playing, inside an old wardrobe, on a baseball diamond, in an overly warm house, at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel... Travel into the best dark fantasy and horror from 2011: more than 500 pages of tales from some of today's best-known writers of the fantastique as well new talents-stories that will take you to a diverse assortment of dark places.

• "Hair" by Joan Aiken (The Monkey's Wedding & Other Stories / F&SF July/August)
• "Rakshasi" by Kelley Armstrong (The Monster's Corner: Through Inhuman Eyes)
• "Walls of Paper, Soft as Skin" by Adam Callaway (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue #73, July 14, 2011)
• "The Lake" by Tananarive Due (The Monster's Corner: Through Inhuman Eyes)
• "Tell Me I'll See You Again" by Dennis Etchison (A Book of Horrors)
• "King Death" Paul Finch (King Death)
• "The Last Triangle" by Jeffrey Ford (Supernatural Noir)
• Near Zennor by Elizabeth Hand (A Book of Horrors)
• "Crossroads" by Laura Anne Gilman (Fantasy, August 2011)
• "After-Words" by Glen Hirshberg (The Janus Tree and Other Stories)
• "Rocket Man" by Stephen Graham Jones (Stymie, Vol. 4. Issue 1, Spring & Summer 2011)
• "The Maltese Unicorn" by Caitlin R. Kiernan (Supernatural Noir)
• "The Dune" by Stephen King (Granta 117)
• "Catastrophic Disruption of the Head" by Margo Lanagan (The Wilful Eye: Tales from the Tower, Vol. 1)
• "The Bleeding Shadow" by Joe R. Lansdale (Down These Strange Streets)
• "Why Light?" by Tanith Lee (Teeth)
• "Conservation of Shadows" by Yoon Ha Lee (Clarkesworld, August 2011)
• A Tangle of Green Men, Charles de Lint (Welcome to Bordertown)
• "After the Apocalypse" by Maureen McHugh (After the Apocalypse)
• "Why Do You Linger?" by Sarah Monette (Subterranean #8)
• "Lord Dunsany's Teapot" Naomi Novik (The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities)
• "Mysteries of the Old Quarter" by Paul Park (Ghosts by Gaslight)
• "Vampire Lake", by Norman Partridge (Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2)
• "A Journey of Only Two Paces" by Tim Powers (The Bible Repairman and Other Stories)
• "Four Legs in the Morning" by Norman Prentiss (Four Legs in the Morning)
• "The Fox Maiden" by Priya Sharma (On Spec, Summer 2011)
• "Time and Tide" by Alan Peter Ryan (F&SF, Sept/Oct 2011)
• "Sun Falls" by Angela Slatter (Dead Red Heart)
• "Still" by Tia V. Travis (Portents)
• "Objects in Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear" by Lisa Tuttle (House of Fear)
• "The Bread We Eat in Dreams" by Catherynne M. Valente (Apex Magazine, Issue 30, November 2011)
• "All You Can Do Is Breathe" by Kaaron Warren (Blood & Other Cravings)

The darkness creeps upon us and we shudder, or it suddenly startles and we scream. There need be no monsters for us to be terrified in the dark, but if there are, they are just as often human and as supernatural. Join us in this outstanding annual exploration of the year's best dark fiction that includes stories of quiet fear, the utterly fantastic, the weirdly surreal, atmospheric noir, mysterious hauntings, seductive nightmares, and frighteningly plausible futures. Featuring thirty-five tales from masterful authors and talented new writers sure to make you reconsider walking in the shadows alone...

CONTENTS: (Listed alphabetically by author)

• Laird Barron, "Hand of Glory" (The Book of Cthulhu 2)
• Peter S. Beagle, "Great-Grandmother in the Cellar" (Under My Hat)
• Peter Bell, "Glamour of Madness" (The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Shadows)
• Joseph Bruchac, "Down in the Valley" (Postscripts #28/29: Exotic Gothic 4)
• Jim Butcher, "Bigfoot on Campus" (Hex Appeal)
• Mike Carey, "Iphigenia In Aulis" (An Apple for the Creature)
• Terry Dowling, "Nightside Eye" (Cemetery Dance #66)
• K. M. Ferebee, "The Bird Country" (Shimmer #15)
• Jeffrey Ford, "The Natural History of Autumn" (F&SF, July/August 2012)
• Neil Gaiman, "The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury" (The Shadow Show)
• Theodora Goss, "England Under the White Witch" (Clarkesworld, Issue 73)
• Maria Dahvana Headley, "Game" (Subterranean, Fall 2012)
• Robert Hood, "Escena de un Asesinato" (Postscripts #28/29: Exotic Gothic 4)
• Stephen Graham Jones, "Welcome to the Reptile House" (Strange Aeons #9)
• Caitlín R Kiernan, "Fake Plastic Trees: (After)
• Ellen Klages, "The Education of a Witch" (Under My Hat)
• Marc Laidlaw, "Forget You" (Lightspeed, June 2012)
• John Langan, "Renfrew's Course" (Lightspeed, April 2012)
• Joe R. Lansdale, "The Tall Grass" (Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations)
• Tim Lebbon, "Slaughterhouse Blues" (Nothing As It Seems)
• Alison Littlewood, "The Eyes of Water (The Eyes of Water)
• Ken Liu, "Good Hunting" (Strange Horizons, October 2012)
• Helen Marshall, "No Ghosts In London" (Hair Side, Flesh Side)
• Sarah Monette, "Blue Lace Agate" (Lightspeed, January 2012)
• Ekaterina Sedia, "End of White" (Shotguns v Cthulhu)
• Priya Sharma, "Pearls" (Bourbon Penn 04)
• Robert Shearman, "Bedtime Stories for Yasmin" (Shadows & Tall Trees 4)
• John Shirley, "When Death Wakes Me to Myself" (Black Wings II)
• Cory Skerry, "Sinking Among Lilies" (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue #92)
• Simon Strantzas, "Go Home Again" (Fungi)
• Rachel Swirsky, "The Sea of Trees" (The Future Is Japanese)
• Melanie Tem, "Dahlias" (Black Wings II)
• Karen Tidbeck, "Arvid Pekon" (Jagganath: Stories)
• Genevieve Valentine, "Armless Maidens of the American West" (Apex, August 7, 2012)
• Brooke Wonders, "Everything Must Go" (Clarkesworld, Issue 74)