Best of
Short-Story-Collection

2019

Sabrina & Corina: Stories


Kali Fajardo-Anstine - 2019
    Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s magnetic story collection breathes life into her Latina characters of indigenous ancestry and the land they inhabit. Set against the remarkable backdrop of Denver, Colorado–a place that is as fierce as it is exquisite–these women navigate the land the way they navigate their lives: with caution, grace, and quiet force. In “Sugar Babies,” ancestry and heritage are hidden inside the earth but tend to rise during land disputes. “Any Further West” follows a sex worker and her daughter as they leave their ancestral home in southern Colorado only to find a foreign and hostile land in California. In “Tomi,” a woman leaves prison and finds herself in a gentrified city that is a shadow of the one she remembers from her childhood. And in the title story, “Sabrina & Corina,” a Denver family falls into a cycle of violence against women, coming together only through ritual.Sabrina & Corina is a moving narrative of unrelenting feminine power and an exploration of the universal experiences of abandonment, heritage, and an eternal sense of home.

First Dangle and Other Stories


Kevin Hearne - 2019
    That sets the pair off on a trail that leads from Granada, Spain, to London, England and then to Austin, Texas. Owen and Slomo will have to outwit an Irish goddess of wisdom, some nasty spriggans, and streak across the Kew Gardens to find the culprit. They're going to see the world after all—just not the way they thought."The Naughtiest Cherub" takes place directly before the events of Scourged, book 9. "The Waters" is narrated by Granuaile and takes place after the events of Scourged."Friendly Emily" is a piece of science fiction that appeared in Fireside magazine.

Take the Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance


Bethany C. MorrowRay Stoeve - 2019
    Maybe you speak your truth and drop the mic, or maybe you take it with you when you leave.This anthology features fictional stories--in poems, prose, and art--that reflect a slice of the varied and limitless ways that readers like you resist every day. TAKE THE MIC's powerful collection of stories features work by literary luminaries and emerging talent alike, including Newbery-winner Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestseller Samira Ahmed, anthologist and contributor Bethany C. Morrow, Darcie Little Badger, Keah Brown, Laura Silverman, L.D. Lewis, Sofia Quintero, Ray Stoeve, Yamile Mendez, and Connie Sun, with cover and interior art by Richie Pope.

Sword & Magic: Eight Fantasy Novels


Patty Jansen - 2019
     All the magic, dragons, castles and quests you will ever need! Innocence Lost by Patty Jansen Beneath The Canyons by Kyra Halland The Last Priestess by Elizabeth Baxter Book Of Never by Ashley Capes Stargazy Pie by Victoria Goddard The Dragon’s Champion by Sam Ferguson Float: The Enchanted Horse by Demelza Carlton The Silverleaf Chronicles by Vincent Trigili

Salt Slow


Julia Armfield - 2019
    Throughout the collection, women become insects, men turn to stone, a city becomes insomniac and bodies are picked apart to make up better ones. The mundane worlds of schools and sea side towns are invaded and transformed by the physical, creating a landscape which is constantly shifting to hold on to the bodies of its inhabitants. Blending the mythic and the fantastic, the collection considers characters in motion – turning away, turning back or simply turning into something new.From the winner of The White Review Short Story Prize 2018, salt slow is an extraordinary collection of short stories that are sure to dazzle and shock.

Full Throttle


Joe Hill - 2019
    . . and other horrors that lurk in the water’s shivery depths. And tension shimmers in the sweltering heat of the Nevada desert as a faceless trucker finds himself caught in a sinister dance with a tribe of motorcycle outlaws in “Throttle,” co-written with Stephen King.

Autumncrow


Cameron Chaney - 2019
    Enjoy your stay! But first, a few words of warning: Stay out of the forest. Never venture out after dark. And don't stare too long into the shadows... you may not like what you see. Have a pleasant visit. We hope it won't be your last...Author Cameron Chaney presents seven new tales of All Hallows terror, along with his newly revised novella "There Are Monsters Here", in print for the very first time!

Of Wars, and Memories, and Starlight


Aliette de Bodard - 2019
    Aliette de Bodard, multiple award winner and author of The Tea Master and the Detective, now brings readers fourteen dazzling tales that showcase the richly textured worldbuilding and beloved characters that have brought her so much acclaim.Come discover the breadth and endless invention of her universes, ranging from a dark Gothic Paris devastated by a magical war; to the multiple award-winning Xuya, a far-future space opera inspired by Vietnamese culture where scholars administrate planets and sentient spaceships are part of families.In the Nebula award and Locus award winning "Immersion", a young girl working in a restaurant on a colonized space station crosses paths with an older woman who has cast off her own identity. In the novelette "Children of Thorns, Children of Water", a shapeshifting dragon infiltrating a ruined mansion finds more than he's bargained for when his partner is snatched by eerie, child-like creatures. And in the award-winning "Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight", three very different people--a scholar, an engineer, and a spaceship--all must deal with the loss of a woman who was the cornerstone of their world. This collection includes a never-before seen 20,000-word novella, "Of Birthdays, and Fungus, and Kindness", set in Bodard's alternative dark Paris. Limited: 1250 signed numbered hardcover copiesTable of Contents: Introduction The Shipmaker The Jaguar House, in Shadow Scattered Along the River of Heaven Immersion June The Waiting Stars Memorials The Breath of War The Days of the War, as Red as Blood, as Dark as Bile The Dust Queen Three Cups of Grief, by Starlight A Salvaging of Ghosts Pearl Children of Thorns, Children of Water Of Birthdays, and Fungus, and Kindness (original novella) Story Notes

Afsaane - A Collection of Short Stories


Ameya Bondre - 2019
    A handmade book on music to be gifted. A pair of mud-brown tea cups without handles. A shelf to hoard dying memories. A little home tucked away in a remote village. A haunting voice after boarding an empty bus... The images on the cover belong to people whose stories are packed in this book: A man who meets his lost friend in a new world. A seeker who resists everyone to reach an unwanted place. Lovers that separate, only to find some hope. A failed artist who finds another voice. A new entrant in a home who creates turmoil. A cheated girl who makes a desperate call. A shattered man who pegs on a sudden dreamy trip. With eleven stories of unrequited love, hope, acceptance, heart breaks or just needs, ‘Afsaane’ will tug at your heartstrings and open windows to people that experience unusual situations in far too usual lives.

Partition Voices: Untold British Stories


Kavita Puri - 2019
    Yet their memory of India's partition has been shrouded in silence. Kavita Puri's father was twelve when he found himself one of the millions of Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims caught up in the devastating aftermath of a hastily drawn border. For seventy years he remained silent – like so many – about the horrors he had seen. When her father finally spoke out, opening up a forgotten part of Puri's family history, she was compelled to seek out the stories of South Asians who were once subjects of the British Raj, and are now British citizens. Determined to preserve these accounts – of the end of Empire and the difficult birth of two nations – here Puri records a series of remarkable first-hand testimonies, as well as those of their children and grandchildren whose lives are shaped by partition's legacy. With empathy, nuance and humanity, Puri weaves a breathtaking tapestry of human experience over a period of seven decades that trembles with life; an epic of ruptured families and friendships, extraordinary journeys and daring rescue missions that reverberates with pain, loss and compassion. The division of the Indian subcontinent happened far away, but it is also a very British story. Many of those affected by partition are now part of the fabric of British contemporary life, but their lives continue to be touched by this traumatic event. Partition Voices breaks the silence and confronts the difficult truths at the heart of Britain's shared history with South Asia.

Amma


Perumal Murugan - 2019
    She raised her children with the income from just a few acres of land that she managed on her own, tending to the cattle and crops with maternal concern, all the while minding her unruly husband. Every obligation met, all accounts squared up, each meal cooked to satiate the tongue and heart—Amma never rested, not even when bedridden with Parkinson’s. She lived a farmer’s life and died a farmer’s death.Amma is a homage to a way of life and values—simplicity, honesty and hard work—lost to us today. Peppered with unsentimental nostalgia and delightful humour, and vividly documenting village and farming life in the Kongu region, Amma tugs at generational memory. Murugan’s non-fiction writing, his first to appear in English, is as deeply affecting as his fiction.

This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love.


Jennifer Wortman - 2019
    This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love. contains thirteen stories, full-length and flash, that explore love—sexual, platonic, filial, and beyond—in its gritty and beguiling forms. A small-town teenager pursues an eccentric pinball wizard after her grandfather’s move to her home shakes up her parents’ marriage; a chronic depressive turns to a TV animal psychic in hopes of mending her relationship with her dog-loving dad; a middle-aged recovering alcoholic goes back to college and becomes fixated on his stern professor. As characters in various stages of life try to navigate love, they court obsession, madness, and transcendence.

Ten Tales of a Dark Tomorrow


Kevin A. Kuhn - 2019
    In the spirit of that iconic, timeless show, these mysterious and gripping narratives explore parallel worlds, faraway planets, dystopian societies, and unsettling reality.•A toddler shifts through parallel worlds, changing into different versions of herself. What would a mother do for her daughter?•A chef finds an alternate food source on a remote world. When the new chef arrives, will he be forced to reveal a horrific secret?•A twelve-year-old Earth girl is randomly chosen to rule the galaxy. Why are galactic administrators so desperate to stop her?•Humanity is on trial, annihilation at stake. Can an underdog alien lawyer save us?•Time seems to stand still as a young boy bikes with his troubled friend. Is the friend causing this phenomenon—and what if he doesn’t stop it?Explore space and time—and confront humanity’s deepest fears—with Ten Tales of a Dark Tomorrow.

Orange World and Other Stories


Karen Russell - 2019
    In"Bog Girl", a revelatory story about first love, a young man falls in love with a two thousand year old girl that he's extracted from a mass of peat in a Northern European bog. In "The Prospectors," two opportunistic young women fleeing the depression strike out for new territory, and find themselves fighting for their lives. In the brilliant, hilarious title story, a new mother desperate to ensure her infant's safety strikes a diabolical deal, agreeing to breastfeed the devil in exchange for his protection. The landscape in which these stories unfold is a feral, slippery, purgatorial space, bracketed by the void--yet within it Russell captures the exquisite beauty and tenderness of ordinary life. Orange World is a miracle of storytelling from a true modern master.

Till the Score is Paid


Gemma Amor - 2019
    This collection deals with:Lost dogsMountain streamsHalloween costumesMysterious gravediggersLocked basementsHiking with friendsDaddy-daughter datesStrange prisonsBirthday cakesCultists...and so much more. With her signature flair of emotional horror, Amor forces readers to accept the fact that sometimes the monster lurking under the bed is, in fact, someone we know.

Sherlock Holmes: The Sign of Seven


Martin Rosenstock - 2019
    A stunning collection of seven brand-new novellas featuring the redoubtable Sherlock Holmes and his chronicler Dr John Watson. A collection of seven brand-new novellas written by masters of the Sherlock Holmes pastiche, including Andrew Lane, author of the Young Sherlock series, New York Times bestseller James Lovegrove, and Edgar Award nominee Lyndsay Faye.

Terror in the Shadows: Volume 4


Ron Ripley - 2019
    A terrified young woman is stalked by a grim specter in the form of man’s best friend. A beleaguered wage slave discovers that playing with toys at work can have deadly consequences…Scare Street’s team of horror authors brings you twelve delightedly macabre morsels of terror in this new, spine-tingling collection. Indulge yourself in a delicious feast of chilling nightmares and dark fantasies.Each tale will leave you craving another taste of fear. But beware. You may think you have an appetite for darkness…But the things that lurk in the shadows have an appetite for you, as well.

The Minotaur's Son & Other Wild Tales


Kevin Ansbro - 2019
    His tales span the globe and range from the wickedly funny to the sad and deeply unnerving. With his perceptive take on human failings, his vivid imagination and his glorious grasp of language, Ansbro’s thought-provoking stories will stay with you long after you turn the final page.

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Life Lessons from the Cat: 101 Tales of Family, Friendship and Fun


Amy Newmark - 2019
    Our cats make us better people. If we rescued them, they rescue us back. If we’re sad, they comfort us. If we need to have more fun, they show us how. They are our therapists, our role models, and our best friends. You’ll laugh a lot, tear up at times, and nod your head in recognition as you read these tales about the wonderful experience of sharing life with a cat. Life lessons from our cats come in many forms, from the hilarious to the heroic. You’ll enjoy a wide variety in these 101 entertaining stories.

The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories


Jhumpa Lahiri - 2019
    . . eclectic. . . a feast' TelegraphThis landmark collection brings together forty writers that reflect over a hundred years of Italy's vibrant and diverse short story tradition, from the birth of the modern nation to the end of the twentieth century.Poets, journalists, visual artists, musicians, editors, critics, teachers, scientists, politicians, translators: the writers that inhabit these pages represent a dynamic cross section of Italian society, their powerful voices resonating through regional landscapes, private passions and dramatic political events.This wide-ranging selection curated by Jhumpa Lahiri includes well known authors such as Italo Calvino, Elsa Morante and Luigi Pirandello alongside many captivating new discoveries. More than a third of the stories featured in this volume have been translated into English for the first time, several of them by Lahiri herself.

Sefira and Other Betrayals


John Langan - 2019
    Placed together within the same cover for the first time, a theme emerges from the tales that binds and unites them–and it is signaled in the title of the book.“These are stories of betrayal,” author John Langan confirms.Apart from this thread, the stories are otherwise quite distinct from each other in terms of their characters, plots, settings, themes and even varieties of horror.There’s “In Paris in the Mount of Kronos,” a snappy, neo-noirish, action packed Laird Barron-esque encounter with ancient malevolent forces; the dark, character-driven relationship dramas of “The Third Always Beside You” and “Renfrew’s Course”; the vaguely Lovecraftian horrors of “Bloom”; the atmospheric steampunk weirdness in the form of “The Unbearable Proximity of Mr. Dunn’s Balloons”; and apocalyptic surrealism in “Bos Uros”.Finally, the title novella, Sefira, is about a woman who is chasing a succubus across the United States, while the novelette At Home in the Devil’s House offers a new, nightmarish concept of Hell.Sefira and Other Betrayals contains stories previously published in such prestigious anthologies as Supernatural Noir, Blood and Other Cravings, Ghosts by Gaslight, Black Wings 2, Shadows Edge and others, and includes one original novella, Sefira, and an original novelette, At Home in the Devil’s House.(from Rue Morgue Magazine review)

Stars, Snow and Mistletoe: A Holiday Naughty List Collection


Charity Wells - 2019
    They Come for Beyond Anthologies invites you to join eight authors for tales of holiday love that span the stars. Whether it be by hunting for the perfect Christmas tree or discovering the joy of the season in various small, meaningful ways, these eight tales celebrate the promise of hope and new beginnings with the magic of the season.

Terror in the Shadows: Volume II


Emma Salam - 2019
    A party girl’s addiction gives birth to a monster within. Man’s best friend must fend off a woman’s greatest nightmare…Scare Street is proud to present eleven chilling tales of the supernatural, in one monstrous volume. Horror authors Ron Ripley, David Longhorn, Sara Clancy, and many more unite to bring you a terrifying collection of short stories, each one guaranteed to haunt your dreams. And each one more chilling than the last.Once you start reading you won’t be able to stop. Because when these authors sink their teeth into you, it’s already too late.The only way to escape from these nightmares… is to wake up screaming.

Flowers on the Grave of Caste


Yogesh Maitreya - 2019
    In India, adding to the development of Dalit literature in the English language, this short story collection is a significant contribution since, in the domain of fiction, it has introduced Dalit/ Ambedkari perspective as a literary imagination. It contains six short stories, and most of them portray the internal complex of a Dalit youth in urban spaces, and them leading to assertion against caste.

The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan


Caitlín R. Kiernan - 2019
    Kiernan is one of dark fantasy and horror’s most acclaimed and influential short fiction writers. Her powerful, unexpected stories shatter morality, gender, and sexuality: a reporter is goaded by her toxic girlfriend into visiting sadistic art exhibits; a countess in a decaying movie theater is sated by her servants; a collector offers his greatest achievement to ensnare a musician who grieves for her missing sister.In this retrospective collection of her finest work—previously only available in limited editions—Kiernan cuts straight to the heart of the emotional truths we cannot ignore.

To Wallow in Ash, & Other Sorrows


Sam Richard - 2019
    In the spirit of J.G. Ballard, Georges Bataille, and Kathe Koja, these nine Sorrows are a cross-section of literary splatterpunk, transgressive fiction, and weird horror, which seek to illuminate the terror, dread, and discomfort of mourning through the black mirror of the grotesque. This book is full of pain. This book is full of tears. This book is full of ash.

A Constant Hum


Alice Bishop - 2019
    There is only grey ash and melted metal, the blackened husks of cars.And the lost people: in temporary accommodation on the outskirts of the city, on the TV news in borrowed clothes, or remembered in flyers on a cafe wall.A Constant Hum grapples with the aftermath of disaster with an eye for telling detail. Some of these stories cut to the bone; others are empathetic stories of survival, even hope.All are gripping and beautifully written, heralding the arrival of an important new voice in literary fiction.

Jim Henson's The Storyteller: Sirens


Bartosz Sztybor - 2019
    The critically acclaimed Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: Sirens showcases four alluring tales of mermaids and the sea, inspired by folklore from around the world and told in the spirit of Jim Henson’s beloved television series.Featuring beautiful stories told by some of today’s most exciting voices, including Jakub Rebelka (Judas) with Sztybor Bartosz, Chan Chau (Elements), Sarah Webb (Jim Henson’s Labyrinth: Under the Spell), and Aud Koch (The Wicked + The Divine), this stunning hardcover edition also includes an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the process and care taken in adapting each of the these timeless tales.

Walks Through Life: Stories


Santhosh Komaraju - 2019
    Each of the tales implores us to continue our human legacy, reminding us of the virtuous nature that is inherently ours but is often hidden by life’s daily struggles.This book set in medieval times contains spiritual stories that can change lives, involving Indian kings, mystics, princes, and farmers. Stripping away the distractions of the present day, author Santhosh K. Komaraju provides a poignant look at what truly matters and encourages us to seek the essence of who we really are.

Once Upon A Star


Jenna Elizabeth JohnsonAlexia Purdy - 2019
    What if the Twelve Dancing Princesses were undead clones? What if the witch in Hansel and Gretel was an AI-sentient house? Are you ready for the Three Little Pigs… in space? These fourteen tales will entertain and inspire you, and you’ll never see your favorite faerie tales quite the same way again. Grab your copy of Once Upon A Star, and don’t forget the other anthologies - Once Upon A Curse, Once Upon A Kiss, and Once Upon A Quest - for more magical retellings!

The New Voices of Science Fiction


Hannu RajaniemiSuzanne Palmer - 2019
    Even though your worker bots have staged a mutiny, and your tour guide speaks only in memes, you can always sell your native language if you need some extra cash.The avant-garde of science fiction have arrived in this space-age sequel to the 2018 award-winning anthology, The New Voices of Fantasy. In The New Voices of Science Fiction you'll find the rising stars of the last five years: Rebecca Roanhorse, Amal El-Mohtar, Sam J. Miller, E. Lily Yu, Rich Larson, Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Sarah Pinsker, Alice Sola Kim, Darcie Little Badger, Nino Cipri, S. Qiouyi Lu, Kelly Robson, Suzanne Palmer, and more. Their extraordinary stories have been hand-selected by cutting-edge author Hannu Rajaniemi (The Quantum Thief) and genre expert Jacob Weisman (Invaders).So go ahead, join the starship revolution. The new kids have already hacked the AI.--back coverContents:- Introduction by Jacob Weisman- Foreword by Hannu Rajaniemi- Openness (2016) by Alexander Weinstein- The Shape of My Name (2015) by Nino Cipri- Utopia, LOL? (2017) by Jamie Wahls- Mother Tongues (2018) by S. Qiouyi Lu- In the Sharing Place (2018) by David Erik Nelson- A Series of Steaks (2017) by Vina Jie-Min Prasad- The Secret Life of Bots (2017) by Suzanne Palmer- Ice (2015) by Rich Larson- One Hour, Every Seven Years (2017) by Alice Sola Kim- Toppers (2016) by Jason Sanford- Tender Loving Plastics (2018) by Amman Sabet- Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™ (2017) by Rebecca Roanhorse- Strange Waters (2018) by Samantha Mills- Calved (2015) by Sam J. Miller- The Need for Air (2018) by Lettie Prell- Robo-Liopleurodon! (2018) by Darcie Little Badger- The Doing and Undoing of Jacob E. Mwangi (2019) by E. Lily Yu- Madeleine (2015) by Amal El-Mohtar- Our Lady of the Open Road (2015) by Sarah Pinsker- A Study in Oils (2018) by Kelly Robson

Priests de la Resistance!: The Loose Canons Who Fought Fascism in the Twentieth Century


Fergus Butler-Gallie - 2019
    From taking a bullet for a frightened schoolgirl in Alabama to saving Greek Jews from extermination by way of fake IDs, each of the fifteen hard-drinking, chain-smoking clerics featured in this book were willing to risk their lives for what they believed.

Animals Reviewed: Starred Ratings of Our Feathered, Finned, and Furry Friends


Association of Zoos and Aquariums - 2019
    Dropped into a pond and still works perfectly. Otter, 4 stars: Sturdy built, totally winter-read and waterproof. Only comes in brown. Launched by the Oregon Zoo and picked up by zoos and aquariums around the world, #rateaspecies is a viral hit, giving zookeepers a chance to honestly and hilariously review the animals in their keep. In Animals Reviewed, the American Zoo Association has crowd-sourced 150 of the best entries, the majority of which are new to the book. Packed with adorable photos of every animal and laced with wit and humor, Animals Reviewed is the perfect gift for every animal lover.

Grimm, Grit and Gasoline (Punked Up Fairy Tales, #1)


Rhonda ParrishJuliet Harper - 2019
    The stories in this volume add fairy tales to the mix, transporting classic tales to this rich historical setting.Two young women defy the devil with the power of friendship. The pilot of a talking plane discovers a woman who transforms into a swan every night and is pulled into a much more personal conflict than the war he’s already fighting. A pair of twins with special powers find themselves in Eva Braun’s custody and wrapped up in a nefarious plan. A team of female special agents must destroy a secret weapon–the spindle–before it can be deployed. Retellings of The Little Mermaid, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Cinderella, The Monkey King, Swan Lake, Pinocchio and more are all showcased alongside some original fairy tale-like stories. Featuring stories by Zannier Alejandra, Alicia K. Anderson, Jack Bates, Patrick Bollivar, Sara Cleto, Amanda C. Davis, Jennifer R. Donohue, Juliet Harper, Blake Jessop, A.A. Medina, Lizz Donnelly, Nellie Neves, Wendy Nikel, Brian Trent, Alena Van Arendonk, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, Sarah Van Goethem, and Robert E. Vardeman.

Minor Monuments


Ian Maleney - 2019
    Mostly set in the rural Irish midlands, on a small family farm not far from the river Shannon. This book tracks the final years of Maleney's grandfather's life, and looks at his experience with Alzheimer's disease, as well as the experiences of the people closest to him. Using his grandfather's memory loss as a spur, the essays ask what it means to call a place home how we establish ourselves in a place, and how we record our experiences of a place. The nature of familial and social bonds, the way a relationship is altered by observing and recording it, the influence of tradition and history, the question of belonging - these are the questions which come up again and again. Using episodes from his own life, and drawing on the works of artists like Pat Collins, Seamus Heaney, John Berger and Brian Eno, Maleney examines how certain ways of listening and looking might bring us closer to each other, or keep us apart. Minor Monuments is a thought provoking and quietly devastating meditation on family, and how even the smallest story is no minor event.

The Trans Space Octopus Congregation: Stories


Bogi Takács - 2019
    Takács may be known more for their recent editorial efforts, winning a Lambda Literary Award for Transcendent 2: The Year's Best Transgender Themed Speculative Fiction. But Takács is a talented storyteller and poet. An uplifted octopus finds a strange capsule in the water and wonders if one of the long-vanished humans might be found inside; a team of scientists perform some reverse-engineering on a space station and shapeshifting becomes political; and other tales of AI, hybrids, and the far future.

Coconut Dreams


Derek Mascarenhas - 2019
    Starting with a ghost story set in Goa, India in the 1950s, the collection weaves through various timelines and perspectives to focus on two children, Aiden and Ally Pinto. These siblings tackle their adventures in a predominantly white suburb with innocence, intelligence and a timid foot in two distinct cultures.In these stories, Derek Mascarenhas takes a fresh look at the world of the new immigrant and the South Asian experience in Canada, as a daughter questions her father's love at an IKEA grand opening; an aunt remembers a safari-gone-wrong in Kenya; an uncle's unrequited love is confronted at a Goan Association picnic; a boy tests his faith amidst a school-yard brawl; and a childhood love letter is exchanged during the building of a backyard deck. Singularly and collectively, these stories will move the reader with their engaging narratives and authentic voices."This charming collection of stories resides between a suburban childhood in Canada and inherited, often mythic, tales from Goa that belong to the elders. Characters decide on love with rings lost at sea and soothe babies with stories of elephants in mountains. The voices in these stories are from people who seem far away and yet are inside us. Prepare to be delighted." —Kim Echlin, author of Under the Visible Life"The stories in Derek Mascarenhas's Coconut Dreams remind one of the high stakes in a child's world, the way that danger looms just fractionally outside safety. Like all proper enchantments, these vignettes are dark, light, strange, and vivid such that they delight and charm in equal portions." —Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, author of All the Broken Things, Perfecting, and The Nettle Spinner."In this evocative collection, Derek Mascarenhas takes up the fictional Pinto family and turns it gently in his hands, revealing new truths—and new questions—with every shift in point of view. A moving, multifaceted debut." —Alissa York, author of The Naturalist

Haunted Voices


Rebecca WojturskaDuncan Williamson - 2019
    Scotland is also a place with a strange, longstanding affinity with that most chilling of genres: the Gothic.Haunted Voices – a bold and ambitious anthology in both text and audio – showcases some of Scotland’s best oral storytellers, from archived stories of past masters to the work of contemporary performers, and their most disturbing tales of terror.Expect monstrous tongue-eaters, shadowy demons, haunted video tapes, wicked priests, strange shapes in the darkness, a retelling of Poe’s The Raven… and more!Scotland may be small, but it has many, many voices. So gather round and listen close. This is Haunted Voices: Scotland’s great Gothic chorus.

Steven Universe: Just Right


Rebecca Sugar - 2019
    Join Steven on a series of one-on-one adventures with your favorite characters from around Beach City. Explore what it means to feel at home with Lapis and Peridot. See Greg relive his days as a rock star and join Garnet on a solo mission. Oh, and sneak out with Amethyst to join Jenny and Kiki at a concert! Writer Grace Kraft (Ornithia) and artist Rii Abrego (Rick & Morty) guide Steven and the Crystal Gems as they learn what it means to rely on one another in these all-new stories from Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe.

Past Indiscretions: The Very Best of Splatterpunk Zine


Jack BantryDan Henk - 2019
    Praise for Splatterpunk Zine:"Splatterpunk Zine is 100% the real deal, and if seedy-but-brilliantly-written hardcore horror is your pleasure, guilty or otherwise, I'd say this zine is essential reading." - Ginger Nuts of Horror"This is an old school handmade hardcore horror fiction zine... I liked it a lot." - Mark Sieber, Horror Drive-In"Bantry is providing a great time for fans of horror fiction. If you haven't jumped on this viscera-covered bandwagon, what are you waiting for?" - Sean Leonard, HorrorNews.net

Lives and Deaths


Leo Tolstoy - 2019
    This is life itself’ Howard Jacobson’No other writer wrote so often, or so imaginatively, about the actual moment of dying’ Orlando FigesTolstoy’s stories contain many of the most acutely observed moments in his monumental body of work. This new selection of his shorter works, sensitively translated by the award-winning Boris Dralyuk, showcases the peerless economy with which Tolstoy could render the passions and conflicts of a life.These are works that take us from a self-interested judge’s agonising deathbed to the bristling social world of horses in a stable yard, from the joyful vanity of youth to the painful doubts of sickness and old age. With unwavering precision, Tolstoy’s eye brings clarity and richness to the simplest materials.

To the Victor: Tales of Magic and Adventure


Cathleen Townsend - 2019
    And when you’re done, don’t forget to leave pizza and beer out for the jobsite elves.

In Dreams We Rot


Betty Rocksteady - 2019
    These twenty stories run the gamut from splatterpunk to somber. They’re hot and wet and nasty, guaranteed to leave you with an unspeakable sense of dread.

Franz Kafka: The Complete Novels


Franz Kafka - 2019
    Content : Unhappiness The Judgment Before the Law The Metamorphosis A Report to an Academy Jackals and Arabs A Country Doctor In the Penal Colony A Hunger Artist The Trial The Castle Amerika A Little Fable The Great Wall of China The Hunter Gracchus The Burrow

The Long List Anthology Volume 5: More Stories From the Hugo Award Nomination List (The Long List Anthology Series)


David SteffenGreg Egan - 2019
    Every year, supporting members of WorldCon nominate their favorite stories first published during the previous year to determine the top five in each category for the final Hugo Award ballot. This is an anthology collecting more of the stories from that nomination list to get them to more readersThe Long List Anthology Volume 5 collects 20 science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories from that nomination list, totaling over 450 pages of fiction by writers from all corners of the world. From science fiction mysteries to studying wish-granting fairies, research on haunted houses to extracting language knowledge from your brain, from sex-changing dinosaurs to survival stories in a wild alien environment. There is a wide variety of styles and types of stories here, and something for everyone. The stories included are: "Mother Tongues" by S. Qiouyi Lu "Field Biology of the Wee Fairies" by Naomi Kritzer "Meat and Salt and Sparks" by Rich Larson "Sour Milk Girls" by Erin Roberts "Asphalt, River, Mother, Child" by Isabel Yap "The Starship and the Temple Cat" by Yoon Ha Lee "Waterbirds" by G.V. Anderson "You Can Make a Dinosaur, but You Can't Help Me" by K.M. Szpara "And Yet" by A.T. Greenblatt "She Still Loves the Dragon" by Elizabeth Bear "An Agent of Utopia" by Andy Duncan "A Study in Oils" by Kelly Robson "The Substance of My Lives, the Accident of Our Births" by José Pablo Iriarte "No Flight Without the Shatter" by Brooke Bolander "How to Swallow the Moon" by Isabel Yap "A World to Die For" by Tobias S. Buckell "Thirty-Three Percent Joe" by Suzanne Palmer "The Privilege of the Happy Ending" by Kij Johnson "The Nearest" by Greg Egan "Umbernight" by Carolyn Ives Gilman

Earth (Complete Short Fiction Book 1)


Robert J. Sawyer - 2019
    Sawyer. This is the first of three volumes collecting all his short fiction. Here are science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories from the downside of receiving the Encyclopaedia Galactica to the upside of breaking a leg, from an alien on trial to the theft of the Stanley Cup, plus: · A teenage boy buys a haunted car · A parallel-world Neanderthal visits the Vietnam Veterans Wall · Sherlock Holmes solves the Fermi Paradox · A tightrope walker falls for a deal with the devil · And (spoiler alert) those aren’t alligators in the sewer… Earth includes: Flashes; Gator; Last But Not Least; Uphill Climb; Where the Heart Is; Lost in the Mail (Aurora Award finalist); The Contest; Shed Skin (Hugo Award finalist); The Abdication of Pope Mary III; Fallen Angel (Bram Stoker Award finalist); The Transformed Man (Aurora Award winner), The Stanley Cup Caper; Black Reflection; The Good Doctor; Driving a Bargain; Looking for Gordo; Ours to Discover; and You See, But You Do Not Observe (Le Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire (France) winner, best foreign short story). The next two volumes are Space: Complete Short Fiction Volume 2 and Time: Complete Short Fiction Volume 3.

The Lightness of Water and Other Stories


Rhonda Browning White - 2019
    They, like all of us, wrestle with the people, places, and memories they cling to, belong to, and run from, learning (sometimes too late), that these experiences remain with them forever. The nine stories in The Lightness of Water and Other Stories are bound by a strong sense of place—Appalachia and the South—and prove that no matter where we go, there’s no place far enough to leave home behind.

The Foley Artist: Stories


Ricco Villanueva Siasoco - 2019
    . . . A bravura debut." —Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical NovelA compelling debut for fans of the Filipino America brought to life in fiction by Elaine Castillo and Mia Alvar.At once deliciously bizarre and painfully familiar, The Foley Artist introduces a vital new voice to Asian American literature. Ricco Villanueva Siasoco's powerful debut collection opens new regions of American feeling and thought as it interrogates intimacy, foreignness, and silence in an absurd world.These nine stories give voice to the intersectional identities of women and men in the Filipino diaspora in America: a straight woman attends her ex-boyfriend's same-sex marriage in coastal Maine; a college-bound teenager encounters his deaf uncle in Manila; Asian American drag queens duke it out in the annual Iowa State Fair; a seventy-nine-year-old foley artist recreates the sounds of life, but is finally unable to save himself."A collection like a circus of daredevils, but with the determined charm of a Chinese drag queen making her home in Iowa. Siasoco takes us on a trip through the world we know by way of characters I've not seen in fiction before, or at least, not enough of--characters with stories I have been waiting for. A bravura debut." —Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel"The Foley Artist is Ricco Villanueva Siasoco's book of wonders--filled with compelling and unpredictable stories that alternate between dark and light. It marks the exciting debut of a bold and brilliant new writer. A kickass read!" —Jessica Hagedorn, author of Dogeaters and Toxicology"Clever, vivid, and poignant, The Foley Artist is a treasure. Ricco Villanueva Siasoco nimbly guides us from drag shows in Des Moines to wrestling rings in greater Boston, from wet markets in Manila to porn shops in West Hollywood, in prose that sings with tenderness, humor, and insight. Here are Filipino-American lives and queer lives in all their glorious complexity, and here is a debut author in full command of his wide-ranging imagination." —Mia Alvar, award-winning author of In the Country"These captivating and interconnected stories about fusion and friction--familial, cultural, racial, and sexual--read like quiet punches in the gut. A poignant and, at times, heart-stabbing, collection that offers stunning twists to the familiar." —R. Zamora Linmark, author of The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart and Leche"Siasoco writes the kind of emotionally complex observation that makes you say, ah, this is life . . . Each of the stories in The Foley Artist is funny, affectionate, tough, brainy, and subversive, and each one lingers a long, long time. I couldn't put it down and I already want to go back." —Paul Lisicky, author of Later and The Narrow Door"Siasoco performs more than a little magic in the pages of The Foley Artist. Nine stories, seemingly straightforward. But there are worlds within worlds here. Ricco is suave with his sentences, nimble in his ability to move from humor to pathos. More than anything, he can explore the universal unknown that is the human heart. It was a joy to read and learn from The Foley Artist." —Charles Bock, bestselling author of Alice & Oliver"Siasoco takes us to Des Moines, Boston, Manila, Los Angeles, and all the other places where Filipinos are, and centers our stories with beautiful, powerful, and complicated characters at their most intimate, life-shifting moments. Siasoco's writing constantly pushes towards the truth of a moment, even when we want to look away. His writing is compassionate, generous, funny, and exuberant. The Foley Artist is Siasoco's debut, but this is the book of a writer who has taken their time to publish extraordinary, brave stories exploring our human experience." —Grace Talusan, author of The Body Papers

Pacifier


Ira Rat - 2019
    Ira Rat's debut collection of 4 stories of "misfit fiction" flavored with transgressive horror and existentalist bizarro.

A Cathedral of Myth and Bone


Kat Howard - 2019
    A desperate young woman makes a prayer to the Saint of Sidewalks, but the miracle she receives isn’t what she expected. A painter spies a naked man, crouched by the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, transform into a beautiful white bird and decides to paint him, and becomes involved in his curse. Jeanne, a duelist and a sacred blade for God and Her holy saints, finds that the price of truth is always blood. And in the novella “Once, Future” Howard reimagines the Arthurian romance on a modern college campus as a story that is told, and told again, until the ending is right.

Machado de Assis: 26 Stories


Machado de Assis - 2019
    In this original paperback, Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, “the accomplished duo” (Wall Street Journal) behind the “landmark . . . heroically translated” volume (The New Yorker) of the Collected Stories of Machado de Assis, include twenty-six chronologically ordered stories from the seven story collections published during Machado’s life—featuring all-time favorites such as the celebrated novella “The Alienist”; the tragicomic “parable of bureaucracy, madness, and power” (Los Angeles Review of Books), “Midnight Mass”; “The Cane”; and “Father Against Mother.” Ultimately, Machado de Assis: 26 Stories affirms Machado’s status as a literary giant who must finally be fully integrated into the world literary canon.

This Taste for Silence


Amanda O'Callaghan - 2019
    An elderly woman recounts a chilling childhood memory on the family farm. A taxi driver with a missing wife reveals unexpected skills. An inherited painting brings an eerily troubling legacy.Subtle, compelling and unsettling, Amanda O’Callaghan’s stories work at the edges of the sayable, through secrets, erasures and glimpsed moments of disclosure. They shimmer with unspoken histories and characters who have a ‘taste for silence’.

Uncanny Magazine Issue 30: Disabled People Destroy Fantasy! Special Issue


Lynne M. ThomasTochi Onyebuchi - 2019
    Marcade, Tochi Onyebuchi, Karlo Yeager Rodríguez, and Aysha U. Farah. Essays by Kari Maaren, Gwendolyn Paradice, Day Al-Mohamed, A.T. Greenblatt, Cara Liebowitz and Dominik Parisien, poetry by Roxanna Bennett, Toby MacNutt, Shweta Narayan, R.B. Lemberg, Tamara Jerée, and Julian K. Jarboe, interviews with Lane Waldman and Karlo Yeager Rodríguez by Sandra Odell, a cover by Julie Dillon, and editorials by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, and guest editors Katharine Duckett, Nicolette Barischoff, and Lisa M. Bradley.

And the Earth Will Sit on the Moon: Essential Stories


Nikolai Gogol - 2019
    He only wrote one novel, Dead Souls, and destroyed much of his later work, so his stories constitute his major output.In this collection, beautifully and skilfully translated by Oliver Ready, Gogol’s three greatest St Petersburg stories – ‘The Nose’, ‘The Overcoat’ and ‘The Diary of a Madman’ – are presented alongside three masterworks set in the Ukrainian and Russian provinces, demonstrating the breadth of Gogol’s work.Gogol’s extraordinary work is characterised by his idiosyncratic, and often very funny sensibility, and these stories offer us his unique, original and marvellously skewed perspective on the world.

Betty Bites Back: Stories to Scare the Patriarchy


Mindy McGinnis - 2019
    but in these stories, she might be about to plant a knife in his spine. The characters in this anthology are fed up - tired of being held back, held down, held accountable - by the misogyny of the system. They're ready to resist by biting back in their own individual ways, be it through magic, murder, technology, teeth, pitfalls and even... potlucks. Join sixteen writers as they explore feminism in fantasy, science-fiction, fractured fairy-tales, historical settings, and the all-too-familiar chauvinist contemporary world.(While most of the content is YA appropriate, please note the editors recommend this anthology for 16+.)Authors:Liz ColeyShannon GreenElaine GriffinLindsey KlingeleKamerhe LaneJenna LehneDemitria LunettaEmilee MartellTracie MartinCori McCarthyKyrie McCauleyMindy McGinnisKate Karyus QuinnMelody SimpsonAmanda Sun

The Best Small Fictions: 2019 Anthology


Rilla Askew - 2019
    These short, elliptical works are varied and edgy, sorrowful and triumphant, provocative and visionary. The small fictions enclosed within this volume are always vibrant. They scintillate. They linger. With each story brief enough to savor at a stoplight or quick coffee break, the tales contained within 2019's The Best Small Fictions promise to leave a mark.

Cold Comforts


Marianne Halbert - 2019
    Haunted places. Haunted people.Creatures otherworldly and places where looming shadows bring dread to your door.A school bus stops at the home of an isolated family whose unusual children have a unique way to scare off their enemies. A vacationing couple discovers something deeper than their love resides within wine country.Objects in the attic of an old farmhouse come to life seeking retribution.A peculiar girl discovers she has a strange ability.These thirteen tales will take you from the farms and woods of the heartland, to prison and the south of France. Whether you're crunching through the snow wondering what's moving behind you, or sitting by a campfire listening to a tale of revenge, pull a blanket tight around your shoulders and be prepared for an impending chill to race down your spine.All you'll find are cold comforts here.

Ruskin Bond- Stories of Wisdom


Ruskin Bond - 2019
    

Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958 to 1963): Yesterday's Luminaries Introduced by Today's Rising Stars


Gideon MarcusSydney J. Van Scyoc - 2019
    Yet the stories of this era, especially those by women, have been largely unreprinted, unrepresented, and unremembered.Until Now.Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963) features fourteen selections of the best science fiction of the Silver Age by the unsung women authors of yesteryear, introduced by today's rising stars:Unhuman Sacrifice (1958) by Katherine MacLean, introduced by Natalie Devitt Wish Upon a Star (1958) by Judith Merril, introduced by Erica Frank A Matter of Proportion (1959) by Anne Walker, introduced by Erica Friedman The White Pony (1960) by Jane Rice, introduced by T.D. Cloud Step IV (1960) by Rosel George Brown, introduced by Andi Dukleth Of All Possible Worlds (1961) by Rosel George Brown, introduced by Cora Buhlert Satisfaction Guaranteed (1961) by Joy Leache, introduced by A.J. Howells The Deer Park (1962) by Maria Russell, introduced by Claire Weaver To Lift a Ship (1962) by Kit Reed, introduced by Gideon Marcus The Putnam Tradition (1963) by Sonya Hess Dorman, introduced by Lorelei Marcus The Pleiades (1963) by Otis Kidwell Burger, introduced by Gwyn Conaway No Trading Voyage (1963) by Doris Pitkin Buck, introduced by Marie Vibbert Cornie on the Walls (1963) by Sidney van Scyoc, introduced by Rosemary Benton Unwillingly to School (1958) by Pauline Ashwell, introduced by Janice Marcus"Female authors wrote stories about coming of age...cautionary tales...stories set beyond our universe...You'll find these themes and more in this anthology. I hope that as you read their stories you don't try to 'feminine' versus 'masculine' elements. What you are about to read is really good science fiction, plain and simple."(from the foreword by Dr. Laura Brodian Freas Beraha)

Shelter in Place


Catherine Kyle - 2019
    "Poems regarding emergency shelter-seeking"--

Saints and Curses


Alexis Lantgen - 2019
    The short stories in Saints + Curses explore fantasy and magic from a wide variety of perspectives and settings. The stories range in tone from lighthearted modern fantasy in stories like Elven Carols, to the dark and ominous stories like Erlkonig, and in time from the late antiquity to the modern day. Explore worlds of light and dark, where magical whimsy and grim tidings alike are painted across the tapestry of human experience. Indulge in tales of the fantastical where enchantments are bought and sold at the local corner store, your morning latte gives you special abilities, and you might just adopt a murderous, vampiric cat. Your child might be stolen away in the night and replaced with an ancient, evil creature of the fae, waves of plague-ridden vermin consume everything, and only a saint could hope to turn the tide. Magic, like all forms of power and like human nature, has two sides, light and dark. Whether we find (or become) a saint or a curse depends on our circumstances. And, of course, our choices. These stories and more await you, if you dare to turn the page...

CyberPunk Zombie Jihad


Mark Zirbel - 2019
    Manufacturing angels to keep people’s faith alive. Nuking Mexico in the name of comprehensive immigration reform. Mark Zirbel presents nine interconnected yet wildly different stories of a nightmarish dystopia. Rampant organ harvesters. Mutant sex workers. Terroristic performance artists. Surgery-obsessed androids. Time-looping drugs. It’s a world that’s barely recognizable and, at the same time, all too familiar. It’s the world of CYBERPUNK ZOMBIE JIHAD.

Transcendent 4: The Year's Best Transgender Speculative Fiction


Bogi Takács - 2019
    Award-winning editor Bogi Takács has assembled a stellar line-up of stories that explore the frontiers of gender - using the imaginative tools of speculative fiction.The editor's introduction also includes a section on year-to-year changes in transgender SFF, and assembled longer-form trans highlights.

Dreams of Lake Drukka / Exhumation


Mike Thorn - 2019
    Journeying into the darkest recesses of the past, these stories depict the dire consequences of discovering the truth.

His Father's Disease: Stories


Aruni Kashyap - 2019
    But the English-language literati don’t understand why he doesn’t write about the insurgency.With the very first story in this unusual and unapologetic collection, Aruni Kashyap sets the tone for an intimate exploration of a terrain that is both familiar and alien. In the spirit of modern post-colonial storytellers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Daniyal Mueenuddin, his stories press the silences of the village and the nascent city to reveal their secrets. The result is a frank appraisal of our hypocrisies and desires, hopes and defeats—the stuff of the stuff we carry within us. Through tales that root up love, violence, motherhood and sex, Kashyap appears to ask: what are the stories about a place that are told, which ones are worth telling, what do we really want to say?

The Girl in the Woods (Off-Kilter Tales #1)


Michael Robertson - 2019
    You think you see a child wondering through the woods. Do you stop? Andy must make that choice. Either option will change his life forever. But with a life like his, maybe change is a good thing.The Girl in the Woods - A Ghost’s Story is the first in a collection of Off-Kilter Tales. It’s a short story about a man in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or the right place at the right time. You decide.

Incomplete Solutions (The Harvester Series)


Wole Talabi - 2019
    An elderly woman in early 22nd century Lagos is called in to help test the artificial intelligence built from her genius mother's mind, but all is not as it seems in the Nommo-award winning story, "The Regression Test".Exiled from Earth for a crime of passion, a young man must learn to survive a barely habitable prison planet and come to peace with his past in "Polaris"."Wednesday's Story", nominated for the 2018 Caine Prize, is at once a retelling of nursery rhymes and folklore and a meta-fictional meditation on the mechanics, art and power of storytelling.In the novella "Incompleteness Theories", an international team, led by a Nigerian physicist, try to invent teleportation technology with haunting, unforeseen results.From the bustling streets of Lagos to the icy moons of Jupiter, this debut collection of twenty stories from the vivid imagination of the award-winning Wole Talabi explores what it means to be human in a world of accelerating technology, diverse beliefs, and unlimited potential, from a uniquely Nigerian perspective.

The Averoigne Archives


Clark Ashton Smith - 2019
    Werewolves and satyrs stalk the dark forests, witches and necromancers lurk in the swamps, and gargoyles and giants terrorize the cathedral city of Vyônes in the heart of Averoigne. Even the holy Abbey of Périgon is defiled by cursed statues and demons from the stars. Come, explore the mysteries of Averoigne... if you dare. Includes these stories by Clark Ashton Smith: Mother of Toads The Maker of Gargoyles The Holiness of Azédarac A Night in Malnéant The Colossus of Ylourgne The Enchantress of Sylaire The Beast of Averoigne The Mandrakes A Rendezvous in Averoigne The Disinterment of Venus The Satyr The End of the Story Averoigne (poem) ...and a map of Averoigne by Tim Kirk!

Rare Birds: Stories


L.S. Johnson - 2019
    Johnson, the eight short stories in this collection look at the ties that bind and the transformations they provoke. Whether bound by love, blood, or violent circumstance, the characters in these tales are fundamentally altered by those closest to them … and not always for the better. Two mothers become entwined in revenge against a violent man, with unexpected consequences. A roving gang of sirens finds themselves challenged from without and within. In a last, desperate act of love, a young surgeon goes under the knife. And in a distant territory, a mother and daughter struggle to survive—but the aid they summon is far more dangerous. At turns brutal and tender, subtle and shocking, these stories blend realism, fantasy, and horror to create an unsettling—and unforgettable—experience.

Heirs of Fate


Amara Luciano - 2019
    THREE DARK DESTINIES.ONE CHANCE TO CHANGE EVERYTHING."You will find no perfect heroines within these pages. Instead you will find impulsive girls, angry girls, broken girls. You will find characters begging to be loved despite their imperfections, who strive to grow but plead with you to also love them now, where they are." ~Jennifer SauerThree spellbinding novellas in the Gods’ Fate world available in print for the first time.BRIDE OF DREAMSIn order to escape her mother’s war-torn legacy, Diya must marry. Nevertheless, she is pulled between her own desire to explore the lands beyond her home and her duty to end decades of hostility through an arranged marriage. But when her wedding day brings a curse upon her betrothed, Diya must rescue his soul from the gods—or risk the destruction of their villages.HUNTRESS AND THE NIGHTINGALEOnce a huntress blessed by the gods, Zahria is now little more than an exalted murderer in service to her queen and lover, seeking solace in wineskins while her queen uses blood magic to torment the desperate people of the kingdom. In this queer, gender-bent reimagining of Snow White and the Huntsman, Zahria is offered a dark choice: Destroy a cursed forest and sin against gods who have likely abandoned her, or remain forever imprisoned in a land not her own.STORM MISTRESSThe daughter of a notorious pirate, Jade must hide her bloody past in order to have the future she desires: a home that cannot be destroyed by the cruelty of powerful men. Using clever backdoor deals and her position as a sought after courtesan, she schemes to stop the most brutal kings of the seas from further abusing her island. But when a mysterious storm goddess kills a key patron, Jade’s plans threaten to crumble and she must stay alive long enough to win her island’s game of shadows.PLUSBonus content including a BRAND NEW story! This short story will include crossover between characters from the previously published novellas and will serve as a bridge to the forthcoming full-length novel set in the same world."It's so great to see woman portrayed so strongly especially in times like today where we as women need to be united in strength."

Allen Kuzara: Of dust and sand


Allen Kuzara - 2019
    Whether it’s human-sized parasites, clone lovers, or intergalactic war—there’s something in this novel-length story collage for every science fiction enthusiast.

Space (Complete Short Fiction Book 2)


Robert J. Sawyer - 2019
    Sawyer. This is the second of three volumes collecting all his short fiction. Here are science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories from the downside of Utopia to the upside of murdering computers, from a war memorial in space to never-ending night, plus: · An alien ship crashes in Sudbury · A priest investigates a miracle on Mars · Recovering the body of a dead cosmonaut · First-ever publication of “Motive,” a planetarium show produced in 1980 · And (spoiler alert) maybe chickens weren’t meant to fly… Space includes: The Hand You’re Dealt (Hugo Award finalist); The Blue Planet (Year’s Best SF 5); Star Light, Star Bright; Stream of Consciousness (Aurora Award winner); Above It All; The Eagle Has Landed; Motive; Ineluctable (Aurora Award winner); Mikeys (Aurora Award finalist); Kata Bindu; the original novelette version of Golden Fleece (Aurora Award finalist); Wiping Out; and Come All Ye Faithful (Aurora Award finalist). The first volume is Earth: Complete Short Fiction Volume 1 and the last volume is Time: Complete Short Fiction Volume 3.

Bedtime Stories


Russell Smeaton - 2019
    These contain horror, weird literature as well as some rather dark comedy pieces.

Champions of Change: 25 Women Who Made History


Naomi Watkins - 2019
    Anthony and Emmeline B. Wells fought to end laws and take down barriers that prevented them from voting. Suffrage Sisters introduces young readers not only to Anthony and Wells, but also to a diverse group of firsts and freedom-fighters in America’s fight for equality, such as: Zitkala-Sa, co-founder of the National Council of American Indians Martha Hughes Cannon, America’s first female senator Hanna Kaaepa, an advocate for Hawaiian women’s rights Barbara Toomer, who was jailed 35 times for protests that led to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities act and the women of the Kanab City Council, one of the first all-female city councils in the country. This timely collection of mini biographies highlights 25 champions for justice, includes colorful portraitures of each, and presents actual photos of the individuals as well as a quick reference glossary.Naomi Watkins, Ph.D. is an educational consultant, women’s advocate, and community builder. A former middle school English teacher, she specializes in curriculum development and school district consulting. She has been published in international journals such as the The Reading Teacher, Journal of Children's Literature, TESOL Journal, and Middle School Journal.Katherine Kitterman is the historical director for Better Days 2020, an organization that explores stories of women who shaped Utah’s history. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in American History at American University in Washington, D.C., where she has worked to bring history to life at the Smithsonian Institution, the Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Woodrow Wilson House.Brooke Smart is an illustrator based in Sandy, Utah, with a BFA in Illustration from Brigham Young University. Her illustration clients include the New York Times, Gathre, Better Days 2020, Bravery Magazine, and private commissions. Brook recently won honorable mention in the 2016 Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Portfolio Showcase in New York City.

Witches Sail in Eggshells


Chloe Turner - 2019
    She was pounding the shells, hard, with the palm of her hand on the flat of a knife.Bewitched by ‘the sort of girl who’d batter your heart like a thrush with a snail on a stone’, a woman overlooks the one who really loves her.A seaside community is overwhelmed when the sea begins to expel its life forms. But the villagers would rather raise the sea wall, whatever the cost, than confront their past mistakes.A woman’s beloved garden withers as the baby inside her flourishes. When the pregnancy reaches its end, the progeny is not as she expects.A widower feels like his life might have been a quiet nothing, but he’ll end it with the flight he’s always dreamed of. Even that fails, but instead of indignity, in the attempt he finds peace.Perceptive, intriguing, and beautifully told, Chloe Turner’s debut collection explores the themes of love, loss, the little ways we let each other down, and how we can find each other again.

Transfer


Terry M. West - 2019
    An odd AVI clip begins to appear in their public drive on a nightly basis. At first Howie and Nick think it’s a serialized art house horror film someone on the day shift is sending them in secret. As the clips progress, however, the now obsessed duo discover something deeper and darker in the videos. Horror author Terry M. West would like to introduce you to the Green Room and its primary occupant, The Screamer.

Silly Tales from Albanon


Joshua Grant - 2019
    But when the quirky fantasy realm of Albanon is beset with an unspeakable evil, these hapless heroes and more will have to band together to fight deadly monsters and save the world. And there's a cute sentient cactus. Did I mention the cactus? What's not to love about that?

Built On Sand


Paul Scraton - 2019
    A place of tourists and refugees, and the memories of those exiled and expelled. A city named after marshland; if you dig a hole, you'll soon hit sand.The stories of Berlin are the stories BUILT ON SAND. A wooden town, laid waste by the Thirty Years War that became the metropolis by the Spree that spread out and swallowed villages whole. The city of Rosa Luxemburg and Joseph Roth, of student movements and punks on both sides of the Wall. A place still bearing the scars of National Socialism and the divided city that emerged from the wreckage of war. BUILT ON SAND centres on the personal geographies of place, and how memory and history live on in the individual and collective imagination. Stories of landscapes and a city both real and imagined; stories of exile and trauma, mythology and folklore; of how the past shapes and distorts our understanding of the present in an age of individualism, gentrification and the rising threat of nativism and far-right populism.Together, these stories offer a portrait of a city three decades on from the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the legacy of that history in a city that was once divided but remains fractured and fragmented.

Triangulation: Dark Skies


Diane TurnshekR. Jean Mathieu - 2019
    Travel the high ways with lovers in a hand-built rocket. Chase meteors across the sky to a windfall of wonder. Ride the star-train to Europa and dive into the salty oceans under ice. Pierce the dark sky with acolytes of the serpent god and gasp at the lengths people go to see stars one more time. Trance dance under the cold skies of Ceres. Journey with us into darkness, for only there can we see the light. Don't we all have the right? Featuring: Blake Jessop > Kate Ruegger > Mary Soon Lee > Maddy Dietz > Manny Frishberg & Edd Vick > Jamie Lackey > J.A. Prentice > Estelle Rodgers > James Edward O'Brien > Josh Rountree > Stephanie Gildart > Rhea Rose > Mike Brotherton > Jennifer Lee Rossman > Salinda Tyson > Andrew Leon Hudson > Alexandra Balasa > Isaac Payne > Liam Hogan > Laura Jane Swanson > R. Jean Mathieu

The Alley of Fireflies and Other Stories


Raymond Roussel - 2019
    Short Stories. Translated from the French by Mark Ford. Raymond Roussel (1877-1933) is one of the most distinctive and compelling French writers of the twentieth century, yet many aspects of Roussel's life remain shrouded in mystery. An extremely wealthy and always exquisitely dressed homosexual dandy, Roussel was also a compulsive writer. Despite the strangeness of his work, he was convinced that it would make him as popular as Victor Hugo or Shakespeare. His suicide at the age of 56 was in part prompted by the continual disappointment of his hopes for fame.The full extent of Roussel's writing only became clear in 1989 when a trunk was unearthed in a furniture warehouse containing a vast trove of his manuscripts. The most exciting discoveries were the full draft of Locus Solus (over twice as long as the published version) and the typescript of what would have been his third novel, THE ALLEY OF FIREFLIES, which is translated here for the first time into English by the leading Roussel scholar, Mark Ford. Ford has also translated two haunting extracts from the drafts of Locus Solus, and versions of two of the young Roussel's most intriguing short stories, Chiquenaude and AMONG THE BLACKS.Roussel's work was vociferously championed by Surrealist writers and painters such as Andr� Breton, Marcel Duchamp and Salvador Dal�, and later proved a significant influence on Oulipians (particularly Georges Perec), on nouveaux romanciers like Alain Robbe-Grillet, as well as on John Ashbery and Harry Mathews, who named their pioneering magazine of the 1960s Locus Solus, after Roussel's second novel.

Dante's Cartography


Alyssa Quinn - 2019
    Adam and Eve after the garden, speaking past each other; Alice after Wonderland, losing definition. Scheherazade working with broken boxes; Pandora happy to have broken them. We put birds into testing tubes. We put Dante into Hell. We put pen to paper, and in so doing lose sight of our immediate exits. How are we to make our escapes? The only way out, suggests Dante’s Cartography, is through. In these six stories, Alyssa Quinn structures worlds without obvious escape—but worlds in which we examine and identify our reflected selves. Why not, after all? This is what we know how to do.

This Way to Departures


Linda Mannheim - 2019
    Butterfly McQueen, one of the stars of Gone With the Wind, becomes a tour guide back in Georgia when she discovers the only film roles open to her involve playing maids. Mia, a museum curator, attends a wrongful death trial after her childhood friend's lawyer insists that having a middle-class friend in the courtroom will curry favour with the jury. Laura, a Nuyorican reporter working in 1980s Miami, is enamoured by a Salvadoran asylum seeker who's asked for her help; but is he who he says he is? This Way to Departures is a deeply affecting portrait of American society and the constant search for a place to call 'home'.

The Grifter, the Poet, and the Runaway Train: Stories from a Yankee Writer's Notebook


Geoffrey Douglas - 2019
    Some have been about public events, widely reported--a Maine town turning against itself under the weight of an influx of Somalis, a fatal fire in Worcester MA, a Vermont reporter's defense of marriage equality. Others, have been more private, the stories of men and women surviving, facing choices, living life--a small-time jockey scratching out an existence at county-fair racetracks; the long, sad fall of a Maine lottery winner, a poet's love affair with his town. The best of these, taken together, make for a rich and updated collection of New England portraits: mostly ordinary lives, upended by choice or chance, turned suddenly, unexpectedly remarkable.

Lazermall


Katy Michelle Quinn - 2019
    three authors (Katy Michelle Quinn, Joe Quenell, Sam Richard) of the strange, the unsettling, and the bizarre each conjure their own vision of lazer-infused mall-horror. From queer mall-goths fighting for their lives against androids with explosive genitals, to the American propaganda machine using coerced shock-rocker punk musicians to fight Soviet Communism, to a mall security officer high on the power of robots who seeks to crush the women who've scorned him.We have it all, and more... Welcome to the LazerMall.

The Acid Suite


Craig Lea Gordon - 2019
    1 unmissable anthology.The Acid Suite brings together the first four releases from the Acid Suite series of short stories. In Bad Hands, a couple strive to unlock a secret hidden in plain sight. The Machine is the ultimate mad scientist tale. What if the machines win? Find out in Theatre of Death. And in Transmit, Grace's death is just the start of her journey.4 science fiction short stories.4 tales with the power to corrode your mind forever.The Acid Suite includes:Bad HandsThe MachineTheatre of DeathTransmit

Bakwa 09: Taxi Drivers Who Drive Us Nowhere and other Travel Stories


Bakwa Magazine - 2019
    Herein are stories about passport privilege and air and road trips to destinations diverse and peculiar—from Douala, Lagos, Lisbon, through Berlin, Sylt, Maputo to Kousseri. A journey down memory lane with the inglorious history of an airline, and a cab driver’s unheralded analysis of Captain Marvel.Bakwa 09 includes pieces from Florian Ngimbis, Anne-Marie Befoune, Yovanka Paquete Perdigao, Sada Malumfashi, Nkiacha Atemnkeng, Munukayumbwa ‘Mimi’ Mwiya, Howard M-B Maximus, Kay Ugwuede and Raoul Djimeli. It also features an online-only excerpt of the novel Whites Can Dance Too by Kalaf Epalanga.

The Usual Uncertainties: Stories


Jonathan Blum - 2019
    California Interest. Jewish Studies. THE USUAL UNCERTAINTIES: STORIES--Jonathan Blum's highly anticipated first collection--is storytelling at its finest. In precise, elegant prose, these stories follow characters and communities often consigned to the edge of the frame: a community college dropout, a geriatric care manager, a square dance bar mitzvah, a Scrabble club, an entrepreneurial Thai immigrant, and a South Florida country club. With echoes of Leonard Michaels, Mavis Gallant, and Lore Segal, Blum explores the ways our divergent histories tether us together and at times push us completely apart. THE USUAL UNCERTAINTIES: STORIES revels in the persistent human struggle to love with abandon and marks a dynamic voice in American short fiction."The characters that inhabit these stories will break your heart and mend it simultaneously. A writer of immense talent and imagination, Jonathan Blum is unafraid to explore, sometimes hilariously, the most dangerous interiors of personality in ways we've never quite seen before. THE USUAL UNCERTAINTIES tackles the most primal of our human dilemmas with a vision as profound and achingly delicate as it is unforgettable."--Holiday Reinhorn"Jonathan Blum is a wonderful writer: witty and sharp, compassionate and humane, and THE USUAL UNCERTAINTIES is a flat-out glorious collection that manages to be both hilarious and heartbreaking, nervy and timeless. I won't soon forget these masterful stories."--Molly Antopol"These wonderful stories by Jonathan Blum run so many gamuts--his range is glorious: from joy to grief, from hilarity to solemnity, from stupidity to wisdom. When I consider how beautifully achieved these stories are I weep with pleasure. Jonathan Blum is the real deal, the full spectrum and I've known this from when I first read him such a long time ago. This is his first full book of stories--finally, at last. The world needs this book. We deserve it after a long wait."--Michael Silverblatt"I love everything about this book. These are wise and richly imagined stories, at turns hilarious and heartbreaking. Blum is undeniably a master of the short story form, a writer of profound compassion and virtuosic talent, and these stories mark the arrival of a major new voice in American short fiction."--Andrew Porter"In these wonderfully various stories, gentle and bizarre and tragic and very funny, there are characters the likes of which have rarely been given life in fiction: The young son of a pulmonary oncologist learns excitedly to read x-rays, and that excitement is very different than what his father feels. A widow makes a business of bringing a quality of life to elders, and a thirteen-year-old Roger, on the occasion of his Bar Mitzvah, has a T-shirt stamped: I'd Rather Be Davening. Herm is a one-man ad hoc adoption agency finding unwanted newborns and delivering them into well-appointed futures. Jonathan Blum descends from a great tradition of Jewish storytellers, Richler, Malamud, Michaels, and he brings the tradition into the twenty-first century, and he brings the tradition west, too, to Los Angeles. Oh, and south to Florida, and right up to the Shabbat table where Adam sits with his Thai girlfriend in 'A Certain Light on Los Angeles.' There is a certain light here in these stories and it is very much worth your time."--Michelle Latiolais"I've long been an admirer of the strange, intense, and yet incredibly intimate work of Jonathan Blum."--Peter Orner

Midnight at the Organporium


Tara Campbell - 2019
    At turns droll, wicked, and surreal, these tales cover topics from white flight, to the Princess and the Pea, to marriage in the afterlife. Visit Midnight at the Organporium for a dose of twisted obsession, covert complicity, and peculiar empowerment—and don’t forget to pick up your spare heart while you’re there.Praise for Midnight at the Organporium“Tara Campbell’s stories exist at a delightful quarter turn to the left from our world—places where CEOs turn into lions, and hearts are sold in the mall—while simultaneously beautifully and deftly exploring exactly what it means to be human.”Tina Connolly, World Fantasy-nominated author of On the Eyeball Floor and Other Stories“So much unexpected happens in Tara Campbell’s weird and wonderful short story collection, Midnight at the Organporium, that I didn’t want to let these stories go. This slim, but packed collection of 12 stories makes the ordinary extraordinary—from the ghost of Lucille in “Death Sure Changes a Person” to a thief of hearts in the Southside Mall in the title story, “Midnight at the Organporium.” Red from Red Riding Hood re-tells her story with a roar and a vengeance in “Another Damn Cottage.” Whereas, “You, Commuter,” is a nightmarish wonder of flash fiction about an everyday bus ride. “The Rapture” comes at you slant, or at least that’s how it opens, and we soon have much more than a commonplace end of the world story—we have a story of race that rises on the shoulders of Octavia Butler. These stories all astonish and astound. From full-length to flash fiction, Campbell’s stories in Midnight at the Organporium sneak up on you with an exquisite hyper-realism, a sure-fire wit, and most of all, a daring sense of adventure and possibility. “Caroline Bock, author of Carry Her Home, Before My Eyes, and Lie“Sometimes funny, sometimes frightening, and always full of heart—in Midnight at the Organporium, the everyday and the fantastic conspire to create the authentic.”Erin Fitzgerald, author of Valletta73