Chaos rules the final days of the Forerunner empire. The Flood—a horrifying, shape-changing, and unstoppable parasite—has arrived in force, aided by unexpected allies, and internal strife has desperately weakened Forerunner defenses. Facing the imminent collapse of their civilization, the Forerunners known as the Ur-Didact and the Librarian reveal what they know about the relationship between the long-vanished race of the Precursors and the Flood. While the Precursors created many technological species, including those of the Forerunners and humanity itself, the roots of the Flood may be found in an act of enormous barbarity, carried out beyond our galaxy ten million years before. Because of that savagery, a greater evil looms. Only the Ur-Didact and the Librarian—husband and wife pushed into desperate conflict—hold the keys to a solution. As they face the consequences of a mythic tragedy, one of them must now commit the greatest atrocity of all time—a shocking act designed to prevent an insane abomination from dominating the entire galaxy…

    This landmark collection gathers four groundbreaking fantasy classics from the acclaimed author of Light.Set in the imagined city of Viriconium, here are the masterworks that revolutionized a genre and enthralled a generation of readers: The Pastel City, A Storm of Wings, In Viriconium, and Viriconium Knights.Contents:The Pastel City, 1971 (novel)A Storm of Wings, 1980 (novel)In Viriconium, 1982 (novel)The Lamia & Lord Cromis, 1971 (short story)Viriconium Knights, 1981 (short story)The Luck in the Head, 1984 (novelette)Strange Great Sins, 1983 (short story)The Lords of Misrule, 1984 (short story)The Dancer from the Dance, 1985 (short story)A Young Man’s Journey to Viriconium, 1985 (short story)

    

    and thrown into a battle for the fate of entire star systems.READ IT BECAUSEGuy Haley returns to tank action in a new tale of Honoured Lieutenant Bannick and his crew, weaving a tight and twisty tale as they face not only cunning enemies, but their own doubts about mankinds place in the galaxy.THE STORYArriving in the Geratomro warzone, Honoured Lieutenant Bannick and the crew of the Baneblade Cortein’s Honour are assigned as close support to a company of Shadowsword Titan hunters as they find themselves thrust into a deadly battle for the fate of three star systems. New and deadly allies throw into doubt all that Bannick has been told of the Imperium, while threatening not only his life, but also his soul...

    Destroyed oil rigs, mysteriously reborn, clamber from the sea and onto the land, driven by an obscure but violent purpose. An anatomy student cuts open a cadaver to discover impossibly intricate designs carved into a corpse's bones—designs clearly present from birth, bearing mute testimony to . . . what?Of such concepts and unforgettable images are made the twenty-eight stories in this collection—many published here for the first time. By turns speculative, satirical, and heart-wrenching, fresh in form and language, and featuring a cast of damaged yet hopeful seekers who come face-to-face with the deep weirdness of the world—and at times the deeper weirdness of themselves—Three Moments of an Explosion is a fitting showcase for one of our most original voices.

    Inscribed runes spelled out a promise beyond belief. The Key To Paradise. A promise and a quest. Giles Grimsmate, world-wandering survivor of the Trans wars, had won it fairly in a game of chance. The second key - along with a goodly haul of coin - had been stolen from a rich merchant by Keja Tchurak, master thief. And when they set out for the invisible Gates of Paradise, Petia, half-cat, half-woman, tracked them with silent night-skills. Yet to enter Paradise, three keys more were needed: The Flame Key, watched over by a cave-dwelling fire sorceress. The Key of the Skeleton Lord, devil-guarded in a desert place of scorpions and snakes. The Key of Ice and Steel, fast-locked in an underground smithy, protected by a frozen demon-prowled maze. Five keys, scattered throughout a realm of supernatural happenings, strange creatures and otherworldly powers:

    Some are scary. Some are disturbing. Some are funny. Meet werewolves, vampires, zombies, psychopaths, aliens, cannibals, ghosts, and various things that go bump in the night. Previously published in dozens of anthologies and magazines, some of these tales are mild, but some are extreme. Let the reader beware... The stories include: Finicky Eater - It's after a nuclear war, and a mother and her son are in a fallout shelter, the food long long... The Screaming - Van Helsing and vampires, in 1960s England. Mr. Pull Ups - A body modification tale taken to the extreme. The Shed - Two burglars find the door to hell. Them’s Good Eats - Rednecks vs. aliens, on a spaceship ride of horrors. First Time - A coming of age tale where all may not be what it seems. Forgiveness - A dying serial killer asks for a priest to hear his last confession. Redux - Ghost story noir, about a private eye and a deadly haunting. The Bag - What's in the bag? You really don't want to know... Careful, He Bites - Lycanthrope flash fiction. Symbios - A sci-fi novella about man's first encounter with alien life, and how things can quickly turn bad. A Matter of Taste - Zombie flash fiction. Embrace - A bit of gothic horror. Trailer Sucks - Some trailer park jerks kidnap a vampire. Markey - Flash fiction, from a twisted point of view. Punishment Room - A horrific suspense tale about a not-so-distant future. The Confession - Terrible crimes, told entirely in dialog. Basketcase - Hardboiled noir with a horrific twist. The Agreement - A gambler pays the ultimate price to get out of a debt. Well Balanced Meal - The worst restaurant you've ever been in. S.A. - A werewolf novella about a Shapshifters Anonymous group that must battle Santa Claus. Dear Diary - A very twisted pom pon girl reveals the secret of her inner strength. Mr. Spaceman - We've come to mate with earth women. Appalachian Lullaby - What do you do with a radioactive monkey? This 70,000 word collection also includes an excerpt from Afraid by Jack Kilborn, and Truck Stop by J.A. Konrath and Jack Kilborn. It also features a navigable table of contents, optimized for Kindle. About the Author JA Konrath is the author of eight novels in the Jack Daniels thriller series. They do not have to be read in chronological order to be enjoyed, but for those who want to know it is: Whiskey Sour, Bloody Mary, Rusty Nail, Dirty Martini, Fuzzy Navel, Cherry Bomb, Shaken, and Stirred. Jack also appears in the novels Shot of Tequila, Flee, Spree, Three, Timecaster Supersymmetry, Banana Hammock, and Serial Killers Uncut, as well as the short story collection Jack Daniels Stories, and the novellas Floaters and Burners. Last Call, the ninth Jack Daniels novel, will be available in spring of 2013. Other novels include Origin, The List, Shot of Tequila, and Serial Killers Uncut. Konrath also writes horror under the name Jack Kilborn, including the bestsellers Afraid, Trapped, Endurance, and Draculas. Haunted House, the new Jack Kilborn novel of terror, will be available in mid 2013. He has sold over a million ebooks.

    Who are they, and why have they come? The survivors soon discover the aliens are here for the one resource they cannot find elsewhere in the solar system- surface biomass. Life itself. The survivors are left to fight a guerrilla war against their technologically superior adversaries in the vain hope of driving them off before they can strip the world of life. But they may be doomed to fail unless they can find a way to strike directly against the aliens, unassailable in their fortress-mothership orbiting high above the earth. With memorable characters, packed with action and bleeding-edge technology ‘Rage of Angels’ is a fresh, up to date and frighteningly plausible addition to the alien invasion genre.

    Reanimated ahead of schedule, Adam Hassler, former Delta Force officer, leads the first expedition out of David Pilcher's mountain superstructure. His mission is simple. Guide and protect a team of surveyors and scientists, while they study the surrounding area and collect data for the reconstruction of Wayward Pines. A few hours into the trek, Hassler suspects that the operation has been compromised--by the very people that ordered it.With daylight fading, Hassler's team faces an unknown threat, on unfamiliar ground--in front of an impatient audience.The GENESIS connection to Blake Crouch's bestselling Wayward Pines series:David Pilcher predicted mankind's fall. The world as he knew it would be gone when his "volunteers" emerged from suspension--and they would rebuild it.He'd reboot humanity in Wayward Pines, Idaho--a cozy, idyllic town situated deep inside a sheltered mountain valley. The residents of Wayward Pines would be protected: isolated from the dangers of the new world.Only one obstacle stood in the way. An enemy far deadlier than Pilcher ever imagined possible. A powerful, uncompromising adversary--immune to fear and devoid of mercy. Humankind's worst nightmare.With the odds overwhelmingly stacked against his project, and time running out, Pilcher takes a wild chance on an unpredictable member of his team. Adam Hassler, former Delta Force officer, is woken from suspension ahead of schedule and ordered to explore the valley. The task sounds simple to Hassler, but there's a catch. He is unaware of the danger lurking in the forest beyond the hatch--and nobody plans to warn him.The vicious struggle to build Wayward Pines unfolds in the definitive prequel to The Wayward Pines series.This ebook was published through an agreement with the author of Wayward Pines, Blake Crouch. Mr. Crouch has not necessarily read or endorsed this story.

    Become entranced with the basic struggle of good vs. evil as you travel to a galaxy far, far away.

    While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store's prom dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella Especially Heinous, Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naively assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgangers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes.Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.The husband stitch --Inventory --Mothers --Especially heinous --Real women have bodies --Eight bites --The resident --Difficult at parties

    Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois is filled with subtle shades of gray. Twenty-one all-original stories, by an all-star list of contributors, will delight and astonish you in equal measure with their cunning twists and dazzling reversals. And George R.R. Martin himself offers a brand-new A Game of Thrones tale chronicling one of the biggest rogues in the entire history of Ice and Fire.Follow along with the likes of Gillian Flynn, Joe Abercrombie, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch, Cherie Priest, Garth Nix, and Connie Willis, as well as other masters of literary sleight-of-hand, in this rogues gallery of stories that will plunder your heart — and yet leave you all the richer for it.Contents:- Tough Times All Over by Joe Abercrombie (a Red Country story)- What Do You Do? (aka The Grownup) by Gillian Flynn- The Inn of the Seven Blessings by Matthew Hughes- Bent Twig by Joe R. Lansdale (a Hap and Leonard story)- Tawny Petticoats by Michael Swanwick- Provenance by David Ball- The Roaring Twenties by Carrie Vaughn- A Year and a Day in Old Theradane by Scott Lynch- Bad Brass by Bradley Denton- Heavy Metal by Cherie Priest- The Meaning of Love by Daniel Abraham- A Better Way to Die by Paul Cornell (a Jonathan Hamilton story)- Ill Seen in Tyre by Steven Saylor- A Cargo of Ivories by Garth Nix (a Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz story)- Diamonds From Tequila by Walter Jon Williams (a Dagmar story)- The Caravan to Nowhere by Phyllis Eisenstein (a Tales of Alaric the Minstrel story)- The Curious Affair of the Dead Wives by Lisa Tuttle- How the Marquis Got His Coat Back by Neil Gaiman (a Neverwhere story)- Now Showing by Connie Willis- The Lightning Tree by Patrick Rothfuss (a Kingkiller Chronicle story)- The Rogue Prince, or, A King’s Brother by George R.R. Martin (a Song of Ice and Fire story)

    From the wastelands of Mars to the streets of a late 21st-century Manhattan, from the moons of Europa and Saturn to an iceless Antarctica, these tales bring an acclaimed author's trademark brand of the eco-gothic to bear on what it means to be human and the paths that may face mankind only a little farther along.

    But now, it seems to describe the real world of cell phones, Blackberries and iPods, and its prediction of terrible things to come isn't so easy to shrug off. Leiber sets the tale in a future when "missiles are on the prowl," and most people live underground. George Gusterson is a writer with crazy ideas -- one being, he still lives on the surface. For another, he imagines a gizmo that would remind him of things like when to turn on the TV. George's mere whim inspires an actual gadget called the Tickler, just a "wire recorder and clock" at first, but then . . . it whispers constantly through an earphone. It instills positive thinking. It injects drugs. It makes decisions. It weights 28 pounds. And it won't get off. Only Gusterson understands what "the little fellow perched on your shoulder" is really saying, one word: Obey! And only Gusterson knows what to say back, if it's not too late.

    The award-winning author of "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" and the "Gap" saga delivers a stunning collection of eight fantasy tales ranging from the philosophical "The Killing Stroke" to the whimsical "The Woman Who Loved Pigs." Three of the stories are brand new.