Table of Contents: * Editor's Introduction (Rick Katze) 6 * Poul Anderson (Greg Bear) 7 * Call Me Joe 11 * Prayer in War 36 * Tomorrow's Children 37 * Kinnison's Band 57 * The Helping Hand 58 * Wildcat 77 * Clausius' Chaos 100 * Journey's End 101 * Heinlein's Stories 107 * Logic 108 * Time Patrol 129 * The First Love 156 * The Double-dyed Villains 157 * To a Tavern Wench 177 * The Immortal Game 178 * Upon the Occasion of Being Asked to Argue That Love and Marriage Are Incompatible 186 * Backwardness 187 * Haiku 195 * Genius 196 * There Will Be Other Times 222 * The Live Coward 223 * Ballade of an Artificial Satellite 240 * Time Lag 241 * The Man Who Came Early 266 * Autumn 283 * Turning Point 284 * Honesty 294 * The Alien Enemy 295 * Eventide 307 * Enough Rope 308 * The Sharing of Flesh 329 * Barbarous Allen 353 * Welcome 354 * Flight to Forever 360 * Barnacle Bull 399 * To Jack Williamson 411 * Time Heals 412 * MacCannon 425 * The Martian Crown Jewels 426 * Then Death Will Come 438 * Prophecy 439 * Sea Burial 444 * Einstein's Distress 444 * Kings Who Die 445 * Ochlan 466 * Starfog 467

    In 1633 Al-Shouf, a mother keeps demons at bay with the combined power of grief and music. In 1775 Paris, as social tensions come to a boil, a courtesan tries to save the woman she loves. In 1838 Georgia, a pregnant woman's desperate escape from slavery comes with a terrible price. In 1900 Ilocos Norte, a forest spirit helps a young girl defend her land from American occupiers. These gripping stories have been passed down through the generations, hidden between the lines of journal entries and love letters. Now 27 of today's finest authors – including Tananarive Due, Sofia Samatar, Ken Liu, Victor LaValle, Nnedi Okorafor, and Sabrina Vourvoulias – reveal the people whose lives have been pushed to the margins of history.

    The novella “A Necessary Being” showcases Octavia E. Butler’s ability to create alien yet fully believable “others.” Tahneh’s father was a Hao, one of a dwindling race whose leadership abilities render them so valuable that their members are captured and forced to govern. When her father dies, Tahneh steps into his place, both chief and prisoner, and for twenty years has ruled without ever meeting another of her kind. She bears her loneliness privately until the day that a Hao youth is spotted wandering into her territory. As her warriors sharpen their weapons, Tahneh must choose between imprisoning the newcomer—and living the rest of her life alone. The second story in this volume, “Childfinder,” was commissioned by Harlan Ellison for his legendary (and never-published) anthology The Last Dangerous Visions™. A disaffected telepath connects with a young girl in a desperate attempt to help her harness her growing powers. But in the richly evocative fiction of Octavia E. Butler, mentorship is a rocky path, and every lesson comes at a price. The award-winning author of science fiction classics Parable of the Sower and Kindred bestows these compelling, long lost gems “like the miraculous discovery that the beloved book you’ve read a dozen times has an extra chapter” (Los Angeles Review of Books). Harlan Ellison and Dangerous Visions are registered trademarks of the Kilimanjaro Corporation. All rights reserved.

    Exotic beasts and improbable travelers roam restlessly through these darkly diverting and finely honed tales.In “The Situation,” a beleaguered office worker creates a child-swallowing manta-ray to be used for educational purposes (once described as Dilbert meets Gormenghast). In “Three Days in a Border Town,” a sharpshooter seeks the truth about her husband in an elusive floating city beyond a far-future horizon; “Errata” follows an oddly familiar writer who has marshaled a penguin, a shaman, and two pearl-handled pistols with which to plot the end of the world. Also included are two stories original to this collection, including “The Quickening,” in which a lonely child is torn between familial obligation and loyalty to a maligned talking rabbit.Chimerical and hypnotic, VanderMeer leads readers through the postmodern into a new literature of the imagination.

    The magic mirror sees all but can do nothing. A cloned savior solves a fanatically-inspired murder. Three Irish siblings thieve treasures with bad poetry and the aid of the Queen of Cats.With these captivating initial glimpses into her storytelling psyche, Jo Walton shines through subtle myths and reinvented realities. Through eclectic stories, subtle vignettes, inspired poetry, and more, Walton soars with humans, machines, and magic—rising from the every day into the universe itself.