It begins with a walk in the bazaar, but soon grows into a tale unlike any other told in the caliph's empire. It's a story that includes not just buried treasure and a band of thieves, but also men haunted by their past and others trapped by their future; it includes not just a beloved wife and a veiled seductress, but also long journeys taken by caravan and even longer ones taken with a single step. Above all, it's a story about recognizing the will of Allah and accepting it, no matter what form it takes.

    That’s when New York Times best-selling author Terry Brooks offered to donate a short story Shawn could sell toward alleviating those bills—and suggested Shawn ask the same of his other friends.Unfettered is the result, an anthology built to relieve that debt, featuring short stories by some of the best fantasy writers in the genre.Every story in this volume is new and, like the title suggests, the writers were free to write whatever they wished. Authors contributing are -Walker and the Shade of Allanon by Terry Brooks (a Shannara tale)-Imaginary Friends by Terry Brooks (a precursor to the Word/Void trilogy)-How Old Holly Came To Be by Patrick Rothfuss (a Four Corners tale)-River of Souls by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson (a Wheel of Time tale)-The Old Scale Game by Tad Williams-Martyr of the Roses by Jacqueline Carey (a precursor to the Kushiel series)-Dogs by Daniel Abraham-Mudboy by Peter V. Brett (a Demon Cycle tale)-Nocturne by Robert V. S. Redick-The Sound of Broken Absolutes by Peter Orullian (a Vault of Heaven tale)-The Coach with Big Teeth by R.A. Salvatore-Keeper of Memory by Todd Lockwood (a Summer Dragon tale)-Game of Chance by Carrie Vaughn-The Lasting Doubts of Joaquin Lopez by Blake Charlton-The Chapel Perilous by Kevin Hearne (an Iron Druid tale)-Select Mode by Mark Lawrence (a Broken Empire tale)-All the Girls Love Michael Stein by David Anthony Durham-Strange Rain by Jennifer Bosworth (a Struck epilogue tale)-Unbowed by Eldon Thompson (a Legend of Asahiel tale)-In Favour with Their Stars by Naomi Novik (a Temeraire tale)-The Jester by Michael J. Sullivan (a Riyria Chronicles tale)-The Duel by Lev Grossman (a Magicians tale)-The Unfettered Knight by Shawn Speakman (an Annwn Cycle tale)and artist Todd Lockwood, who donated artwork as well as a story.With the help of stalwart friends and these wonderful short stories, Shawn has taken the gravest of life hardships and created something magical. Unfettered is not only a fantastic anthology in its own right but it’s a testament to the generosity found in the science fiction and fantasy community—proof that humanity can give beyond itself when the need arises.After all, isn’t that the driving narrative in fantasy literature?

    The collection contains some of Ellison's best stories from earlier collections and is judged by some to be his most consistently high quality collection of short fiction. The theme of the collection can be loosely defined as God, or Gods. Sometimes they're dead or dying, some of them are as brand-new as today's technology. Unlike some of Ellison's collections, the introductory notes to each story can be as short as a phrase and rarely run more than a sentence or two. One story took a Locus Poll Award, the two final ones both garnered Hugo Awards and Locus Poll awards, and the final one also received a Jupiter Award from the Instructors of Science Fiction in Higher Education (discontinued in 1979). When the collection was published in Britain, it won the 1979 British Science Fiction Award for Short Fiction.His stories will rivet you to the floor and change your heartbeat...as unforgettable a chamber of horror, fantasy and reality as you'll ever experience.-Gallery "Brutally and flamboyantly shocking, frequently brilliant, and always irresistibly mesmerizing."-Richmond Times-Dispatch

    In the festive season of Winterfair on the planet Barrayar, Lord Miles Vorkosigan is making elaborate preparations for his wedding. The long-awaited event stirs up romance and intrigue among his eccentric family and friends, particularly for bioengineered space mercenary Sergeant Taura and shy, diffident Armsman Roic. But Miles also has an enemy who is plotting to turn the romantic ceremony into a festival of death. Winterfair Gifts offers another of Bujold's witty, character-centered science fiction plots with a twist of romance.

    She also has a smart mouth, sharp wits and mysterious markings on her skin. All of which make her perfect bait for a child prostitution sting in the city of Elantra - if she survives her first meeting with the Hawks!Join Kaylin for more adventures in the Chronicles of Elantra.Cast in Moonlight can be read in the anthology Harvest Moon.

    Now, in Running with the Demon, Brooks does nothing less than revitalize fantasy fiction again, inventing the complex and powerful new mythos of the Word and the Void, good versus evil still, but played out in the theater-in-the-round of the "real world" of our present. On the hottest Fourth of July weekend in decades, two men have come to Hopewell, Illinois, site of a lengthy, bitter steel strike. One is a demon, dark servant of the Void, who will use the anger and frustration of the community to attain a terrible secret goal. The other is John Ross, a Knight of the Word, a man who, while he sleeps, lives in the hell the world will become if he fails to change its course on waking. Ross has been given the ability to see the future. But does he have the power to change it?At stake is the soul of a fourteen-year-old girl mysteriously linked to both men. And the lives of the people of Hopewell. And the future of the country. This Fourth of July, while friends and families picnic in Sinnissippi Park and fireworks explode in celebration of freedom and independence, the fate of Humanity will be decided . . .A novel that weaves together family drama, fading innocence, cataclysm, and enlightenment, Running with the Demon will forever change the way you think about the fantasy novel. As believable as it is imaginative, as wondrous as it is frightening, it is a rich, exquisitely-written tale to be savored long after the last page is turned.

    Corpses are showing up all over Old London, and the finger of suspicion points right at Richards himself. Forced to clear his name, Richards and Otto uncover a fanatical group whose actions threaten the relationship between human and AI with destruction.

    Judy can see every possible future, branching out from each moment like infinite trees. Doug can also see the future, but for him, it's a single, locked-in, inexorable sequence of foreordained events. They can't both be right, but over and over again, they are. Obviously these are the last two people in the world who should date. So, naturally, they doSix Months, Three Days is the winner of the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    It tells of Keevan, a boy who is a candidate for Ramoth's latest clutch in Benden Weyr. Keevan is shorter than the other candidates, and is teased about this by Beterli, a boy who has stood for eight Impressions and has not been chosen. Keevan works hard but his size leads most to underestimate his abilities. When he overhears some of the senior dragonriders talking about dropping some of the younger candidates from the Impression, Keevan automatically thinks he will be dropped.Was included in Get off The Unicorn collection.

    By day, he teaches literature. At night, he steals it. Adam is a plagiarist, an expert reader with an eye for great works. He prowls simulated worlds perusing virtual texts, looking for the next big thing. And when he finds it, he memorizes it page by page, line by line, word for word. And then he brings it back to his world. But what happens when these virtual worlds begin to seem more real than his own? What happens when the people within them mean more to him than flesh and blood? What happens when a living thing falls in love with someone who does not actually exist?

    No pressure. Never mind the lack of sleep, the perplexing new talent for healing from fatal wounds, or the cryptic, talking coyote who appears in her dreams.And if all that's not bad enough, in the three years Joanne's been a cop, she's never seen a dead body -- but she's just come across her second in three days.It's been a bitch of a week. And it isn't over yet.

    Dragos Cuelebre is no longer the only dragon.Dragos’s son Liam Cuelebre (aka Peanut) is springing into existence, reminiscent of the first of the Elder Races who were born at the beginning of the world. At just six months of age, he has already grown to the size of a large five-year-old boy. He can read, write in complete sentences, and his math skills are off the chart.A white dragon in his Wyr form, Liam also holds more Power than almost anyone else. In an effort to give him a taste of normality, no matter how fleeting, his parents Pia and Dragos enroll him in first grade.They hope school will help teach Liam how to relate to others, a vital skill that will help him control his growing Power. But school has a surprising number of pitfalls, and relating to others can be a tricky business.When a classmate is threatened, Liam must quickly learn self-control, how to rein in his instincts, and govern his temper, because there’s no doubt about it—he is fast becoming one of the most dangerous creatures in all of the Elder Races.

    An alien sex club. A Krinar who won’t take no for an answer. Amy Myers is tired of writing fluff. She wants to work on serious assignments—and what better way to prove herself than to uncover something new about the mysterious Krinar, the aliens who took over the Earth just two years earlier? But when she meets Vair, the dark and sexy owner of a Manhattan x-club, she may get more than she bargained for... The X-Club is a novelette/short story of approximately 10,000 words (56 print pages), set in the world of the Krinar Chronicles about three years before Mia & Korum’s trilogy. It’s an erotic story, not a romance. It can be read as a standalone or after the Krinar Chronicles trilogy.

    So the last thing he needs is an explosion at the off-shore oil rig where he works.But this is no ordinary industrial accident, and despite the news reports, Dave knows that terrorists aren't to blame for the disaster. He knows because he has killed one of the things responsible.When he wakes up in a hospital bed guarded by Navy SEALs, he realises he hasn't been on a bad acid trip. It all really happened. Yet his shock is cut short by a startling self-discovery; his contact with the creature has transformed the overweight, balding safety manager into something else entirely. A goddamned superhero.Then he learns the attack on the rig is only the first.

    "First Flight" is a finalist for the 2010 Locus Award.The winner of the 2008 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of short fiction published in Strange Horizons, Cosmos, and Asimov's. Her first novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, will be published by Tor in 2010.