This collection contains lyrical tales, bloody tales and hilariously funny and ripely bawdy stories from countries all around the world - from the Arctic to Asia - and no dippy princesses or soppy fairies. Instead, we have pretty maids and old crones; crafty women and bad girls; enchantresses and midwives; rascal aunts and odd sisters.

    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.

    When she learns it could trigger the apocalypse, Lilli is forced to make the ultimate choice: save her soul, or the man she loves? Marjorie M. Liu “The Robber Bride” Welcome to a post-apocalyptic world where women are fed on for their life forces. Now it’s up to Maggie, one of the last female survivors, to hunt down and destroy an army of darkness… Caitlin Kittredge “Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go” Ava is a demon slayer who needs help from mage Jack Winter to reach the demon underworld—a place of dark seduction…and, maybe, one of no return. Jenna Maclaine “Sin Slayer” London 1889. Jack the Ripper is killing off the city’s vampire population, and now it’s up to Cin Craven to hunt him down—and save the infected Michael, the love of her undead life.

    Helping her on the mission are her hot mage partner, her Mischief demon minion, and a Vanity demon named Valva. The problem? She's got to figure out how to find her sister without letting her enemies know she's back in town. But when Sabina seeks out an old ally -- a vampire strip club owner named Fang -- for help, Sabina learns the hard way that Vanity demons don't know the meaning of the phrase "low profile."Word count: ~7,500

    Toss them together in one anthology. Add a dash of romance, a pinch of humor and a dollop of mystery. Stir in a few ghosts, a handful of sorcerers and garnish with magic for the perfect witch's brew. A Tale of Two Witches ~ Christiana Miller and Barbra AnninoTwo young witches join forces to take on a soul-stealer when he threatens the small town of Amethyst, IL.Black Magic Wiccan ~ Toni LoTempioOn one of her last assignments before leaving PSI, Wiccan witch Morgan Hawkes calls upon her Voodoo heritage to battle a vengeful spirit.The Kiss ~ Edie RamerIn this modern-day version of Sleeping Beauty, a woman whose ancestor was accused of being a witch in Salem is the only hope of a dying man with unusual powers.The Trouble With Spells ~ Camilla ChaferA witch couple must solve a family mystery using both their magic and their wits.Rianna's Revenge ~ Dale MayerA young hydromancer must win a challenge to save her place as rightful heir to her elemental house. When she discovers her ex--the man she still loves--is one of the judges, she wonders just how many enemies she's really fighting.A Ghostly Match ~ Misty EvansWhen a Voodoo matchmaker looking for her soul mate pleads to her dead grandmother for help, she opens the door to a ghostly client with an impossible demand.A Samhain Surprise ~ Debora GearyEnchanter's Realm is an online game for witches. And the creators have a surprise ready this Hallow's Eve.The Witch is Back ~ Rose PresseyStormy Sanders discovers a beautiful crystal, but with it comes a witchy fairy godmother. When Stormy attempts her first magic spell on Halloween night, mysterious Gavin Wickcliffe shows up at her door. That's when she realizes there's a lot more to magic than she expected.Cats and Dogs ~ J.L. BryanEnchanted cookies from a witchy neighbor help connect Sadie with her own pets--and that handsome neighbor she's been eyeing.The Hazards of Desire ~ Wren EmersonIn a town full of witches, a young witch learns that love can be dangerous.Orion's Moon ~ Teri ReidWhen blood-born witch Cassidy Maguire opens her home to a stray dog she names Orion, little does she realize that she will not only be the hunter, but the hunted.

    Features stories by Neil Gaiman, Melissa Marr, Cassandra Clare, Holly Black, Garth Nix, and many more.

    In the forest there is not a big gap between the two."A Datin recalls her romance with an orang bunian. A teenage pontianak struggles to balance homework, bossy aunties, first love, and eating people. An earth spirit gets entangled in protracted negotiations with an annoying landlord, and Chang E spins off into outer space, the ultimate metaphor for the Chinese diaspora.Straddling the worlds of the mundane and the magical, Spirits Abroad collects ten science fiction and fantasy stories with a distinctively Malaysian sensibility.

    But I write some decent stuff, and here's my way of sharing my odd dude thoughts.I'm the author of three 'major' series; Adrian's Undead Diary, Elmoryn's The Kinless Trilogy, and the Reemergence Novels, the first of which is Tesser: A Dragon Among Us.To help folks get a taste of my writing, I've put At Least He's Not On Fire together. Inside this wonderful electronic tome of my words, you'll find a healthy sized sampler of each of my major works, as well as several short stories that are mixed in for your entertainment. All in, Hell Hole, and The Vampire of Menlo Park are all great fun, and I hope you enjoy them.Dark Recollections: Book One of Adrian's Undead DiaryBeheading a zombie isn't easy in a world where you're more afraid of the living than the dead.Adrian Ring's simple life is thrown into chaos when the world is ripped apart by a plague of undead and legions of desperate survivors. Retreating to Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy, Adrian attempts to rescue friends and family on the way while dancing around his impending insanity over who and what he left behind, and evading maniac survivors. He saves his cat Otis, but shoots his mom. Pretty successful, all things considered.Dark Recollections is the first part of Adrian's own story of how he survived after "That Day." Told through his eyes as he talks to his laptop, affectionately named 'Mr. Journal," and through short stories that entwine with his tales that bring forth dark visions of a world being eaten alive by an unimaginable evil. Adrian's Undead Diary is an eight part epic about a solitary, guilt stricken man that didn't think he deserved to live, but realizes very soon that he survived, and suffered for a reason.The Wrath of the Orphans: Book One of The Kinless TrilogyMalwynn and his twin sister Umaryn live in a small town in northern Varrland. In idyllic New Picknell nearly nothing happens, and when their day to day routine is interrupted by a skirmish between an invading patrol of the dead from The Amaranth Empire and a defending force from Varrland, their world begins to come undone.With international war looming on the horizon New Picknell becomes the center of quite unwanted attention, and the twins have their world shattered. With nothing left to lose, they set out on a mission of vengeance that will take them to places they'd never dreamed of visiting, discovering mystical powers in The Way that will change their lives forever, and revealing dark knowledges best left undiscovered.Tesser: A Dragon Among Us A Novel of the ReemergenceImagine for a moment that you are a Dragon. A creature of unimaginable power, unending intelligence and strength, and you've just woken from ten thousand years of slumber. Worse yet, you've awoken underneath a city; Boston, an alien and strange place that defies everything you've ever known.Your last memories were of primordial forests, erupting volcanoes sculpting a developing world, faeries, witches, vampires, krakens, and monsters that feared where you turned your eyes.But all that is gone. Humans, only barely coming into their own in the world from your memory, have taken over. They have erected cities made of stone and steel erupting from the earth like stalagmites reaching for the high blue sky, and developed sciences that have overshadowed even the glory of old magic.This was not the way it was supposed to be.Meet Tesser, the Dragon. He who walks in any form, and flies the skies free of fear.A Dragon Among Us is Tesser's story. Walk with him as he learns the human way, and discovers the dark truth about why magic has really faded from the world he calls home.And just maybe, humanity will remember why dragons were most noble, and most savage creatures again.Welcome to The Reemergence.

    The battles with creatures from beyond time are dangerous; however, it’s the subsequent bureaucratic paperwork that actually breaks men’s souls.  Now, in “Down on the Farm,” Laundry veteran Bob Howard must investigate strange doings at another obscure, moth-eaten government agency—evidently a rest home for Laundry agents whose minds have snapped… Charles Stross is the Hugo-winning author of some of the most acclaimed novels and stories of the last ten years, including Singularity Sky, Accelerando, Halting State, the "Merchant Princes" series beginning with The Family Trade, and the story collections Toast and Wireless. In 2010, his Laundry story “Overtime,” published on Tor.com, is a finalist for science fiction’s Hugo Award.

    P. Lovecraft, published his first story, the monstrosities that crawled out of his brain have become legend: the massive, tentacled Cthulhu, who lurks beneath the sea waiting for his moment to rise; the demon Sultan Azathoth, who lies babbling at the center of the universe, mad beyond imagining; the Deep Ones, who come to shore to breed with mortal men; and the unspeakably-evil Hastur, whose very name brings death. These creatures have been the nightmarish fuel for generations of horror writers, and the inspiration for some of their greatest works.This impressive anthology celebrates Lovecraft's most famous beasts in all their grotesque glory, with each story a gripping new take on a classic mythos creature and affectionately accompanied by an illuminating illustration. Within these accursed pages something unnatural slouches from the sea into an all-night diner to meet the foolish young woman waiting for him, while the Hounds of Tindalos struggle to survive trapped in human bodies, haunting pool halls for men they can lure into the dark. Strange, haunting, and undeniably monstrous, this is Lovecraft as you have never seen him before.Contents"Only the End of the World Again" by Neil Gaiman"The Bleeding Shadow" by Joe R. Lansdale"Love is Forbidden, We Croak & Howl" by Caitlín R. Kiernan"Bulldozer" by Laird Barron"A Quarter to Three" by Kim Newman"Inelastic Collisions" by Elizabeth Bear"That of Which We Speak When We Speak of the Unspeakable" by Nick Mamatas"Red Goat Black Goat" by Nadia Bulkin"Jar of Salts" and "Haruspicy" by Gemma Files"Black is the Pit From Pole to Pole" by Howard Waldrop and Steven Utley"I've Come to Speak with You Again" by Karl Edward Wagner"The Sect of the Idiot" by Thomas Ligotti"The Dappled Things" by William Browning Spencer"The Same Deep Waters as You" by Brian Hodge"Remnants" by Fred Chappell"Waiting at the Cross Roads" by Steve Rasnic Tem"Children of the Fang" by John Langan

    Just because she’s ovulating doesn’t mean she has to settle for just any man (or his beast). Her sexy alpha’s determined to find her a tiger to take care of her heat and father her child…but no one seems to look quite as good as the man in charge. Will giving in to her need for her alpha ruin her tenuous relationship with her clan or be a match made in heaven? Conjuring Max by Carolyn Crane – The witches of the world ridiculed and rejected nerdy Veronica for trying to use newfangled computers to enhance old world spellcasting. Well, it’s 1984 now, and she’s perfected her spellcasting computer program. Hey, who needs friends when you can conjure virtually anything…or anybody? So when Veronica makes powerful new enemies, she conjures Max, a pitbull of a cop, to deal with the pesky hitmen who keep coming around. Maybe Veronica can finally get some peace and quiet so she can work on her computer. But tough-guy Max is in no mood to play lapdog to a gorgeous witch. Wrecked by Meljean Brook – Elizabeth has spent the past five years running from her father; her father’s huntsman, Caius, has spent the past five years pursuing her. But when he finally catches up to her on an airship flying above Europe’s zombie-infested cities, Elizabeth discovers that Caius isn’t the only danger she has to fear—and now that he’s found her, Caius doesn’t intend to let her go…

    Each of the writers was asked to write a new story based on one of his or her most famous series. Stephen King tells a tale of Roland, the Gunslinger, in the world of The Dark Tower, in "The Little Sisters of Eluria."Terry Pratchett relates an amusing incident in Discworld, of a magical contest and the witch Granny Weatherwax, in "The Sea and Little Fishes"Terry Goodkind tells of the origin of the Border between realms in the world of The Sword of Truth, in "Debt of Bones."Orson Scott Card spins a yarn of Alvin and his apprentice from the Tales of Alvin Maker, in "Grinning Man."Robert Silverberg returns to Majipoor and to Lord Valentine's adventure in an ancient tomb, in "the Seventh Shrine."Ursual K. Le Guin adds a sequel to her famous books of Earthsea, portraying a woman who wants to learn magic, in "Dragonfly."Tad Williams tells a dark and enthralling story of a great and haunted castle in the age before Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, in "The Burning Man."George R.R. Martin sets his piece a generation before his epic, A Song of Ice and Fire, in the adventure of "The Hedge Knight."Ann McCaffrey, the poet of Pern, returns once again to her world of romance and adventure in "Runner of Pern."Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Saga is the setting of the tale of "The Wood Boy."Robert Jordan, in "New Spring," tells of crucial events in the years leading up to The Wheel of Time, of the meeting of Lan and Moiraine and the beginning of the search for the child who must grow to lead in the Last Battle.

    They stand out as one of the pinnacles in the critically neglected but perennially popular tradition of weird writing that includes E.T.A. Hoffmann and Charles Dickens as well as more recent masters like Jorge Luis Borges and Roald Dahl. With a cast of characters that ranges from man-eating flora to disgruntled devils and suburban salarymen (not that it's always easy to tell one from another), Collier's dazzling stories explore the implacable logic of lunacy, revealing a surreal landscape whose unstable surface is depth-charged with surprise.

    Lily Yu, Andrea Hairston, Tobias Buckell, Hiromi Goto, Rebecca Roanhorse, Indrapramit Das, Chinelo Onwualu and Darcie Little Badger.

    In its pages you will find all kinds of horror fiction, from zombie stories and haunted house tales to visceral psychological horror.For our debut issue we will be bringing you four all-new, never before published horror stories: “Property Condemned” by Jonathan Maberry, “Frontier Death Song” by Laird Barron, “Good Fences” by Genevieve Valentine, and “Afterlife” by Sarah Langan.We'll also have author spotlights with each of our authors, a showcase on our cover artist Jeff Simpson, as well as an in-depth feature interview with horror legend Peter Straub. And finally we'll have the first installment of “The H Word,” a monthly column which will focus on exploring the many facets of the field of horror.