Shadowed Souls


Jim ButcherAnton Strout - 2016
    Anderson, and Rob Thurman—nothing is as simple as black and white, light and dark, good and evil..Unfortunately, that’s exactly what makes it so easy to cross the line.In #1 New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher’s Cold Case, Molly Carpenter—Harry Dresden’s apprentice-turned-Winter Lady—must collect a tribute from a remote Fae colony and discovers that even if you’re a good girl, sometimes you have to be bad...New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire’s Sleepover finds half-succubus Elsie Harrington kidnapped by a group of desperate teenage boys. Not for anything “weird.” They just need her to rescue a little girl from the boogeyman. No biggie.In New York Times bestselling Kevin J. Anderson’s Eye of Newt, Zombie P.I. Dan Shamble’s latest client is a panicky lizard missing an eye who thinks someone wants him dead. But the truth is that someone only wants him for a very special dinner...And New York Times bestselling author Rob Thurman’s infernally heroic Caliban Leandros takes a trip down memory lane as he deals wih some overdue—and nightmarish—vengeance involving some quite nasty Impossible Monsters .ALSO INCLUDES STORIES BYTanya Huff * Kat Richardson * Jim C. Hines * Anton Strout * Lucy A. Snyder * Kristine Kathryn Rusch * Erik Scott de Bie *From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Year's Top Hard Science Fiction Stories


Allan KasterCraig DeLancey - 2017
    In “Vortex,” by Gregory Benford, astronauts find a once thriving microbial lifeform that carpets the caves of Mars dying off. A code monkey tracks down the vain creator of a pernicious software virus that people jack cerebrally in “RedKing,” by Craig DeLancey. In “Number Nine Moon,” by Alex Irvine, illicit scavengers on Mars are on a rescue mission to save themselves after one of their team members dies. A young girl’s thirst for vengeance becomes a struggle for survival when she is swallowed by a gigantic sea creature on an alien planet in “Of the Beast in the Belly,” by C.W. Johnson. In “The Seventh Gamer,” by Gwyneth Jones, a writer immerses herself into a MMORPG community to search for characters being played by real aliens from other worlds. A woman armed with a rifle stalks a herd of cloned wooly mammoths in British Columbia in “Chasing Ivory,” by Ted Kosmatka. In “Fieldwork,” by Shariann Lewitt, a volcanologist struggles with her research on Europa where both her mother and grandmother suffered dire consequences. A daughter pays homage to her mother with mega-engineering projects to deal with climate change over eons in “Seven Birthdays,” by Ken Liu. In “The Visitor from Taured,” by Ian R. MacLeod, a cosmologist in the near future is obsessed with proving his theory of multiverses. The citizens of a small town on a “Jackaroo” planet object to a corporation placing a radio telescope near local alien artifacts in “Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was,” by Paul McAuley. And finally, in “Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee,” by Alastair Reynolds, a graduate student defends her dissertation on a solar anomaly that threatens humanity.

Uncle Fred Flits by


P.G. Wodehouse - 1996
    

Trains and Lovers


Alexander McCall Smith - 2012
    And sometimes there are conversations to be had, which is what the overarching story in this collection is all about. It is a simple device: people brought together entertain one another with tales of what happened to them on trains. It takes place on a journey I frequently make myself and know well, the journey between Edinburgh and London. It is best read on a train, preferably that one."

From the Heart: Tonight and Always / Endings and Beginnings / A Matter of Choice


Nora Roberts - 1996
    This collection will appeal to a new generation of Nora Roberts fans.Tonight and AlwaysWhen a renowned anthropologist agreed to help a writer research his new novel, she wasn't prepared for the passion their collaboration would spark...A Matter of ChoiceAn international smuggling ring traps a beautiful antiques dealer and a New York City cop in a web of danger and desire...Endings and BeginningsTwo Washington television reporters try to protect their love from their own professional rivalry-and the hazards of their celebrity...

The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag


Robert A. Heinlein - 1959
    He hires the husband-and-wife detective team of Ted and Cynthia Randall to follow him and find out. But Ted and Cynthia are mystified when they find that their own memories of what happens during their investigation do not match. There is a thirteenth floor to Jonathan's building that does not exist, there are mysterious and threatening beings living inside mirrors, and all of reality is not what they thought it was.Contents...And He Built a Crooked House... (1941)They (1941)The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (1942)Our Fair City (1949)The Man Who Traveled in Elephants (1957)...All You Zombies... (1959)

King Death


Toby Litt - 2010
    A heart - a human heart - slithering down outside the window of a train travelling between London Bridge and Blackfriars. Someone must have thrown it out from a carriage in front. Kumiko is determined to find out who - and why. But Skelton was sitting next to Kumiko on the train and he saw it too, so he also wants to get to the bottom of the mystery. Or he says he does, but really he just wants Kumiko back, because she's walked out on him, just like that, and left him heartbroken. Each for their own reasons, Kumiko and Skelton set out - separately - on a bizarre trail of discovery. Darting between dingy student pubs, the roofs of Borough Market and the corridors and car-parks of Guy's Hospital, they become embroiled in the seedy world of young medical students, until eventually the gossip and the stories lead them both to the hospital's infamous dissection lecturer - known behind his back as 'King Death'...

Broken


Don Winslow - 2020
    In Broken, he creates a world of high-level thieves and low-life crooks, obsessed cops struggling with life on and off the job, private detectives, dope dealers, bounty hunters and fugitives, the lost souls driving without headlights through the dark night on the American criminal highway.With his trademark blend of insight, humanity, humor, action and the highest level of literary craftsmanship, Winslow delivers a collection of tales that will become classics of crime fiction.

Gold from Crete


C.S. Forester - 1970
    Nine World War II sea stories, published posthumously.This collection contains: Dawn Attack; Depth Charge; Night Stalk; Intelligence; Eagle Squadron; An Egg for the Major; The Dumb Dutchman; If Hitler Had Invaded England and Gold from Crete.

Fragile and Distant Suns: A Poul Anderson Collection


Poul Anderson - 2010
    A collection of science fiction stories written by acclaimed author Poul Anderson.Poul Anderson is best known for sci-fi adventure stories in which larger-than-life characters succeed gleefully or fail heroically. Anderson's also famous for writing 'Call Me Joe' (not included in this volume) which featured the premise of a paralyzed man whose mind is remotely controlling an alien body. This same theme also appears in James Cameron's 2009 movie "Avatar" – similar enough that some reviewers are calling for Anderson to receive some form of credit.Included in this volume:Story One: Duel on SyrtisBold and ruthless, he was famed throughout the System as a big-game hunter. From the firedrakes of Mercury to the ice-crawlers of Pluto, he'd slain them all. But his trophy-room lacked one item; and now Riordan swore he'd bag the forbidden game that roamed the red deserts ... a Martian!Story Two: SecurityIn a world where Security is all-important, nothing can ever be secure. A mountain-climbing vacation may wind up in deep Space. Or loyalty may prove to be high treason. But it has its rewards...Story Three: The Valor of Cappen VarraWe have said that there are many and strange shadows, memories surviving from dim pasts, in this fantastic universe of ours...Story Four: Industrial RevolutionEver think how deadly a thing it is if a machine has amnesia—or how easily it can be arranged…Story Five: The Sensitive ManOne man stood between a power-hungry cabal and world mastery--but a man of unusual talents...These are the original and unabridged versions of these classic science fiction treasures. A must-have for fans of classic sci-fi!

The Apple Tree


Elvi Rhodes - 2004
    The villagers are friendly and she is made aware of the mystery surrounding the previous ownder of her house, Ben Thornton. As Frances brings both the ancient house and its magnificent apple tree back to life, she finds out more about the house and its previous occupants - and at the same time begins to rebuild her own life.

The Letter Promised


Kevin Wignall - 2013
    Returning to the Paris hotel where he spent his honeymoon six years earlier, he decides to take what seems like the only way out - suicide. But a chance encounter with a Russian in a similar predicament leaves Nick with an unlikely obligation to fulfil, one that will take him to Italy, and offer him a chance at something like redemption. www.kevinwignall.com

Bread and Chocolate


Philippa Gregory - 2000
    A rich and wonderful selection of short stories. A TV chef who specialises in outrageous cakes tempts a monk who bakes bread for his brothers; a surprise visitor invites mayhem into the perfect minimalist flat in the season of good will; a woman explains her unique view of straying husbands; straying husbands encounter a variety of effective responses. Just some of the delicacies on offer in this sumptuous box of delights...

Rough Men


Aric Davis - 2013
    Worse, Alex wasn’t an innocent bystander but part of the gang that raided the vault and left behind numerous bodies.Simmering with rage over his loss, Will tries to let the police handle the matter. But as Alex’s killers remain at large, Will decides that it’s up to him—and a few old friends—to enact revenge in a most brutal manner.Now he’s calling on dangerous connections that have been buried for years—and should’ve stayed that way. But Will vows to do whatever it takes to see Alex’s killers repay their sins in blood, even if it means his own damnation.

The Voices Of Time


J.G. Ballard - 1962
    G. Ballard's fiction. His extraordinary inventiveness and the unfailing grace and energy of his writing are triumphantly displayed in this classic collection of stories, which includes 'The Overloaded Man', 'Chronopolis' and 'The Garden of Time', which Anthony Burgess called 'one of the most beautiful stories of the world canon of short fiction'.These haunting tales of pity and terror and longing, firmly grounded in psychological realism and tightly plotted, transcend classification as fantasy or science fiction; they are literature of the highest order. (Jacket description)