Now from this brilliant young writer comes a groundbreaking collection of stories, many of them previously unavailable in the United States, and including four never-before-published tales–one set in Miéville’s signature fantasy world of New Crobuzon. Among the fourteen superb fictions are“Jack”–Following the events of his acclaimed novel Perdido Street Station, this tale of twisted attachment and horrific revenge traces the rise and fall of the Remade Robin Hood known as Jack Half-a-Prayer. “Familiar”–Spurned by its creator, a sorceress’s familiar embarks on a strange and unsettling odyssey of self-discovery in a coming-of-age story like no other.

    Now the author of the Lincoln Rhyme series has collected for the first time his award-winning, spine-tingling stories of suspense -- stories that will widen your eyes and stretch your imagination. A beautiful woman goes to extremes to rid herself of her stalker; a daughter begs her father not to go fishing in an area where there have been a series of brutal killings; a contemporary of the playwright William Shakespeare vows to avenge his family's ruin; and Jeffery Deaver's most beloved character, criminalist Lincoln Rhyme, is back to solve a chilling Christmastime disappearance. Diverse, provocative, eerie and inspired, this collection of Jeffery Deaver's best stories exhibits the amazing range and signature plot twists that have earned him the title "master of ticking-bomb suspense" (People). With nods to O. Henry and Edgar Allan Poe, these beautifully crafted pieces, never before compiled in one volume, pulse with subtle intrigue and Deaver's incomparable imagination.

    Pure Drivel is a collection of pieces, most of them written for the New Yorker, that demonstrate Martin's playful way with words and his unerring ability to create a feeling of serendipitous improvisation even on the printed page. Here's a passage from a piece that announces a shortage of periods in the Times Roman font: "Most vulnerable are writers who work in short, choppy sentences," said a spokesperson for Times Roman, who continued, "We are trying to remedy the situation and have suggested alternatives, like umlauts, since we have plenty of umlauts--and, in fact, have more umlauts than we could possibly use in a lifetime! Don't forget, umlauts can really spice up a page with their delicate symmetry--resting often midway in a word, letters spilling on either side--and not only indicate the pronunciation of a word but also contribute to a writer's greater glory because they're fancy, not to mention that they even look like periods, indeed, are indistinguishable from periods, and will lead casual readers to believe that the article actually contains periods!" Although some of these pieces flirted with topicality when they first appeared, Martin is most successful when he leaves the real world behind and gives his wit free rein. This collection preserves the best (so far) of his glorious improvisations. --Simon Leake

    This reprint anthology showcases the best Holmes short fiction from the last 25 years, featuring stories by such visionaries as Stephen King, Neil Gaimen, Laura King, and many others.

    He scavenges what he can from what's left over. He is very careful in what he does and where he goes, taking no chances, no unnecessary risks, and weighing every choice... until he decides to visit the hospital at the edge of town, and experiences terror the likes he's never encountered before. A short story of approximately 9500 words, or 29 pages. The first story of the "Mountain Man" series. Contains language and graphic violence. This short story also appears in the horror fiction novella "Cauldron Gristle."If you enjoy this, check out the novels "Mountain Man" and "Safari," the next books in the series.Series order:The Hospital (short story)Mountain ManSafari (Coming in time for Christmas) Hellifax

    Told by individual inhabitants, the stories recount tales of disappearing dead deer, enchanted gardens, invisible killer dogs, and rattlesnakes that fall from the sky; each contribution adds to a composite portrait that skitters between eerie, ghoulish, and poignant. Miller is a master storyteller, clearly delighting in his mischievous creations.” Thirty-Three Tales. Thirty-Three Tellers. One Lost Town.

    An elderly lady with Charles Bonnet syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. A woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire, and a crime committed long ago is revenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatolite.In these nine tales, Margaret Atwood ventures into the shadowland earlier explored by fabulists and concoctors of dark yarns such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Daphne du Maurier and Arthur Conan Doyle - and also by herself, in her award-winning novel Alias Grace. In Stone Mattress, Margaret Atwood is at the top of her darkly humorous and seriously playful game.

    Screenwriter, director, and star of the acclaimed film Me and You and Everyone We Know, Miranda July brings her extraordinary talents to the page in a startling, sexy, and tender collection.

    Now at last, in “Let the Old Dreams Die,” the title story in this absolutely stunning collection, we get a glimpse of what happened next to the pair. Fans of Let the Right One In will have to read the story, which is destined to generate much word of mouth both among fans and online.“Let the Old Dreams Die” is not the only stunner in this collection. In "Final Processing," Lindqvist also reveals the next chapter in the lives of the characters he created in Handling the Undead. “Equinox” is a story of a woman who takes care of her neighbor’s house while they are away and readers will never forget what she finds in the house. Every story meets the very high standard of excellence and fright factor that Lindqvist fans have come to expect. Totally transcending genre writing, these are world class stories from possibly the most impressive horror writer writing today.

    A poisoned apple and a monkey's paw with the power to change fate; a girl whose extraordinarily long hair causes catastrophe; a man with one human arm and one swan's wing; and a house deep in the forest, constructed of gumdrops and gingerbread, vanilla frosting and boiled sugar. In A Wild Swan and Other Tales, the people and the talismans of lands far, far away, the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation. Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed: the years after a spell is broken, the rapturous instant of a miracle unexpectedly realized, or the fate of a prince only half cured of a curse. The Beast stands ahead of you in line at the convenience store, buying smokes and a Slim Jim, his devouring smile aimed at the cashier. A malformed little man with a knack for minor acts of wizardry goes to disastrous lengths to procure a child. A loutish and lazy Jack prefers living in his mother's basement to getting a job, until the day he trades a cow for a handful of magic beans. Re-imagined by one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, and exquisitely illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true.

    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?

     In Magical Mr. Goat, a young girl's imaginary friend yearns to become "more than friends." In Unprotected, an unused prophylactic recalls his years spent trapped inside a teen boy's wallet. The stories in Simon Rich's new book are bizarre, funny, and yet...relatable. Rich explores love's many complications-losing it, finding it, breaking it, and making it-and turns the ordinary into the absurd. With razor-sharp humor and illustrations, and just in time for Valentine's Day, Rich takes readers for an exhilarating, hilarious ride on the rollercoaster of love.

    In these previously unpublished gems, Vonnegut’s originality infuses a unique landscape of factories, trailers, and bars—and characters who pit their dreams and fears against a cruel and sometimes comically indifferent world.Here are stories of men and machines, art and artifice, and how ideals of fortune, fame, and love take curious twists in ordinary lives. An ambitious builder of roads, commanding an army of bulldozers, graders, and asphalt spreaders, fritters away his free time with miniature trains—until the women in his life crash his fantasy land. Trapped in a stenography pool, a young dreamer receives a call from a robber on the run, who presents her with a strange proposition. A crusty newspaperman is forced onto a committee to judge Christmas displays—a job that leads him to a suspiciously ostentatious ex-con and then a miracle. A hog farmer’s widow receives cryptic, unsolicited letters from a man in Schenectady about “the indefinable sweet aches of the spirit.” But what will she find when she goes to meet him in the flesh?These beautifully rendered works are a testament to Vonnegut’s unique blend of observation and imagination. Like a present left behind by a departed loved one, While Mortals Sleep bestows upon us a shimmering Kurt Vonnegut gift: a poignant reflection of our world as it is and as it could be.

    Initially created by H. P. Lovecraft and a group of his amorphous contemporaries (the so-called "Lovecraft Circle"), The Cthulhu Mythos story cycle has taken on a convoluted, cyclopean life of its own. Some of the most prodigious writers of the 20th century, and some of the most astounding writers of the 21st century have planted their seeds in this fertile soil. The Book of Cthulhu harvests the weirdest and most corpulent crop of these modern mythos tales. From weird fiction masters to enigmatic rising stars, The Book of Cthulhu demonstrates how Mythos fiction has been a major cultural meme throughout the 20th century, and how this type of story is still salient, and terribly powerful today.Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

    From fairy tales to fims to fiction, witches cast their spells and capture our imaginations.Now the biggest names in fantasy and young adult literature have come together to make a little magic of their own. Neil Gaiman, Holly Black, Diana Peterfreund, Margo Lanagan, Peter S. Beagle, and Garth Nix are just a few of the authors who have toiled over their cauldrons and conjured up bewitching new creations inspired by and celebrating the might and mystery of the witch. Assembled by one of the most well-regarded anthologists in the science fiction/fantasy world, this rich, intelligent collection will enchant readers of all ages.Contents: Stray Magic by Diana PeterfreundPayment Due by Frances HardingeA Handful of Ashes by Garth NixLittle Gods by Holly BlackBarrio Girls by Charles de LintFelidis by Tanith LeeWitch Work by Neil GaimanThe Education of a Witch by Ellen KlagesThe Threefold World by Ellen KushnerThe Witch in the Wood by Delia ShermanWhich Witch by Patricia A. McKillipThe Carved Forest by Tim PrattBurning Castles by M. RickertThe Stone Witch by Isobelle CarmodyAndersen’s Witch by Jane YolenB is for Bigfoot by Jim Butcher (also included in Brief Cases)Great-Grandmother in the Cellar by Peter S. BeagleCrow and Caper, Caper and Crow by Margo Lanagan