Driven by love or loneliness, like the man in the title, they’ve boxed themselves in. Frank Tavares tells their stories with humor and compassion. And while the themes may be familiar”"crumbling marriages, feuding neighbors, sparring business partners, and the endless searching for what might have been”"here they become fresh, unpredictable, and surprising. This exciting debut collection from a first-rate storyteller will haunt and fascinate you long after you finish reading. You may never look at a chance pick-up in a bar the same way again.

    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

    They explore events mentioned in the novels, characters seen and unseen and may include novel teasers of things to come. This volume includes:Darkest before Darkwater by Tee MorrisA group of survivors from the airship Guy Fawkes find themselves washed ashore on an uncharted island. In their search for survival they uncover one mystery after another.The Shadows of Calcutta by Phil RossiAgent Robert Smith, on return from a mission in Nepal, is diverted to India where he is charged to find a missing agent. Alex Tanner had been investigating a series of thefts and murders holding the Ministry’s attention, and now it falls on Agent Smith to find his missing comrade.Night's Plutonian Shore by Jack ManganIn 1849 when a poet is murdered in the streets of Baltimore. The man behind the seemingly random murder manages to elude the law until — in 1889 — Agents Bruce Campbell and Brandon Hill track him down. The assassin, Mikael Scharnusser, gives the slip to the agents on revealing his “talent” and the madman’s intentions to bring down the House of Usher.The Seven by P.C. HaringAgent Brandon Hill is on assignment in South America, enjoying the local culture and women, when a mystery that could lead to El Dorado falls into his lap. Before the intrepid agent knows it, he is the jungle uncovering a plot but the devilish Illuminati. He will need all his monkey knife fighting skills to survive this one.

    Billions died, civilization collapsed, and the human race teetered on the brink of extinction. Humanity's only hope was not a cure, but another bioweapon. When deployed it killed ninety percent of the infected, but the remaining ten percent transformed into even more terrifying creatures called Variants.  Heroes have risen up to meet these abominations. Men like Master Sergeant Reed Beckham of Delta Force Team Ghost and Marine Corporal Joe Fitzpatrick. Women like Dr. Kate Lovato and firefighter Meg Pratt. Throughout the world, survivors band together to fight the evolving monsters in an effort to save humanity. Now, for the first time ever in print, comes a collection of Extinction Cycle short stories that explore the human spirit and the fight for survival in the face of overwhelming odds from some of the leading voices in the post-apocalyptic genre.   Featured Authors Include:  Mark Tufo - Extinction Trippin'Anthony Melchiorri - Darkness EvolvedJeff Olah - The Bone Collector Russell Blake - Extinction Thailand Rachel Aukes - The Fall of Fort Bragg Note: All stories were previously published in the Extinction Cycle Kindle world, but are now being offered in print, and audio for the first time. Readers outside of the USA will also get to experience these stories for the first time as well. Thank you for reading!

    Considered to be one of Melville's best short stories, "Benito Cereno" is a tale of the revolt aboard a Spanish ship. "Bartleby: The Scrivener" is a moral allegory set on Wall Street in New York. And "The Encantadas" are a collection of sketches based on Melville's experiences in the Galapagos Islands.

    Boyle has become an acknowledged master of the form who has transformed the nature of short fiction in our time. Among the fourteen tales in his seventh collection are the comic yet lyrical title story, in which a young man wins a vicious African cat in a bar bet; "Dogology," about a suburban woman losing her identity to a pack of strays; and "The Kind Assassin," which explores the consequences of a radio shock jock's quest to set a world record for sleeplessness. Muscular, provocative, and blurring the boundaries between humans and nature, the funny and the shocking, Tooth and Claw is Boyle at his best.

    Talman, September 1931"Sword Woman" "Which Will Scarcely Be Understood" (poem) "The Striking of the Gong" "The Song of Horsa's Galley" (poem) "The Good Knight" "A Word From the Outer Dark" (poem) "Black Canaan" "The Song of a Mad Minstrel" (poem) "Kelly the Conjure Man""Surrender" (poem) "The Footfalls Within" "Knife-River Prodigal" "Musings" (poem) "Life" (2, "They bruised my soul . . .") (poem) "The House of Suspicion""Rueben's Brethren" (poem) "Two Against Tyre""The Guise of Youth" (poem) "For the Love of Barbara Allen""Guns of Khartum" "Lines Written in the Realization That I Must Die" (poem)

    In “Girl on Girl,” a high school freshman goes to disturbing lengths to help an old friend. An insatiable temptress pursues the one man she can’t have in “Meteorologist Dave Santana.” And in the title story, a long fraught friendship comes undone when three buddies get impossibly lost on a lake it is impossible to get lost on. In Diane Cook’s perilous worlds, the quotidian surface conceals an unexpected surreality that illuminates different facets of our curious, troubling, and bewildering behavior.Other stories explore situations pulled directly from the wild, imposing on human lives the danger, tension, and precariousness of the natural world: a pack of not-needed boys take refuge in a murky forest and compete against each other for their next meal; an alpha male is pursued through city streets by murderous rivals and desirous women; helpless newborns are snatched by a man who stalks them from their suburban yards. Through these characters Cook asks: What is at the root of our most heartless, selfish impulses? Why are people drawn together in such messy, complicated, needful ways? When the unexpected intrudes upon the routine, what do we discover about ourselves? As entertaining as it is dangerous, this accomplished collection explores the boundary between the wild and the civilized, where nature acts as a catalyst for human drama and lays bare our vulnerabilities, fears, and desires.

    Link has won an ardent following for her ability to take readers deep into an unforgettable, brilliantly constructed fictional universe with each new story. In “The Summer People,” a young girl in rural North Carolina serves as uneasy caretaker to the mysterious, never-quite-glimpsed visitors who inhabit the cottage behind her house. In “I Can See Right Through You,” a middle-aged movie star makes a disturbing trip to the Florida swamp where his former on- and off-screen love interest is shooting a ghost-hunting reality show. In “The New Boyfriend,” a suburban slumber party takes an unusual turn, and a teenage friendship is tested, when the spoiled birthday girl opens her big present: a life-size animated doll. Hurricanes, astronauts, evil twins, bootleggers, Ouija boards, iguanas, The Wizard of Oz, superheroes, the Pyramids...These are just some of the talismans of an imagination as capacious and as full of wonder as that of any writer today. But as fantastical as these stories can be, they are always grounded in sly humor and an innate generosity of feeling for the frailty--and the hidden strengths--of human beings. In Get in Trouble, this one-of-a-kind talent expands the boundaries of what short fiction can do.

    In “Who Will Greet You at Home,” a National Magazine Award finalist for The New Yorker, A woman desperate for a child weaves one out of hair, with unsettling results. In “Wild,” a disastrous night out shifts a teenager and her Nigerian cousin onto uneasy common ground. In "The Future Looks Good," three generations of women are haunted by the ghosts of war, while in "Light," a father struggles to protect and empower the daughter he loves. And in the title story, in a world ravaged by flood and riven by class, experts have discovered how to "fix the equation of a person" - with rippling, unforeseen repercussions. Evocative, playful, subversive, and incredibly human, What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky heralds the arrival of a prodigious talent with a remarkable career ahead of her.

    She portrays the MacLains, the Starks, the Moodys, and other families of the fictitious town of Morgana. “I doubt that a better book about ‘the South’-one that more completely gets the feel of the particular texture of Southern life and its special tone and pattern-has ever been written” (New Yorker).

    The contents of Happily Ever After are as follows:-The Prince (with the two bonus chapters), Maxon’s novella-The Guard, Aspen’s novella-The Queen, Amberly’s novella-The Favorite, Marlee’s novella-Three scenes from Celeste’s POV-Lucy’s scene (bonus scene from The One)-The bonus epilogue-Where are they now?-A map-Various illustrations

    Tales of humanity pushed to its limits, of striving, ingenuity, brilliance, desperate action, violence, and resolution, . Eighteen tales of Conflict, of Science Fiction at its absolute best.Contents:1.Introduction – Ian Whates2.The Wake – Dan Abnett3.Psi.Copath – Andy Remic4.Unaccounted – Lauren Beukes 5.The New Ships – Gareth L Powell6.The Harvest – Kim Lakin-Smith7.The War Artist – Tony Ballantyne8.Proper Little Soldier – Martin McGrath9.The Maker’s Mark – Michael Cobley10.Brwydr Am Ryddid – Stephen Palmer11.Occupation – Colin Harvey12.Sussed – Keith Brooke13.The Soul of the Machine – Eric Brown14.Extraordinary Rendition – Steve Longworth15.The Legend of Sharrock – Philip Palmer16.The Cuisinart Effect – Neal Asher17.The Ice Submarine – Adam Roberts18.War Without End – Una McCormack19.Welcome Home, Janissary – Tim C Taylor

    Each of the portraits in Close Range reveals characters fiercely wrought with precision and grace. These are stories of desperation and unlikely elation, set in a landscape both stark and magnificent.The half-skinned steer --The mud below --55 miles to the gas pump --The bunchgrass edge of the world --A lonely coast --Job history --Pair a spurs --People in Hell just want a drink of water --The governors of Wyoming --The blood bay --Brokeback Mountain

    A new version of this much-loved anthology, with a brand-new story featuring the brand-new Thirteenth Doctor from literary sensation Naomi Alderman!Twelve wonderful tales of adventure, science, magic, monsters and time travel - featuring all twelve Doctors - are waiting for you in this very special Doctor Who book.And now they're joined by a very exciting, and very exclusive, new tale - written by Naomi Alderman, author of The Power - that will star the Thirteenth Doctor, as she battles to save the universe with her three close and trusted friends.Other authors featured are: Eoin Colfer, Michael Scott, Marcus Sedgwick, Philip Reeve, Patrick Ness, Richelle Mead, Malorie Blackman, Alex Scarrow, Charlie Higson, Derek Landy, Neil Gaiman, and Holly Black.