In these stories, Brian Evenson unsettles us with the everyday and the extraordinary—the terror of living with the knowledge of all we cannot know.

    He soon discovers that the life he thought he knew is far stranger than he could even possibly imagine.Can an unlikely saviour provide the answers to the questions he barely comprehends?

    South Asia Studies. "Not merely lyrical and strange, but also deadpan funny"--Miranda July. A centipede in a shoe, revelations in a shoebox, nosebleeds, exploding women, and a dead mouse named Miraculous populate this collection of thirty-five short stories from one of India's most original young writers. Kuzhali Manickavel was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, lived in various places around Canada, and moved to Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, India when she was thirteen years old. Contrary to popular belief, she is not very much fond of insects.

    Lansdale - “Neighbors” by Megan Lindholm - “I Know How to Pick ’Em” by Lawrence Block - “Shadows For Silence in the Forests of Hell” by Brandon Sanderson - A Cosmere story - “A Queen in Exile” by Sharon Kay Penman - “The Girl in the Mirror” by Lev Grossman - A Magicians story - “Second Arabesque, Very Slowly” by Nancy Kress - “City Lazarus” by Diana Rowland - “Virgins” by Diana Gabaldon - An Outlander story - “Hell Hath No Fury” by Sherilynn Kenyon - “Pronouncing Doom” by S.M. Stirling - An Emberverse story - “Name the Beast” by Sam Sykes - “Caretakers” by Pat Cadigan - “Lies My Mother Told Me” by Caroline Spector - A Wild Cards story - “The Princess and the Queen” by George R.R. Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire story

    This collection includes a selection of his science fiction and fantasy stories from the last five years — sixteen of his best — plus a new novelette.In addition to these seventeen selections, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories also features an excerpt from the forthcoming book three in the Dandelion Dynasty series, "The Veiled Throne".Contents:- Ghost Days (2013)- Maxwell's Demon (2012)- The Reborn (2014)- Thoughts and Prayers (2019)- Byzantine Empathy (2018)- The Gods Will Not Be Chained (2014)- Staying Behind (2011)- Real Artists (2011)- The Gods Will Not Be Slain (2014)- Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer (2011)- The Gods Have Not Died in Vain (2015)- Memories of My Mother (2012)- Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit - Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts (2016)- Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard (2020)- A Chase Beyond the Storms: An excerpt from "The Veiled Throne", Book 3 of the Dandelion Dynasty- The Hidden Girl (2017)- Seven Birthdays (2016)- The Message (2012)- Cutting (2012)

    Read Sylvain Neuvel’s Exclusive Lost Themis File!Link to the Lost Themis File:-http://www.thethemisfiles.com/File002...

    Torgersen. Go on fantastic new adventures at the bottom of Earth's oceans and at the edge of the solar system. Meet humans who are utterly alien and aliens who are all too human. Originally featured in the pages of Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine as well as Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show, these stories are gathered here for the first time, along with anecdotes and other commentary from the author. Introductions by Stanley Schmidt, Mike Resnick and Allan Cole. Features the stories Ray of Light (2012 Hugo & Nebula nominee), Outbound (2011 Analog Readers Choice Award winner), and Exanastasis (2010 Writers of the Future Award winner).

    These twelve tales of selkies, hockey players, retired systems engineers, monsters, copyeditors and changelings are connected by a thread of optimism, and of hope: that we, too, will ride out this storm. This anthology features contributions by Aliette de Bodard, Stephanie Burgis, Iona Datt Sharma, Jeannelle M. Ferreira, Rebecca Fraimow, Marissa Lingen, Freya Marske, Lizbeth Myles, Katie Rathfelder, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Adrian Tchaikovsky and Llinos Cathryn Thomas. All proceeds will be donated to the COVID-19 appeal being run by the UCLH Charity, the charity supporting the University College London Hospitals NHS Trust.

    Vaccination and treatment are widely available, not held in reserve for the chosen few. There are still monsters left to fight, but the old ones, the simple ones, trouble us no more.Or so we thought. For with the reduction in danger comes the erosion of memory, as pandemics fade from memory into story into fairy tale. Those old diseases can’t have been so bad, people say, or we wouldn’t be here to talk about them. They don’t matter. They’re never coming back.How wrong we could be.It begins with a fever. By the time the spots appear, it’s too late: Morris’s disease is loose on the world, and the bodies of the dead begin to pile high in the streets. When its terrible side consequences for the survivors become clear, something must be done, or the dying will never stop. For Dr. Isabella Gauley, whose niece was the first confirmed victim, the route forward is neither clear nor strictly ethical, but it may be the only way to save a world already in crisis. It may be the only way to atone for her part in everything that’s happened.She will never be forgiven, not by herself, and not by anyone else. But she can, perhaps, do the right thing.We live in an age of monsters.

    They are many heroines of SWORD AND SORCERESS - brave women who have adopted the daring roles so often deemed to be the exclusive province of men.Join Diana L Paxson, Esther M Friesner, Rosemary Edghill, Leslie Fish, Dorothy j Heydt and their fellow spell-weavers as they carry on Marion Zimmer Bradley's proud, feminist tradition in the twenty-three original, swashbuckling and magical stories of SWORD AND SORCERESS XXI, where:A family of thieves is sorely disappointed by their daughter's wizarding ambitions...A warrior with amnesia is taught a lesson she could never have learned if she remembered her past...A girl is turned down by a school of magic because of her sex, only to become the disciple of a far more powerful mentor...An arrogant mage is taught that even the most powerful of sorcerers sometimes needs the help of material weapons...The best-selling "Sword & The Sorceress series continues with this thrilling 21st edition of all-original stories of action-packed adventure, ultimate magic, and fearsome, sword-wielding women by some of the best names in fantasy today.

    Her escape leaves her with no option but to rely on Seth, a former lover, for help.Unfortunately, she realizes that they are now on opposite sides of an escalating war between the Commonwealth Union of Planets and an increasingly dangerous rebel organization.In trying to find who is threatening her life, they discover a plot to destroy a distant planet - a world inhabited by creatures that are the key to Nova's survival - and a conspiracy that threatens the stability of the Union Commonwealth.Can Nova go beyond her strict military training to cooperate with people whom she is sworn to destroy?

    The eighteen stories of Manuel Gonzales’s exhilarating first book render the fantastic commonplace and the ordinary extraordinary, in prose that thrums with energy and shimmers with beauty. In “The Artist’s Voice” we meet one of the world’s foremost composers, a man who speaks through his ears. A hijacked plane circles a city for twenty years in “Pilot, Copilot, Writer.” Sound can kill in “The Sounds of Early Morning.” And, in the title story, a man is at war with the wife he accidentally shrank. For these characters, the phenomenal isn’t necessarily special—but it’s often dangerous. In slightly fantastical settings, Gonzales illustrates very real guilt over small and large marital missteps, the intense desire for the reinvention of self, and the powerful urges we feel to defend and provide for the people we love. With wit and insight, these stories subvert our expectations and challenge us to look at our surroundings with fresh eyes. Brilliantly conceived, strikingly original, and told with the narrative instinct of a born storyteller, The Miniature Wife is an unforgettable debut.

    Gem's hidden past proves an unexpected liability as his plans to leave the planet go catastrophically awry.

    LeGuin, The Winter Boy explores important political and social issues within a dynamic, character-driven otherworld, wrapped up in masterful storytelling. The Valley of the Alleshi is the center of all civilization, the core and foundation of centuries of peace. A cloistered society of widows, the Alleshi, has forged a peace by mentoring young men who will one day become the leaders of the land. Each boy is paired with a single Allesha for a season of intimacy and learning, using time-honored methods that include storytelling, reason and sex. However, unknown to all but a hidden few, the peace is fracturing from pressures within and beyond, hacking at the very essence of their civilization.Amidst this gathering political maelstrom, Rishana, a young new idealistic Allesha, takes her First Boy, Ryl, for a winter season of training. But Ryl is a “problem boy,” who fights Rishana every step of the way. At the same time, Rishana uncovers a web of conspiracies that could not only destroy Ryl, but threatens to tear their entire society apart. And a winter that should have been a gentle, quiet season becomes one of conflict, anger and danger.

    Gladiators, as they are better known, are genetically modified human champions who meet Klethos d’relle in the combat ring when the Klethos issue a challenge for a human world. Win, and the planet stays in human possession; lose, and not only do they lose their lives, but the world as well. With the Klethos much more advanced and militarily powerful, able to defeat humanity in an all-out war, the challenge ring is the only way to retain at least some of the worlds of man. While life as a gladiator is full of celebrity status and the gratitude of humanity, it comes with a heavy price. Not only is there the real risk of death in the ring, if a gladiator survives that, the “Brick,” or Boosted Regeneration Cancer, will claim her life within a few years. Lance Corporal Veal, who has found a home in the Marines, has to decide whether to accept the nomination. She would have to leave her brothers and sisters in the Corps, be assigned to the combined human gladiator course, and undergo extreme genetic modification that will leave her almost unrecognizable from the woman she was before. Becoming a gladiator will enable her to serve humanity to a far greater extent than anything else she could do as a Marine grunt, but at a tremendous personal cost. Author’s note: For those readers familiar with my other Marine-related books, this one is a little different in that there is far less combat action, particularly from a Marine unit standpoint. This novel, which is the first of three planned books that follow three different women serving as United Federation Marines or as a Navy corpsman, is more about duty, sacrifice, and what it means to serve in defense of others.