Everyone wants the ring--despite the fearsome curse upon it. And Malcolm is about to learn that some are born to greatness, and some are, well, badgered into it.

    One of the most acclaimed writers in the field, Zelazny's rare ability to mix fantastical dream imagery with the real-life hardware of science fiction has won him more than a score of Hugo and Nebula nominations. He creates characters who live to haunt the reader beyond the page and who inhabit worlds both enchanting and disturbing--dazzling and memorable.7 • Introduction (The Last Defender of Camelot) • essay by Robert Siverberg11 • Comes Now the Power • (1966) • short story by Roger Zelazny18 • For a Breath I Tarry • (1966) • novelette by Roger Zelazny65 • The Engine at Heartspring's Center • (1974) • short story by Roger Zelazny76 • Halfjack • (1979) • short story by Roger Zelazny83 • Home is the Hangman • [Nemo] • (1975) • novella by Roger Zelazny165 • Permafrost • (1986) • novelette by Roger Zelazny195 • LOKI 7281 • (1984) • short story by Roger Zelazny204 • Mana from Heaven • [Magic Goes Away] • (1983) • novelette by Roger Zelazny250 • 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai • [Cthulhu Mythos] • (1985) • novella by Roger Zelazny329 • Come Back to the Killing Ground, Alice, My Love • [Kalifriki] • (1992) • novella by Roger Zelazny388 • The Last Defender of Camelot • (1979) • novelette by Roger Zelazny

    Jonathan-Thomas Meriweather, part-time wannabe rock guitarist and janitor, makes magic to his well-worn rock repertoire on his duar instrument. While lyrics may be righteous, the magic is too often something else.

    Wings of Fire brings you all these dragons, and more, seen clearly through the eyes of many of today's most popular authors. Introduction - Jonathan Strahan and Marianne S. JablonStable of Dragons - Peter S. Beagle The Rules of Names - Ursula K. Le Guin The Ice Dragon - George R. R. Martin Sobek - Holly BlackKing Dragon - Michael Swanwick The Laily Worm - Nina Kiriki Hoffman The Harrowing of the Dragon of Hoarsbreath - Patricia A. McKillip The Bully and the Beast - Orson Scott Card Concerto Accademico - Barry N. Malzberg The Dragon's Boy - Jane Yolen The Miracle Aquilina - Margo Lanagan Orm the Beautiful - Elizabeth Bear Weyr Search - Anne McCaffrey Paper Dragons - James P. BlaylockDragon's Gate - Pat Murphy In Autumn, A White Dragon Looks Over the Wide River - Naomi Novik St. Dragon and the George - Gordon R. DicksonThe Silver Dragon - Elizabeth A. LynnThe Dragons of Summer Gulch - Robert ReedBerlin - Charles de Lint Draco, Draco - Tanith LeeThe Dragon on the Bookshelf - Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg Gwydion and the Dragon - C. J. CherryhThe George Business - Roger Zelazny Dragon's Fin Soup - S. P. Somtow The Man Who Painted the Dragon Griaule - Lucius Shepard

    Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien inevitable.Now, in The Wind's Twelve Quarters, seventeen of her favorite stories reaffirm Ursula Le Guin as one of America's outstanding writers.CONTENTS:ForewordSemley's NecklaceApril in ParisThe MastersDarkness BoxThe Word of UnbindingThe Rule of NamesWinter's KingThe Good TripNine LivesThingsA Trip to the HeadVaster than Empires and More SlowThe Stars BelowThe Field of VisionDirection of the RoadThe Ones Who Walk Away from OmelasThe Day Before the Revolution

    Now, for the first time, that fiction has been gathered together in one place, ready to be enjoyed one twisting, tangled tale at a time. Her work crosses genres and subverts expectations.Meet the mad scientists of “Laughter at the Academy” and “The Tolling of Pavlov’s Bells.” Glory in the potential of a Halloween that never ends. Follow two very different alphabets in “Frontier ABCs” and “From A to Z in the Book of Changes.” Get “Lost,” dress yourself “In Skeleton Leaves,” and remember how to fly. All this and more is waiting for you within the pages of this decade-spanning collection, including several pieces that have never before been reprinted. Stories about mermaids, robots, dolls, and Deep Ones are all here, ready for you to dive in. This is a box of strange surprises dredged up from the depths of the sea, each one polished and prepared for your enjoyment. So take a chance, and allow yourself to be surprised.Enjoy.

    It gathers together sixteen original stories by some of today's finest writers of fantasy and science fiction. Together, they have won virtually every major prize -- from the National Book Award to the World Fantasy Award to the Newbery Medal -- and have made best-seller lists worldwide. These authors, including Lloyd Alexander (The Chronicles of Prydain), Diana Wynne Jones (The Merlin Conspiracy), Garth Nix (The Abhorsen Trilogy), Patricia A. McKillip (Ombria in Shadow), Meredith Ann Pierce (The Darkangel Trilogy), and Nancy Farmer (The House of the Scorpion), each with his or her own inimitable style, tell stories that will entertain, provoke, startle, amuse, and resonate long after the last page has been turned.The writers featured in Firebirds all share a connection to Firebird Books, an imprint that is dedicated to publishing the best fantasy and science fiction for teenage and adult readers.

    At Lady Sally's House, the customer doesn't necessarily come first: even the staff are genuinely enjoying themselves.Wife of time traveling bartender Mike Callahan, and employer of some of the most unusual and talented performing artists ever to work in the field of hedonic interface, Her Ladyship has designed her House to be an "equal opportunity enjoyer," discreetly, tastefully and joyfully catering to all erotic tastes and fantasies, however unusual. Like her famous husband, Lady Sally doesn't even insist that her customers be "human."..as long as they have good manners.Small wonder, then, that she and her staff encounter beings as unique and memorable as the superhuman Colt, whose banner never, ever flags...Diana, the deadly dominatrix who "cannot" be disobeyed...Tony Donuts, the moronic man-monster even the Mafia doesn't want to mess with...or Charles, the werewolf with a distinct difference...

    But now, they have emerged to ravage the land. Reissue.

    He is the Songweaver, but before he was a master of song he was merely Cerin of Wran Cheaping-a seventeen-year-old orphan raised by a wildland witch.  Then he encountered the Maid of the Grey Rose-the lone survivor of the war that devastated the Trembling Lands and the promised bride of Yarac Stone-Slayer, the feared and terrible Waster.  The mysterious beauty captured Cerin's heart, drawing him into a world both dark and deadly, until armed with only a tinkerblade and the magic of song, he would take on a man's challenge...and choose a treacherous path toward a magnificent destiny.  The Harp of the Grey Rose is award-winning fantasist Charles de Lint’s first novel, long out of print-and it hints of the wonderful stories to come.

    Blaylock"The Giving Mouth" by Ian R. MacLeod "A Sun in the Attic" by Mary Gentle "The God-Clown is Near" by Jay Lake"The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel" by Joe R. Lansdale"The Selene Gardening Society" by Molly Brown"Seventy-Two Letters" by Ted Chiang"The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance" by Michael Chabon"Victoria" by Paul Di Filippo"Reflected Light" by Rachel E. Pollock"Minutes of the Last Meeting" by Stepan Chapman"Excerpt from the Third and Last Volume of Tribes of the Pacific Coast" by Neal Stephenson"The Steam-Driven Time Machine: A Pop Culture Survey" by Rick Klaw"The Essential Sequential Steampunk: A Modest Survey of the Genre within the Comic Book Medium" by Bill Baker

    Destroyed oil rigs, mysteriously reborn, clamber from the sea and onto the land, driven by an obscure but violent purpose. An anatomy student cuts open a cadaver to discover impossibly intricate designs carved into a corpse's bones—designs clearly present from birth, bearing mute testimony to . . . what?Of such concepts and unforgettable images are made the twenty-eight stories in this collection—many published here for the first time. By turns speculative, satirical, and heart-wrenching, fresh in form and language, and featuring a cast of damaged yet hopeful seekers who come face-to-face with the deep weirdness of the world—and at times the deeper weirdness of themselves—Three Moments of an Explosion is a fitting showcase for one of our most original voices.

    Now, in Stronghold, the first novel of Melanie’s new Dragon Star trilogy, there is a devastating new challenge to the power of both the High Prince Rohan and Andry, Lord of the Sunrunners at Goddess Keep, as a mysterious and seemingly unstoppable invasion force swarms across their lands. For Andry it signals the start of a nightmare made real, the horrifying fulfillment of his long ago visions of his homeland in flames, and he will draw upon even the forbidden sorcerer’s magic in an attempt to destroy this enemy which is bent on the extermination of all Sunrunners. Rohan and his son Pol will also fight the enemy with every weapon at their command—from their valiant warriors, to conjurations with sun, moons, and stars, to the terrifying presence of the dragons, to the unforgiving wrath of the Desert itself. Yet soon they begin to fear that this invasion may prove not only the end of their dream of an unbreakable peace but the beginning of the end of their entire world….

    You hold in your hands an invitation to a place unlike any you’ve ever visited–an invitation delivered by one of our most audacious and astonishing literary magicians. City of elegance and squalor. Of religious fervor and wanton lusts. And everywhere, on the walls of courtyards and churches, an incandescent fungus of mysterious and ominous origin. In Ambergris, a would-be suitor discovers that a sunlit street can become a killing ground in the blink of an eye. An artist receives an invitation to a beheading–and finds himself enchanted. And a patient in a mental institution is convinced he’s made up a city called Ambergris, imagined its every last detail, and that he’s really from a place called Chicago.…By turns sensuous and terrifying, filled with exotica and eroticism, this interwoven collection of stories, histories, and “eyewitness” reports invokes a universe within a puzzlebox where you can lose–and find–yourself again.

    Thorne Blackburn and his followers settled at Shadow's Gate, a magnificent old house in upstate New York, and sought the Truth about life through ritual and magic. One night, something went badly wrong during Thorne’s most powerful ceremony. When the chaos had passed, Thorne had vanished, and Katherine, mother of Thorne’s young daughter Truth, was dead. Thirty years later, Truth Blackburn searches for smaller truths: what really happened that night at Shadow's Gate? Did Thorne truly have magical powers? And what happened to her half-siblings, a boy and girl Truth last saw that horrible night when her mother died?