You can become a piece of performance art. You might even become a library of sorrows...Table Of Contents: The Reflections Of Ghosts Pink Pills The Flaying Season Union Dick Wakizashi Dissecting The Soul Precious Metal Sisters Of No Mercy Heart for Heart’s Sake The Ballad Of Moosecock Lip Face The Pressman The Palace Of Nothingness The Rusted Gates Of Heaven Immolation Unlimited Daylight The Library Of Sorrows Nom de Guerre The Color Shrain

    The Warmaster’s forces are split and deadlocked on two separate fronts, haemorrhaging momentum, men and materiel. A series of ambitious covert operations is planned across the sector – their aim to break the stalemate so the Imperial forces can move forward once more. Key players in this shadow war are Colonel-Commissar Gaunt and the Tanith First-and-Only. Will the bravery and cunning of this infamous regiment tip the balance in the Imperium’s favour? This omnibus edition comprises the novels Blood Pact and Salvation's Reach along with four short stories that continue the story after the events of the novels and set up the next stage of the Tanith First's adventures.CONTENTSBlood PactSalvation's ReachFamilyYou Never KnowGhosts and Bad ShadowsKillbox READ IT BECAUSE These two novels and four short stories throw the Ghosts into danger once again and will set you up nicely to move on into The Warmaster and The Anarch.

    This collection includes the first three books and is over 1000 pages (350,000 words) of post-apocalyptic survival.BREAKERS (Book 1)In New York, Walt Lawson is about to lose his girlfriend Vanessa. In Los Angeles, Raymond and Mia James are about to lose their house. Within days, none of it will matter. A plague tears across the world, reducing New York to an open grave and LA to a chaotic wilderness of violence and fires. Civilization comes to an abrupt stop.Just as the survivors begin to adapt to the aftermath, Walt learns the virus that ended humanity wasn't created by humans. It was inflicted from outside. The colonists who sent it are ready to finish the job--and Earth's survivors may be too few and too weak to resist.MELT DOWN (Book 2)In upstate Idaho, Ness Hook is run out of his mom's house by his bullying brother Shawn. In Redding, California, Tristan Carter is graduating college, but with no job and no prospects, she'll have to move back in with her parents.Then the world ends: first with a virus, then with an alien invasion.Ness and Shawn take to the mountains to fight a guerrilla against the attackers. In California, Tristan and Alden are taken prisoner. Separated from her brother, Tristan crosses the ruins of America to track him down. She will stop at nothing to get Alden back--but her fellow survivors prove even more dangerous than the monsters who broke the world.KNIFEPOINT (Book 3)Raina was just a girl when the plague came. She survived. Her parents didn't. Neither did the world. As civilization fell, she took to the ruins of Los Angeles, eating whatever she could catch.After two years alone, she's found and adopted by a fisherman and his wife. Their makeshift family lives a quiet life--until a man named Karslaw sails in from Catalina Island with an army of conquerors. Driven by visions of empire, he executes Raina's new father as a traitor and takes her mother captive.But Karslaw's people aren't the only ones vying for control of the ruined land. As violence wracks the city, Raina joins a rebellion against Karslaw's rule. She will stop at nothing to free her mother--and to have her revenge.

    In "Exhalation," an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications that are literally universal. In "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom," the ability to glimpse into alternate universes necessitates a radically new examination of the concepts of choice and free will.Including stories being published for the first time as well as some of his rare and classic uncollected work, Exhalation is Ted Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic—revelatory.

    The anthology opens with a foreword by JEREMY ROBINSON, author of Project Nemesis, the highest selling Kaiju novel in the United States since the old Godzilla books—and perhaps even more than those. From New York Times bestsellers to indie darlings Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters features authors that are perfectly suited for writing larger than life stories.TABLE OF CONTENTSForeword – Jeremy RobinsonBig Ben and the End of the Pier Show – James LovegroveThe Conversion – David AnnandaleDay of the Demigods – Peter StensonThe Lighthouse Keeper of Kurohaka Island – Kane GilmourOccupied – Natania BarronOne Last Round – Nathan BlackThe Serpent’s Heart – Howard Andrew JonesMonstruo – Mike MacLeanThe Behemoth – Jonathan WoodThe Greatest Hunger – Jaym GatesHeartland – Shane BerryhillDevil’s Cap Brawl – Edward M. ErdelacShaktarra – Sean ShermanOf the Earth, of the Sky, of the Sea – Patrick M. Tracy and Paul GenesseThe Flight of the Red Monsters – Bonnie Jo StufflebeamOperation Starfish – Peter RawlikWith Bright Shining Faces – J.C. KochThe Banner of the Bent Cross – Peter ClinesFall of Babylon – James MaxeyDead Man’s Bones – Josh ReynoldsStormrise – Erin HoffmanBig Dog – Timothy W. LongThe Great Sea Beast – Larry CorreiaAnimikii vs. Mishipeshu – C.L. WernerThe Turn of the Card – James Swallow

    Earth sends a ship to investigate and the future of space travel changes forever. The Solar System develops in many ways over the centuries, but one thing remains constant; the wormholes continue to appear. Join many of today's most exciting indie science fiction authors as they chart a shared universe and future-history, each telling us stories of: Explorations: Through the Wormhole. Join many of today's most exciting indie science fiction authors as they chart a shared universe and future-history, each telling us stories of: Explorations: Through the Wormhole.Contents: Foreword: (Explorations: Through the Wormhole) • essay by Nathan Hystad (Series Editor) The Challenge / short fiction by Ralph Kern Through Glassy Eyes / short fiction by P. P. Corcoran Here, Then, Forever / short fiction by Chris Guillory AI Deniers / short fiction by Rosie Oliver Flawed Perspective / short fiction by P. J. Strebor The Lost Colony / short fiction by Josh Hayes The Aeon Incident / short fiction by Richard Fox The Doors of the Temple / short fiction by Jo Zebedee Dead Weight / short fiction by Thaddeus White Webbed Prisms / short fiction by Charlie Pulsipher Anathema / short fiction by Jacob Cooper When the Skies Open / short fiction by Shellie Horst A Second Infection / short fiction by Stephen Palmer Personal Growth / short fiction by Stephen Moss Join the SciFiExplorations.com newsletter and become an Explorer today! http://eepurl.com/ccWrwf

    A child discovers why you should always stay in bed if you wake up in the middle of the night. A homeowner unpacks the wrong bag of groceries, and comes to suspect his neighbors might have secrets that he doesn’t want to know. A cable shopping channel presenter is confronted with disgruntled customers from a *very* long way out of town ... and a man sets himself to rid the world of one of its most famous lies, and winds up destroying himself instead.Michael Marshall Smith’s last short story collection was hailed as “stellar” by Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) and a “major publishing event” by Ellen Datlow, and it won the International Horror Guild Award. You’re invited to return to the short fiction of New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author Michael Marshall Smith: it is Everything You Need.

    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

    Highly recommended.”—N.K. Jemisin, New York Times Book ReviewNeil Clarke, publisher of the award-winning Clarkesworld magazine, presents a collection of thought-provoking and galaxy-spanning array of galactic short science fiction.From E. E. "Doc" Smith’s Lensman, to George Lucas’ Star Wars, the politics and process of Empire have been a major subject of science fiction’s galaxy-spanning fictions. The idiom of the Galactic Empire allows science fiction writers to ask (and answer) questions that are shorn of contemporary political ideologies and allegiances. This simple narrative slight of hand allows readers and writers to see questions and answers from new and different perspectives.The stories in this book do just that. What social, political, and economic issues do the organizing structure of “empire” address? Often the size, shape, and fates of empires are determined not only by individuals, but by geography, natural forces, and technology. As the speed of travel and rates of effective communication increase, so too does the size and reach of an Imperial bureaucracy. Sic itur ad astra—“Thus one journeys to the stars.”At the beginning of the twentieth century, writers such as Kipling and Twain were at the forefront of these kinds of narrative observations, but as the century drew to a close, it was writers like Iain M. Banks who helped make science fiction relevant. That tradition continues today, with award-winning writers like Ann Leckie, whose 2013 debut novel Ancillary Justice hinges upon questions of imperialism and empire.Here then is a diverse collection of stories that asks the questions that science fiction asks best. Empire: How? Why? And to what effect?Table of Contents:- “Winning Peace” by Paul J. McAuley- “Night’s Slow Poison” by Ann Leckie- “All the Painted Stars” by Gwendolyn Clare- “Firstborn” by Brandon Sanderson- “Riding the Crocodile” by Greg Egan- “The Lost Princess Man” by John Barnes- “The Waiting Stars” by Aliette de Bodard- “Alien Archeology” by Neal Asher- “The Muse of Empires Lost” by Paul Berger- “Ghostweight” by Yoon Ha Lee- “A Cold Heart” by Tobias S. Buckell- “The Colonel Returns to the Stars” by Robert Silverberg- “The Impossibles” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch- “Utriusque Cosmi” by Robert Charles Wilson- “Section Seven” by John G. Hemry- “The Invisible Empire of Ascending Light” by Ken Scholes- “The Man with the Golden Balloon” by Robert Reed- “Looking Through Lace” by Ruth Nestvold- “A Letter from the Emperor” by Steve Rasnic Tem- “The Wayfarer’s Advice” by Melinda M. Snodgrass- “Seven Years from Home” by Naomi Novik- “Verthandi’s Ring” by Ian McDonaldSkyhorse 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.

    But a treaty doesn't mean an end to the violence, corruption, piracy, or tyranny in the galaxy. The Galactic Fleet's solution is a crack team of Special Ops Marines: Drop Team Zero.Made up of the absolute fighting best from humans, alien races, hybrids, and even AI androids, Drop Team Zero is called on to handle the worst of the worst, missions that others would tag as pure suicide. But when Drop Team Zero arrives, the only threat of suicide is for the ones that stand in their way.

    They have fought a war for 35 years against the insectoid Kadan that they have no intention of ending. It’s too essential to a society where the only social movement is via battle promotion. Then it all changes when the Kadan nearly annihilate the front lines. Vasilov Officer Colonel Cole Clarke has just returned home from service with the Sigg Military. Now that he has learned how the Sigg fight, he's bringing that knowledge to the Vasilov Military, plus an entire battalion of second hand Sigg Armor purchased on the scrap market. But instead of a fresh battalion of troops, he’s assigned a penal battalion filled with convicts. The Vasilov Military doesn't accept change easily, even when they need it. What would happen if an entirely new style of warfare came onto the battlefield? Could a strike force of second hand armor trump the defensive doctrines they’d used for thirty five years or would they be doomed to failure and death on the icy planet Lishun Delta? One squadron of armor. One Colonel. A thousand of the worst convicts in the Vasilov Military. Will they be up to the task?

    Most victims die, others experience physical or psychic changes: aces have useful powers, deuces minor maybe entertaining abilities, jokers uglified, disabled, relegated to ghettos.

    Few authors have matched the versatility and stylishness of Walter Jon Williams. His genre-defining novels have received wide critical acclaim and captured the rapt attention of fans worldwide. He has been nominated for every major SF award. The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories contains nine bleeding-edge tales showcasing Williams’ flexibility, power-chord storytelling, and engagingly human and post-human characters. From Walter Jon Williams, author of more than twenty novels, including This Is Not a Game, Implied Spaces, and the definitive cyberpunk novel Hardwired, comes The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories, a stunning collection of short fiction including the Nebula Award-winning stories “Daddy’s World” and “The Green Leopard Plague,” and featuring an introduction by Charles Stross, plus in-depth story notes.

    Pak's Preschool" a woman discovers that her baby has been called upon to work while still in the womb.  In "NatuLife" a married couple finds their relationship threatened by the wonders of sex by simulation.  In "Sshhh . . . " the arrival of benevolent aliens on Earth leads to frenzy, madness . . . and unimaginable joy.  In "Bubbles" a sentient starcraft reaches the limits of the universe--and dares to go beyond.  These are but a few of the challenging speculations in Otherness, from the pen of an author whose urgent and compelling imaginative fiction challenges us to wonder at the shape and the nature of the universe--as well as at its future.• The Giving Plague • (1988)• Myth Number 21 • (1990)• Story Notes (Transitions) • (1994)• Dr. Pak's Preschool • (1989)• Detritus Affected • (1993)• The Dogma of Otherness • [Editorial (Analog)] • (1986)• Sshhh ... • (1988)• Story Notes (Contact) • (1994)• Those Eyes • (1994)• What to Say to a UFO • (1994)• Bonding to Genji • (1992)• The Warm Space • (1985)• Whose Millennium? • (1994)• NatuLife ® • (1994)• Piecework • (1990)• Science versus Magic • (1990)• Bubbles • (1987)• Story Notes (Cosmos) • (1994)• Ambiguity • (1989)• What Continues ... And What Fails ... • (1991)• The Commonwealth of Wonder • (1990)

    Vengeful spirits are the main attraction at a carnival of the damned. And a woman is stalked by evil she can never escape…Scare Street is proud to present the best in bone-chilling supernatural horror. This volume contains three macabre morsels for your reading pleasure. Each tale is a bone-chilling glimpse into a shadowy abyss of fear and terror.But don’t stare for too long. Because it’s only a matter of time before you feel a presence longing for your soul…