Social satire, fabulist tales and darkly humorous dystopian visions by some ofCanada's most adventurous and distinguished writers.The 23 stories in Darwin's Bastards take us on a twisted, wild ride into some future times and parallel universes where characters as diverse as a dead boy, a one-legged international actuarial forensics specialist, a pharmaceutical guinea pig, and a far-sighted fetus engage in their own games of the survival of the fittest.The collection includes the first new short story by William Gibson to be published since 1997, as well as original, previously unpublished fiction by Lee Henderson, Timothy Taylor, Heather O'Neill, Mark Anthony Jarman, and others.From recent Trillium Award-winner Pasha Malla's hilarious take on the apocalypse, where Prince is the only man left alive, to newcomer Matthew J.Trafford's brilliant triptych about the fallout from the cloning of Jesus Christ, to iconoclast Sheila Heti's meditative romp about beleaguered physicists and Oracle of Delphi-like BlackBerrys, Darwin's Bastards is a fast-moving, thought-provoking reading extravaganza.

     When the local authorities ask Kyle Juenger to hunt a shape-shifting Glyrinny spy, he can’t refuse. After all, he can use the reward to replace his paralyzed legs with cyberware, and maybe even to return to his home planet. Besides, he hates the morphs—those invasive, brain-eating monstrosities whose weapons cost him his legs. Kyle’s best lead is the Scorpion, a mercenary ship armed to the teeth. Grimm, the Scorpion’s pilot and captain, fascinates Kyle. He’s everything Kyle lost with his legs, and he’s from the same home world. He’s also of the warrior caste—half priest, half savior. But Grimm’s been twisted by life as a merc, and Kyle’s stuck undercover as a criminal on the run. That doesn’t stop Grimm from coming on to Kyle, or from insisting he’s more than the sum of his past and his useless legs. But Kyle has other concerns—like tracking a dangerous morph who could be wearing anyone’s face. And as if things weren’t complicated enough, Kyle can’t tell if Grimm is part of the solution . . . or part of the problem.

    Years ago, Skylar Cruz’s family sent her to the App World for a chance at a better life.Now Skye is a nobody, a virtual sixteen-year-old girl without any glamorous effects or expensive downloads to make her stand out in the App World. Yet none of that matters to Skye. All she wants is a chance to unplug and see her mother and sister again.But when the borders between worlds suddenly close, Skye loses that chance. Desperate to reach her family, Skye risks everything to get back to the physical world. Once she arrives, however, she discovers a much larger, darker reality than the one she remembers.

    THEN: The formation of the UNA, the high threat of eco-terrorism, the mammoth rates of unemployment and subsequent escape into a world of virtual reality are things any student can read about in their 21st century textbooks and part of the normal background noise to Freya Kallas's life. Until that world starts to crumble. NOW: It's 1985. Freya Kallas has just moved across the world and into a new life. On the outside, she fits in at her new high school, but Freya feels nothing but removed. Her mother blames it on the grief over her father's death, but how does that explain the headaches and why do her memories feel so foggy? When Freya lays eyes on Garren Lowe, she can't get him out of her head. She's sure that she knows him, despite his insistence that they've never met. As Freya follows her instincts and pushes towards hidden truths, the two of them unveil a strange and dangerous world where their days may be numbered. Unsure who to trust, Freya and Garren go on the run from powerful forces determined to tear them apart and keep them from discovering the truth about their shared pasts (and futures), her visions, and the time and place they really came from.

    Not after what happened with Chaz Wilson. But that was ages ago, when Luis's parents were in high school; it would never happen today, right? He's determined to find a way to give his LGBTQ friends the respect they deserve (while also not risking his chance to be prom king, just saying…).When a hit on the head knocks him back in time to 1985 and he meets the doomed young Chaz himself, Luis concocts a new plan-he's going to give this guy his first real kiss. Though it turns out a conservative school in the '80s isn't the safest place to be a gay kid. Especially with homophobes running the campus, including Gordo (aka Luis's estranged father). Luis is in over his head, trying not to make things worse-and hoping he makes it back to present day at all.In a story that's fresh, intersectional, and wickedly funny, David Valdes introduces a big-mouthed, big-hearted queer character that readers won't soon forget.

    Science has not only made the leaps necessary to allow time travel, but the process engineered a strange side effect—predicting your one true love.If you could save your one true love from an untimely death, would you be able to resist?Sixteen-year-old Kaia Vespasian is an apprentice to the Historians—a group charged with using time travel to document the triumphs and failures of the past—and she can’t resist a peek at her long-dead soul mate in Ancient Egypt. Before she knows it, she’s broken every rule in the book, and the consequences of getting caught could destroy more than just her new romance.Or would you have the strength to watch him die?But when Kaia notices a fellow classmate snooping around in a time where he doesn’t belong, she suspects he has a secret of his own—and the conspiracy she uncovers could threaten the entire universe. If her experience has taught her anything, to changing history means facing the consequences. The Historians trained her to observe and record the past, but Kaia never guessed she might have to protect it— in a race across time to save her only chance at a future.

    A group of rebel Monarchists free her from indentured servitude and take her on a journey to rescue trapped compatriots from an underground complex of mines.Along the way they get caught up in a conspiracy to kill the latest royal child and wipe out the Monarchist movement for good.But Fellian has more than just her Lamplighting skills up her sleeve…In Kate Elliott's Servant Mage, a lowly fire mage finds herself entangled in an empire-spanning conspiracy on her way to discovering her true power.

    When tragedy befalls Imperial Prince Taam, his Thean widower, Jainan, is rushed into an arranged marriage with Taam's cousin, the disreputable Kiem, in a bid to keep the rising hostilities between the two worlds under control.But when it comes to light that Prince Taam's death may not have been an accident, and that Jainan himself may be a suspect, the unlikely pair must overcome their misgivings and learn to trust one another as they navigate the perils of the Iskat court, try to solve a murder, and prevent an interplanetary war... all while dealing with their growing feelings for each other.

    Now he and Lilac reconcile his memories of that night with the truth uncovered after the crash. Short connects first two novels. Includes preview chapter from This Shattered World.

    Owens thought he would take one last trip to pay his respects to fallen comrades. However fate had other plans. His return trip to the planet of Hades in the Death Gates System was to be his final farewell. At ninety seven, his doctors had told him his chances of surviving the trip were small. This did not deter him in the slightest. It would be his last great adventure.This was supposed to be a trip to say goodbye to the men he had served with, under, and finally over as a Death Dealer. The men in those Imperial Black Uniforms. The Death Dealers have been the most feared military unit of the last four hundred and fifty years of the human Space Empire. Men trained in every form of combat known to man and alien. Units whose very names strike terror into the hearts of those they face. Names like Grim Rippers, Hells Lost Legion, and the Screaming Eagles. If it had not been for the Emperor Nicolai and an invasion by the Gelf Union four hundred and fifty years ago the Death Dealers may have been nothing more than a footnote in history. A company of Death Dealers were on Fair Cry Seven when they attacked. The Gelf’s killed every last human military unit that faced off against them. All but one was defeated within the first two days of the invasion. That one lone unit was the Death Dealer Company. From that war onwards, the Death Dealers have fought in every war on every planet from the time of their conception. Their battles have become legendary. Battlefields with names like Forty Acers where the Death Dealers lost one man for every enemy soldier they sent to meet their maker. Bloody Ridge on Colfax Eight where one company of Death Dealers in Armored Power Suits held off four regiments of Horbathian Tanks for three days before being relieved. On all of these planets and many more their battle cry of ‘Death is dealt by our hands’ has been heard. It was this battle cry that earned them their name. A name given to them by the very enemy they first faced off against. It was these stories that drew James as a young man to undergo the painful process of having the Death Dealers greatest asset installed in his body. The artificial intelligence computer known as a Death Dealer AI. As a young man from a poor planet James dreamed of wearing the Imperial Black Uniform of the Death Dealers. He never knew that he would become one of the most feared of Death Dealers, the man they themselves would call Death. It would be his drive to be the best of the best that would propel him far beyond his humble origins to being a First High Lord and personal Friend of the Emperor. However that is now all in his past. Now well past his prime, all James wants to do is travel to Hades and the Death Gates system to say goodbye and die a peaceful death. The old Death Dealer did not know that deep within him lying dormant was an old friend just waiting a signal to reawaken. An wakening that would begin not only a second chance in life, but what would become his greatest, and most rewarding adventure. He will face off against assassins, rogue military units, hostile planetary governments, and an all-out revolt against the Empire he swore to protect. All of these things are nothing compared to his greatest challenge.No that pleasure belongs to having to deal with not one but two very different Artificial Intelligence computers in his head. One is the original Death Dealer AI that all Death Dealers have, this was Dee De a Mark one Omega/ Assault class Death Dealer AI with a hidden secret. One that will lead to James’s greatest adventure and second chance in life.They say Death Dealers never retreat and never surrender. Their battle cry has been heard on thousands of worlds for over four hundred years.

    Within twenty-four hours, the blood made international news. All over the world, blood appeared out of the ground, even through concrete, even in water. Then the earth started growing hair and bones.Lea wants to ignore the blood. She wants to spend time with her new girlfriend, Aracely, in public, if only Aracely wasn't so afraid of her father. Lea wants to be a regular teen again, but the blood has made her a prisoner in her own home. Fear for her social life turns into fear for her sanity, and Lea must save herself and Aracely whatever way she can.

    When a military convoy arrives to pick up Devin Rossi and Karissa Decker, along with dozens of other bewildered people, the two have no idea they are part of a group selected by the government to be transported to a space station preparing for the colonization of another planet. They are members of the Chosen. On their way to the military base, their convoy is attacked and Devin and Karissa learn the real reason behind their selection. Their attraction grows as they struggle to survive and wrestle with the decision to continue on to the base as part of the Chosen, which means leaving millions of others behind to die. Will they face an uncertain future together, or will the cost be too high?Cover Artist: Tammy SedickGenres: Romance / Speculative Fiction

    Humanity has colonised the Moon, Mars, Ceres and Europa. Captain Ellisa Shann commands Khidr, a search and rescue ship with a crew of twenty-five, tasked to assist the vast commercial freighters that supply the different solar system colonies. Shann has no legs and has taken to life in zero-g partly as a result. She is a talented tactician who has a tendency to take too much on her own shoulders. Now, while on a regular six-month patrol through the solar system, Khidr picks up a distress call from the freighter Hercules…FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.

    . . No power, no lights, no people . . . It's a parallel New York of some kind. ' THE COMING ENDWhen Skye Rogers and her twin brother Red move to Manhattan, rumours of a coming global apocalypse are building. But this does not stop the young elite of New York from partying without a care.CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?And then suddenly Skye is invited to join an exclusive gang known as the Secret Runners of New York.But this is no ordinary clique - they have access to an underground portal that can transport them into the future. And what Skye discovers in the future is horrifying: the rumours about the coming apocalypse are true . . .RUN! AS FAST AS YOU CAN!As society crumbles and Skye and Red race to figure out how to use their knowledge to survive the impending annihilation, they soon discover that the chaotic end of the world is a fine time for revenge . . .

    but they’re not the only ones in pursuit of the secret at the heart of the planet Dimmuborgir. The highly-evolved AI of the universe have their own agenda and will do whatever it takes to keep humans from ever controlling the universe again. This band of dangerous women, half-clone and half-machine, must battle their own traumas and a universe of sapient ageships who want them dead, in order to settle their affairs once and for all.  Cassandra Khaw’s debut novel is a page-turning exploration of humans and machines that is perfect for readers of Ann Leckie, Ursula Le Guin, and Kameron Hurley.