No longer relegated to the fringes of literature, this explosive collection of the world’s best apocalyptic writers brings the inventors of alien invasions, devastating meteors, doomsday scenarios, and all-out nuclear war back to the bookstores with a bang.The best writers of the early 1900s were the first to flood New York with tidal waves, destroy Illinois with alien invaders, paralyze Washington with meteors, and lay waste to the Midwest with nuclear fallout. Now collected for the first time ever in one apocalyptic volume are those early doomsday writers and their contemporaries, including Neil Gaiman, Orson Scott Card, Lucius Shepard, Robert Sheckley, Norman Spinrad, Arthur C. Clarke, William F. Nolan, Poul Anderson, Fredric Brown, Lester del Rey, and more. Relive these childhood classics or discover them here for the first time. Each story details the eerie political, social, and environmental destruction of our world.

    . . Soldiers fight to survive. They fight each other, and they fight the demons inside. Sometimes, they fight real monsters. This book collects stories of ancient myths, time travelers, horrors in the old west . . . and the soldiers who fight them. Featuring some of the best writers working in the field today, this book includes works from Jonathan Maberry, Weston Ochse, Greig Beck, and James A. Moore who lead the way, with a contingent of emerging authors to back them up. Fight or die.

    From The Wizard of Oz to The Dark Tower, from Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass to C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, there is a rich tradition of this kind of fiction, but never before have the best parallel world stories and portal fantasies been collected in a single volume—until now.

    These stories are today.Following up on her first collection, Story Prize finalist Maureen F. McHugh explores the catastrophes, small and large, of twenty-first century life—and what follows after. What happens after the bird flu pandemic? Are our computers smarter than we are? What does the global economy mean for two young girls in China? Are we really who we say we are? And how will we survive the coming zombie apocalypse?

    Villains take centre stage in nineteen dark and magical stories that will have you cheering for all the wrong heroes as they perform savage deeds towards wicked ends. And why not? They are the champions of their own stories—evil is a matter of perspective.Authors:R. Scott Bakker (The Second Apocalypse)Adrian Tchaikovsky (Shadows of the Apt, The Tiger and the Wolf)Michael R. Fletcher (Manifest Delusions)Shawn Speakman (The Annwn Cycles)Teresa Frohock (Los Nefilim)Kaaron Warren (The Gate Theory, Mistification)Courtney Schafer (The Shattered Sigil)Marc Turner (Chronicles of the Exile)Jeff Salyards (Bloodsounder's Arc)Mazarkis Williams (The Tower & Knife)Deborah A. Wolf (The Dragon's Legacy)Brian Staveley (Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne)Alex Marshall (Crimson Empire)Bradley P. Beaulieu (The Song of the Shattered Sands, The Lays of Anuskaya)Matthew Ward (Shadow of the Raven, Coldharbour)Mark Alder (Banners of Blood)Janny Wurts (The Wars of Light and Shadow, The Empire Trilogy)E.V. Morrigan (Glyph War world)Peter Orullian (The Vault of Heaven)Artists:Tommy Arnold (cover)Jason Deem (interior art)Shawn King (design)

    Its hundreds of remarkable stories span from science fiction to fantasy to horror, and everything in between. Now Tor.com is making some of those worlds available for the first time in print.This volume collects some of the best short stories Tor.com has to offer, with Hugo and Nebula Award-winning short stories and novelettes chosen from all ten years of the program. Including stories by: Charlie Jane Anders, N. K. Jemisin, Leigh Bardugo, Jeff VanderMeer, Yoon Ha Lee, Carrie Vaughn, Ken Liu, Kai Ashante Wilson, Kameron Hurley, Seth Dickinson, Rachel Swirsky, Laurie Penny, Alyssa Wong, Kij Johnson, David D. Levine, Genevieve Valentine, Max Gladstone, and many others.TABLE OF CONTENTS:“Six Months, Three Days” by Charlie Jane Anders“Damage” by David D. Levine“The Best We Can” by Carrie Vaughn“The City Born Great” by N. K. Jemisin“A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel” by Yoon Ha Lee“Waiting on a Bright Moon” by JY Yang“Elephants and Corpses” by Kameron Hurley“About Fairies” by Pat Murphy“The Hanging Game” by Helen Marshall“The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere” by John Chu“A Cup of Salt Tears” by Isabel Yap“The Litany of Earth” by Ruthanna Emrys“Brimstone and Marmalade” by Aaron Corwin“Reborn” by Ken Liu“Please Undo This Hurt” by Seth Dickinson“The Language of Knives” by Haralambi Markov“The Shape of My Name” by Nino Cipri“Eros, Philia, Agape” by Rachel Swirsky“The Lady Astronaut of Mars” by Mary Robinette Kowal“Last Son of Tomorrow” by Greg van Eekhout“Ponies” by Kij Johnson“La beauté sans vertu” by Genevieve Valentine“A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers” by Alyssa Wong“A Kiss With Teeth” by Max Gladstone“The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections” by Tina Connolly“The End of the End of Everything” by Dale Bailey“Breaking Water” by Indrapramit Das“Your Orisons May Be Recorded” by Laurie Penny“The Tallest Doll in New York City” by Maria Dahvana Headley“The Cage” by A.M. Dellamonica“In the Sight of Akresa” by Ray Wood“Terminal” by Lavie Tidhar“The Witch of Duva: A Ravkan Folk Tale” by Leigh Bardugo“Daughter of Necessity” by Marie Brennan“Among the Thorns” by Veronica Schanoes“These Deathless Bones” by Cassandra Khaw“Mrs. Sorensen and the Sasquatch” by Kelly Barnhill“This World Is Full of Monsters” by Jeff VanderMeer“The Devil in America” by Kai Ashante Wilson“A Short History of the Twentieth Century, or, When You Wish Upon A Star” by Kathleen Ann Goonan

    Lost worlds where T-Rex and Velociraptors still roam and man is now on the menu. Laboratories at the forefront of cloning technology experiment with dinosaurs they do not understand or are able to contain. The deepest parts of the ocean where Megalodon, the largest and most ferocious predator to have ever existed is stalking new prey. Plus many more thrillers filled with extinct prehistoric monsters written by some of the best creature feature authors this side of the Jurassic period.

    Free. Like Unfettered before it, the contributing writers of Unbound were allowed to submit the tales they wished fans of genre to read—without the constraints of a shackling theme. The result is magical. Twenty-three all-original stories are sure to captivate you—some will move you to tears while others will keep you turning the pages long into the night. The power of Unbound lies in its variety of tales and the voices behind them. If you are a fan of discovering new writers or reading the works of beloved authors, Unbound is for you. Return to Landover with Terry Brooks. Go to trial with Harry Dresden and Jim Butcher. Enter the Citadel and become remade with Rachel Caine. Survive a plague with John Marco and his robot companion Echo. Be painted among the stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. These tales and the others that comprise the anthology are only bound by how enchanting and enthralling they are. Unbound is filled with spectacularly wonderful stories, each one as diverse as its creator. You will be changed upon finishing it. And that is the point. Like Unfettered before it, the contributing writers of Unbound were allowed to submit the tales they wished fans of genre to read—without the constraints of a theme. It is an anthology filled some spectacularly wonderful stories, each one as diverse as its creator.Here is the Unbound line-up: Terry Brooks (intro) | Kristen Britain | Jim Butcher | Rachel Caine | Harry Connolly | Delilah S. Dawson | David Anthony Durham | Jason M. Hough | Mary Robinette Kowal | Mark Lawrence | John Marco | Tim Marquitz | Seanan McGuire | Peter Orullian | Kat Richardson | Anthony Ryan | Shawn Speakman | Brian Staveley | Michael J. Sullivan | Sam Sykes | Mazarkis Williams“Madwalls” by Rachel Caine“Stories Are Gods” by Peter Orullian“River and Echo” by John Marco“A Dichotomy of Paradigms” by Mary Robinette Kowal“Son of Crimea” by Jason M. Hough“An Unfortunate Influx of Filipians” by Terry Brooks“The Way into Oblivion” by Harry Connolly“Uncharming” by Delilah S. Dawson“A Good Name” by Mark Lawrence“All in a Night’s Work” by David Anthony Durham“Seven Tongues” by Tim Marquitz“Fiber” by Seanan McGuire“The Hall of the Diamond Queen” by Anthony Ryan“The Farmboy Prince” by Brian Staveley“Heart’s Desire” by Kat Richardson“The Game” by Michael J. Sullivan“The Ethical Heresy” by Sam Sykes.“Small Kindnesses” by Joe Abercrombie“The Rat” by Mazarkis Williams“The Siege of Tilpur” by Brian McClellan“Mr. Island” by Kristen Britain“Jury Duty” by Jim Butcher“The Dead’s Revenant” by Shawn Speakman

    Those two little words can mean so much. But how will things end...and will it hurt? That’s what we really want to know. Delve into the darkness and join us at the end of the world. From a blighted sky to an invasion from beyond, from untethered time to one person driven beyond the edge of sanity, from a child’s game to an unseen apocalypse...it’s all imagined here, and imagined darkly. Inside The Ways We End is a combination of new stories and previously published anthology tales, now re-imagined without word limits, including Cottage of Hunger, The Mergens, The Mountains of Five, The Bridge, Rock or Shell, and A Mother So Beautiful.

    . . BUT NOT ALWAYS WHERE YOU EXPECT IT. From New York to Los Angeles to Bucharest, fifteen never-before-published tales by some of the world’s finest fantasy and horror writers celebrate the newest incarnations of an age-old terror that strikes when the moon is full . . . the werewolf. No longer confined to the forests, these modern monsters can be found in places you frequent every day—and never before thought to fear.CARRIE VAUGHN’s popular werewolf radio host Kitty Norville is drawn into a controversy as to whether it’s fair to ban lycanthropy from professional sports. New York’s famous Plaza Hotel is the setting for ESTHER M. FRIESNER’s tale of one very grisly little girl, while Beverly Hills may never quite recover from RON GOULART’s middle-aged Hollywood screenwriter who falls prey to a most unusual problem. Celebrated fantasy author PETER S. BEAGLE tells a chillingly lyrical story of three Louisiana loup garoux locked into a deadly dance of death. Plus many more biting tales from award-winning authors:HOLLY BLACK • P.D. CACEK • GREGORY FROST • TANITH LEE HOLLY PHILLIPS • MIKE RESNICK • DARRELL SCHWEITZER • LISA TUTTLE IAN WATSON • GENE WOLFE • CHELSEA QUINN YARBRO

    Other outlandish tales include John Wayne battling cancer using a highly alternative therapy, a gene for integrity being harvested from the brain of an unwilling donor, and the landing of Christopher Columbus in modern-day Manhattan. Included are the Locus and Nebula Award-nominated novelette Auspicious Eggs and several previously unpublished pieces.ContentsIntroduction by Michael Swanwick“Auspicious Eggs”“Come Back, Dr. Sarcophagus”“Director’s Cut”“Fucking Justice”“Isabella of Castile Answers Her Mail”“Martyrs of the Upshot Knothole”“The Cat’s Pajamas”“The Eye That Never Blinks”“The Fate of Nations”“The War of the Worldviews”“The Wisdom of the Skin”“The Zombies of Montrose”

    Now from this brilliant young writer comes a groundbreaking collection of stories, many of them previously unavailable in the United States, and including four never-before-published tales–one set in Miéville’s signature fantasy world of New Crobuzon. Among the fourteen superb fictions are“Jack”–Following the events of his acclaimed novel Perdido Street Station, this tale of twisted attachment and horrific revenge traces the rise and fall of the Remade Robin Hood known as Jack Half-a-Prayer. “Familiar”–Spurned by its creator, a sorceress’s familiar embarks on a strange and unsettling odyssey of self-discovery in a coming-of-age story like no other.

    Your hosts are the Hugo Award-winning editors John Klima (Electric Velocipede) and Lynne M. Thomas (Apex Magazine), and the Hugo-nominated editor Michael Damian Thomas (Apex Magazine).Join glittery authors Christopher Barzak (One for Sorrow) and Daryl Gregory (Pandemonium) on the dance floor, drink cocktails with Maria Dahvana Headley (Queen of Kings: A Novel of Cleopatra, the Vampire) and Tim Pratt (Marla Mason series), and skate with Seanan McGuire (InCryptid series), Diana Rowland (Kara Gillian series), and Maurice Broaddus (The Knights of Breton Court series). The fantastic Amber Benson gets the party started with her floor-rattling introduction (Calliope Reaper-Jones series).We’re waiting.Table of ContentsIntroduction by Amber BensonSister Twelve: Confessions of a Party Monster by Christopher BarzakApex Jump by David J. SchwartzWith Her Hundred Miles to Hell by Kat HowardStar Dancer by Jennifer PellandOf Selkies, Disco Balls, and Anna Plane by Cat RamboSooner Than Gold by Cory SkerrySubterraneans by William Shunn & Laura ChavoenThe Minotaur Girls by Tansy Rayner RobertsUnable to Reach You by Alan DeNiroSuch & Such Said to So & So by Maria Dahvana HeadleyRevels in the Land of Ice by Tim PrattBess, the Landlord’s Daughter, Goes for Drinks with the Green Girl by Sofia SamatarBlood and Sequins by Diana RowlandTwo-Minute Warning by Vylar KaftanInside Hides the Monster by Damien Walters GrintalisBad Dream Girl by Seanan McGuireA Hollow Play by Amal El-MohtarJust Another Future Song by Daryl GregoryThe Electric Spanking of the War Babies by Maurice Broaddus & Kyle S. JohnsonAll That Fairy Tale Crap by Rachel Swirsky

    A song half-heard. The murmur of a voice singing in the dark. There it is again…a few words set to an old melody filled with mystery, heartbreak and horror. Out of Tune gathers a collection of original dark fantasy tales inspired by folk ballads. Here you’ll find stories of strange creatures and strangers humans, treachery and love, murder and monsters. Out of Tune brings together some of today’s most talented writers and sets them loose in that swirling darkness at the edge of town. NY Times bestselling author and editor Jonathan Maberry unleashes his own brand of dark forces with a line-up of bestsellers and award winners. Kelley Armstrong, Jack Ketchum, Simon R. Green, Seanan McGuire, Christopher Golden, David Liss, Gregory Frost, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Jeff Strand, Lisa Morton, Jeff Mariotte & Marsheila Rockwell, Nancy Holder, Del Howison, and Gary Braunbeck. With commentary on each source ballad by folklorist Nancy Keim Comley. Now get ready to dance to the music of the night.

    Moms and dads making long commutes. Teenagers headed to the beach. Bands on their way to the next gig. Truckers pulling long hauls. Families driving cross country to visit their kin.But there are others, too. The desperate and the lost. The cruel and the criminal.Theirs is a world of roadside honky-tonks, truck stops, motels, and the empty miles between destinations. The unseen spaces.And there are even stranger things. Places that aren’t on any map. Wayfaring terrors and haunted legends about which seasoned and road-weary travelers only whisper.But those are just stories. Aren’t they?Find out for yourself as you get behind the wheel with some of today’s finest authors of the dark and horrific as they bring you these harrowing tales from the road.Tales that could only be spawned by the endless miles of America’s lost highways.So go ahead and hop in. Let’s take a ride.Line-up: Introduction by Brian Keene doungjai gam & Ed Kurtz — “Crossroads of Opportunity” Matt Hayward — “Where the Wild Winds Blow” Joe R. Lansdale — “Not from Detroit” Kristi DeMeester — “A Life That is Not Mine” Robert Ford — “Mr. Hugsy” Lisa Kröger — “Swamp Dog” Orrin Grey — “No Exit” Michael Bailey — “The Long White Line” Kelli Owen — “Jim’s Meats” Bracken MacLeod — “Back Seat” Jess Landry — “The Heart Stops at the End of Laurel Lane” Jonathan Janz — “Titan, Tyger” Nick Kolakowski — “Your Pound of Flesh” Richard Thomas — “Requital” Damien Angelica Walters — “That Pilgrims’ Hands Do Touch” Cullen Bunn — “Outrunning the End” Christopher Buehlman — “Motel Nine” Rachel Autumn Deering — “Dew Upon the Wing” Josh Malerman — “Room 4 at the Haymaker” Rio Youers — “The Widow” Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths. Interview with the editor:So what makes Lost Highways: Dark Fictions From the Road so special?Lost Highways comes at the theme of road stories with the desire to push the boundaries of what that theme means. Because of that, it collects authors of diverse levels of experience and notoriety in the worlds of horror and dark fiction. This brings together voices like Joe R. Lansdale, Cullen Bunn, Josh Malerman, Damien Angelica Walters, Rio Youers, Bracken MacLeod, Rachel Autumn Deering, Matt Hayward, doungjai gam with Ed Kurtz, and Kristi DeMeester. All of these unique voices bring a fresh and often unexpected take on the theme.What made you think of this theme for the anthology?Road trips can be fun but they can also be long and boring.