Unable to find a moral or sane reason for the horror that surrounds him, he is overwhelmed by violence and insignificance.After wandering for months, Jonah's lonely existence dramatically changes when he discovers a group of survivors. Living in a museum-turned-compound, they are led jointly by Jack, an ever-practical and efficient military man, and Milton, a mysterious, quizzical prophet who holds a strange power over the dead. Both leaders share Jonah's anguish over the brutality of their world, as well as his hope for its beauty. Together with others, they build a community that reestablishes an island of order and humanity surrounded by relentless ghouls.But this newfound peace is short-lived, as Jonah and his band of refugees clash with another group of survivors who remind them that the undead are not the only—nor the most grotesque—horrors they must face.

    Blissed out club kids dying at the speed of sound. The un-dead and the very soon-to-be-dead. They're all here, trying to claw their way free. From the radioactive streets of a war-scarred future, where the nuclear bombs have become self-aware, to the fallow fields of Nebraska where the kids are mainlining lightning bugs, this is a world both alien and intensely human. This is a place where self-discovery involves scalpels and horse tranquilizers; where the doctors are more doped-up than the patients; where obsessive-compulsive acid-freaks have unlocked the gateway to God and can't close the door. This is not a safe place. You can turn back now, or you can head straight into the heart of. the Angel Dust Apocalypse

    Now he rules in the walled city of Haven with his favored Children and his dead court, while all that is left of the living struggles to survive in the ruins of a world that used to be their own. But even as extinction looms, humanity will never surrender to their monstrous conqueror.For Lan, this brutal life has been the only one she’s ever known, but she still believes it can change. If the war can never truly end until the Eaters are ended, she will go to Haven, to Azrael himself, and demand he end them. To her surprise, she does not immediately die the hero’s death she expected. Instead, Azrael offers her a chance to convince him, and all she has to do is submit herself to the chill embrace of the lord of the Land of the Beautiful Dead.

    These days, we know what those quarantines are—holding pens where human blood is turned into more food for the undead monsters, known as Ticks. Surrounded by electrical fences, most kids try to survive the Farms by turning on each other…

    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?

    It will offend most anyone, so proceed with caution or not at all.And be forewarned: This is not a zombie book. This is a different sort of tale. It is a story about the unfortunate, about those who did not get away. It is a human story at its rotten heart. It is the reason we can't stop obsessing about these creatures, in whom we see all too much of ourselves.

    Hamilton and author William McCaskey. In this anthology, science fiction and fantasy authors have woven together brand-new stories that speak to the darkness and despair that life brings while reminding us that good deeds, humour, love, sacrifice, dedication and following our joy can ignite a light that burns so bright the darkness cannot last: A child’s wish for her father comes true. The end of the world has never been so much fun. Conquering personal demons becomes all too real. It’s not always about winning; sometimes it’s about showing up for the fight. It’s about loving your life’s work, and jobs that make you question everything.Contents: Foreword Twilight Falls [Joe Ledger • 10.1] / Jonathan Maberry Not in this Lifetime / Sharon Shinn Mr. Positive, the Eternal Optimist / Larry Correia No Greater Love / Kacey Ezell Broken Son / Griffin Barber Heart of Clay [Dan Shamble, Zombie PI • 6.5??] / Kevin J. Anderson Reprise [Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter • ??] / John G. Hartness Asil and the Not-date [Mercy Thompson • 17.5 / Alpha & Omega • 5.5] / Patricia Briggs In the Dust / Robert E. Hampson Fallen / L. E. Modesitt, Jr. Working Conditions / Patrick M. Tracy Last Contact / M. C. Sumner Ronin / William McCaskey Skjoldmodir / Michael Z. Williamson and Jessica Schlenker Bonds of Love and Duty / Monalisa Foster Zombie Dearest [Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter • 26.5] / Laurell K. Hamilton About the authors About the editors.

    Join bestselling, award-winning writers like Margaret Atwood, Paolo Bacigalupi, Kim Stanley Robinson, Seanan McGuire, and many others at the brink of tomorrow. Loosed Upon the World is so believable, it’s frightening. Contents 01 - Paolo Bacigalupi, Shooting the Apocalypse (2014 novelette, p1)02 - Seanan McGuire, The Myth of Rain (2015 short story, p25)03 - Toiya Kristen Finley, Outer Rims (2011 short story, p39)04 - Karl Schroeder, Kheldyu (2014 novelette, p52)05 - Jean-Louis Trudel, The Snows of Yesteryear (2014 novelette, p88)06 - Nancy Kress, A Hundred Hundred Daisies (2011 short story, p111)07 - Tobias S. Buckell, The Rainy Season (2012 short story, p129)08 - Jim Shepard, The Netherlands Lives With Water (2009 short story, p143)09 - Sean McMullen, The Precedent (2010 novelette, p172)10 - Robert Silverberg, Hot Sky (1990 short story, p203)11 - Alan Dean Foster, That Creeping Sensation (2011 short story, p229)12 - Kim Stanley Robinson, Truth or Consequences (2015 short story, p240)13 - Vandana Singh, Entanglement (2014 novella, p269)14 - Angela Penrose, Staying Afloat (2013 short story, p323)15 - Chris Bachelder, Eighth Wonder (2009 short story, p341)16 - Gregory Benford, Eagle (2011 short story, p362)17 - Nicole Feldringer, Outliers (2015 short story, p386)18 - Jason Gurley, Quiet Town (2015 short story, p399)19 - Charlie Jane Anders, The Day It All Ended (2014 short story, p407)20 - Chen Quifan, The Smog Society (2015 translation of 2010 short story, p419)21 - Craig DeLancey, Racing the Tide (2014 short story, p435)22 - Sarah K. Castle, The Mutant Stag at Horn Creek (2012 novelette, p453)23 - Cat Sparks, Hot Rods (2015 novelette, p487)24 - Paolo Bacigalupi, The Tamarisk Hunter (2006 short story, p511)25 - Tobias S. Buckell & Karl Schroeder, Mitigation (2008 novelette, p527)26 - Margaret Atwood, Time Capsule Found on the Dead Planet (2009 short story, p556)Afterword - Ramez Naam, Science Scarier Than Fiction

    Rachaela worked in a bookstore, a conventional young woman, living a conventional life. Then they beckoned, using a variety of ruses to lure her to the house by the sea. Now she is a prisoner, part of a family of creatures she cannot escape, lover to a demon who thirsts for her blood.

    Now, from some of the biggest names in horror and dark fiction, comes this stellar collection of short stories that make vampires frightening once again. Edited by New York Times bestselling author Christopher Golden and featuring all-new stories from such contributors as Charlaine Harris, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Scott Smith, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Michael Kortya, Kelley Armstrong, Brian Keene, David Wellington, Seanan McGuire, and Tim Lebbon, Seize the Night is old-school vampire fiction at its finest.

    "I Was a Teenage Bigfoot" takes place circa Deadbeat. "Bigfoot on Campus" takes place between Turn Coat and Changes.Chicago wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden is used to mysterious clients with long hair and legs up to here. But when it turns out the long hair covers every square inch of his latest client’s body, and the legs contribute to a nine-foot height, even the redoubtable detective realizes he’s treading new ground. Strength of a River in His Shoulders is one of the legendary forest people, a Bigfoot, and he has a problem that only Harry can solve. His son Irwin is a scion, the child of a supernatural creature and a human. He’s a good kid, but the extraordinary strength of his magical aura has a way of attracting trouble.In the three novellas that make up Working For Bigfoot, collected together for the first time here, readers encounter Dresden at different points in his storied career, and in Irwin’s life. As a middle-schooler, in “B Is for Bigfoot,” Irwin attracts the unwelcome attention of a pair of bullying brothers who are more than they seem, and when Harry steps in, it turns out they have a mystical guardian of their own. At a fancy private high school in “I Was a Teenage Bigfoot,” Harry is called in when Irwin grows ill for the first time, and it’s not just a case of mono. Finally, Irwin is all grown up and has a grown-up’s typical problems as a freshman in college in “Bigfoot on Campus,” or would have if typical included vampires.

    Beginning with the supposedly true accounts that captivated Byron and Shelley, the stories range from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Oval Portrait" and Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla" to Guy de Maupassant's "The Horla" and Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Good Lady Ducayne." Sims also includes a nineteenth-century travel tour of Transylvanian superstitions, and rounds out the collection with Stoker's own "Dracula's Guest"-a chapter omitted from his landmark novel.Vampires captivated the Victorians, as Sims reveals in his insightful introduction: In 1867, Karl Marx described capitalism as "dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor"; while in 1888 a London newspaper invoked vampires in trying to explain Jack the Ripper's predations. At a time when vampires have been re-created in a modern context, Dracula's Guest will remind readers young, old, and in between of why the undead won't let go of our imagination.

    The secrets of the core of the earth. Dreams of other people’s lives. A girl who goes mad in the darkness. Monsters in Bavaria. A generational spaceship where night doesn’t exist. And other mysteries and oddities. The contributors to the enthralling collection are: Sarah Rees Brennan, Tessa Gratton, Rachel Hawkins, Christine Johnson, Valerie Kemp, Malinda Lo, Myra McEntire, Saundra Mitchell, Sarah Ockler, Jackson Pearce, Aprilynne Pike, Dia Reeves, Beth Revis, Carrie Ryan, Jon Skovron, Courtney Summers, and Kate Espy, winner of the Defy the Dark new author contest.

    The results are individual glimpses of a shared vision, and a reading experience unlike any you've had before.A strange man comes to an even stranger encampment...a bouncer becomes the linchpin of an unexpected urban movement...a courier on the run has to decide who to trust in a dangerous city...a slacker in a "zero-footprint" town gets a most unusual new job...and a weapons investigator uses his skills to discover a metropolis hidden right in front of his eyes.Welcome to the future of cities. Welcome to Metatropolis.Contents:Introduction (METAtropolis) - essay by John ScalziIn the Forests of the Night - novella by Jay LakeStochasti-city - novella by Tobias S. BuckellThe Red in the Sky Is Our Blood - novelette by Elizabeth BearUtere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis - novella by John ScalziTo Hie from Far Cilenia - novella by Karl Schroeder

    Some of the genre's greatest writers contemplate the planet-moving encounters between humans and aliens while pondering the eternal question--what kind of relationship are humans really looking for?