They spend their time telling stories to the unborn baby, trying to pass on the lessons they've learned: tales of circuses and stargazing, selkie fishermen and domestic werewolves, child-eating witches and broken-toothed dragons. But each must keep their storytelling a secret from the other, as they've agreed to only ever tell the plain truth. Ruth tells her stories when Liska is at work, to a background of shrieking seabirds; Liska tells hers when Ruth is asleep, with the lighthouse sweeping its steady beam through the window. As their tales build and grow along with their child, Liska and Ruth realise that the truth lives in their stories, and they cannot hide from one another. A Portable Shelter is a beautifully produced collection of elegant, haunting short stories from one of Britain's most exciting new talents. Each story is accompanied by an illustration by award-winning artist Liz Myhill. Produced with the assistance of the Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship.

     Fiction: Bad Seed (Broken Empire) by Mark Lawrence Shadow Hunter (Shadows of the Apt) by Adrian Tchaikovsky The Woman I Used to Be by Gerri Leen The Neutral by Anatoly Belilovsky (translator) and Mike Gelprin (author) The Red Wraith by Nick Wisseman Non-Fiction: An interview with Joe Abercrombie An interview with Graham McNeill Book Review: Joe Abercrombie's Half a King - review by Kyle Massa Article: Grimdark is Here to Stay by Layla Cummins

    P. Kelner, this hair-raising holiday collection includes fifteen original tales—including an original Sookie Stackhouse story.The holidays can bring out the beast in anyone- particularly lycanthropes. Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner have harvested the scariest, funniest, saddest werewolf tales by an outstanding pack of authors, best read by the light of a full moon with a silver bullet close at hand.Whether wolfing down a holiday feast (use your imagination) or craving some hair of the dog on New Year's morning, the werewolves in these frighteningly original stories will surprise, delight, amuse, and scare the pants off readers who love a little wolfsbane with their mistletoe. Gift Wrap - Charlaine HarrisThe Haire of the Beast - Donna AndrewsLucy, at Christmastime - Simon R. GreenThe Night Things Changed - Dana CameronThe Werewolf Before Christmas - Kat RichardsonFresh Meat - Alan GordonIl Est Né - Carrie VaughnThe Perfect Gift - Dana StabenowChristmas Past - Keri ArthurSA - J. A. KonrathThe Star of David - Patricia BriggsYou'd Better Not Pyout - Nancy PickardRogue Elements - Karen ChanceMilk and Cookies - Rob ThurmanKeeping Watch over His Flock - Toni L. P. Kelner

    Kinney"A Collective Pseudonym and an Expanding Universe: A Conversation with James S.A. Corey" by Chris Urie"Another Word: Dystopias Are Not Enough" by Kelly Robson"Editor’s Desk: Stomp Stomp Stomp" by Neil Clarke

    The test subject? Her own daughter. A mother-daughter mad scientist story, "The Destroyer" asks how far we'll go to secure our own legacies — and how far we'll run to escape them.

    This collection of four short stories will focus on creatures from the glamorous casino world of Canto Bight, described as the galactic version of Monaco.

    We are none of us monsters. Through the work of twenty-six writers, emerging to award-winning and masters of their craft, The Humanity of Monsters plumbs the depths of humane monsters, monstrous humans, and the interstices between. Monstrous heralds of change, the sight of whom only children can survive. Monsters born of the battlefield, in gunfire and frost and blood, clothed in too-familiar flesh. Monsters, human and otherwise, born of fear, and love, and retribution all, wrapped tight and inextricable one from the other: the Fallen outside of time, lovers and monsters in borrowed skin, and creatures from beyond the stars and humans who have travelled to them. Dreams of lost and siren-song depths - of other half-held, half-remembered lives. And the things we have survived, and the things we might yet survive, in the face of greater, eviscerating loss. In stories by turns surreal, sublime, brutal, and haunting, there are no easy answers to be found, no simple nor uncomplicated labels to be had. Only the surety that though there be monsters, you will name them false. And when you meet those who truly are, you will not know them.“Tasting Gomoa” by Chinelo Onwualu“Dead Sea Fruit” by Kaaron Warren“The Bread We Eat in Dreams” by Catherynne M. Valente“The Emperor’s Old Bones” by Gemma Files“The Things” by Peter Watts“muo-ka’s Child” by Indrapramit Das“Six” by Leah Bobet“The Nazir” by Sofia Samatar“A Handful of Earth” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia“In Winter” by Sonya Taaffe“Ghostweight” by Yoon Ha Lee“How to Talk to Girls at Parties” by Neil Gaiman“Night They Missed the Horror Show” by Joe Lansdale“If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” by Rachel Swirsky“Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream” by Maria Dahvana Headley“The Horse Latitudes” by Sunny Moraine“Boyfriend and Shark” by Berit Ellingsen“Never the Same” by Polenth Blake“Mantis Wives” by Kij Johnson“Proboscis” by Laird Barron“Out They Come” by Alex Dally MacFarlane“and Love shall have no Dominion” by Livia Llewellyn“You Go Where It Takes You” by Nathan Ballingrud“Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife” by A.C. Wise“Theories of Pain” by Rose Lemberg“Terrible Lizards” by Meghan McCarron

    Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois is filled with subtle shades of gray. Twenty-one all-original stories, by an all-star list of contributors, will delight and astonish you in equal measure with their cunning twists and dazzling reversals. And George R.R. Martin himself offers a brand-new A Game of Thrones tale chronicling one of the biggest rogues in the entire history of Ice and Fire.Follow along with the likes of Gillian Flynn, Joe Abercrombie, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch, Cherie Priest, Garth Nix, and Connie Willis, as well as other masters of literary sleight-of-hand, in this rogues gallery of stories that will plunder your heart — and yet leave you all the richer for it.Contents:- Tough Times All Over by Joe Abercrombie (a Red Country story)- What Do You Do? (aka The Grownup) by Gillian Flynn- The Inn of the Seven Blessings by Matthew Hughes- Bent Twig by Joe R. Lansdale (a Hap and Leonard story)- Tawny Petticoats by Michael Swanwick- Provenance by David Ball- The Roaring Twenties by Carrie Vaughn- A Year and a Day in Old Theradane by Scott Lynch- Bad Brass by Bradley Denton- Heavy Metal by Cherie Priest- The Meaning of Love by Daniel Abraham- A Better Way to Die by Paul Cornell (a Jonathan Hamilton story)- Ill Seen in Tyre by Steven Saylor- A Cargo of Ivories by Garth Nix (a Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz story)- Diamonds From Tequila by Walter Jon Williams (a Dagmar story)- The Caravan to Nowhere by Phyllis Eisenstein (a Tales of Alaric the Minstrel story)- The Curious Affair of the Dead Wives by Lisa Tuttle- How the Marquis Got His Coat Back by Neil Gaiman (a Neverwhere story)- Now Showing by Connie Willis- The Lightning Tree by Patrick Rothfuss (a Kingkiller Chronicle story)- The Rogue Prince, or, A King’s Brother by George R.R. Martin (a Song of Ice and Fire story)

    Kevin Brockmeier's fiction has always explored the space between the fantastical and the everyday with profundity and poignancy. As in his previous books, The Ghost Variations discovers new ways of looking at who we are and what matters to us, exploring how mysterious, sad, strange, and comical it is to be alive--or, as it happens, not to be.

    Some are familiar mer-people; some as strange as as a golden eye in a pool at the edge of the Great Desert Kalarsham, where the mad god Geljdreth rules; or the unknowable, immense Kraken, dark beyond the darkness of the deepest ocean, who will one day rise and rule the world. 1 Prologue: The water sprite / Robin mcKinley and Peter Dickinson 2 Mermaid song / Peter Dickinson --3 The sea-king's son / Robin McKinley --4 Sea serpent / Peter Dickinson --5 Water horse / Robin McKinley --6 Kraken / Peter Dickinson --7 A pool in the desert / Robin McKinley.

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    Through the ages and around the world, the Green Man and other nature spirits have appeared in stories, songs, and artwork, as well as many beloved fantasy novels, including Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Now Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, the acclaimed editors of over thirty anthologies, have gathered some of today's finest writers of magical fiction to interpret the spirits of nature in short stories and poetry. Folklorist and artist Charles Vess brings his stellar eye and brush to the decorations, and Windling provides an introduction exploring Green Man symbolism and forest myth. The Green Man is required reading, not only for fans of fantasy fiction but for those interested in mythology and the mysteries of the wilderness.

    No fairy tale will ever seem quite the same again!Featuring writing from . . .Authors: Renée Ahdieh, Ameriie, Soman Chainani, Susan Dennard, Sarah Enni, Marissa Meyer, Cindy Pon, Victoria Schwab, Samantha Shannon, Adam Silvera, Andrew Smith, April Genevieve Tucholke, and Nicola YoonBookTubers: Benjamin Alderson (Benjaminoftomes), Sasha Alsberg (abookutopia), Whitney Atkinson (WhittyNovels), Tina Burke (ChristinaReadsYA blog and TheLushables), Catriona Feeney (LittleBookOwl), Jesse George (JessetheReader), Zoë Herdt (readbyzoe), Samantha Lane (Thoughts on Tomes), Sophia Lee (thebookbasement), Raeleen Lemay (padfootandprongs07), Regan Perusse (PeruseProject), Christine Riccio (polandbananasBOOKS), and Steph Sinclair & Kat Kennedy (Cuddlebuggery blog and channel).

    Upon the distant shore prowls an ancient sea god kept captive by a generations-old spell, a spell that Meriel alone must protect.Meriel's life has been lonely and unchanging--until the arrival of Nor. Nor's shape is that of a woman, but her heart belongs to the sea. Even though Nor is also held captive by Meriel's spell, she shows kindness to the isolated witch. Nor sparks a passion within Meriel, defying every law that binds them both.This award-winning short story ("The Witch Sea" won first place in the "Kissed by Venus" Fresh Voices short story competition) is a dark fantasy tale of love, loss and the price of freedom.

    This reprint anthology showcases the best Holmes short fiction from the last 25 years, featuring stories by such visionaries as Stephen King, Neil Gaimen, Laura King, and many others.