An apocalypse might come in the form of the end of a relationship or the end of the world, but what it exposes is the tricky landscape of our longing for a clean slate.Three longer stories are equally visionary: in "Eyes of Dogs," a soldier returns from war and encounters a witch who may in fact be his mother; "Madmen" describes an America where children who reach adolescence choose the madman who will accompany them into adulthood; in "Godzilla versus the Smog Monster,” a teenager is flustered by his older, wilder neighbor while California burns on the other side of the continent.At once mournful and explosively energetic, One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses makes manifest the troubled conscience of an uneasy time

    Can he save his elf in time? As the chief security officer on the Flouriant space station, Tovian works hard to keep the station free of crime. But when a threat arises that he can’t fight, there is only one elf on his mind: Callie. Callie has been watching a certain muscular cyborg on the station monitors a little too closely for far too long, but she’s never had the courage to tell him. Both are racing against the clock to protect themselves and each other. When he comes for her, will she have the courage to tell him how she feels?

    R. Martin's "The Thousand Worlds" setting.

    Fiction by Hugo and Nebula award winners and nominees as well as talented newcomers. Stories were selected by the Unidentified Funny Objects series curator Alex Shvartsman.

    Collection of short fiction by the author of Résumé with Monsters• The Wedding Photographer in Crisis• Haunted by the Horror King• The Entomologists at Obala• The Return of Count Electric• Graven Images• Pep Talk• Looking Out for Eleanor• Snow• A Child's Christmas in Florida• Best Man• Daughter Doom

    Poe's work is full of mystery, horror, and a dark imagination, while Verne focuses on action and adventure. It is a fascinating look at two great literary minds as they work on the same subject: the strange voyage of Arthur Gordon Pym to the Antarctic.

    Elsewhere, an old woman uncovers a sinister plot while looking after a friend’s plants (“Orchids”), and a girl in the war-torn countryside befriends an unlikely creature (“Keeper of the Glass”). In “Barnstormers,” a futuristic flying circus tries to forestall bankruptcy with one last memorable show. At the heart of “Sheila” is the terrible choice a retired judge must make when faced with the destruction of his beloved robotic dog, and “Yuri, in a Blue Dress” follows one of the last survivors of an alien invasion as she seeks help.Extending from World War II to the far future, these fifteen stories offer a gorgeously observed perspective on our desire for connection and what it means to have compassion—for ourselves, for one another, for our past…and for whatever lies beyond.

    Inside that box is a door. Beyond that door is a house. In some rooms forests grow. In some, prisoners wait. At the top of the house, a prisoner sits behind a locked door waiting for a key to turn. The day that happens, the world will end...

    As citizens flee from the drowning city, a sadistic Imperial interrogator seeks a lowly data-drone with a terrible secret. But when disaster strikes, the pair must rely on each other for survival as the Watcher in the Rain awaits them.LISTEN TO IT BECAUSEHear a world in peril, with a magnificent soundscape acting as the backdrop to a thoroughly frightening tale of two enemies forced to work together against a darkness that will consume them both.THE STORYIn the far reaches of Imperial space, a ferocious warp storm approaches an Administratum world, cutting off the entire planet from the rest of the Imperium. As their towering grey spires are punished by endless rain, countless administrators, tithe-masters, and book-keepers are forced to evacuate. Among them is Greta, a lowly data-drone with a terrible secret, wanted for questioning by the sadistic Imperial interrogator Stefan Crucius. As disaster strikes and the pair are left stranded in the depths of the drowning city, captor and captive must co-operate to stand any chance of escaping. But a mysterious presence stalks them through the abandoned, flooded towers, a dread entity each must confront but which neither dare acknowledge, a Watcher in the Rain.

    We have unprecedented access to information; cognitive dissonance is a banner headline in our morning papers and radiates silently from our computer screens. Slipstream, poised between literature and popular culture, embraces the dissonance. These ambitious stories of visionary strangeness defy the conventions of science fiction. Tales by Michael Chabon, Karen Joy Fowler, Jonathan Lethem, Carol Emshwiller, George Saunders, and others pull the reader into a vivid dreamspace and embrace the knowledge that life today is increasingly surreal. ContentsIntroduction by John Kessel and Jim Patrick Kelly"Al" by Carol Emshwiller "The Little Magic Shop" by Bruce Sterling "The Healer" by Aimee Bender "The Specialist's Hat" by Kelly Link "Light and the Sufferer" by Jonathan Lethem "Sea Oak" by George Saunders "Exhibit H: Torn Pages Discovered in the Vest Pocket of an Unidentified Tourist" by Jeff VanderMeer "Hell is the Absence of God" by Ted Chiang "Lieserl" by Karen Joy Fowler "Bright Morning" by Jeffrey Ford Biographical Notes to "A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-planes" by Benjamin Rosenbaum "The God of Dark Laughter" by Michael Chabon "The Rose in Twelve Petals" by Theodora Goss "The Lions Are Asleep This Night" by Howard Waldrop "You Have Never Been Here" by M. Rickert "I Want My 20th-Century Schizoid Art" I-IV (various contributors)

     An Above-Top-Secret project brings military brass, elite commandos, ice-drilling experts, and abducted scientists to investigate a 100-mile-long 'gravitational anomaly' half a mile under the West Antarctic Ice Shelf. Their target: a spaceship buried for millions of years, home to a menagerie of alien and prehistoric horrors that could be unleashed on Earth and end every life on it.

    Dick and Thomas Harris, Etchinson's award-winning fiction is justly known for its creepy ambiance.

    The climate is changing. But hidden away deep inside a forest in the heart of Canada sits a home with everything you need. You can survive here. You can start a new life. But you must make a terrible sacrifice ..."Ashes to Ashes" (previously unpublished)Justin Breneview's job search led him to what seems like an easy job: take bodies out of the morgue, throw them in the furnace. Nothing to it. But when complications arise, he quickly learns that there is no such thing as an "easy job.""High Stakes" (first published in Diabolic Tales)The gambler arrived in Kansas City for a game with high stakes and a high payout. Everyone else was there for blood."Enjoy Your Job!" (first published in Dark Moon Rising)All little Timmy wants is to be an astronaut. But in the future, those types of decisions no longer rest in the hands of the individual. That would be irresponsible. No, economies must thrive in order for society to progress, and that means planning ahead."Ten-Four" (first published on Homepage of the Dead)"This is Jack Hutchingston, ace trucker at your service. Boy oh boy, do I have a story for you. It all started when I was passing through the largest graveyard on the planet. You like zombies? Good. This story's got plenty of 'em."Fans of Stephen King, John Shirley, Harlan Ellison and Suzanne Collins will feel right at home in this collection.

    They have become the monsters that best express the anxieties and fears of the modern west. This collection gathers together zombie works by Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Poppy Z. Brite, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Joe R. Lansdale. These brilliant minds, and The Living Dead, cover the many types of zombie fiction. Skyhorse 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.

    These stories feature cats, bees, wolves, dogs, and even that most capricious of animals, humans, and have been reprinted in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, and The Secret History of Fantasy. Kij Johnson's stories have won the Sturgeon and World Fantasy awards. She has taught writing; worked at Tor, Dark Horse, and Microsoft; worked as a radio announcer; run bookstores; and waitressed in a strip bar.Contents:The Man Who Bridged the Mist (2011)Wolf Trapping (1989)The Empress Jingu Fishes (2004)The Bitey Cat (2012)Chenting, in the Land of the Dead (1999)My Wife Reincarnated as a Solitaire—Exposition on the Flaws in my Spouse's Character—The Nature of the Bird—The Possible Causes—Her Final Disposition (2007)Schrödinger's Cathouse (1993)Names for Water (2010)Fox Magic (1993)Spar (2009)The Horse Raiders (2000)26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss (2008)At the Mouth of the River of Bees (2003)The Evolution of Trickster Stories among the Dogs of North Park after the Change (2007)The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles (2009)Ponies (2010)