Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers


Grant Naylor - 1989
    But Lister didn't have a choice. All he remembered was going on a birthday celebration pub crawl through London. When he came to his senses again, with nothing in his pockets but a passport in the name of Emily Berkenstein.So he did the only thing he could. Amazed to discover they would actually hire him, he joined the space corps----and found himself aboard Red Dwarf, a spaceship as big as a small city that, six or seven years from now, would get him back to Earth. What Lister couldn't forsee was that he'd inadvertently signed up for a one--way jaunt three million years into the future---a future which would see him the last living member of the human race, with only a hologram crew mate and a highly evolved cat for company. Of course, that was before the ship broke the light barrier and things began to get really weird...

Darkwater


Catherine Fisher - 2000
    He gives her one hundred years and the means to accomplish her objective--in exchange for her soul. Fast-forward a hundred years to Tom, a fifteen-year-old boy who dreams of attending Darkwater Hall School but doesn't believe he has the talent. Until he meets a professor named Azrael, who offers him a bargain. Will Sarah be able to stop Tom from making the same mistake she did a century ago? This is smart fantasy mixed with elements of horror from master storyteller Catherine Fisher. She says, "Darkwater Hall is an image of the power and knowledge we all desire. But what will we pay for them, and are they worth the price?"

In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash


Jean Shepherd - 1966
    In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash represents one of the peaks of his achievement, a compound of irony, affection, and perfect detail that speaks across generations.In God We Trust, Shepherd's wildly witty reunion with his Indiana hometown, disproves the adage "You can never go back." Bending the ear of Flick, his childhood-buddy-turned-bartender, Shepherd recalls passionately his genuine Red Ryder BB gun, confesses adolescent failure in the arms of Junie Jo Prewitt, and relives a story of man against fish that not even Hemingway could rival. From pop art to the World's Fair, Shepherd's subjects speak with a universal irony and are deeply and unabashedly grounded in American Midwestern life, together rendering a wonderfully nostalgic impression of a more innocent era when life was good, fun was clean, and station wagons roamed the earth.A comic genius who bridged the gap between James Thurber and David Sedaris, Shepherd may have accomplished for Holden, Indiana, what Mark Twain did for Hannibal, Missouri.

Zombie Lake


Javan Bonds - 2016
    Every night hordes of naked, blue, biting zombies flood the now dead Alabama lake town. While on board their replica pirate ship, the Viva Ancora, they fish and watch the monsters roam the night; seeking untainted flesh and leaving a disgusting mess in their wake…just like a horror show. Mo had sailed around the country, but now he finds himself 15 miles from his childhood home, a reluctant Hero. When a lone survivor stumbles upon Mo and Crow they gain a new member but also find much needed direction. The new comer, Smokes, will change Mo’s view of this zombie infested world forever. As reality mimics fiction an ever growing cast of crazy characters play out their role carving out an island sanctuary in a plague ridden world. The Expert, The Tech, The Oracle, The Sacrifice, The Old Friend plus many more ….. Welcome aboard, friend to this wild ride where the fish bite, the Zombies bite…sometimes life bites.

The Princess & the Penis


R.J. Silver - 2010
    The lump soon morphs into a shape familiar to everyone but her, triggering her curiosity and her father's greatest fears. He frantically tries to intervene, but having a large phantom phallus in a curious maiden's bed is never a good combination.

Redheads


Jonathan Moore - 2013
    Cheryl Wilcox wasn’t the first. All the victims were redheads. All eaten alive and left within a mile of the ocean. The trail of death crosses the globe and spans decades.The cold trail catches fire when Chris and two other survivors find a trace of the killer's DNA. By hiring a cutting-edge lab to sequence it, they make a terrifying discovery. The killer is far more dangerous than they ever guessed. And now they’re being hunted by their own prey.

Double Dead


Chuck Wendig - 2011
    Or at least it didn't, not until he awoke from a forced five-year slumber to discover that most of human civilization was now dead-but not dead like him, oh no.See, Coburn likes blood. The rest of the walking dead, they like brains. He’s smart. Them, not so much. But they outnumber him by about a million to one. And the clotted blood of the walking dead cannot sustain him. Now he’s starving. And nocturnal. And more pissed-off than a bee-stung rattlesnake. The vampire not only has to find human survivors (with their sweet, sweet blood), but now he has to transition from predator to protector-after all, a man has to look after his food supply.

An Unattractive Vampire


Jim McDoniel - 2016
    After three centuries trapped underground, thousand-year-old Yulric Bile, also known as The Cursed One, The Devil's Apprentice, He Who Worships the Slumbering Horrors, awakens only to find that no one believes he is a vampire. Apparently he's just too ugly. Modern vampires, he soon discovers, are pretty, weak, and, most disturbing of all, good. Determined to reestablish his bloodstained reign, Yulric sets out to correct this disgusting turn of events or, at the very least, murder the person responsible. With the help of part vampire-wannabe Amanda; Simon, the eight-year-old reincarnation of his greatest foe; and a cadre of ancient and ugly horrors, Yulric prepares to battle the glamorous undead. But who will win the right to determine, once and for all, what it truly means to be a vampire?

Cold Comfort Farm


Stella Gibbons - 1932
    Flora Poste, a recently orphaned socialite, moves in with her country relatives, the gloomy Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm, and becomes enmeshed in a web of violent emotions, despair, and scheming, until Flora manages to set things right.

The Passionate Witch


Thorne Smith - 1941
    T. Wallace Wooly, a self-important tycoon, but at heart a shy brown rabbit of a man, meets his future bride when he rescues her from a hotel fire. Readers might think this situation poses unique challenges to a couple just getting acquainted, but it probably helped that the soon to be Mrs. Wooly was completely naked at the time. Mr. Wooly is the most public, most consequential man in town and so respectable that the well-publicized rescue of the nude Miss Broome thrown over Mr.Wooly's shoulder as he rushes from the burning building sets tongues wagging. (You sly dog.) Mr. Wooly is aghast at the rumors, but Miss Broome is after all, bewitching, and Mr. Wooly is soon under the spell of her red lips, lustrous black hair, and slanting yellow eyes. It isn't long after their marriage that Mr. Wooly begins to question the wisdom of their hasty union when he sees his new wife climbing down the trumpet vine outside their bedroom window, riding the goat through the apple orchard in the moonlight, and killing chickens. Among other things.The Passionate Witch (1941) was initially drafted as a film scenario, but later completed as a novel by Norman Matson after Thorne Smith's death in 1934. Unlike Smith's hugely popular Topper novels, the post-humous collaborative effort failed to satisfy the public (and the critics). Still, much of Thorne Smith's magic and singular wit shines through and, all in all, the book doesn't disappoint. The storyline was heavily reworked for the sunnier, more successful movie adaptation, I Married a Witch (Masterpiece/United Artists/Cinema Guild, 1942).

The Lost World & Other Stories


Arthur Conan Doyle - 1912
    G. Wells) are linked by their imposing central character, the pugnaciously adventurous and outrageous Professor Challenger. The Lost World (forebear of Jurassic Park) vividly depicts a perilous region in which the explorers confront creatures from the prehistoric era. 'The Poison Belt' presents an eerie doomsday scenario, while ‘The Disintegration Machine’ satirically comments on scientific cynicism.In ‘When the World Screamed’, the planet responds violently to an experimental incursion. The strangest item is 'The Land of Mist', which seeks to reconcile science with spiritualism. This memorable collection provides imaginative entertainment, entrancing escapism and bold provocation.

Zombies Vs. Unicorns


Holly BlackScott Westerfeld - 2010
    Half of the stories portray the strengths--for good and evil--of unicorns and half show the good (and really, really bad-ass) side of zombies. Contributors include many bestselling teen authors, including Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray, Maureen Johnson, Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, and Margo Lanagan. This anthology will have everyone asking: Team Zombie or Team Unicorn?

Ghosts I Have Met, and Some Others


John Kendrick Bangs - 1898
    By the American author and satirist, and the creator of modern Bangsian fantasy, the school of fantasy writing that sets the plot wholly or partially in the afterlife.

Meddling Kids


Edgar Cantero - 2017
    The teen detectives once known as the Blyton Summer Detective Club (of Blyton Hills, a small mining town in the Zoinx River Valley in Oregon) are all grown up and haven't seen each other since their fateful, final case in 1977. Andy, the tomboy, is twenty-five and on the run, wanted in at least two states. Kerri, one-time kid genius and budding biologist, is bartending in New York, working on a serious drinking problem. At least she's got Tim, an excitable Weimaraner descended from the original canine member of the team. Nate, the horror nerd, has spent the last thirteen years in and out of mental health institutions, and currently resides in an asylum in Arhkam, Massachusetts. The only friend he still sees is Peter, the handsome jock turned movie star. The problem is, Peter's been dead for years.The time has come to uncover the source of their nightmares and return to where it all began in 1977. This time, it better not be a man in a mask. The real monsters are waiting.

The Sheriff of Yrnameer


Michael Rubens - 2009
    His sidekick just stole his girlfriend. The galaxy's most hideous and feared bounty hunter wants to lay eggs in his brain. And the luxury space yacht Cole just hijacked turns out of be filled with interstellar do-gooders, one especially loathsome stowaway, and a cargo of freeze-dried orphans.Reluctantly compelled to deliver these defenseless, fluidless children to safety, Cole gathers a misfit crew for a desperate journey to the far reaches of the galaxy. Their destination: the mysterious world of Yrnameer, the very last of the your-name-heres—planets without corporate sponsors. But little does Cole know that this legendary utopia is home to a murderous band of outlaws bent on destroying the planet's tiny, peaceful community.Follow Cole's adventures through a delightfully absurd science-fiction universe, where the artificial intelligence is stupid, dust motes carry branding messages, and middle-management zombies have overrun a corporate training satellite. In the spirit of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, The Sheriff of Yrnameer is sci-fi comedy at its best—mordant, raucously funny, and a thrilling page-turner.