But don't expect the usual fantasy backdrops-these stories will give you a frisson, a thrill, as they fizz off the page. They are extraordinary characters living outside the bounds of reality. But you will recognize them... It's about being gay, being straight, falling in love, sorrowful partings, death, and fantastic circumstances. Bending the Landscape stretches the standard fantasy genre.

    THE TALKING STONE—A spaceship crew is planning on some illegal uranium mining with the help of on intelligent creature mode of rock. WHAT'S IN A NAME?—Everything. Especially when twin librarians ore involved in a murder. PÂTÉ DE FOIE GRAS—Just how did that goose lay the golden egg? Also included in the collection are: THE DYING NIGHT. THE DUST OF DEATH, A LOINT OF PAW, I'M IN MARSPORT WITHOUT HILDA, MAROONED OFF VESTA and ANNIVERSARY, OBITUARY, STAR LIGHT, THE KEY, and THE BILLIARD BALL.

    The Seeker.Famed Hollywood actress Veronica Ryan arrives at a red carpet event with her wife Shawn. They are the world's most famous gay couple—beautiful, wealthy, and by all appearances, the happiest couple in the world. But things aren't always as they appear. And someone is out to dampen the parade. A shot rings out and Veronica finds herself tackled to the ground by security, her wife lying next to her in a pool of blood.Kennedy Scott used to be the best behavioral profiler the FBI had, but she is haunted by a string of child murders no one can solve. A single quote—Seek and ye shall find—was all she had to go on. The case has eaten her alive, and after her own family is threatened by an armed intruder, Kennedy retreats to be with them. But one phone call brings her back into the game. Veronica Ryan needs her help and the path may lead to the one who haunts her.

    Even though a car accident caused the optical illusion, Erin’s skills as a doctor were outshone by her luminous smile. Katie begins to devise a series of excuses to trek to the small town where Erin lives and works.According to Katie’s complex rating system Erin has great promise. She’s beautiful, bright, athletic and good-hearted. Erin professes to love her job and is happy with small town life. But Katie thinks that Erin is secretly a risk-taker who craves excitement—the kind of excitement that Katie would love to provide. The first time Katie sees Erin flying down a ski slope she’s hooked, and their first kiss seals the deal.That’s when the trouble begins. Erin’s nearly an indentured servant. The town paid for her education and she promised to serve as their doctor for ten years. Ten long years attached to a place that’s only sixty miles but seems light years away from Katie’s beloved Boston.Something tells them that they could be good together, and the mutual attraction is undeniable. But one or both of them is going to have to make some massive changes before they can let the sparks fly.

    From the moment she meets antique dealer Reagan Montgomery, Leah's world is turned upside down. A unique gift given to her by Reagan leads them on a journey that defies logic and the laws of time. Gift of Time is a story of love, devotion and a bond that carries two women from one lifetime to the next.

    This is Koontz's spellbinding collection of takes interconnected by the strange highways of human experience: adventures, terrors, failures and triumphs.

    Dani is befriended--against her own better judgment--by a young therapist named Grace Beaumont, who helps Dani make it through the ordeal of bringing the attacker to justice.

    Delany appropriated the conceits of sword-and-sorcery fantasy to explore his characteristic themes of language, power, gender, and the nature of civilization. Wesleyan University Press has reissued the long-unavailable Nevèrÿon volumes in trade paperback. The eleven stories, novellas, and novels in Return to Nevèrÿon's four volumes chronicle a long-ago land on civilization's brink, perhaps in Asia or Africa, or even on the Mediterranean. Taken slave in childhood, Gorgik gains his freedom, leads a slave revolt, and becomes a minister of state, finally abolishing slavery. Ironically, however, he is sexually aroused by the iron slave collars of servitude. Does this contaminate his mission - or intensify it? Presumably elaborated from an ancient text of unknown geographical origin, the stories are sunk in translators' and commentators' introductions and appendices, forming a richly comic frame.

     Alizhan can’t see faces, but she can read minds. Her mysterious ability leaves her unable to touch or be touched without excruciating pain. Rescued from abandonment and raised by the wealthy and beautiful Iriyat ha-Varensi, Alizhan has grown up in isolation, using her gift to steal secrets from Iriyat’s rivals, the ruling class of Laalvur. But Iriyat keeps secrets of her own. When Alizhan discovers that she isn’t the only one of her kind, and that a deadly plot threatens everyone like her, there’s only one person she can trust. Ev liked having a secret. None of the other girls in the village had a thief-friend. Evreyet Umarsad—“Ev” to her parents and her one friend—longs to be the kind of hero she reads about in books. But the rest of the world feels impossibly far away from her life on a farm outside Laalvur. Ev will never lay eyes on the underground city of Adappyr, the stars of the Nightward Coast, or the venomous medusas that glow in the dark depths of the sea. At least on her weekly trip to the market, Ev gets to see her thief—the strange young woman who slips by her cart and playfully steals a handful of thornfruit. When the thief needs help, Ev doesn’t hesitate. Together, they uncover a conspiracy that draws them all over Laalvur and beyond. Thornfruit is the first book in The Gardener's Hand trilogy.

    Martin is a giant in the field of fantasy literature and one of the most exciting storytellers of our time. Now he delivers a rare treat for readers: a compendium of his shorter works, collected into two stunning volumes, that offer fascinating insight into his journey from young writer to award-winning master.Gathered here in Volume I are the very best of George R.R. Martin's early works, including never-before-published fan pieces, his Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker Award-winning stories plus the original novella The Ice Dragon, from which Martin's New York Times bestselling children's book of the same title originated. A dazzling array that features extensive author commentary, Dreamsongs, Volume I, is the perfect collection for both Martin devotees and a new generation of fans.Contents:- Introduction by Gardner Dozois One: A Four-Color Fanboy (2003)- Only Kids Are Afraid of the Dark (1967)- The Fortress (2003)- And Death His Legacy (2003)Two: The Filthy Pro (2003)- The Hero (1971)- The Exit to San Breta (1972)- The Second Kind of Loneliness (1972)- With Morning Comes Mistfall (1973)Three: The Light of Distant Stars (2003)- A Song for Lya (1974)- The Stone City (1977)- This Tower of Ashes (1976)- And Seven Times Never Kill Man (1975)- Bitterblooms (1977)- The Way of Cross and Dragon (1979)Four: The Heirs of Turtle Castle (2003)- The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr (1976)- The Ice Dragon (1980)- In the Lost Lands (1982)Five: Hybrids and Horrors (2003)- Meathouse Man (1976)- Remembering Melody (1981)- Sandkings (1979)- Nightflyers (1980)- The Monkey Treatment (1983)- The Pear-Shaped Man (1987)

    Angel’s memory loss cover story? Lame. Robbing a passing ruffian of his shirt to cover her naked body? NOT a good way to avoid attracting attention! As a science fiction geek, Kim felt herself uniquely qualified to watch Angel and thwart her dark mission…once the alien got around to it. But Angel had her own questions. She couldn’t help but wonder, why would Kim invite a stranger home? Surely, it could only be for romance! Kim didn’t dare correct her, not without giving herself away, and so both found themselves in an escalating romantic relationship neither actually wanted. Is it possible lies and deception could lead to true love? Could projected feelings designed to fool the other become genuine? “A Date with Angel is a romantic escalation comedy full of misinterpretations, grand theories, and devious, romantic traps ... and a suspected alien woman doing her best to meet a sci-fi paranoiac's expectations."

    Ariadne is one such explorer. As an astronaut on an extrasolar research vessel, she and her fellow crewmates sleep between worlds and wake up each time with different features. Her experience is one of fluid body and stable mind and of a unique perspective on the passage of time. Back on Earth, society changes dramatically from decade to decade, as it always does.Ariadne may awaken to find that support for space exploration back home has waned, or that her country of birth no longer exists, or that a cult has arisen around their cosmic findings, only to dissolve once more by the next waking. But the moods of Earth have little bearing on their mission: to explore, to study, and to send their learnings home. Carrying all the trademarks of her other beloved works, including brilliant writing, fantastic world-building and exceptional, diverse characters, Becky's first audiobook outside of the Wayfarers series is sure to capture the imagination of listeners all over the world.

    One day, Colonel Fred Johnson will be hailed as a hero to the system. One day, he will meet a desperate man in possession of a stolen spaceship and a deadly secret and extend a hand of friendship. But long before he became the leader of the Outer Planets Alliance, Fred Johnson had a very different name. The Butcher of Anderson Station. This is his story.Word Count: ~9,000 words

    Liking what she sees, Holly slowly finds herself falling in love, but can she ignore her growing attraction to Elise when the lines between fact and fiction begin to blur?

    In "Stone Animals," a house's haunting takes the unusual form of hordes of rabbits that camp out nightly on the front lawn. This proves just one of several benign but inexplicable phenomena that begin to pull apart the family newly moved into the house as surely as a more sinister supernatural influence might. The title story beautifully captures the unpredictable potential of teenage lives through its account of a group of adolescent schoolfriends whose experiences subtly parallel events in a surreal TV fantasy series. Zombies serve as the focus for a young man's anxieties about his future in "Some Zombie Contingency Plans" and offer suggestive counterpoint to the lives of two convenience store clerks who serve them in "The Hortlak." Not only does Link find fresh perspectives from which to explore familiar premises, she also forges ingenious connections between disparate images and narrative approaches to suggest a convincing alternate logic that shapes the worlds of her highly original fantasies.Contents:The Faery Handbag (2004)The Hortlak (2003)The Cannon (2003)Stone Animals (2004)Catskin (2003)Some Zombie Contingency Plans (2005)The Great Divorce (2005)Magic for Beginners (2005)Lull (2002)