G. Wells, and Jules Verne to Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. Le Guin, and William Gibson. In The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy award-winning editor John Joseph Adams delivers a diverse and vibrant collection of stories published in the previous year. Featuring writers with deep science fiction and fantasy backgrounds, along with those who are infusing traditional fiction with speculative elements, these stories uphold a longstanding tradition in both genres—looking at the world and asking, What if . . . ?  The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 includes  Kelly Link, Neil Gaiman, Karen Russell T. C. Boyle, Sofia Samatar, Jo Walton, Cat Rambo Daniel H. Wilson, Seanan McGuire, Jess Rowand others  JOE HILL, guest editor, is the New York Times best-selling author of the novels Heart-Shaped Box, Horns, and NOS4A2 and the short story collection 20th Century Ghosts. He is also the writer of the comic book series Locke & Key.   JOHN JOSEPH ADAMS, series editor, is the best-selling editor of more than two dozen anthologies, including Brave New Worlds, Wastelands, and The Living Dead. He is also the editor and publisher of the digital magazines Lightspeed and Nightmare and is a producer of Wired’s podcast The Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy.

    Certain to appeal to role-playing gamers, fantasy lovers, and megalomaniacs who want to rule the world.

    This retrospective volume includes "All Summer in a Day,” Ray Bradbury’s lasting tale of what happened on one special day; "Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes, describing what happened to Charlie Gordon when he was made into a genius; "Harrison Bergeron," Kurt Vonnegut’s absurdist cautionary tale of mandatory equality; and "The Electric Ant" by Philip K. Dick, concerning what Garson Poole learned after the accident that hospitalized him. This remarkable collection also features some of the most highly acclaimed, award-winning authors, including Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison, Shirley Jackson, Peter S. Beagle, Karen Joy Fowler, Ursula K. Le Guin, Theodore Sturgeon, and Roger Zelazny. Hand-picked by the magazine’s current editor, this is an unmatched assemblage of appealing, first-rate fiction.ContentsIntroduction by Gordon Van Gelder"Of Time and Third Avenue" by Alfred Bester"All Summer in a Day" by Ray Bradbury"One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts" by Shirley Jackson"A Touch of Strange" by Theodore Sturgeon"Eastward ho!" by William Tenn"Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut"This Moment of the Storm" by Roger Zelazny"The Electric Ant" by Philip K. Dick"The Deathbird" by Harlan Ellison"The Women Men Don't See" by James Tiptree, Jr."I See You" by Damon Knight"The Gunslinger" by Stephen King"The Dark" by Karen Joy Fowler"Buffalo" by John Kessel"Solitude" by Ursula K. Le Guin"Mother Grasshopper" by Michael Swanwick"macs" by Terry Bisson"Creation" by Jeffrey Ford"Other People" by Neil Gaiman"Two Hearts" by Peter S. Beagle"Journey into the Kingdom" by M. Rickert"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang

    . . A fighter leads his band of virtual warriors, thieves, and wizards across a deadly computer-generated landscape . . . A company outsources grief for profit, their tagline: "Don't feel like having a bad day? Let someone else have it for you."

    The humble, pixelated games of the ‘70s and ‘80s have evolved into the vivid, realistic, and immersive form of entertainment that now rivals all other forms of media for dominance in the consumer marketplace. For many, video games have become the cultural icons around which pop culture revolves.PRESS START TO PLAY is an anthology of stories inspired by video games: stories that attempt to recreate the feel of a video game in prose form; stories that play with the concepts common (or exclusive) to video games; and stories about the creation of video games and/or about the video games—or the gamers—themselves.These stories will appeal to anyone who has interacted with games, from hardcore teenaged fanatics, to men and women who game after their children have gone to bed, to your well-meaning aunt who won’t stop inviting you to join her farm-based Facebook games.At the helm of this project are Daniel H. Wilson—bestselling novelist and expert in artificial intelligence—and John Joseph Adams—bestselling, Hugo Award-nominated editor of more than a dozen science fiction/fantasy anthologies and series editor of Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy (volume one forthcoming from Houghton Mifflin in 2015). Together, they have drawn on their wide-ranging contacts to assemble an incredibly talented group of authors who are eager to attack the topic of video games from startling and fascinating angles.Under the direction of an A.I. specialist and a veteran editor, the anthology will expose readers to a strategically chosen mix of stories that explore novel video game concepts in prose narratives, such as save points, kill screens, gold-farming, respawning, first-person shooters, unlocking achievements, and getting “pwned.” Likewise, each of our authors is an accomplished specialist in areas such as science fiction, fantasy, and techno-thrillers, and many have experience writing for video games professionally.Combining unique viewpoints and exacting realism, this anthology promises to thrill generations of readers, from those who grew up with Atari 2600s to the console and PC gamers of today.

    

    They explore events mentioned in the novels, characters seen and unseen and may include novel teasers of things to come. This volume includes:Darkest before Darkwater by Tee MorrisA group of survivors from the airship Guy Fawkes find themselves washed ashore on an uncharted island. In their search for survival they uncover one mystery after another.The Shadows of Calcutta by Phil RossiAgent Robert Smith, on return from a mission in Nepal, is diverted to India where he is charged to find a missing agent. Alex Tanner had been investigating a series of thefts and murders holding the Ministry’s attention, and now it falls on Agent Smith to find his missing comrade.Night's Plutonian Shore by Jack ManganIn 1849 when a poet is murdered in the streets of Baltimore. The man behind the seemingly random murder manages to elude the law until — in 1889 — Agents Bruce Campbell and Brandon Hill track him down. The assassin, Mikael Scharnusser, gives the slip to the agents on revealing his “talent” and the madman’s intentions to bring down the House of Usher.The Seven by P.C. HaringAgent Brandon Hill is on assignment in South America, enjoying the local culture and women, when a mystery that could lead to El Dorado falls into his lap. Before the intrepid agent knows it, he is the jungle uncovering a plot but the devilish Illuminati. He will need all his monkey knife fighting skills to survive this one.

    Contents:Surfacing (1988)Video Star (1986)No Spot of Ground (1989)Flatline (1988)Side Effects (1985)Witness (1986)Wolf Time (1987)The Bob Dylan Solution (1989)Dinosaurs (1987)

    They used him to kill. Now they’ve lost control. When a man wakes up face-down in the middle of a garbage dump, he naturally has a few questions.Why is he in a hand-tailored suit with a bullet hole in his back? Why are there homicidal robots trying to kill him? Why can’t he remember his own name? And how did he get so good at killing? But the more he learns, the less he likes—and the more he starts to think this will end very, very badly. With a faceless organization hunting him, bloody flashbacks haunting him, and an intriguing new companion helping him, the clock is ticking on whether he can escape his past before it devours him.Will he recover his memories before it’s too late, or be forced to become a pawn for the forces hunting him down?Perfect for fans of The Bourne Identity and James Prescott, The Quantum Price is the thrilling first book in the brand-new Ethan Price series. If you like your technothrillers with a side of cyberpunk, scroll up and grab your copy today!

    In Jim Butcher’s ”Curses”, Harry Dresden investigates how to lift a curse laid by the Fair Folk on the Chicago Cubs. In Patricia Briggs’ “Fairy Gifts,”, a vampire is called home by magic to save the Fae who freed him from a dark curse. In Melissa Marr’s “Guns for the Dead”, the newly dead Frankie Lee seeks a job in the afterlife on the wrong side of the law. In Holly Black’s “Noble Rot”, a dying rock star discovers that the young woman who brings him food every day has some strange appetites of her own.Featuring original stories from 20 authors, this dark, captivating, fabulous, and fantastical collection is not to be missed!Contents:Curses / by Jim Butcher --How the pooka came to New York City / by Delia Sherman --On the slide / by Richard Bowes --The Duke of Riverside / by Ellen Kushner --Oblivion by Calvin Klein / by Christopher Fowler --Fairy gifts / by Patricia Briggs --Picking up the pieces / by Pat Cadigan --Underbridge / by Peter S. Beagle --Priced to sell / by Naomi Novik --The bricks of Gelecek / by Matthew Kressel --Weston walks / by Kit Reed --The projected girl/ by Lavie Tidhar --The way station / by Nathan Ballingrud --Guns for the dead / by Melissa Marr --And go like this / by John Crowley --Noble rot / by Holly Black --Daddy longlegs of the evening / by Jeffrey Ford --The skinny girl / by Lucius Shepard --The Colliers' Venus (1893) / by Caitlín R. Kiernan --King pole, gallows pole, bottle tree / by Elizabeth Bear.

    The two dozen stories chosen for this book by award-winning anthologist Jonathan Strahan carefully maps this evolution, giving readers a captivating and always-entertaining look at the very best the genre has to offer.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.

    12"* "For Want of a Nail"* "The Shocking Affair of the Dutch steamship Friesland"* "Salt of the Earth"* "American Changeling"* "The White Phoenix Feather"* "We Interrupt This Broadcast"* "Rockets Red" (A brand new story in the Lady Astronaut universe)* "The Lady Astronaut of Mars"

    9 Comedic space opera tales of big spaceships, poor life decisions, and lots of Pew! From fights against the Hive, to the quest for the perfect coffee bean, to helping the little folk in a big, bad universe, Pew! Pew! has the tales to keep you entertained and maybe bust a gut while you’re at it.

    New anthology from the critically-acclaimed editor of Engineering Infinity.SPACE IS DANGEROUS The greatest threat, to those who dare venture among the stars, isn’t from aliens, or enemy nations, or cosmic forces from outside reality, but from the simple things on which our lives in space are built: the engines and control systems, the machines that provide our atmosphere, our gravity, even our food and water.Mission Critical tells the stories of when the machines go wrong.

    This artfully assembled anthology of original fiction, nonfiction, and art can serve as an introduction to the Steampunk culture or provide dedicated fans with more fuel. Stories of outlandishly imaginative technologies, clockwork contraptions, eccentric heroines, and mad scientists are complemented by canon-defining nonfiction and an array of original illustrations. This collection showcases the most sensational Steampunk talents of the last decade, including Daniel Abraham, John Coulthart, William Gibson, and Margo Lanagan, and demonstrates exactly why the future of the past is so excitingly new.ContentsIntroduction: “What Is Steampunk?” by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer“The Cast Iron Kid” by Andrew Knighton“The Steam Dancer (1896)” by Caitlín R. Kiernan“The Anachronist’s Cookbook” by Catherynne M. Valente“Tanglefoot” by Cherie Priest“O One” by Chris Roberson“Balfour and Meriwether in the Adventure of the Emperor’s Vengeance” by Daniel Abraham“The Bold Explorer in the Place Beyond” by David Erik Nelson“The Strange Case of Mr. Salad Monday” by Geoffery D. Falksen“At the Intersection of Technology and Romance” by Jake von Slatt“The Future of Steampunk: A Roundtable Interview” by Jeff and Ann VanderMeer“Dr. Lash Remembers” by Jeffrey Ford“Lost Pages From The Encyclopdia of Victoriana” by Jess Nevins“As Recorded on Brass Cylinders: Adagio for Two Dancers” by Lisa Mantchev“A Serpent in the Gears” by Margaret Ronald“Machine Maid” by Margo Lanagan“Which Is Mightier, the Pen or the Parasol?” by Gail Carriger“The Unbecoming of Virgil Smythe” by Ramsey Shehadeh“Wild Copper” by Samantha Henderson“The Mechanical Aviary of Emperor Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar” by Shweta Narayan“The Unblinking Eye” by Stephen Baxter“Lovelace & Babbage” by Sydney Padua“The Persecution Machine” by Tanith Lee“Flying Fish (Prometheus)” by Vilhelm Bergsøe“The Gernsback Continuum” by William Gibson