In the years between the first two Bugger Wars, the Hegemony is desperate to recruit brilliant military commanders to repel the alien invasion. They may have found their man--or boy--in John Paul Wiggin....In "Teacher's Pest"-a novella written especially for this collection--a brilliant but arrogant John Paul Wiggin, now a university student, matches wits with an equally brilliant graduate student. "The Investment Counselor" is set after the end of the Bugger Wars. Banished from Earth and slandered as a mass murderer, twenty-year-old Andrew Wiggin wanders incognito from planet to planet as a fugitive--until a blackmailing tax inspector compromises his identity and threatens to expose Ender the Xeoncide. Also reprinted here is the original award-winning novella, "Ender's Game," which first appeared in 1977.

    Amid a forest where the shades of the dead linger all around, every homesteader knows to follow the Simple Rules: "Don't kindle flame, don't shed the blood of another, don't run at night. These things draw shades." Silence Montane has broken all three rules on more than one occasion. And to protect her family from a murderous gang with high bounties on their heads, Silence will break every rule again, at the risk of becoming a shade herself.

    

    Robert E. Howard created the genre with his original stories; Frank Frazetta's definitive Conan book covers set the standard for dynamic fantasy artwork; Roy Thomas, with Barry Windsor-Smith and later John Buscema, used the character to push the boundaries of comic-book adventure; and Arnold Schwarzenegger launched an amazing film career with his iconic portrayal of the barbarian. Conan historian Paul M. Sammon looks at all the stages of the character's development, with commentary and archival material from the most integral players in that history.

    The second section contains the grand master's ruminations on the SF genre itself. And the final section is comprised of Asimov's thoughts on the craft and writing of science fiction.

    It is a place of contradictions—the bright lights mask the peeling paint; a carnie in greasy overalls slinks away from the direction of the Barker’s seductive call. It is a place of illusion—is that woman’s beard real? How can she live locked in that watery box?And while many are tricked by sleight of hand, there are hints of something truly magical going on. One must remain alert and learn quickly the unwritten rules of this dark show. To beat the carnival, one had better have either a whole lot of luck or a whole lot of guns—or maybe some magic of one’s own.Featuring stories grotesque and comical, outrageous and action-packed, Carniepunk is the first anthology to channel the energy and attitude of urban fantasy into the bizarre world of creaking machinery, twisted myths, and vivid new magic.RACHEL CAINE’s vampires aren’t child’s play, as a naïve teen discovers when her heart leads her far, far astray in “The Cold Girl.” With “Parlor Tricks,” JENNIFER ESTEP pits Gin Blanco, the Elemental Assassin, against the Wheel of Death and some dangerously creepy clowns. SEANAN McGUIRE narrates a poignant, ethereal tale of a mysterious carnival that returns to a dangerous town after twenty years in “Daughter of the Midway, the Mermaid, and the Open, Lonely Sea.” KEVIN HEARNE’s Iron Druid and his wisecracking Irish wolfhound discover in “The Demon Barker of Wheat Street” that the impossibly wholesome sounding Kansas Wheat Festival is actually not a healthy place to hang out. With an eerie, unpredictable twist, ROB THURMAN reveals the fate of a psychopath stalking two young carnies in “Painted Love.”

     In "The Kelpie," by Patricia A. McKillip, a carefree circle of bohemian artists is confronted by a being more powerful than any muse. Jane Yolen and Midori Snyder weave a tale of two sisters long-exiled from their magical realm who must survive in ours, in "Except the Queen." In Tanith Lee's "UOUS," a young woman with a rotten family is granted three wishes by a handsome elf-and learns that nothing good comes free of charge. A hapless slob finds his world turned upside-down when an eager brownie moves in and proceeds to clean house, in Megan Lindholm's "Grace Notes." Kim Newman introduces an intrepid government investigator whose latest case pits him against a sinister brood of fairy folk known as "The Gypsies in the Wood." And the serenity of the Elves is tested in a wry fable of a long-suffering magical apprentice who can't catch a break, in Craig Shaw Gardner's "The Embarrassment of Elves.

    Exotic beasts and improbable travelers roam restlessly through these darkly diverting and finely honed tales.In “The Situation,” a beleaguered office worker creates a child-swallowing manta-ray to be used for educational purposes (once described as Dilbert meets Gormenghast). In “Three Days in a Border Town,” a sharpshooter seeks the truth about her husband in an elusive floating city beyond a far-future horizon; “Errata” follows an oddly familiar writer who has marshaled a penguin, a shaman, and two pearl-handled pistols with which to plot the end of the world. Also included are two stories original to this collection, including “The Quickening,” in which a lonely child is torn between familial obligation and loyalty to a maligned talking rabbit.Chimerical and hypnotic, VanderMeer leads readers through the postmodern into a new literature of the imagination.

    Howard reprint line by presenting all of the original 1970s and 1980s Marvel color comic books featuring Solomon Kane in one awesome volume! This graphic novel features the landmark stories "The Mark of Kane" and "Fangs of the Gorilla God," by Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin, and the entire Sword of Solomon Kane mini-series, by Ralph Macchio and a host of talented artists — including Mike Mignola, Al Williamson, Bret Blevins, John Ridgeway, and others! From the French countryside to the Black Forest in Germany, from England to Africa, follow Robert E. Howard's solemn, driven Puritan, Solomon Kane, as he cuts a path of vengeance across the globe!

    The first three tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, the famed necromancers from the Malazan Book of the Fallen, collected in one volume.Contents:Blood Follows (2002)The Healthy Dead (2004)The Lees of Laughter's End (2007)

    In two sketches, he experiments with tales transplanted from Europe, thereby creating the first classic American short stories, Rip Van Winkle, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Based on Irving's final revision of his most popular work, this new edition includes comprehensive explanatory notes of The Sketch-Book's sources for the modern reader.

    Le Guin has created a profound and transformational literature. The award-winning stories in A Fisherman of the Inland Sea range from the everyday to the outer limits of experience, where the quantum uncertainties of space and time are resolved only in the depths of the human heart. Astonishing in their diversity and power, they exhibit both the artistry of a major writer at the height of her powers and the humanity of a mature artist confronting the world with her gift of wonder still intact.A Fisherman of the Inland Sea containsAnother Story or A Fisherman of the Inland Sea • [Hainish]Dancing to Ganam • [Hainish] Introduction: On Not Reading Science Fiction Newton's Sleep The Ascent of the North FaceThe First Contact with the GorgonidsThe KerastionThe Rock That Changed ThingsThe Shobies' Story • [Hainish]

    Which may help explain why he is also one of the most brilliant, innovative, and eloquent writers on earth. Slippage simply presents recent, typical Ellison. In a word, masterful. The 21 stories in this 1997 collection, which is encased in black boxes, show Ellison at the height of his powers, with several of the stories (no surprise here) major award-winners. Highlights include a black mind reader who pays a visit to a white serial killer, a husband who falls prey to a vampiric personal computer, and a love affair between a young man and a woman who may be more undead than alive. Perhaps even more fascinating are the painfully candid snapshots of autobiography running throughout the volume. Even if Ellison's unsettling fictions are not enough to dazzle you, his often bizarre life experiences as an author will still keep you compulsively turning the page like a polite voyeur. --Stanley WiaterContents:The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore (1992)Anywhere but Here, with Anybody but You (1996)Crazy as a Soup Sandwich (1989)Darkness upon the Face of the Deep (1991)The Pale Silver Dollar of the Moon Pays Its Way and Makes Change: Version 1 (1997)The Pale Silver Dollar of the Moon Pays Its Way and Makes Change: Version 2 (1994)The Lingering Scent of Woodsmoke (1996)The Museum on Cyclops Avenue (1995)Go toward the Light (1996)Mefisto in Onyx (1993)Where I Shall Dwell in the Next World (1992)Chatting with Anubis (1995)The Few, the Proud (1989)The Deadly "Nackles" Affair (1987) essayNackles (1964)Nackles (1987)Sensible City (1994)The Dragon on the Bookshelf (1995) with Robert SilverbergKeyboard (1995)Jane Doe #112 (1990)The Dreams a Nightmare Dreams (1997)Pulling Hard Time (1995)Scartaris, June 28th (1990)She's a Young Thing and Cannot Leave Her Mother (1988)Midnight in the Sunken Cathedral (1995)

    It is issued in a foil-stamped slipcase. Published in a larger format than the Dark Tower series which enhances Michael Whelan's thirteen full-color plates and over twenty-three black & white designs."The Man in Black fled across the desert and the Gunslinger followed." This is our introduction to Roland Deschain, the last Gunslinger, published by Donald M. Grant in THE DARK TOWER: THE GUNSLINGER in 1982. Twenty years later Stephen King revised and expanded this volume. In his own words: "What I did want to do was to give newcomers to the tale of the Tower (and old readers who want to refresh their memories) a clearer start and a slightly easier entry into Roland's world. I also wanted them to have a volume that more effectively foreshadowed coming events.This volume contains that expanded version as well as the novella THE LITTLE SISTERS OF ELURIA which chronicles an earlier adventure of Roland's as he pursued the Man in Black.

    Lovecraft, aside from devising his own works in his Cthulhu Mythos cycle, also collaborated in his day with many younger writers of the uncanny and eerie. Available for the first time in paperback, this collection features stories to which the master of horror added his own ingenious touch.