Rooms and rooms of them. Dolls. Toy soldiers. Clowns. When he was a kid, his Aunt Cary's toy collection should have been a child's paradise. But instead he had been terrified by their staring eyes and limp arms.Twenty years had passed since Jay Clute set foot in Victory, Missouri. Twenty years of trying to forget that night--that hellish night of unimaginable horror. Now, his Aunt Cary was dead, and it's all been left to him--the house, the furniture, every last piece of her collection. And nothing had changed. Not the painted-on dolly smiles or the garish clown colors--or the tiny hands that were dripping with bright red blood...

    or to transport you into the bizarre world of Carcosa, and the King in Yellow. Banned, burned, yet never totally destroyed, the play lives on, eating away the fabric of society and rotting the veneer of civilization...Come and enjoy new visions of the King, expanding and deepening the fragments glimpsed in the award-winning True Detective television series, penned for your delight by a host of master scribes eager to guide you to a new world of delirium, despair, and madness.

    In worlds that have fallen - or should have. They wage battles in wars already lost and become heroes - and sometimes martyrs - in their last-ditch efforts to preserve the dignity and individuality of humanity. A hack Indian filmmaker takes the pulse of a wounded and declining civilization - 21st-century Britain. A pair of swashbuckling Silicon Valley entrepreneurs join forces to make a commercial killing - in organic underground slime and computer-generated jellyfish. A man in a Japanese city takes orders from a talking cat while pursuing a drama of danger and adventure that has become the very essence of his life.From The Littlest Jackal, a darkly hilarious thriller of mercs and gunrunners set in Finland, to a stark vision of a post-atomic netherworld in his haunting tale Taklamakan, Bruce Sterling once again breaks boundaries, breaks icons, and breaks rules to unleash the most dangerously provocative and intelligent science fiction being written today.Contents:- Maneki Neko (1998)- Big Jelly (1994, with Rudy Rucker)- The Littlest Jackal (1996)- Sacred Cow (1993)- Deep Eddy (1993)- Bicycle Repairman (1996)- Taklamakan (1998)Cover illustration by Eric Dinyer

    James to Neil Gaiman, H.H. Munro to Audrey Niffenegger herself, Ghostly reveals the evolution of the ghost story genre with tales going back to the eighteenth century and into the modern era, ranging across styles from Gothic Horror to Victorian, stories about haunting--haunted children, animals, houses. Every story is introduced by Audrey Niffenegger, an acclaimed master of the craft, with some words on its background and why she chose to include it. Audrey's own story is "A Secret Life With Cats."     Perfect for the classic and contemporary ghost story aficionado, this is a delightful volume, beautifully illustrated by Audrey, who is a graphic artist with great vision. Ghostly showcases the best of the best in the field, including Edith Wharton, P.G. Wodehouse, A.S. Byatt, Ray Bradbury, and so many more.

    Dating back to ancient Assyria, folkloric tales of mermaids, sirens, rusalka, nymphs, selkes, and other seafolk are found in many cultures, including those of Europe, Africa, the Near East and Asia. Dangerous or benevolent, seductive or sinister - modern masters of fantasy continue to create new legends of these creatures that enchant and entertain us more than ever. Gathered here are some of the finest of these stories. Immerse yourself in this wonderful - and sometimes wicked - watery world!

    In her debut collection of short fiction, Due takes us to Gracetown, a small Florida town that has both literal and figurative ghost; into future scenarios that seem all too real; and provides empathetic portraits of those whose lives are touched by Otherness. Featuring an award-winning novella and fifteen stories—one of which has never been published before—Ghost Summer: Stories is sure to both haunt and delight.With an Introduction by Nalo Hopkinson and an Afterword by Steven Barnes.

    Marion Crawford's supernatural pieces, including the rare story "The King's Messenger," as well as such classics as "The Upper Berth" (considered by many to be the finest ghost story ever written) and many more. Also features a new introduction written especially for this volume by horror scholar Lee Weinstein.

    He is Sasquatch, the Wendigo, the Wind-Walker. Here, gathered together in one place, is an entire cycle of stories about Ithaqua, from Algernon Blackwood's seminal "The Wendigo," to the brand new "Wrath of the Wind-Walker."