This collection includes the following tales:"The Young King""The Birthday of the Infanta" "The Fisherman and his Soul""The Star-child"Readers of all ages will be delighted by these fanciful tales.

    Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the End of the World. In science fiction, the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm.But before any catastrophe, there are people who see it coming. During, there are heroes who fight against it. And after, there are the survivors who persevere and try to rebuild. THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH will tell their stories.Edited by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams and bestselling author Hugh Howey, THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH is a series of three anthologies of apocalyptic fiction. THE END IS NIGH focuses on life before the apocalypse. THE END IS NOW turns its attention to life during the apocalypse. And THE END HAS COME focuses on life after the apocalypse.THE END IS NIGH features all-new, never-before-published works by Hugh Howey, Paolo Bacigalupi, Jamie Ford, Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, Jonathan Maberry, Robin Wasserman, Nancy Kress, Charlie Jane Anders, Ken Liu, and many others.

    Smee is a crackling ghost story about a guest in a haunted house telling other visitors of the death of a young girl, years ago, playing a game of hide-and-seek.

    Forbidden by international accords to engage in combat, the "dog soldiers" lend their skills to the regular Army units, sniffing out IEDs and guarding the troops against things that go bump in the night. Sergeant Decker and his 300th comrade, Sergeant Sobieski, are assigned to a Forward Operating Base deep in the mountains of Afghanistan when they have to face a local threat far more dangerous than roadside bombs or insurgent ambushes.

    There are no superficial scares here; these are stories that will make you think even as they keep you on the edge of your seat. From bloody horror to supernatural creatures to unsettling, all-too-possible realism, this collection has something for any reader looking for a thrill.Fans of TV’s The Walking Dead, True Blood, and American Horror Story will tear through tales by these talented authors:Stefan BachmannLeigh BardugoKendare BlakeA. G. HowardJay KristoffMarie LuJonathan MaberryDanielle PaigeCarrie RyanMegan ShepherdNova Ren SumaMcCormick TemplemanApril Genevieve TucholkeCat Winters

    Coming to, he realizes he’s hypothermic—shivering cold—trapped inside a stasis tube, shrouded in darkness. Escaping his capsule, he lights a lantern, only to discover the locker containing his heating supplies is empty. Freezing to death now, he reflects on the last memory of his pregnant wife, beside him still, suspended in a tube. Just as Connor slips out of consciousness, two strangers arrive...Another gripping, wholly absorbing chapter of the bestselling Wayward Pines series, Jordan Crouch’s Exit Vertigo explores the dangerous netherworld existence of caretakers who emerge from stasis every two decades to ensure the facility that houses all that remains of mankind continues to function. While others hibernate, Connor and a select team of maintenance workers stumble through the Ark’s darkened hallways, racing against time in search for a clue to an apocalypse no one can remember.

    and nothing will ever be the same.Hoping to escape an abusive marriage, Juliet Carlson looks for solace on the cool sands of an isolated cove. Here she meets a youth named Milo, who persuades her to visit his beachside community.Milo is several years her junior, but that doesn't diminish their mutual attraction. It has been years since Juliet felt this safe... this happy.But Milo hides a dark secret. And his family has secrets, too...Featuring a genuinely original concept in modern horror, The Boy on the Beach is a seventeen-thousand word novella. It was originally published in Dark Albion: Tales of Fantasy and Horror by David Brian, and is still available as part of that collection.

    The horror she discovers amongst the ruins is far worse than she could have imagined. The masked warriors of the Venganza clan chase Katy through the post-apocalyptic landscape, forcing her to decide between her past or the survivors’ future — a decision that could determine the fate of the human race. *For a limited time, the exclusive short story prequel BARREN: Blood Moon is included for FREE

    

    The offer on her desk from Corporate Financial Consultants included a high five figure salary, generous benefits and cushy perks. Finally, after a escaping the psychological abuse of an emotionally cold mother and a series of dead-end jobs she could start planning a future with her fiancé, Donald.However, Michelle forgot the cardinal rule for any job offer; always read the fine print. She really should have gotten more detail about her overtime hours,company policies, and exactly what they meant when they said “Welcome to the Corporate Financial family”.Michelle isn’t afraid of hard work. She’s a dedicated employee,the kind any manager would want for his firm. But this Corporation requires much more than just dedication...

    Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois is filled with subtle shades of gray. Twenty-one all-original stories, by an all-star list of contributors, will delight and astonish you in equal measure with their cunning twists and dazzling reversals. And George R.R. Martin himself offers a brand-new A Game of Thrones tale chronicling one of the biggest rogues in the entire history of Ice and Fire.Follow along with the likes of Gillian Flynn, Joe Abercrombie, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch, Cherie Priest, Garth Nix, and Connie Willis, as well as other masters of literary sleight-of-hand, in this rogues gallery of stories that will plunder your heart — and yet leave you all the richer for it.Contents:- Tough Times All Over by Joe Abercrombie (a Red Country story)- What Do You Do? (aka The Grownup) by Gillian Flynn- The Inn of the Seven Blessings by Matthew Hughes- Bent Twig by Joe R. Lansdale (a Hap and Leonard story)- Tawny Petticoats by Michael Swanwick- Provenance by David Ball- The Roaring Twenties by Carrie Vaughn- A Year and a Day in Old Theradane by Scott Lynch- Bad Brass by Bradley Denton- Heavy Metal by Cherie Priest- The Meaning of Love by Daniel Abraham- A Better Way to Die by Paul Cornell (a Jonathan Hamilton story)- Ill Seen in Tyre by Steven Saylor- A Cargo of Ivories by Garth Nix (a Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz story)- Diamonds From Tequila by Walter Jon Williams (a Dagmar story)- The Caravan to Nowhere by Phyllis Eisenstein (a Tales of Alaric the Minstrel story)- The Curious Affair of the Dead Wives by Lisa Tuttle- How the Marquis Got His Coat Back by Neil Gaiman (a Neverwhere story)- Now Showing by Connie Willis- The Lightning Tree by Patrick Rothfuss (a Kingkiller Chronicle story)- The Rogue Prince, or, A King’s Brother by George R.R. Martin (a Song of Ice and Fire story)

    The author has put together promising stories for every alphabet that are guaranteed to scare you out of your wits and question the presence of the supernatural.Pick up the book as the night crawls by for feeling those chills creeping up your skin and your heart beating out of your chest.

    In “Vortex,” by Gregory Benford, astronauts find a once thriving microbial lifeform that carpets the caves of Mars dying off. A code monkey tracks down the vain creator of a pernicious software virus that people jack cerebrally in “RedKing,” by Craig DeLancey. In “Number Nine Moon,” by Alex Irvine, illicit scavengers on Mars are on a rescue mission to save themselves after one of their team members dies. A young girl’s thirst for vengeance becomes a struggle for survival when she is swallowed by a gigantic sea creature on an alien planet in “Of the Beast in the Belly,” by C.W. Johnson. In “The Seventh Gamer,” by Gwyneth Jones, a writer immerses herself into a MMORPG community to search for characters being played by real aliens from other worlds. A woman armed with a rifle stalks a herd of cloned wooly mammoths in British Columbia in “Chasing Ivory,” by Ted Kosmatka. In “Fieldwork,” by Shariann Lewitt, a volcanologist struggles with her research on Europa where both her mother and grandmother suffered dire consequences. A daughter pays homage to her mother with mega-engineering projects to deal with climate change over eons in “Seven Birthdays,” by Ken Liu. In “The Visitor from Taured,” by Ian R. MacLeod, a cosmologist in the near future is obsessed with proving his theory of multiverses. The citizens of a small town on a “Jackaroo” planet object to a corporation placing a radio telescope near local alien artifacts in “Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was,” by Paul McAuley. And finally, in “Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee,” by Alastair Reynolds, a graduate student defends her dissertation on a solar anomaly that threatens humanity.

    In the middle, meanwhile, are The Great Switcheroo and The Last Act, two stories exploring a darker side of desire and pleasure.In the black comedies of Switch Bitch Roald Dahl brilliantly captures the ins and outs, highs and lows of sex.'Dahl is too good a storyteller to become predictable' Daily TelegraphRoald Dahl, the brilliant and worldwide acclaimed author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, and many more classics for children, also wrote scores of short stories for adults. These delightfully disturbing tales have often been filmed and were most recently the inspiration for the West End play, Roald Dahl's Twisted Tales by Jeremy Dyson. Roald Dahl's stories continue to make readers shiver today.

    Love, laughter, and occasional tears - no need to turn on the Hallmark Channel this winter. Snuggle up with this feel-good anthology instead!Warning: reading this anthology may cause cravings for cider sugar donuts, French toast, pimento cheese, cherry cola, and maple syrup ice-cream, as well as happy ever afters