Le Guin has, in each story and novel, created a provocative, ever-evolving universe filled with diverse worlds and rich characters reminiscent of our earthly selves. Now, in The Birthday of the World, this gifted artist returns to these worlds in eight brilliant short works, including a never-before-published novella, each of which probes the essence of humanity.

    This makes life difficult for Matt as he maneuvers the marriage question with his lover and how best to "come out" to his traditional Chinese parents.This story is also included in Some of the Best From Tor.com, 2013 Edition: A Tor.Com Original

    The secrets of the core of the earth. Dreams of other people’s lives. A girl who goes mad in the darkness. Monsters in Bavaria. A generational spaceship where night doesn’t exist. And other mysteries and oddities. The contributors to the enthralling collection are: Sarah Rees Brennan, Tessa Gratton, Rachel Hawkins, Christine Johnson, Valerie Kemp, Malinda Lo, Myra McEntire, Saundra Mitchell, Sarah Ockler, Jackson Pearce, Aprilynne Pike, Dia Reeves, Beth Revis, Carrie Ryan, Jon Skovron, Courtney Summers, and Kate Espy, winner of the Defy the Dark new author contest.

    They go for supermodels and actresses, skinny-girls who never eat and spend all day working out. I'm not that girl. So when he locked his fiery brown eyes on me for the first time, I couldn't quite believe it was really happening to me. It was the second night I spent with him that I'll never forget. The Long Drive Home (bonus short story) Big Girls Do It Wetter Chase went to New York...without me. It was only one night, one delicious, sinful night, but it awakened something within me, and now, with him gone, I have no one to satiate my sudden, ferocious hunger. Then I woke up one day and looked at someone near and dear to me in a whole new light. And my world was rocked once again. Big Girls Do It Wilder I'm going. Going to New York City to be with gorgeous, mysterious, rockstar Chase Delany seemed like a crazy dream, a fantasy come true. The bright lights and music, and his tight, sexy leather pants called to me...and I answered. Chase might want more and I just might give it to him, if I could only forget what I started with Jeff back in Detroit.I thought I had my love life all figured out, I thought I knew what I wanted, and then things went and changed on me all over again... Big Girls Do It On Top I fled New York with my heart breaking and a million questions. Foremost in my mind was whether Jeff would even see me after the colossal mess that New York turned out to be. I discovered the answer, but that only spawned even more questions, many of the yes or no variety...

    Contains the stories:"The Narrow Land""The Masqerade on Dicantropus""Where Hesperus Falls""The World-Thinker""Green Magic""The Ten Books""Chateau D'If" (aka "New Bodies for Old")

    But Sable is a bounty hunter, which makes him direct competition in the capture of wanted criminals. Despite the obvious attraction between them, she won't give him a chance and after two years, he's tired of waiting for her to come around. So he's got a plan to give them both what they want...each other.

    Bestsellers. Award-winners. Superstars. This anthology has them all. With brilliantly entertaining short stories from beloved young adult authors Amie Kaufman, Melissa Keil, Will Kostakis, Ellie Marney, Jaclyn Moriarty, Michael Pryor, Alice Pung, Gabrielle Tozer, Lili Wilkinson and Danielle Binks, this all-new collection will show the world exactly how much there is to love about Aussie YA.

    In The Dragon's Treasure, a dragon obsessed with cleanliness quietly pines over a regular customer to his shop. In The Selkie No One Wanted, a selkie who is nothing like his beautiful siblings winds up helping the fisherman he has long admired. A demon finds himself dealing with two troublesome humans in The Spawn, and in Mad Finnegan, a mad wizard reunites with the person who first drove him into the 'madness' that has made him infamous. A young chef winds up with an unusual assistant in Dragon Stew and a man finds that life has not quite yet passed him by in The Innkeeper's Story. The Quest sends a loud-mouthed demon to earn the affections of a mate who does not want him, and in Spellbound a talented thief longs to find a way to steal the heart of his latest client.

    The natural world is a place of curves and softened edges, of gentle mists and welcoming spirals. Nature remembers deviation; nature does not forgive.For Harlowe Upton-Jones, life has never been a straight line. Shipped off to live with her paternal grandparents after a mysterious cult killed her mother and father, she has grown up chasing the question behind the curve, becoming part of a tight-knit teen detective agency. But “teen” is a limited time offer, and when her friends start looking for adult professions, it’s up to Harlowe to find them one last case so that they can go out in a blaze of glory.Welcome to Spindrift House.The stories and legends surrounding the decrepit property are countless and contradictory, but one thing is clear: there are people willing to pay a great deal to determine the legal ownership of the house. When Harlowe and her friends agree to investigate the mystery behind the manor, they do so on the assumption that they’ll be going down in history as the ones who determined who built Spindrift House—and why. The house has secrets. They have the skills. They have a plan. They have everything they need to solve the mystery.Everything they need except for time. Because Spindrift House keeps its secrets for a reason, and it has no intention of letting them go.Nature abhors a straight line.Here’s where the story bends.

    Award. Created in 1991 to honor the innovative fiction of Alice Bradley Sheldon (who wrote under the pen name James Tiptree), the Tiptree Award is presented to speculative fiction that explores and expands gender roles—and in the process touches on the most fundamental of human desires: the need for sex, for love, and for acceptance. This collection includes thought-provoking essays by Suzy McKee Charnas, Karen Joy Fowler, Ursula K. Le Guin, Pat Murphy, and Joanna Russ.ContentsIntroduction by Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler"Boys" by Carol Emshwiller"Birth Days" by Geoff Ryman"The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Anderson"Everything but the Signature Is Me" by James Tiptree, Jr."'Tiptree' and History" by Joanna Russ"The Lady of the Ice Garden" by Kara Dalkey"What I Didn't See" by Karen Joy Fowler"Travels With the Snow Queen" by Kelly LinkExcerpts from Set This House in Order by Matt Ruff"The Catgirl Manifesto: An Introduction" by Richard Calder"Looking Through Lace" by Ruth Nestvold"The Ghost Girls of Rumney Mill" by Sandra McDonald"Judging the Tiptree" by Suzy McKee Charnas"Genre: A Word Only the French Could Love" by Ursula K. Le Guin

    Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities. Editors Ann and Jeff Vandermeer have gathered together a spectacular array of exhibits, oddities, images, and stories by some of the most renowned and bestselling writers and artists in speculative and graphic fiction, including Ted Chiang, Mike Mignola (creator of Hellboy), China Miéville, and Michael Moorcock. A spectacularly illustrated anthology of Victorian steampunk devices and the stories behind them, The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities is a boldly original, enthrallingly imaginative, and endlessly entertaining entry into a hidden world of weird science and unnatural nature that will appeal equally to fantasy lovers and graphic novel aficionados.

    Between bruises and handcuffs, he didn't have much success. On the first day, in the first cell, the lights had been on, the water dispenser working, and the prisoner feeding schedule still running. Then the lights went out, and things had gone steadily downhill from there. Now, he sat in darkness so absolute that he couldn't see a hand in front of his face, if he'd been in a position to check. The last time he'd been taken out of the cell it had been light in the corridors, which was something. If the power to the building failed totally, they would suffocate down here. At the moment, the air cycling was still functional, feeding chill air into the cell--like the lights, the heating systems had been switched off or had broken down. He couldn't accurately estimate when he'd last eaten. Two days or so, probably, but he was starting to feel the effects. The water system worried him most. It worked only intermittently and the water had an unpleasant, overly chemical flavor. The systems were failing. Something had gone badly wrong, and had continued to go wrong for so long that he'd been forced unwillingly to conclude that it had to have hit more than I&I. Revolution has come to the Administration, as the citizens rise up against government and corporate oppression. With old and new enemies all around them, what will the new future hold for despised para-investigator Val Toreth, and corporate highflier Keir Warrick? And how long will that future last?

    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)

    Yes, it will be dangerous, frequently brutal, and often devastating. But it’s also savagely funny, deliriously strange, and absolutely brimming with adventure.In these edgy, unexpected tales, a body-hopping mercenary avenges his pet elephant, and an orphan falls in love with a sentient starship. Fighters ally to power a reality-bending engine, and a swamp-dwelling introvert tries to save the world—from her plague-casting former wife.So come meet Kameron Hurley in the future. The version she's created here is weirder—and far more hopeful—than you could ever imagine.

    P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the 20th century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.”—Stephen KingThe most important tales of the godfather of the modern horror genre—a master who influenced the works of a generation of writers including Stephen King and Anne Rice—are gathered in one volume by National Book Award-winning author Joyce Carol Oates.Combining the 19th-century gothic sensibility of Edgar Allan Poe with a daring internal vision, Lovecraft’s tales foretold a psychically troubled world to come. Set in a meticulously wrought, historically grounded New England landscape, his harrowing stories explore the collapse of sanity beneath the weight of chaotic events. Lovecraft’s universe is a frightening shadow world were reality and nightmare intertwine, and redemption can come only from below. For aficionados and a new generation of 21st-century readers , Tales of H. P. Lovecraft is a classic not to be missed.