In "Exhalation," an alien scientist makes a shocking discovery with ramifications that are literally universal. In "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom," the ability to glimpse into alternate universes necessitates a radically new examination of the concepts of choice and free will.Including stories being published for the first time as well as some of his rare and classic uncollected work, Exhalation is Ted Chiang at his best: profound, sympathetic—revelatory.

    A policy with Stranger & Stranger can cover all of your interdimensional insurance needs. Rated "Number One in Customer Satisfaction" for three years running, no claim is too big or too weird for Tom Stranger to handle.But now Tom faces his greatest challenge yet. Despite being assigned the wrong—and woefully inadequate—intern, Tom must still provide quality customer service to multiple alternate Earths, all while battling tentacle monsters, legions of the damned, an evil call center in Nebraska, and his archnemesis, Jeff Conundrum. Armed with his Combat Wombat and a sense of fair play, can Tom survive? And will Jimmy the Intern ever discover his inner insurance agent?It's time to kick ass and adjust claims.Adam Baldwin (Firefly, Chuck) performs Larry Correia's madcap interdimensional tale of underwriting and space travel, where the only thing scarier than tentacle monsters is a high deductible.

    A new short story chapbook published as a signed limited edition.

    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.

    

    After ecological disasters nearly destroyed the Earth, 26 survivors—the last of humanity—are trapped by an alien race in a sterile enclosure known as the Shell. Fifteen-year-old Pete is one of the Six—children who were born deformed or sterile and raised in the Shell. As, one by one, the survivors grow sick and die, Pete and the Six struggle to put aside their anger at the alien Tesslies in order to find the means to rebuild the earth together. Their only hope lies within brief time-portals into the recent past, where they bring back children to replenish their disappearing gene pool. Meanwhile, in 2013, brilliant mathematician Julie Kahn works with the FBI to solve a series of inexplicable kidnappings. Suddenly her predictive algorithms begin to reveal more than just criminal activity. As she begins to realize her role in the impending catastrophe, simultaneously affecting the Earth and the Shell, Julie closes in on the truth. She and Pete are converging in time upon the future of humanity—a future which might never unfold. Weaving three consecutive time lines to unravel both the mystery of the Earth's destruction and the key to its salvation, this taut post-apocalyptic thriller offers a topical plot with a satisfying twist.

    Nesbit, Diana Wynne Jones, Gahan Wilson, and other literary luminaries. Sales of Unnatural Creatures benefit 826DC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students in their creative and expository writing, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write.

    The heavens have been silent since - until a derelict space probe hears whispers from a distant comet. Something talks out there: but not to us. Who to send to meet the alien, when the alien doesn't want to meet? Send a linguist with multiple-personality disorder, and a biologist so spliced to machinery he can't feel his own flesh. Send a pacifist warrior, and a vampire recalled from the grave by the voodoo of paleogenetics. Send a man with half his mind gone since childhood. Send them to the edge of the solar system, praying you can trust such freaks and monsters with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they've been sent to find - but you'd give anything for that to be true, if you knew what was waiting for them.

    This book is guaranteed to horrify you in the best way possible. Open it up, turn the page, and take a journey to a world consumed with mystery in madness.

    His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems.First published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is still widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels, despite the fact that it has been out of print in the United States for almost thirty years.

    From the pages of the best-selling Duck & Cover Adventures comes thirteen stories of those who survived the apocalypse. Some would go on to be heroes, others villains, some were dogs and will stay dogs, but they all must contend with the horrors of the new world and find a way to survive in the wasteland that was America. HOW TO HOST AN INTERVENTION Long before he was a knight in the apocalypse, Tommy was preparing for the end of the world. His friends grew concerned for his well-being and planned to intervene. It wasn’t so much that he was preparing, it was what he was preparing for. GONE TO THE DOGS Fidget and Sasquatch were loyal companions to the end. Now that the end has arrived, they must say goodbye to the only home they’ve ever known. If they can figure out how to open the door. BUNKED UP They took refuge in a homemade bomb shelter when the end of the world began. There they were safe from the bombs and the fallout. But they were never safe from each other. PACK HUNTERS Fidget and Sasquatch are on their own, a situation neither of them are really comfortable with. They decide to join a pack for safety, for food and for friends. Now all they have to do is find one. ANIMAL’S CALLING Before the world ended, Jackson drifted from job to job, never settling on anything that could be called a career path. But with the new world comes new opportunities. This is what he was born to do. LAST BAND OF THE APOCALYPSE Caught between county fair gigs during the apocalypse, the members of a cover band find themselves the last band left in the world. Getting gigs should be easy. Should be. PRISONER’S DILEMMA The Librarian has seen his fair share of “wasteland justice.” Now he’s chained to the floor of a grocery store with a man he must face in court. In a battle to the death. Naturally. ALPHA DOG Sergeant Satan was genetically enhanced to be the world’s best military scout. He was designed to be smarter, faster and more than a match for any dog this side of the apocalypse. Of course, his creators had never met Fidget. THE TRIAL OF HARMEGGEDON They’ve got a new name. They’ve got a new act. And they are ready to rock your face off. Now all the last band in the world needs is a gig. WILLIE AND COY RIDE AGAIN Willie and Coy aren’t the brightest. Or the best looking. Or very likeable. No one would ever accuse them of being hard workers. But the pair have found a way to make an honest living in the apocalypse. If they can get enough people to watch. IN A PERSON PACK Tired of looking for a pack to join, Sasquatch and Fidget reminisce about the joys and delights of life in a people pack. NO QUARTER Deep in the swamp of New Orleans awaits a terror many refuse to believe exists. It’s a monster of myth and rumor so horrible that it could not possibly be real. On the trail of a kidnapped woman, The Librarian must seek out and confront this monster of myth. EVE OF THE APOCALYPSE Man is the true monster. Unless there is a man who is a monster that also makes monsters. Then he’s the truest monster and only a post-apocalyptic nomadic warrior can bring this monster’s monster-making to an end.

    . . and winds up a castaway on an impossibly solid cloud, a Prospero’s island of roiling vapor that seems animated by a mind of its own in Aloft.On a seemingly ordinary day in Boulder, Colorado, the clouds open up in a downpour of nails—splinters of bright crystal that shred the skin of anyone not safely under cover. Rain explores this escalating apocalyptic event, as the deluge of nails spreads out across the country and around the world.In Loaded, a mall security guard in a coastal Florida town courageously stops a mass shooting and becomes a hero to the modern gun rights movement. But under the glare of the spotlights, his story begins to unravel, taking his sanity with it. When an out-of-control summer blaze approaches the town, he will reach for the gun again and embark on one last day of reckoning.

    When Jenna died, she blamed herself for that, too. Unfortunately Jenna died too soon. Living or dead, every soul is promised a certain amount of time, and when Jenna passed she found a heavy debt of time in her record. Unwilling to simply steal that time from the living, Jenna earns every day she leeches with volunteer work at a suicide prevention hotline.But something has come for the ghosts of New York, something beyond reason, beyond death, beyond hope; something that can bind ghosts to mirrors and make them do its bidding. Only Jenna stands in its way.Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day is a new standalone urban fantasy novella from New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire.

    He’s been hired by a ten-year-old to kill the kid’s stepdad, McKinsey. The man in question is abusive, abrasive, and abominable. He’s also a monster, which makes Persons the perfect thing to hunt him. Over the course of his ancient, arcane existence, he’s hunted gods and demons, and broken them in his teeth.As Persons investigates the horrible McKinsey, he realizes that he carries something far darker. He’s infected with an alien presence, and he’s spreading that monstrosity far and wide. Luckily Persons is no stranger to the occult, being an ancient and magical intelligence himself. The question is whether the private dick can take down the abusive stepdad without releasing the holds on his own horrifying potential.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    This plant is used exclusively to comply with the extremely complicated ritual laws set down in the Tablets of Enku.