Become entranced with the basic struggle of good vs. evil as you travel to a galaxy far, far away.

    --No particular night or morning --The city --The fire balloons --The last night of the world --The veldt --The long rain --The great fire --The wilderness --A sound of thunder --The murderer --The April witch --Invisible boy --The golden kite, the silver wind --The fog horn --The black black and white game --Embroidery --The golden apples of the sun --Powerhouse --Hail and farewell --The great wide world over there --The playground --Skeleton --The man upstairs --Touched with fire --The emissary --The jar --The small assasin --The next in line --Jack-in-the-box --The leave-taking --Exorcism --The happiness machine --Calling Mexico --The wonderful ice cream suit --Dark they were, and golden-eyed --The strawberry window --A scent of sarsaparilla --The Picasso summer --The day it rained forever --A medicine for melancholy --The shoreline at sunset --Fever dream --The town where no one got off --All summer in a day --Frost and fire --The anthem sprinters --And so died Riabouchinska --Boys! Raise giant mushrooms in your cellar! --The vacation --The illustrated woman --Some live like Lazarus --The best of all possible worlds --The one who waits --Tyrannosaurus Rex --The screaming woman --The terrible conflagration up at the place --Night call, collect --The tombling day --The haunting of the new --Tomorrow's child --I sing the body electric! --The women --The inspired chicken motel --Yes, we'll gather at the river --Have I got a chocolate bar for you! --A story of love --The parrot who met Papa --The October game --Punishment without crime --A piece of wood --The blue bottle --Long after midnight --The utterly perfect murder --The better part of wisdom --Interval in sunlight --The black ferris --Farewell summer --McGillahee's brat --The aqueduct --Gotcha! --The end of the beginning.

    found in a bottle --Silence-a fable --Berenice --William Wilson --Ligeia --The assignation --The facts in the case of M. Valdemar --The pit and the pendulum --The fall of the house of usher --The cask of amontillado --A descent into the maelström --The tell-tale heart --The black cat --The masque of the red death --The gold-bug --The murders in the rue morgue --The purloined letter.

    Written in the 1970s, and in a style geared more toward fantasy than the hardboiled prose of the Repairman Jack novels, "Demonsong" kicks off Wilson's massive Secret History of the World.

    Stockbroker Juliette Bishop gets more than she bargained for when she flies to New Orleans to handle a business matter for her ailing father and comes face to face with her former lover, the handsome, yet mysterious Andre Lescarbeau.* This Sweetblood World short story (dark vampire romance) was originally published in the Mammoth Book of Southern Gothic Romance.

    I had taken a pretty good step into the shadows tonight." It's payback time, in this short story by Joe R. Lansdale.

    And for the last of the line of Eld there may be no way out. Meanwhile, on Mid-World, Alain and Cuthbert desperately struggle to protect Roland's unconscious form, and themselves, against a pack of ravening wolves.

    We boys used to overrun the place, and I can still recall my youthful terror not only at the morbid strangeness of this sinister vegetation, but at the eldritch atmosphere and odor of the dilapidated house, whose unlocked front door was often entered in quest of shudders.

    This American Gods world novella will thrill Games of Thrones devotees and Terry Pratchett fans alike. Illustrations by celebrated artist Daniel Egnéus.'It followed me home,' he said, conversationally.In a rural northern village, legend tells of a ghostly black dog that appears from the darkness before you die.Shadow Moon has been on the road a while now but he can't walk any further tonight, not with the rain lashing down. Gratefully, he heads home with a nice English couple, who offer a box room, hot whisky and local tales.But when the man collapses en route, Shadow realises that something about this place has been left untold.Something ancient, something within the very walls of the village.Something shadowing them all.

    Among its pages are a couple who becomes obsessed with their friend hearing them have sex, then seeing them have sex…until they can’t have sex without him; a ten-year-old whose birthday party takes a sinister turn when she wishes for “something mean”; a woman who finds a book of spells half hidden at the library and summons her heart’s desire: a nameless, naked man; and a self-proclaimed “biter” who dreams of sneaking up behind and sinking her teeth into a green-eyed, long-haired, pink-cheeked coworker.Spanning a range of genres and topics—from the mundane to the murderous and supernatural—these are stories about sex and punishment, guilt and anger, the pleasure and terror of inflicting and experiencing pain. These stories fascinate and repel, revolt and arouse, scare and delight in equal measure. And, as a collection, they point a finger at you, daring you to feel uncomfortable—or worse, understood—as if to say, “You want this, right? You know you want this.”Bad boy --Look at your game, girl --Sardines --The night runner --The mirror, the bucket, and the old thigh bone --Cat person --The good guy --The boy in the pool --Scarred --The matchbox sign --Death wish --Biter --Acknowledgments

    Soon after her untimely death in 1965, Jackson’s children discovered a treasure trove of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, many of which are brought together in this remarkable collection. Here are tales of torment, psychological aberration, and the macabre, as well as those that display her lighter touch with humorous scenes of domestic life. Reflecting the range and complexity of Jackson’s talent, Just an Ordinary Day reaffirms her enduring influence and celebrates her singular voice, rich with magic and resonance.  Praise for Just an Ordinary Day   “Jackson at her best: plumbing the extraordinary from the depths of mid-twentieth-century common. [Just an Ordinary Day] is a gift to a new generation.”—San Francisco Chronicle  Praise for Shirley Jackson   “[Jackson’s] work exerts an enduring spell.”—Joyce Carol Oates   “Shirley Jackson’s stories are among the most terrifying ever written.”—Donna Tartt   “An amazing writer . . . If you haven’t read [Jackson] you have missed out on something marvelous.”—Neil Gaiman   “Shirley Jackson is unparalleled as a leader in the field of beautifully written, quiet, cumulative shudders.”—Dorothy Parker   “An author who not only writes beautifully but who knows what there is, in this world, to be scared of.”—Francine Prose   “The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable.”—A. M. Homes   “Jackson enjoyed notoriety and commercial success within her lifetime, and yet it still hardly seems like enough for a writer so singular. When I meet readers and other writers of my generation, I find that mentioning her is like uttering a holy name.”—Victor LaValle

    It tells the story of San Quentin death-row inmate Darrell Standing, who escapes the horror of prison life —and long stretches in a straitjacket— by withdrawing into vivid dreams of past lives, including incarnations as a French nobleman and an Englishman in medieval Korea. Based on the life and imprisonment of Jack London’s friend Ed Morrell, this is one of the author’s most complex and original works.

    His work bears special resonance for writers and readers, and yet his paintings never tell a story so much as they invite viewers to find for themselves the untold stories within."So says Lawrence Block, who has invited seventeen outstanding writers to join him in an unprecedented anthology of brand-new stories: In Sunlight or In Shadow. The results are remarkable and range across all genres, wedding literary excellence to storytelling savvy.Contributors include Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Olen Butler, Michael Connelly, Megan Abbott, Craig Ferguson, Nicholas Christopher, Jill D. Block, Joe R. Lansdale, Justin Scott, Kris Nelscott, Warren Moore, Jonathan Santlofer, Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, and Lawrence Block himself. Even Gail Levin, Hopper’s biographer and compiler of his catalogue raisonée, appears with her own first work of fiction, providing a true account of art theft on a grand scale and told in the voice of the country preacher who perpetrated the crime.In a beautifully produced anthology as befits such a collection of acclaimed authors, each story is illustrated with a quality full-color reproduction of the painting that inspired it.

    

     As Pope Benignus withers on his deathbed, conspiracies swirl across the empire. Bounty hunters and assassins flock to the frozen north, searching a city of thieves for an exiled politician while a storm of war and witchcraft brews on the horizon. As gambits play out, contenders die and the dominoes fall, a rare few will determine the course of history. Livia Serafini. Pious. Zealous. Driven. With her sights set upon her father's throne, Livia refuses to be a pawn of the conspirators that surround her. She'll risk it all to rise above the tempest and lead her people to peace. Her pure-hearted ambitions may cost more than she knows: her reputation, her life, even her very soul. Mari Renault. Honorable. Brutal. Lost. A war orphan from a land under a conqueror's yoke, Mari is haunted by the horrors of her past and an impossible dream of knighthood. When she finds her dark savior, she'll learn how dreams can come true...and how a ragged refugee girl can become a champion of the night. The Owl. Brilliant. Ruthless. Sadistic. The witch and her disciples, on a mission of vengeance, are lured into the battle for control of the papacy. Despite all of her well-laid plans, the Owl soon finds herself walking a strange and twisted road. One that pits her against the most deadly foe of all -- her own coven -- and rekindles passion in her ice-sheathed heart. Renata Nicci. Honest. Devoted. Daring. She's just a dockside tavern barmaid. That's what everyone tells her. That's all anyone ever expected her to be. But when her lover Felix is swept into a battle between banking families and the machinations of a criminal kingpin, she'll take up a blade and cross a war-ravaged land to save him. Four women, four lives on a collision course. When the dust settles, their world will never be the same...if anyone is still alive to see it. Collected for the first time, this omnibus includes all four books (roughly 400,000 words) of the Revanche Cycle: Winter's Reach, The Instruments of Control, Terms of Surrender, and Queen of the Night, all at a special box-set price.