Sprague de Camp77 • The Flight of the Horse • [Svetz] • (1969) • shortstory by Larry Niven (aka Get a Horse!)96 • On the Downhill Side • (1972) • shortstory by Harlan Ellison116 • The Night of the Unicorn • (1975) • shortstory by Thomas Burnett Swann124 • Mythological Beast • (1979) • shortstory by Stephen R. Donaldson149 • The Final Quarry • (1970) • novelette by Eric Norden176 • Elfleda • (1981) • shortstory by Vonda N. McIntyre193 • The White Donkey • (1980) • shortstory by Ursula K. Le Guin198 • Unicorn Variation • (1981) • novelette by Roger Zelazny231 • The Sacrifice • (1982) • shortstory by Gardner Dozois236 • The Unicorn • (1952) • shortstory by Frank Owen247 • The Woman the Unicorn Loved • [Anderson] • (1981) • novelette by Gene Wolfe271 • The Forsaken • (1982) • shortstory by Beverly Evans286 • The Unicorn • (1939) • shortfiction by T. H. White307 • Selected Bibliography (Unicorns!) • (1982) • essay by uncredited

    From a woman who marries into a family of volatile wizards to a couple fleeing a gang of love-hungry cupids, from a girl who seeks sanctuary in the form of a graceful goose to the disgruntled superhero Captain Housework, readers will revel in the many twists and turns of fortune in these fantastical fairy tales and lush parables. Even hardened vampire hunter and zombie animator Anita Blake gets blindsided by the disturbing motives of her clients in the new "Those Who Seek Forgiveness" and in "The Girl Who Was Infatuated with Death."

    Dragons and hateful spirits haunt the flooded city of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a parallel universe, a utopian society watches our world, trying to learn from our mistakes. A black mother in the Jim Crow south must figure out how to save her daughter from a fey offering impossible promises. And in the Hugo award-nominated short story “The City Born Great,” a young street kid fights to give birth to an old metropolis’s soul.

    As A.S. Byatt renders this relationship with a powerful combination of erudition and passion, she makes the interaction of the natural and the supernatural seem not only convincing, but inevitable.The companion stories in this collection each display different facets of Byatt's remarkable gift for enchantment. They range from fables of sexual obsession to allegories of political tragedy; they draw us into narratives that are as mesmerizing as dreams and as bracing as philosophical meditations; and they all us to inhabit an imaginative universe astonishing in the precision of its detail, its intellectual consistency, and its splendor.

    Yolen fractures the classics to reveal their crystalline secrets, holding them to the light and presenting them entirely transformed, from a spinner of straw as a money-changer and to the big bad wolf retiring to a nursing home. Rediscover the fables you once knew, rewritten and refined for the world we now live in.

    "First Flight" is a finalist for the 2010 Locus Award.The winner of the 2008 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of short fiction published in Strange Horizons, Cosmos, and Asimov's. Her first novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, will be published by Tor in 2010.

    This short story contains a spoiler for book 1.Sicarius, the emperor’s personal assassin, returns from a successful mission only to discover that the enemy is retaliating by sending an assassin of their own. The target? Five-year-old Prince Sespian.Shadows over Innocence is a 4,500-word short story set fourteen years before the first Emperor’s Edge novel. It is available for free on the author’s website: http://www.lindsayburoker.com/Shadows...

    Now Kuznia returns with A Fantasy Medley 2, offering absorbing new tales of the fantastic from four of the brightest stars in the field:With “Quartered,” Tanya Huff returns to the world of her beloved Quarters series with the story of the young bard Evicka, whose mission to spy on an assassin brings peril, tragedy, and, ultimately, revelation.In “Bone Garden,” Amanda Downum revisits Erisín, setting of her critically lauded novel The Bone Palace from the Necromancer Chronicles. Deadly spirits are preying on the city’s most vulnerable citizens in this story of secrets and sacrifice.“The Sergeant and the General” finds Jasper Kent weaving a tale from the other side of the battle lines drawn in his Danilov Quintet, with a French veteran of Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign haunted by more than just memories.And in “Rat-Catcher,” Seanan McGuire travels into the past of the October Daye series to pull back the veils on both the world of 17th century London theater and the faerie Court of Cats as two worlds collide in one of the greatest conflagrations in history.

    A number of wonderful fantasy novels, including Stardust by Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, and The Prestige by Christopher Priest, owe their inspiration to works by nineteenth-century writers ranging from Jane Austen, the Brontës, and George Meredith to Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, and William Morris. And, of course, the entire steampunk genre and subculture owes more than a little to literature inspired by this period.Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells is an anthology for everyone who loves these works of neo-Victorian fiction, and wishes to explore the wide variety of ways that modern fantasists are using nineteenth-century settings, characters, and themes. These approaches stretch from steampunk fiction to the Austen-and-Trollope inspired works that some critics call Fantasy of Manners, all of which fit under the larger umbrella of Gaslamp Fantasy. The result is eighteen stories by experts from the fantasy, horror, mainstream, and young adult fields, including both bestselling writers and exciting new talents such as Elizabeth Bear, James Blaylock, Jeffrey Ford, Ellen Kushner, Tanith Lee, Gregory Maguire, Delia Sherman, and Catherynne M. Valente, who present a bewitching vision of a nineteenth century invested (or cursed!) with magic.The Line-up:“Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells” by Delia Sherman“The Fairy Enterprise” by Jeffrey Ford“From the Catalogue of the Pavilion of the Uncanny and Marvelous, Scheduled for Premiere at the Great Exhibition (Before the Fire)” by Genevieve Valentine“The Memory Book” by Maureen McHugh“La Reine D’Enfer” by Kathe Koja“Briar Rose” by Elizabeth Wein“The Governess” by Elizabeth Bear“Smithfield” by James P. Blaylock“The Unwanted Women of Surrey” by Kaaron Warren“Charged” by Leanna Renee Hieber“Mr. Splitfoot” by Dale Bailey“Phosphorus” by Veronica Schanoes“We Without Us Were Shadows” by Catherynne M. Valente“The Vital Importance of the Superficial” by Ellen Kushner and Caroline Stevermer“The Jewel in the Toad Queen’s Crown” by Jane Yolen“A Few Twigs He Left Behind” by Gregory Maguire“Their Monstrous Minds” by Tanith Lee“Estella Saves the Village” by Theodora Goss

    Serling was a serious admirer of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, and he scoured every magazine and collection available to find stories suitable for his series. This anthology showcases almost every original story that had been adapted into an episode. The result is a masterful collection of 30 classic tales by Richard Matheson (who also wrote the warmly nostalgic introduction), Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury, Damon Knight, Lewis Padgett, Jerome Bixby, and Manly Wade Wellman, among others. Fans of The Twilight Zone will enjoy revisiting their favorite episodes in literary form, but even if you've never seen the show, you'll enjoy this fine anthology. --Stanley WiaterCONTENTSPreface · Carol Serling · prIntroduction · Richard Matheson · inOne for the Angels · Anne Serling-Sutton·Perchance to Dream Charles BeaumontDisappearing Act · Richard Matheson Time Enough at Last · Lynn A. Venable · What You Need · Lewis Padgett · Third from the Sun · Richard Matheson · Elegy · Charles Beaumont · Brothers Beyond the Void · Paul W. Fairman · The Howling Man [as by C. B. Lovehill] · Charles Beaumont · It’s a Good Life · Jerome Bixby · The Valley Was Still · Manly Wade Wellman · The Jungle · Charles Beaumont ·To Serve Man · Damon Knight ·Little Girl Lost · Richard Matheson · Four O’Clock · Price Day · I Sing the Body Electric! [“The Beautiful One Is Here”] · Ray Bradbury · The Changing of the Guard · Anne Serling-Sutton · In His Image [“The Man Who Made Himself”] · Charles BeaumontMute · Richard Matheson ·Death Ship · Richard Matheson · The Devil, You Say? · Charles Beaumont ·Blind Alley · Malcolm Jameson · Song for a Lady · Charles Beaumont ·Steel · Richard Matheson · Nightmare at 20,000 Feet · Richard Matheson ·The Old Man · Henry Slesar · The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross · Henry Slesar · The Beautiful People · Charles Beaumont · Long Distance Call [“Sorry, Right Number”] · Richard Matheson · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge · Ambrose Bierce

    In 1633 Al-Shouf, a mother keeps demons at bay with the combined power of grief and music. In 1775 Paris, as social tensions come to a boil, a courtesan tries to save the woman she loves. In 1838 Georgia, a pregnant woman's desperate escape from slavery comes with a terrible price. In 1900 Ilocos Norte, a forest spirit helps a young girl defend her land from American occupiers. These gripping stories have been passed down through the generations, hidden between the lines of journal entries and love letters. Now 27 of today's finest authors – including Tananarive Due, Sofia Samatar, Ken Liu, Victor LaValle, Nnedi Okorafor, and Sabrina Vourvoulias – reveal the people whose lives have been pushed to the margins of history.

    She also has a smart mouth, sharp wits and mysterious markings on her skin. All of which make her perfect bait for a child prostitution sting in the city of Elantra - if she survives her first meeting with the Hawks!Join Kaylin for more adventures in the Chronicles of Elantra.Cast in Moonlight can be read in the anthology Harvest Moon.

    But construction work on the site of an old church in south London releases a centuries-old plague that turns its victims into flesh-hungry ghouls whose bite or scratch passes the contagion - a supernatural virus which has the power to revive the dead - on to others.'The Death' soon sweeps across London and the whole country descends into chaos. When a drastic attempt to eradicate the outbreak at source fails, the plague spreads quickly to mainland Europe and then across the rest of the world.Told through a series of interconnected eyewitness narratives - text messages, e-mails, blogs, letters, diaries and transcripts - this is an epic story of a world plunged into chaos as the dead battle the living for total domination.

    Truly, Madly, UndeadlyThis irresistible collection features stories of love amid vampires by five of today's hottest authors—Kristin Cast (Tempted), Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy), Alyson Noël (Evermore), Kelley Armstrong (The Summoning), and Francesca Lia Block (Pretty Dead).From a fugitive vampire forced to trust a boy who might work for the group bent on destroying her to the legendary romance of two immortals whose love compels them to risk everything, this heart-pounding collection brings new meaning to the words "love you forever." Whether you're into romances that are dark and moody or light and fun, these stories will quench that insatiable thirst for enchanting tales of the beautiful undead.Part of the Kisses from Hell Anthology

    Here for the first time are his short stories and other short form fiction collected into one volume. A Blink of the Screen charts the course of Pratchett's long writing career: from his schooldays through to his first writing job on the Bucks Free Press,; to the origins of his debut novel, The Carpet People; and on again to the dizzy mastery of the phenomenally successful Discworld series.Here are characters both familiar and yet to be discovered; abandoned worlds and others still expanding; adventure, chickens, death, disco and, actually, some quite disturbing ideas about Christmas,all of it shot through with his inimitable brand of humour.With an introduction by Booker Prize-winning author A.S. Byatt, illustrations by the late Josh Kirby and drawings by the author himself, this is a book to treasure.