In these stories of doubt, delusion, and paranoia, no belief, no claim to objectivity, is immune to the distortions of human perception. Here, self-deception is a means of justifying our most inhuman impulses--whether we know it or not.

    From Sir Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene" to E. M. Forster's "The Machine Stops", literature is filled with sexy, deadly, and downright twisted tales. In this collection, today's most acclaimed award-winning and bestselling authors reimagine their favorite classic stories and use their own unique styles to rebuild these timeless stories, the ones that have inspired, awed, and enraged them, the ones that have become ingrained in modern culture, and the ones that have been too long overlooked. They take these twelve stories and boil them down to their bones, and reassemble them for a new generation of readers. Written from a twenty-first century perspective and set within the realms of science fiction, dystopian fiction, fantasy, and realistic fiction, these short stories are as moving and thought provoking as their originators. They pay homage to groundbreaking literary achievements of the past while celebrating each author's unique perception and innovative style.Contents:Introduction: Rags & Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales (2013) • essay by Tim Pratt and Melissa MarrThat the Machine May Progress Eternally (2013) / shortfiction by Carrie Ryan, inspired by E.M. Forster's The Machine StopsThe King of Elfland's Daughter (2013) • interior artwork by Charles VessLosing Her Divinity [Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz] (2013) / shortfiction by Garth Nix, inspired by The Man Who Would Be KingThe Sleeper and the Spindle (2013) / novelette by Neil Gaiman, inspired by Sleeping BeautyKai Lung's Golden Hours (2013) • interior artwork by Charles VessThe Cold Corner (2013) / shortfiction by Tim Pratt, inspired by Henry James' The Jolly CornerMillcara (2013) / shortfiction by Holly Black, inspired by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's CarmillaFigures of Earth (2013) • interior artwork by Charles VessWhen First We Were Gods (2013) / shortfiction by Rick Yancey, inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne's The BirthmarkSirocco (2013) / shortfiction by Margaret Stohl, inspired by Horace Walpole's The Castle of OtrantoThe Shaving of Shagpat (2013) • interior artwork by Charles VessAwakened (2013) / shortfiction by Melissa Marr, inspired by Kate Chopin's The AwakeningNew Chicago (2013) / shortfiction by Kelley Armstrong, inspired by W. W. Jacob's The Monkey's PawThe Wood Beyond the World (2013) • interior artwork by Charles VessThe Soul Collector (2013) / shortfiction by Kami Garcia, inspired by the Brothers Grimm's RumpelstiltskinWithout Faith, Without Law, Without Joy (2013) / shortfiction by Saladin Ahmed, inspired by Sir Edmund Spenser's Faerie QueeneGoblin Market (2013) • interior artwork by Charles VessUncaged (2013) / shortfiction by Gene Wolf, inspired by William Seabrook's The Caged White Werewolf..

    In Homecoming, the Brennans run Quentin's restaurant in Dublin for the owner, who lives abroad. But what will happen when he suddenly pays a visit? Telling Stories sees Irene's fiancÈ turning up the night before the wedding with a face as white as the dress that is to be worn the next day. Then trouble starts... In Needy, Heather is painfully aware that Valentine's Day declarations of love should be viewed with suspicion, even if the sender is the one she loves. And in The Interview, Bessie is deaf and needs a place in a special school. But will she pass the interview?

    Master of the short story form, Edgar Allan Poe composed tales of terror, horror, death, ruin, murder, and revenge. Many of the sixty-eight tales included in this collection—"The Pit and the Pendulum," "The Black Cat," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Masque of the Red Death," and "The Tell-Tale Heart," for example—have become landmarks of our literature. Poe also wrote the world's first detective story, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," which introduced C. Auguste Dupin, the paragon of that now ubiquitous modern character: the thinking man's sleuth. This volume also includes Poe's novella The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, an unearthly sea adventure replete with shipwrecks, ghastly specters and the eternal lure of the unknown.

    Menacing and at times darkly humorous there are echoes of Roald Dahl and Daphne du Maurier in these stories, many of which have been specially commissioned for Radio 4.From the commuter who bitterly regrets falling asleep on a late-night train in Last Train to Helsingør, to the mushroom hunter prepared to kill to guard her secret in The Chanterelles of Østvig.Here, the land of ‘hygge’ becomes one of twilight and shadows, as canny antique dealers and property sharks get their comeuppance at the handsof old ladies in Conning Mrs Vinterberg, and ghosts go off-script in TheWailing Girl.Scandi noir at its finest.

    Mystery, horror, science fiction, and fantasy stories have all been written about cats.From legendary editor Ellen Datlow comes Tails of Wonder and Imagination, showcasing forty cat tales by some of today’s most popular authors. With uncollected stories by Stephen King, Carol Emshwiller, Tanith Lee, Peter S. Beagle, Elizabeth Hand, Dennis Danvers, and Theodora Goss and a previously unpublished story by Susanna Clarke, plus feline-centric fiction by Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, George R.R. Martin, Lucius Shepard, Joyce Carol Oates, Graham Joyce, Catherynne M. Valente, Michael Marshall Smith, and many others.Tails of Wonder and Imagination features more than 200,000 words of stories in which cats are heroes and stories in which they’re villains; tales of domestic cats, tigers, lions, mythical part-cat beings, people transformed into cats, cats transformed into people. And yes, even a few cute cats.Table of Contents:"Through the Looking Glass (excerpt)" - Lewis Carroll"No Heaven Will Not Ever Heaven Be..." - A. R. Morlan"The Price" - Neil Gaiman"Dark Eyes, Faith, and Devotion" - Charles de Lint"Not Waving" - Michael Marshall Smith"Catch" - Ray Vukcevich"The Manticore Spell" - Jeffrey Ford"Catskin" - Kelly Link"Mieze Corrects an Incomplete Representation of Reality" - Michaela Roessner"Guardians" - George R. R. Martin"Life Regarded as a Jigsaw Puzzle of Highly Lustrous Cats" - Michael Bishop"Gordon, the Self-Made Cat" - Peter S. Beagle"The Jaguar Hunter" - Lucius Shepard"Arthur's Lion" - Tanith Lee"Pride" - Mary A. Turzillo"The Burglar Takes a Cat" - Lawrence Block"The White Cat" - Joyce Carol Oates"Returns" - Jack Ketchum"Puss-Cat" - Reggie Oliver"Cat in Glass" - Nancy Etchemendy"Coyote Peyote" - Carole Nelson Douglas"The Poet and the Inkmaker's Daughter" - Elizabeth Hand"The Night of the Tiger" - Stephen King"Every Angel is Terrifying" - John Kessel"Candia" - Graham Joyce"Mbo" - Nicholas Royle"Bean Bag Cats(R)" - Edward Bryant"Antiquities" - John Crowley"The Manticore's Tale" - Catherynne M. Valente"In Carnation" - Nancy Springer"Old Foss is the Name of His Cat" - David Sandner"A Safe Place to Be" - Carol Emshwiller"Nine Lives to Live" - Sharyn McCrumb"Tiger Kill" - Kaaron Warren"Something Better than Death" - Lucy Sussex"Dominion" - Christine Lucas"Tiger in the Snow" - Daniel Wynn Barber"The Dweller in High Places" - Susanna Clarke"Healing" - Benjamin Dennis Danvers"The Puma" - Theodora Goss

    But as he prepares to even the score with those responsible for his demise, he unwittingly finds an ally in a dark and malevolent force that grants him supernatural powers. Frank takes his revenge in the most ghastly ways imaginable - but there will be a terrible price to pay once his work is done.Destined to be a cult classic, this tale of corporate horror and demonic retribution will strike a chord with anyone who has ever been disgruntled at work. Also contains the stories "I Have A Special Plan For This World" and "The Nightmare Network".

    Here, a man acts rashly and life-threateningly to ensure he wins a prize . . .Dip in the Pool is taken from the short story collection Someone Like You, which includes seventeen other devious and shocking stories, featuring the wife who serves a dish that baffles the police; a curious machine that reveals the horrifying truth about plants; the man waiting to be bitten by the venomous snake asleep on his stomach; and others.'The absolute master of the twist in the tale.' (Observer )This story is also available as a Penguin digital audio download read by Adrian Scarborough.Roald 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.

    P. Lovecraft into calling him "perhaps unexcelled by any other writer, dead or living” or compel Fritz Lieber to employ the worthy term sui generis. Clark Ashton Smith—autodidact, prolific poet, amateur philosopher, bizarre sculptor, and unmatched storyteller—simply wrote like no one else, before or since. This new collection of his very best tales and poems is selected and introduced by supernatural literature scholar S. T. Joshi and allows readers to encounter Smith’s visionary brand of fantastical, phantasmagorical worlds, each one filled with invention, terror, and a superlative sense of metaphysical wonder.

    In "Bird Superior," for example, a plane-crash survivor trades his memory of the crash for the ability to fly. "Angels in Love" is the story of Lurleen, a washed-out woman trapped in a meaningless cycle of dead-end work, singles bars, and solitude. She lives vicariously by eavesdropping on Anne, a neighbor who seems to have found the passion and sexual satisfaction that eludes Lurleen. Upon meeting Anne, however, she discovers an even more meaningless life: Anne has made the ultimate trade, exchanging her soul for physical fulfillment. In "The Ballad of the Spanish Civil Guard," an imprisoned poet who writes on behalf of the dispossessed shares the last moments of his life with the reader. Although the location of the prison is unclear, the scene recalls the Franco regime. The poet chooses to die rather than face a life without his writing, but, in his final seconds, he takes solace that his remains may one day form the body of a new poet. Contents:Angels in Love (1991)Arrangement for Invisible Voices (1993)Ballad of the Spanish Civil Guard (1993)Bird Superior (1991)Bondage (1998)Illusions in Relief (1990)Jubilee (1995)Lady Lazarus (1996)Pas de Deux (1995)Queen of Angels (1994)Reckoning (1990)Teratisms (1991)The Company of Storms (1992)The Disquieting Muse (1994)The Neglected Garden (1991)Waking the Prince (1995)

    These tales are richly populated by spirits and ghosts seeking revenge; by grief-stricken women and haunted men coming to terms with their destiny - all rooted deep in the elemental landscapes of Sussex, Brittany and the Languedoc.The collection will include The Mistletoe Bride, La Fille de Melisande, Red Letter Day, The Lending Library, The House on the Hill...

    There’s a village sixty miles outside London. It’s no different from many other villages in England: one pub, one church, red-brick cottages, council cottages and a few bigger houses dotted about. Voices rise up, as they might do anywhere, speaking of loving and needing and working and dying and walking the dogs.This village belongs to the people who live in it and to the people who lived in it hundreds of years ago. It belongs to England’s mysterious past and its confounding present. But it also belongs to Dead Papa Toothwort, a figure schoolchildren used to draw green and leafy, choked by tendrils growing out of his mouth. Dead Papa Toothwort is awake. He is listening to this twenty-first-century village, to his English symphony. He is listening, intently, for a mischievous, enchanting boy whose parents have recently made the village their home. Lanny.

    Recipe for death – Sam learns an important lesson about ticking off the lunch lady.Monitor Mayhem – There's something strange about the new baby monitor, but will Stephanie figure it out before it's too late?Free Five Chapter Extended Preview of Super Zombie Juice Mega Bomb:When life gives you lemons, kill zombies—turns out lemon juice neutralizes the undead. Best friends Nathan & Misty return home to discover the military has destroyed the bridges out of their rural town & everyone's fled—except a small horde of zombies.Even with the help of the town geek, they'll need more then lemonade-powered Super-Soakers; they'll need the Super Zombie Juice Mega Bomb. These stories are not recommended for kids under 8.

    But with the master storyteller Josh Malerman as your tour guide, you'll discover the secrets that hide behind its closed doors. These six novellas tell the story of a place where the rain is always falling, nighttime is always near, and your darkest fears and desires await. Welcome to Goblin. . . .A Man in Slices: A man proves his "legendary love" to his girlfriend with a sacrifice even more daring than Vincent van Gogh's--and sends her more than his heart.Kamp: Walter Kamp is afraid of everything, but most afraid of being scared to death. As he sets traps around his home to catch the ghosts that haunt him, he learns that nothing is more terrifying than fear itself.Happy Birthday, Hunter!: A famed big-game hunter is determined to capture--and kill--the ultimate prey: the mythic Great Owl who lives in Goblin's dark forests. But this mysterious creature is not the only secret the woods are keeping.Presto: All Peter wants is to be like his hero, Roman Emperor, the greatest magician in the world. When the famous magician comes to Goblin, Peter discovers that not all magic is just an illusion.A Mix-Up at the Zoo: The new zookeeper feels a mysterious kinship with the animals in his care . . . and finds that his work is freeing dark forces inside him.The Hedges: When his wife dies, a man builds a hedge maze so elaborate no one ever solves it--until a little girl resolves to be the first to find the mysteries that wait at its heart.

    As Scheherazade spun out her bedtime stories to save her life, the narrator of On with the Story spins out his to postpone The End, and to explore en route - wittily, mournfully, tenderly - love in modern life and postmodern literature. As the narrative cycles through the lifescapes of his subjects' stories, Barth affords a view both panoramic and microscopic of our own landscape. With eye and pen both sharp and beautiful he depicts love ranging from the obsessively puppy through the sophisticatedly fatigued, the delusionally murderous, even the quantum-physical, to the superbly fulfilled.