. . OPERATOR ASSISTED CALLS ARE CHARGED AT A HIGHER RATE. Mr. Parkworthy had a score to settle with the telephone company, and he was a man used to getting his own way. But he should have remembered that it is not polite to be rude to a lady . . . especially when the lady is Ma Bell.THE METROGNOME. Charlie Dimsdale was only a little man in the company that ran New York City's subways . . . until some odd little denizens of the city's subterranean tunnels showed him who was really in charge!THE TESSELATED TETRAHEXAHEDRAL YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS. Country people in America are a fair but mighty independent bunch. So when some government scientists rudely demanded that the Shattucks turn over the UFO that crashed on their Texas ranch, the Shattucks became a bit obstinate. Besides, the shining little spacecraft looked real cute hanging on the barn with the Christmas decorations.COLLECTIBLE. When young Pearl's life was collapsing around her, she could always find comfort in her extensive collection of dragon memorabilia -- but some youngsters are more fragile than others, and dragons can be deadly.Plus eleven more stories!

    Terrifying urban myths, malicious ghosts, cursed architecture, malignant city deities, personal demons (in business or relationships) twisted into something worse virtually anything that inspires the contributors to imagine some bit of urban darkness."

    Thematic collection of 12 stories based around the theme of urban decay.# From Out of the Angry Ruins • Philip Nutman • introduction# • Godflesh • # • Childhood at the Lost and Found • # • Androgyny • # • In a Roadhouse Far, Past the Edge of Town • # • Naked Lunchmeat •# • Cancer Causes Rats •# • Mostly Cloudy, Chance of Kurt •# • Heartsick • # • Extinctions in Paradise •# • The Meat in the Machine •# • Extract • # • Liturgical Music for Nihilists •# • Endnotes: The Ticking of an Unfriendly Clock

    They represent more than 150 year's worth of writing, and include the greats: H.P. Lovecraft ("The Terrible Old Man"), Ambrose Bierce ("The Stranger"), Lafcadio Hearn ("A Dead Secret"), Oscar Wilde ("The Sphinx Without a Secret"), and J. Sheridan Le Fanu ("The Ghost and the Bone-Setter"). Best of all, a variety of human emotions and behavior come to the fore, from avarice (August Derleth's "Pacific 421") to revenge (Thorp McCluskey's "Black Gold"), from jealousy (Steve Rasnic Tem's "Daddy") to honor (Edith Nesbit's "John Charrington's Wedding") to love (Darrell Schwietzer's "Clocks"). Using a minimum of elements, each ghost story in this collection will entertain, captivate, and evoke a powerful response in readers. So be warned: you might not want to read these while you're all alone in the house...

    We are none of us monsters. Through the work of twenty-six writers, emerging to award-winning and masters of their craft, The Humanity of Monsters plumbs the depths of humane monsters, monstrous humans, and the interstices between. Monstrous heralds of change, the sight of whom only children can survive. Monsters born of the battlefield, in gunfire and frost and blood, clothed in too-familiar flesh. Monsters, human and otherwise, born of fear, and love, and retribution all, wrapped tight and inextricable one from the other: the Fallen outside of time, lovers and monsters in borrowed skin, and creatures from beyond the stars and humans who have travelled to them. Dreams of lost and siren-song depths - of other half-held, half-remembered lives. And the things we have survived, and the things we might yet survive, in the face of greater, eviscerating loss. In stories by turns surreal, sublime, brutal, and haunting, there are no easy answers to be found, no simple nor uncomplicated labels to be had. Only the surety that though there be monsters, you will name them false. And when you meet those who truly are, you will not know them.“Tasting Gomoa” by Chinelo Onwualu“Dead Sea Fruit” by Kaaron Warren“The Bread We Eat in Dreams” by Catherynne M. Valente“The Emperor’s Old Bones” by Gemma Files“The Things” by Peter Watts“muo-ka’s Child” by Indrapramit Das“Six” by Leah Bobet“The Nazir” by Sofia Samatar“A Handful of Earth” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia“In Winter” by Sonya Taaffe“Ghostweight” by Yoon Ha Lee“How to Talk to Girls at Parties” by Neil Gaiman“Night They Missed the Horror Show” by Joe Lansdale“If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love” by Rachel Swirsky“Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream” by Maria Dahvana Headley“The Horse Latitudes” by Sunny Moraine“Boyfriend and Shark” by Berit Ellingsen“Never the Same” by Polenth Blake“Mantis Wives” by Kij Johnson“Proboscis” by Laird Barron“Out They Come” by Alex Dally MacFarlane“and Love shall have no Dominion” by Livia Llewellyn“You Go Where It Takes You” by Nathan Ballingrud“Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife” by A.C. Wise“Theories of Pain” by Rose Lemberg“Terrible Lizards” by Meghan McCarron

    Like a slow, insidious virus they spread from house to house, building to building, from graveyard to bedroom and cellar to boardroom. They are ancient and deathless, sun-shy and bloodthirsty. For millennia their vile compulsion kept them in the darkest corners of the human imagination. But the dark-hearted hoardes are conquerers now, and those who survive are forced to liveUNDER THE FANGIn this unparalleled feast for the imagination, America's premier horror writers have created a world of vampirism run amok. From Moscow to Tokyo, New York to Los Angeles, vampire kingdoms rise and fall; their unholy religions, fiendish science and depraved entertainments hold ghastly sway. Come share this terrifying vision of a future...Their time never passes. Their time is now...Contains:The Miracle Mile - Robert R. McCammonDancing Nitely - Nancy A. CollinsStoker's Mistress - Clint CollinsDoes the Blood Line Run on Time? - Sidney Williams and Robert PetittRed Eve - Al SarrantonioWe are Dead Together - Charles de LintCalm Sea and Prosperous Voyage - Chet WilliamsonAdvocates - Suzy McKee Charnas and Chelsea Quinn YarbroSpecial - Richard LaymonHerrenrasse - J.N. WilliamsonDuty - Ed GormanMidnight Sun - Brian HodgeA Bloodsucker - David N. Meyer IIIProdigal Sun - Thomas F. MonteleoneThere are No Nightclubs in East Palo Alto - Clifford V. BrooksJuice - Lisa W. CantrellBehind Enemy Lines - Dan Perez

    The girl detective must go to the underworld to solve the case of the tap-dancing bank robbers. A librarian falls in love with a girl whose father collects artificial noses. A dead man posts letters home to his estranged wife. Two women named Louise begin a series of consecutive love affairs with a string of cellists. A newly married couple become participants in an apocalyptic beauty pageant. Sexy blond aliens invade New York City. A young girl learns how to make herself disappear.These eleven extraordinary stories are quirky, spooky, and smart. They all have happy endings. Every story contains a secret prize. Each story was written especially for you.Stories from Stranger Things Happen have won the Nebula, Tiptree, and World Fantasy Award. Stranger Things Happen was a Salon Book of the Year, one of the Village Voice's 25 Favorite Books of 2001, and was nominated for the Firecracker Alternative Book Award.Contents:- Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1998)- Water Off a Black Dog's Back (1995)- The Specialist's Hat (1998)- Flying Lessons (1995)- Travels with the Snow Queen (1996/1997)- Vanishing Act (1996)- Survivor's Ball, or, The Donner Party (1998)- Shoe and Marriage (2000)- Most of My Friends Are Two-Thirds Water (2001)- Louise's Ghost (2001)- The Girl Detective (1999)Cover painting by Shelley Jackson

    Featuring new fiction by Mary Robinette Kowal, E. Lily Yu, Shveta Thakrar, Charlie Jane Anders, Delilah S. Dawson, and Sarah Monette, classic fiction by Scott Lynch, essays by Natalie Luhrs, Sofia Samatar, Michael R. Underwood, and Caitlín Rosberg, poetry by C. S. E. Cooney, Bryan Thao Worra, and Sonya Taaffe, interviews with E. Lily Yu and Delilah S. Dawson by Deborah Stanish, a cover by Antonio Caparo, and an editoral by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas.

    No longer the purview of esoteric readers, weird fiction is enjoying wide popularity. Chiefly derived from early 20th-century pulp fiction, its remit includes ghost stories, the strange and macabre, the supernatural, fantasy, myth, philosophical ontology, ambiguity, and a healthy helping of the outré. At its best, weird fiction is an intersecting of themes and ideas that explore and subvert the Laws of Nature. It is not confined to one genre, but is the most diverse and welcoming of all genres. Hence, in this initial showcase of weird fiction you will discover tales of horror, fantasy, science fiction, the supernatural, and the macabre. Contributing authors include Jeffrey Ford, Sofia Samatar, Joseph S. Pulver Sr, John Langan, Richard Gavin, and W. H. Pugmire.

    A young and beautiful, starving artist catches a break when her idol, the reclusive portraitist John Ransome offers her a lucrative modeling contract. But how long will her excitement last when she discovers the fate shared by all Ransome's past subjects?The Things They Left Behind by Stephen King: A hauntingly moving tale of survival guilt in New York City after 9/11. Scott Staley called in sick for his job at the World Trade Center that Tuesday morning. Now in the aftermath of 9/11, he must face his guilty conscience as he begins to find the things his deceased coworkers left behind.

    S. Lewis’s adult religious books, a repackaged edition of the revered author’s definitive collection of short fiction, which explores enduring spiritual and science fiction themes such as space, time, reality, fantasy, God, and the fate of humankind.From C.S. Lewis—the great British writer, scholar, lay theologian, broadcaster, Christian apologist, and author of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many other beloved classics—comes a collection of his dazzling short fiction.This collection of futuristic fiction includes a breathtaking science fiction story written early in his career in which Cambridge intellectuals witness the breach of space-time through a chronoscope—a telescope that looks not just into another world, but into another time. As powerful, inventive, and profound as his theological and philosophical works, The Dark Tower reveals another side of Lewis’s creative mind and his longtime fascination with reality and spirituality. It is ideal reading for fans of J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis’s longtime friend and colleague.

    These underlying myths and fantasies exist not as musty old stories but as ancient truths that have come to illuminate the modern human condition. The title story touches on themes of grief, redemption, and time travel; "Cold Fire" ventures into love and obsession; and "Peace on Suburbia" introduces readers to a Christmas with an entirely different kind of savior. These and 13 other tales are framed by four interludes—Dreams, Nightmares, Waking, and Rising—that guide readers through a world that is at once familiar and eerily off-kilter.