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This psychologically complex science-fiction novel focuses on a sensitive adolescent making the difficult transition from childhood into adolescent sexuality and adult society. A boy, fleeing a bullying classmate, inadvertently makes first contact with a race of aliens who live beneath the surface of his planet. Exploring such subjects as the dynamics of dysfunctional families and human society's greed-based political system, the book has eerie psychological undercurrents and tells an emotionally compelling and surprisingly sensual story.

On a dangerous journey from fabled Baghdad to the desolate mountains of Armenia, a caravan of soldiers and diplomats is stalked by a mysterious "vampyr". Only by telling stories of magic and enchantment can the men forestall the demon's deadly thirst. But the vampire's own story is stranger than any mere mortal can imagine. . . .

Collection of 19 stories with an introduction by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Kiriki by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
• "Voices in a Shelter Home"
• "Waiting for the Hunger"
• "The Glass Mountain"
• "Lost Lives"
• "The Open Air My Grave"
• "Variations on a Scream"
• "A Night Out"
• "The Black Knitting Needle"
• "Echoes and Mirrors"
• "A Step Into Darkness"
• "Housewife"
• "Compandroid"
• "Little Once"
• "Hushabye"
• "Family Tree"
• "Out of Hand"
• "Rumors of Greatness"
• "Exact Change"
• "Courting Disasters"

This shot story originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, June 2010. It can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 16 (2011), edited by David G. Hartwell, and Clarkesworld: Year Four (2013), edited by Sean Wallace and Neil Clarke.

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

With all the places ghosts could go, why do they keep hanging around me?

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

WFA, Sturgeon and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 1995. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Ninth Annual Collection (1996), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, and Season of Wonder (2012) edited Paula Guran. It is included in the collection Permeable Borders (2012).

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, September 2012.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Table of Contnents:

• Key Signatures - (1996) - shortstory
• The Weight of Wishes - (2006) - novelette
• How I Came to Marry a Herpetologist - (1999) - shortstory
• Strikes of the Heart - (2005) - novelette
• Switched - (2004) - novelette
• Sourheart - (1993) - shortstory
• Inner Child - (1996) - shortstory
• Home for Christmas - (1995) - novella
• Anger Management - shortstory
• Trees Perpetual of Sleep - (1995) - shortstory
• Hostile Takeover - (2007) - shortstory
• Here We Come A-Wandering - (1996) - novelette
• The Wisdom of Disaster - (2005) - shortstory
• A Fault Against the Dead - (2003) - shortstory
• The Trouble with the Truth - (2008) - shortstory
• Gone to Heaven Shouting - (1998) - novelette

This short story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May-June 2017. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2018, edited by Rich Horton.

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, August 1993. The story is included in the colleciton Time Travelers, Ghosts, and Other Visitors (2003).

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (2003) - essay by Leslie What
• The Skeleton Key - (1993) - novella
• Objects of Desire - (1998) - shortstory
• Unleashed - (1991) - shortstory
• Mint Condition - (2001) - novelette
• Night Life - (2000) - shortstory
• Entertaining Possibilities - (2003) - shortstory
• Toobychubbies - (1999) - shortstory
• Haunted Humans - (1994) - novella
• Egg Shells - (2000) - shortstory
• About the Author - (2003) - essay

A Nebula Award-winning short story. Originally published in the anthology Fellowship Fantastic (2008), edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes. It can also be found in the Nebula Awards Showcase 2010, edited by Bill Fawcett.

Alanna and Ylva have a bond that lets them see through each other's eyes and speak with each other's mouths. They are in the rescue business, and they have a new client.

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Introduction (Legacy of Fire) - (1990) - essay
• 7 - A Legacy of Fire - (1989) - novelette
• 41 - Drawing on the Kitchen Table - (1983) - short story
• 47 - Savage Breasts - (1988) - short story
• 57 - Tremors - (1984) - short story
• 67 - Universal Donor - (1989) - short story
• 75 - The Black Knitting Needle - (1990) - short story
• 83 - Measuring Up to Shadows - (1985) - short story
• 95 - Coming Home - (1990) - short story
• 107 - Works of Art - (1988) - short story

When Laura Bolte, the rebellious daughter of an ancient family with dark intentions, and Tom Renfield, a drifter possessing secrets even he cannot fathom, fall under each other's spell the result is a nightmare of unearthly challenges and dread obligations that threaten to engulf.

It is a season of many wonders, with many secrets ripe for discovering ...and some best left in shadow, unexplored. Summer has come to Sauterelle Lake. And inquisitive young Nick is discovering many things he doesn't want to know: About a pretty girl with hypnotic eyes who talks to his soul... About a wild creature--a wolf--whose features shine with an intelligent, un-lupine knowing... About a strange, inhospitable family occupying a cabin that is meant to be empty. This summer, nature's magic is not the only sorcery traveling on the wind. And the real trick will be surviving until the autumn.

A compelling, funny, magical thriller.

Kim and Jaimie are freshman roommates-but their college experience is anything but typical. This is Jaimie's first time in the "real world," away from her large family and their magical traditions. It's Kim's chance to escape her high school reputation. But Jaimie quickly sees that Kim can't-she's being stalked by something that feeds on depression. And, just like that, reality reshapes itself, as the two girls-along with Jaimie's cousins and a Presence named Rugee-try to capture and rout the viri, or emotional vampire, who is tracking Kim.

Nebula Award nominated novella.

D.J. Demain unknowingly dated a serial killer. When she discovered who he was, she reported him and fled to a new life and a new identity. Six years later, her ex escapes from jail, and he's looking for her.

D.J.'s new life includes new friends, among them a patient at the psychology office where she works: Morgan speaks in strange voices and claims he has other people in his head.

The story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1994. It is included in the collection Time Travelers, Ghosts, and Other Visitors (2003).

Susan Backstrom seems to have a charmed life-but she also has dangerous family secrets. When she hears some kids talking about exploring a nearby haunted house, Susan asks to join them, even though she knows what might happen if she gets caught. The teenagers discover that there is indeed a ghost, and the house itself is a living, supernatural thing. With the help of five new friends-three humans, one ghost, and House-Susan has what she needs to build a new life, if she dares.

Matt (Matilda) Black possesses the unique ability to speak with inanimate objects and witness the dreams of other people. She spends her days traveling from place to place alone -- yet never lonely, for she can communicate with all that surrounds her.

She finds a kindred spirit in Edmund Reynolds -- a wandering witch on a spiritual quest to help those in need. But once Matt learns that Edmund has never come to terms with his abrupt departure from his hometown, she convinces him to return.

Together, these two special people will embark on an odyssey of the imagination. They will encounter things both wonderful and terrifying. And after so many years of solitude they will learn to depend on one another -- as they look into the darkest depths of the past...

The Nebula and World Fantasy Award-nominated author of A Red Heart of Memories continues the spellbinding story of the wandering witch Matilda (Matt) Black, who possesses the ability to communicate with inanimate objects and see into people's dreams--and her companion Edmund Reynolds, a young man with magic of his own who is only beginning to come to grips with his past and his powers...

The two travelers have come to the town where Edmund grew up, and found shelter in the benevolently haunted house that was a refuge for Edmund and his friends when they were children. But the house begins to speak to Matt, urgently, telling her that she and Edmund have to leave, to seek out the long-scattered friends. For a darkness is rising, a dangerous, powerful entity. And the only chance of stopping it lies in the hearts of the lost children of the house...

Gypsum LaZelle is a misfit in a family of spellcasters-she possesses no magical ability whatsoever. Until the day when she becomes gravely ill, and discovers that her Transition has occurred at last, bestowing upon her a strange and frightening power.

Maya's family has just moved from Idaho to Spores Ferry, Oregon. She's nervous about starting middle school and making new friends, but soon that's the last thing on her mind. First, a fairy flies into her room. Then it turns out that the kids in the apartment building next door do magic, and their basement is full of portals to other worlds. She's bursting with new experiences and delight... and secrets, because she can't breathe a word to her family, not even when she winds up taking care of an alien!

Imagine the family in Ingrid Law's Savvy seen through the eyes of a young Ray Bradbury. Cross the Threshold!

WFA nominated novella.

When Matt encounters a town where almost everyone has gone mad from suppressed memories that have invaded the conscious memory, she needs to find out what happened and how to stop it.

The U.S.S. Voyager finds itself in a system where a planet might have existed, but doesn't. Where the planet should have been, millions and then billions of people are appearing from nowhere and dying in the vacuum of space.

To solve the mystery and save billions of lives, Captain Janeway will have to face alternate versions of herself and the crew of Voyager -- not just one almost-mirror-image, but many. Janeway will have to find a way to work with her alternate selves, with whom she shares much but each of whom has a different agenda. At stake is the survival of Voyager and the lives of billions of innocent people.