Search Worlds Without End

The author of Psycho presents an entertaining glimpse of his writing career, from his correspondence with H. P. Lovecraft to his screenwriting triumphs, offering anecdotes about such talents as Ray Bradbury and Boris Karloff along the way.

In her utterly original novel about mothers, daughters, and love, Judy Budnitz gives the traditional folktale an electrifying twist as she follows four generations of women from an Eastern European village to the tenements of an American city. Elena, born into a family ruled by a formidable mother, embarks on an epic journey to the New World, met along the way by evil, magic, and good fortune. The daughter, grand-daughter, and great-granddaughter who follow each share her special powers of observation and, often, destruction. The result is a family saga unlike any other: a hilarious, heartbreaking story of family ties that bind.

JACK DANN'S groundbreaking anthologies Wandering Stars and More Wandering Stars used the tropes of science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism to ask and try to answer! what it means to be a Jew. In his new short-story collection Concentration, Dann enlists the techniques of fabulation to illuminate one of the defining events in human history: the Nazi Holocaust. Author and critic Marleen Barr has written that Dann is a Faulkner and a Márquez for Jews ; and Concentration is a testament to that claim, for these confronting and thoughtprovoking stories are written from a perspective rarely seen in literature.

Concentration is nothing less than an attempt to describe the indescribable... to come to terms with the unthinkable. The Holocaust was so terrible, so far on the edges of comprehension, so surreal, so psychologically cyclonic and horrific in dimension and effect that perhaps it might best be glimpsed through the reflections of metaphor and fantasy. Dann answers the historian Hayden White s call to revise our notion of what constitutes realistic representation in order to take account of experiences that are unique to our century and for which older modes of representation have proven inadequate. And given the historical amnesia that seems to characterize our time, a work such as this is also... necessary.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Playing with Time (Redux) - essay by Marleen S. Barr
• Camps - (1979) - novelette
• Jumping the Road - (1992) - novelette
• Tattoos - (1986) - novelette
• Tea - (1988) - novelette
• Down Among the Dead Men - (1982) - novelette with Gardner Dozois
• Trainspotting in Winesburg - (2016) - short story
• Timetipping - (1975) - short story
• The Economy of Light - (2008) - novella

Once More Into The Abyss by Dennis Danvers is the last of three novelettes about Stan, whose parents claimed to be aliens and either perished or went home via an abyss in the middle of New Mexico. Stan is drawn back to the Abyss when his wife is offered a job there studying alien artifacts. So Stan and his family (wife, son, brother and three dogs) take a road trip.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

London, 1861: Ten-year-old Nell belongs to a crew of mudlarks who work a stretch of the Thames along the Ratcliffe Highway. An orphan since her mother died four years past, leaving Nell with only broken dreams and a pair of satin slippers in her possession, she spends her days dredging up coals, copper and pieces of iron spilled by the river barges -- searching for treasure in the mud in order to appease her master, Benjamin Murdstone.

But one day, Nell discovers a body on the shore. It's not the first corpse she's encountered, but by far the strangest. Nearly seven feet tall, the creature has matted hair covering his legs, and on his head are the suggestion of horns. Nell's fellow mudlarks urge her to steal his boots and riffle his pockets, but as she ventures closer the figure draws breath and Nell is forced to make a decision which will change her life forever...

Louis Sacchetti is a poet and pacifist imprisoned for refusing to enlist in the war against Third World guerillas. Sacchetti and the other inmates are used in perverse scientific experiments, and Sacchetti is infected with a germ that raises intelligence to incredible heights while causing decay and death.

Hugo Award nominated short story. It orginally appeared in the anthology Universe 1 (1971), edited by Terry Carr. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction of the Year #1 (1972), edited by Terry Carr and Windows into Tomorrow (1974) edited by Robert Silverberg. It is included in the collection Live! from Planet Earth (2005).

Eighteen extraordinary authors devise all-new fairy tales: imaginative reinterpretations of the familiar, evocative new myths, speculations beyond the traditional realm of "once upon a time." Often dark, occasionally humorous, always enthralling, these stories find a certain Puss in a near-future New York, an empress bargaining with a dragon, a princess turned into a raven, a king's dancing daughters with powerful secrets, great heroism, terrible villainy, sparks of mischief, and a great deal more. Brilliant dreams and dazzling nightmares with meaning for today and tomorrow...

Table of Contents:

• Tales That Fairies Tell - short fiction by Richard Bowes
• The Giant In Repose - short fiction by Nathan Ballingrud
• Eat Me, Drink Me, Love Me - short fiction by Christopher Barzak
• Warrior Dreams - short fiction by Cinda Williams Chima
• Blanchefleur - short fiction by Theodora Goss
• The Road of Needles - short fiction by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• Below the Sun Beneath - short story by Tanith Lee
• The Coin of Heart's Desire - short fiction by Yoon Ha Lee
• Sleeping Beauty of Elista - short fiction by Ekaterina Sedia
• Egg - short story by Priya Sharma
• Lupine - short fiction by Nisi Shawl
• Castle of Masks - short fiction by Cory Skerry
• Flight - short story by Angela Slatter
• The Lenten Rose - short fiction by Genevieve Valentine
• The Hush of Feathers, the Clamour of Wings - short story by A. C. Wise
• Born and Bread - short story by Kaaron Warren
• The Mirror Tells All - short fiction by Erzebet YellowBoy
• The Spinning Wheel's Tale - short fiction by Jane Yolen

In 1893, there's no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box.

But when the Eastwood sisters -- James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna -- join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women's movement into the witch's movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote -- and perhaps not even to live -- the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.

There's no such thing as witches. But there will be.

Remember the faery stories you were told as a child? Tales of tiny, magical, winged beings and elves, wicked witches and goblins. Demons... What if one day you found out they were true? What if, when you became an adult, you discovered they were all based on fact? What if you met the fantasy and it was all so very real? That's what happened to Thom Kindred. The wonders were revealed to him. But so were the horrors, for not far behind the Good, there always lurks the Bad. And the Bad has designs on Thom. The Bad would show him real evil. he would see the hellhagges and the demons. He would be touched by perverted passion. And corruption. And he would encounter his own worst nightmare. The Bad would seek to destroy him. And only the magic of the little beings would be able to help him.

On a desperately overcrowded future Earth, crippled by climate change, the most unlikely hope is better than none. Governments turn to Big Science to provide them with the dreams that will keep the masses compliant. The Needle is one such dream, an installation where the most abstruse theoretical science is being tested: science that might make human travel to a habitable exoplanet distantly feasible.

When the Needle's director offers her underground compound as a training base, Kir is thrilled to be invited to join the team, even though she knows it's only because her brain is host to a quantum artificial intelligence called Altair.

But Altair knows something he can't tell.

Kir, like all humans, is programmed to ignore future dangers. Between the artificial blocks in his mind, and the blocks evolution has built into his host, how is he going to convince her the sky is falling?

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1968. It is included in the collections Once There Was a Giant (1971) and Odyssey (2002).

Sturgeon Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Science Fiction Age, July 1999. There are no other known publications available at this time.

Written in 1917, Milne's own introduction begins 'This is an odd book', and indeed it is very difficult to classify. Ostensibly a typical fairytale, it tells the story of the war between the kingdoms of Euralia and Barodia and the political shenanigans which take place in Euralia in the king's absence, all supposedly rewritten by Milne from the writings of the fictional historian "Roger Scurvilegs".

Milne created the story to contain believable, three-dimensional characters, rather than the stereotypes which will satisfy children. Hence the book introduces us to a princess who is far from helpless; a prince who, whilst handsome, is also pompous and vain; an enchantment which is almost entirely humorous; a villain who is not entirely villainous and receives no real comeuppance; a good king who isn't always good; an evil king who isn't always evil, and so on. The result is a book which children may not enjoy as much as adults.

The book was written by Milne partly for his wife, upon whom the character of the Countess Belvane was partially based.

Kenji Miyazawa is one of modern Japan's most beloved writers, a great poet and a strange and marvelous spinner of tales, whose sly, humorous, enchanting, and enigmatic stories bear a certain resemblance to those of his contemporary Robert Walser. John Bester's selection and expert translation of Miyazawa's short fiction reflects its full range from the joyful, innocent "Wildcat and the Acorns," to the cautionary tale "The Restaurant of Many Orders," to "The Earthgod and the Fox," which starts out whimsically before taking a tragic turn. Miyazawa also had a deep connection to Japanese folklore and an intense love of the natural world. In "The Wild Pear," what seem to be two slight nature sketches succeed in encapsulating some of the cruelty and compensations of life itself.

This story can be found in Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root.

This novelette originally appeared on Strange Horizons, March 6th and March 13th 2017. It can also be found in the anthology The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Twelve (2018), edited by Jonathan Strahan.

Read the full story for free at Strange Horizons: Part 1 - Part 2.

Vanishings and aparitions, nightmares and twists of fate, mysterious ailments and supernatural interventions haunt these stories by the Russian master Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, heir to the spellbinding tradition of Gogol and Poe. Blending the miraculous with the macabre, and leavened by a mischievous gallows humor, these bewitching tales are like nothing being written in Russia--or anywhere else in the world--today.

Seventeen-year-old Anna has a space in her memory of a night her brain won't let her remember, a night that devastated her life and forced her to drop out of high school. Her grandmother, Evelyn, is slowly losing her memories to Alzheimer's. When the family moves into a forgotten house on the outskirts of Evelyn's home town, it's supposed to be a fresh start and a quieter life for all of them. But when Evelyn starts behaving strangely in her lost moments, it's Anna who witnesses it. It's Anna who helps her. And as she's drawn into life in the town and learns some of its recent gruesome history, she can't help but begin to wonder if the dead are trying to talk through Evelyn's empty spaces. And if so, what is it they're trying to tell her?

Once More* With Footnotes is a book by Terry Pratchett, published by NESFA Press in 2004 when he was the Guest of Honor for Noreascon Four, the 62nd World Science Fiction Convention. It contains a mixture of short stories, articles, introductions to other books, and speeches, including his first published short story, "The Hades Business". The initial run is a limited edition hardback, consisting of 2,500 copies. The title is a reference to the phrase "once more, with feeling" and to Pratchett's frequent use of footnotes in his Discworld series, along with the brief author commentary at the start of each piece; the book itself actually contains very few footnotes. One of NESFA's working titles for the book was "Oh Bugger, by Wossname".

Table of Contents:

• Terry Pratchett: The Man, The Myth, The Legend, The Beverage - essay by Esther M. Friesner
• Apology
• Hollywood Chickens - (1990)
• Doctor Who?
• The Hades Business - (1963)
• The Big Store
• Twenty Pence with Envelope and Seasonal Greeting - (1987)
• Paperback Writer
• Incubust - (1988)
• Final Reward - (1988)
• And Mind the Monoliths - (1978)
• FTB - (1996)
• Theatre of Cruelty - (1993)
• Introduction: The Unseen University Challenge - (1996)
• 2001: The Vision and the Reality
• High Tech, Why Tech?
• Roots of Fantasy
• Introduction: The Wyrdest Link - (2002)
• Thought Progress
• The Sea and Little Fishes - [Discworld] - (1998)
• Introduction: The Leaky Establishment - (2003)
• Let There be Dragons
• # ifdefDEBUG + "world/enough" + "time" - (1990)
• Foreword: Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
• Thud -- A Historical Perspective
• Death and What Comes Next
• Neil Gaiman: Amazing Master Conjurer
• Introduction: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy
• Elves Were Bastards
• Medical Notes - [Discworld] - (2002)
• Sheer Delight
• The Orangutans are Dying
• The Ankh-Morpork National Anthem - (1999)
• Alien Christmas
• Turntables of the Night - (1989)
• Cult Classic - (2001)
• The Choice Word
• Whose Fantasy Are You?
• No Worries
• Troll Bridge - [Discworld] - (1992)
• Faces of Fantasy/On Writing
• Imaginary Worlds, Real Stories
• The Secret Book of the Dead - (1991)
• Magic Kingdoms
• Once and Future - (1995)
• A Word About Hats
• The Titles That Got Away

In 17th-century London, unnatural babies are being born, with eyes made for the dark and webbed digits suited to the sea.

Sarah Davis is intimately familiar with such strangeness -- having hidden her uncanny nature all her life and fled to London under suspicious circumstances, Sarah starts over as a midwife's apprentice to a member of the illegal Worshipful Company of Midwives, hoping to carve out for herself an independent life. But with each new unnatural birth, the fear in London grows of the Devil's work.

When the wealthy Lady Wren hires her to see her through her pregnancy, Sarah quickly becomes a favorite of her husband, the famous architect Lord Christopher Wren, whose interest in the uncanny borders on obsession. Sarah soon finds herself caught in a web of magic and intrigue created by those who want to use her power for themselves, and whose pursuits threaten to unmake the earth itself.

On a dark midwinter's night in an ancient inn on the river Thames, an extraordinary event takes place. The regulars are telling stories to while away the dark hours, when the door bursts open on a grievously wounded stranger. In his arms is the lifeless body of a small child. Hours later, the girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Is it magic? Or can science provide an explanation? These questions have many answers, some of them quite dark indeed.

Those who dwell on the river bank apply all their ingenuity to solving the puzzle of the girl who died and lived again, yet as the days pass the mystery only deepens. The child herself is mute and unable to answer the essential questions: Who is she? Where did she come from? And to whom does she belong? But answers proliferate nonetheless.

Three families are keen to claim her. A wealthy young mother knows the girl is her kidnapped daughter, missing for two years. A farming family reeling from the discovery of their son's secret liaison, stand ready to welcome their granddaughter. The parson's housekeeper, humble and isolated, sees in the child the image of her younger sister. But the return of a lost child is not without complications and no matter how heartbreaking the past losses, no matter how precious the child herself, this girl cannot be everyone's. Each family has mysteries of its own, and many secrets must be revealed before the girl's identity can be known.

Once Upon a River is a glorious tapestry of a book that combines folklore and science, magic and myth. Suspenseful, romantic, and richly atmospheric, the beginning of this novel will sweep you away on a powerful current of storytelling, transporting you through worlds both real and imagined, to the triumphant conclusion whose depths will continue to give up their treasures long after the last page is turned.

Half a millennium ago Neil Elfward, a legendary human warrior, fought alongside his Elven friend Aarundel for the freedom of mankind against the tyranny of the sorcerous Reithrese empire. But Neal's victory began a genocidal war that cost him dearly.

Now the future he hoped for is unraveling. Count Berengar has invited the lovely Genevera, Aarundel's granddaughter, to join in a quest to bring stability to the land. Pressed to accomplish the impossible, Genevera suggests the unthinkable--raising Neal from the dead. But what is true in legend is not always true in reality. A hero from yesteryear may be a hero still, but is Neal the hero they want?

In a not-so-distant future London, riots have become the norm. But when the government suddenly stops distributing Concentr8--a behavioral modification "miracle" drug akin to Ritalin--the city's residents rise up fiercer than they ever have before.

Amidst the chaos, five teens pick a man seemingly at random and chain him up as a hostage in a warehouse. Blaze is their leader, and Troy has always been his quiet sidekick--the only person he has ever trusted. But even Troy didn't see this coming, and as their story unfolds over six tense days, one thing is clear--none of them will ever be the same again.

Told from the perspective of multiple characters in a world familiar to our own, this searing look at a group of teens who push back from the margins of society is perfect for fans of thoughtful fiction like Panic and The Program series.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, September 2015. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 1 (2016), edited by Neil Clarke, and Cosmic Powers: The Saga Anthology of Far-Away Galaxies (2017), edited by John Joseph Adams. The story is included in the collection Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World and Other Stories (2016).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This debut collection from Nebula-nominated author Caroline M. Yoachim showcases a wide-ranging selection of dark and beautiful stories, fiction that explores human nature against vividly imagined speculative backdrops. Here you'll find time travel, alien invasions, Japanese mermaids, and more--stories of struggle, heartbreak, and hope. The book features twenty-five of Yoachim's most popular published pieces, and two brand new stories exclusive to the collection.

The superheroes of Arcadia City fight a wonderful war, and play a wonderful game, forever saving yet another day. However, after sacrificing both their powers and Ultimate, the greatest hero of them all, to defeat the latest apocalypse, these comic book characters are transformed from the marvelous into the mundane.

After too many battles won and too many friends lost, The Soldier of Freedom was fine letting all that glory go. But when a new threat blasts through his city, Soldier, as ever, accepts his duty and reenlists in this next war. Without his once amazing abilities, he’s forced to seek the help of the one man who walked away, the sole hero who refused to make the sacrifice— PenUltimate, the sidekick of Ultimate, who through his own rejection of the game has become the most powerful man in the world, the only one left who might still, once again, save the day.

A tour de force debut novel from a former CIA counterterrorism officer, A Once Crowded Sky fuses the sensibility of bombastic, comic-book-style storytelling with modern literary fiction to bring to life a universe of supermen stripped of their powers, newly mortal men forced to confront danger in a world without heroes.

Sidewise Award-winning Novel

We all know the tragic story by now. After seven years as the most popular rock-and-roll group the world has ever seen, The Beatles -- torn apart by personal and creative differences -- called it quits in 1970, never to play together again. The fact that their contemporaries like the Rolling Stones are still playing today makes their ending even more painful.

Once There Was a Way: What if The Beatles Stayed Together? is a story of another reality, the one we wished had happened, where the Fab Four chose to work it out rather than let it be. This book is no mere fairy tale, but a chronicle crafted from the people and events of our own history, shaped to create a brand new narrative in which John, Paul, George, and Ringo find a way to stay friends and keep the band together. Imagine there was more. Lots more. It's easy if you try.

Hugo Award nominated story. It originally appeared in Analog Science Fact -> Science Fiction, May 1964. There are no other known publications available at this time.

The elves have fled to Calius, seeking to escape the overwhelming power of the demonic Garonin. A desperate last stand in their own dimension saved the race but only at the cost of 100,000 elves lost to the Garonin. The elf who led that fight, Takaar, is blamed for the loss and has gone into hiding.

Now the weakened elf race is tearing itself apart in civil war, human mercenaries have arrived in Calius and are ripping the continent apart. Only one elf can unite the race. And only one elf believes in him. A young warrior named Auum sets out to bring back the shamed hero and save the elven race.

Despite her family's military history, Esme Suisa believes herself satisfied without the prospect of commanding her own ship, until she finds herself the senior surviving officer in the middle of a vital space battle.

On a dare, Volothamp Geddarm pledges to circumnavigate the globe without the aid of his magic and becomes an unwitting pawn in a devious plan that threatens the realm of Faerun.

All over the world, the metapsychics are honing their skills, learning to stretch their incredible minds far beyond the ken of ordinary humans. Most are dedicated to the harmony of the human soul. But some have darker intentions...

If the metapsychics succeed in uniting Earth's minds to take the next step up in human evolution, a place awaits humanity among the alien peoples of the fabulous Galactic Milieu. But if evil minds prevail in their bid for power, Earth will be cut off...and mankind forever doomed!

Kita Nekai, on the run and the smallest of her shifter clan-a calico cat among lions and tigers-is being hunted. She was expected to accept her role as her father's successor whether or not her cat was up to the task of leading the clan. She disagreed. Now she's less than a step ahead of the hunters, bone-tired, cold, and living hand-to-mouth in the city of Haven. And that's the high point of her day. She's also drugged, "accidentally" turned into a vampire, and sentenced to death for recklessly creating a rogue shifter who tortures its human prey. She's got 72 hours to find the rogue, evade a city full of hunters, prove she's not responsible for the rogue, and keep the vampire council from killing her. All while sorting out an apprentice mage, a married ex-boyfriend shifter-hunter, and the vampire who made her.

In this prequel episode from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials universe, Lee Scoresby--Texan aeronaut and future friend to Lyra Belacqua--is just 24 years old, and he's recently won his hot-air balloon in a poker game. He finds himself floating North to the windswept Arctic island of Novy Odense, where he and his hare daemon Hester are quickly tangled in a deadly plot involving oil magnate Larsen Manganese, corrupt mayoral candidate Ivan Poliakov, and Lee's longtime nemesis from the Dakota Country: Pierre McConville, a hired killer with at least twenty murders to his name.

It's only after Lee forms an alliance with one of the island's reviled armored bears that he can fight to break up the conspiracy in a gun-twirling classic western shoot out--and battle of wits. This exquisite clothbound volume features the illustrations of John Lawrence, a removable board game--Peril of the Pole--on the inside back cover, and a glimpse for Pullman fans into the first friendship of two of the most beloved characters in the His Dark Materials trilogy: Lee Scoresby and armored bear Iorek Byrnison.

I'm Jaz Parks. My boss is Vayl, born in Romania in 1744. Died there too, at the hand of his vampire wife, Liliana. But that's ancient history. For the moment Vayl works for the C.I.A. doing what he does best--assassination. And I help. You could say I'm an Assistant Assassin. But then I'd have to kick your ass.

Vayl and I have to take out a Miami plastic surgeon with ties to terrorism. But the assignment gets complicated when it turns out he's in cahoots with a supernatural nasty powerful enough to bring America to her knees.

Another Hollywood night, another job for electric-detective-turned-robotic-hitman Raymond Electromatic. The target is a tall man in a black hat, and while Ray completes his mission successfully, he makes a startling discovery?one he soon forgets when his 24-hour memory tape loops to the end and is replaced with a fresh reel...

When a tall man in a black hat arrives in the offices of the Electromatic Detective Agency the next day, Ray has a suspicion he has met this stranger before, although Ray's computerized boss, Ada, is not saying a thing. But their visitor isn't here to hire Ray for a job?he's here to deliver a stark warning.

Because time is running out and if Ray and Ada want to survive, they need to do exactly what the man in the black hat says.

A man that Raymond Electromatic has already killed.

My name is Madison Avery, and I'm here to tell you that there's more out there than you can see, hear, or touch. Because I'm there. Seeing it. Touching it. Living it.

Madison's prom was killer—literally. Now, thanks to a mysterious amulet, she's stuck on Earth: dead but not gone. She has no idea why the dark reaper who did her in was after her, but she's not about to just sit around and let fate take its course. With a little skilled light-bending, the help of a light reaper (one of the good guys . . . maybe), her cute crush, and oh yeah, her guardian angel, Madison's ready to take control of her own destiny once and for all, before it takes control of her.

Well, if she believed in that stuff.

A Myth-Adventure in Combat...

Having defeated the mad wizard, Isstvan, Skeeve and Aahz have taken over the remote inn that was the enemy's hideout. They're generally safe from visitors, and if not, Skeeve's growing magical abilities allow him to disguise himself and his friends as such repulsive serving staff that potential guests flee, screaming.

Skeeve has grown bored of studying magic at the isolated inn, however, and one visitor who does not flee offers him an invitation for employment as court magician in the kingdom of Possiltum. Seeing a chance for easy profit and a little on the job training for his apprentice, Aahz agrees.

Skeeve defeats the other applicants in a trial of magic to win the position, and that's when the fun really starts -- the pair find out they've actually been hired in lieu of a professional national army or mercenaries to defeat a huge military invasion! They've also been used as pawns in a game of influence between the king's advisors ... and General Badaxe is particularly unhappy that he got a magician for the kingdom's money instead of a few thousand soldiers.

Even if they win, they'll most likely be killed by one court faction or another.

What can a poor apprentice wizard and his demon teacher do?

#1 - Call on some good friends.

#2 - Cheat the odds.

#3 - Do whatever it takes to WIN!

Politics have never been October "Toby" Daye's strong suit. When she traveled to the Kingdom of Silences to prevent them from going to war with her home, the Kingdom of the Mists, she wasn't expecting to return with a cure for elf-shot and a whole new set of political headaches.

Now the events she unwittingly set in motion could change the balance of modern Faerie forever, and she has been ordered to appear before a historic convocation of monarchs, hosted by Queen Windermere in the Mists and overseen by the High King and Queen themselves.

Naturally, things have barely gotten underway when the first dead body shows up. As the only changeling in attendance, Toby is already the target of suspicion and hostility. Now she needs to find a killer before they can strike again--and with the doors locked to keep the guilty from escaping, no one is safe.

As danger draws ever closer to her allies and the people she loves best, Toby will have to race against time to prevent the total political destabilization of the West Coast and to get the convocation back on track... and if she fails, the cure for elf-shot may be buried forever, along with the victims she was too slow to save.

Because there are worse fates than sleeping for a hundred years.

Contains the bonus novella Dreams and Slumbers, a direct sequel to Once Broken Faith, featuring Queen Arden Windermere.

I've been chased my whole life. As a fugitive refugee in the territory controlled by the tyrannical Mercer corporation, I've always had to hide who I am. Until I found Excalibur.

Now I'm done hiding.

My name is Ari Helix. I have a magic sword, a cranky wizard, and a revolution to start.

When Ari crash-lands on Old Earth and pulls a magic sword from its ancient resting place, she is revealed to be the newest reincarnation of King Arthur. Then she meets Merlin, who has aged backward over the centuries into a teenager, and together they must break the curse that keeps Arthur coming back. Their quest? Defeat the cruel, oppressive government and bring peace and equality to all humankind.

No pressure.

Ari Helix may have won her battle against the tyrannical Mercer corporation, but the larger war has just begun. Ari and her cursed wizard Merlin must travel back in time to the unenlightened Middle Ages and steal the King Arthur's Grail -- the very definition of impossible. It's imperative that the time travelers not skew the timeline and alter the course of history. Coming face to face with the original Arthurian legend could produce a ripple effect that changes everything. Somehow Merlin forgot that the past can be even more dangerous than the future...

There is a song you dare not sing ... a melody that you dare not play, a concerto that you dare not hear: it is called a Song of Power.

It is a gateway to another world - a gate that will lock behind you as you pass, barring you from the Earth forever.

Resist at all cost. For it is a world of great danger and great beauty - and it is not good to be human in the Realm of the Sidhe.

There's a bar called "The Captain's Table", where those who have commanded mighty vessels of every shape and era can meet, relax, and share a friendly drink or two with others of their calling. Sometimes a brawl may break out but it's all in the family, more or less. Just remember, the first round of drinks is always paid for with a story... even in Thallonian space.

Six years ago, long before he took command of the Starship Excalibur, a young Starfleet officer named Mackenzie Calhoun served as first officer aboard the U.S.S. Grissom. Then disaster struck, and Calhoun took the blame. A court-martial led to his own angry resignation from Starfleet... or so it appeared. At long last Captain Calhoun reveals the true story behind the greatest tragedy of his life.

A now classic study of the Life and Work of Ray Bradbury.

In his classic study Supernatural Horror in Literature, H. P. Lovecraft discusses the emergence of what he called spectral literature--literature that involves the gothic themes of the supernatural found in the past but also considers modern society and humanity. Beyond indicating how authors of such works derived pleasure from a sense of cosmic atmosphere, Lovecraft did not elaborate on what he meant by the term spectral as a form of haunted literature concerned with modernity.

In Lord Dunsany, H. P. Lovecraft, and Ray Bradbury: Spectral Journeys, William F. Touponce examines what these three masters of weird fiction reveal about modernity and the condition of being modern in their tales. In this study, Touponce confirms that these three authors viewed storytelling as a kind of journey into the spectral. Furthermore, he explains how each identifies modernity with capitalism in various ways and shows a concern with surpassing the limits of realism, which they see as tied to the representation of bourgeois society.

The collected writings of Lord Dunsany, H. P. Lovecraft, and Ray Bradbury span the length of the tumultuous twentieth century with hundreds of stories. By comparing these authors, Touponce also traces the development of supernatural fiction since the early 1900s. Reading about how these works were tied to various stages of capitalism, one can see the connection between supernatural literature and society. This study will appeal to fans of the three authors discussed here, as well as to scholars and others interested in the connection between literature and society, criticism of supernatural fiction, the nature of storytelling, and the meaning and experience of modernity.

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, October 2017.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

A WEIRD WESTERN, A GUN-TOTING, CIGARILLO-CHEWING FANTASY BUILT FROM HANGMAN'S ROPE AND SPENT BULLETS.

Wormwood has appeared, and with it a doorway to the afterlife. But what use is a door if you can't step through it?

Hundreds have battled unimaginable odds to reach this place, including the blind shooter Henry Jones; the drunk and liar Roderick Quartershaft; that most holy, yet enigmatic of orders, the Brotherhood of Ruth; the inventor Lord Forset and his daughter Elisabeth; the fragile messiah Soldier Joe and his nurse Hope Lane.

Of them all, Elwyn Wallace, a young man who only wanted to travel west for a job, would have happily forgone the experience. But he finds himself abroad in Hell, a nameless, aged gunslinger by his side. He had thought nothing could match the terror of his journey thus far, but time will prove him wrong.

On the road to Hell, good intentions don't mean a damn.

The world's greatest fantasy classic is the magical epic of King Arthur and his shining Camelot, of Merlyn and Guinevere, of beasts who talk and men who fly, of wizardry and war. It is the book of all things lost and wonderful and sad. It is the fantasy masterpiece by which all others are judged. The series is a retelling of the Arthurian legend, from Arthur's birth to the end of his reign, and is based largely on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'arthur. After White's death, a conclusion to The Once and Future King was found among his papers; it was published in 1977 as The Book of Merlyn.

Growing up in a colorful world peopled by knights in armor and fair damsels, foul monsters and evil witches, young Arthur slowly learns the code of being a gentleman. Under the wise guidance of Merlin, the all-powerful magician for whom life progresses backwards, the king-to-be is trained in the gusty pursuits of falconry, jousting, hunting and sword play. He is even transformed by his remarkable old tutor into various animals, so that he may experience life from all points of view. In every conceivable and exciting way he is readied for the day when he, and he alone of all Englishmen, is destined to draw forth the marvelous sword from the magic stone and become the rightful King of England.

The Witch in the Wood, is a the second book in T. H. White's epic work, The Once and Future King. It continues the story of the newly-crowned King Arthur, his tutelage by the wise Merlyn, his war against King Lot, and also introduces the Orkney clan, a group of characters who would cause the eventual downfall of the king. First published in 1939, it was re-released under the new title after some editing.

Also published as The Queen of Air and Darkness.

"The Ill-Made Knight" is the third book in the epic novel The Once and Future King, by T. H. White. It was first published in 1940, but is usually found today only in collected editions of all four books of the novel. Much of The Ill-Made Knight takes place in the fabled Camelot, full of blue castle tops, red banners and white castle bricks. Against this happy backdrop, White constructs a tragedy. The Ill-Made Knight is based around the adventures, perils and mistakes of Sir Lancelot. Lancelot, despite being the bravest of the knights, is ugly, and ape-like, so that he calls himself the Chevalier mal fet - "The Ill-Made Knight". As a child, Lancelot adored King Arthur and spent his entire childhood training to be a knight of the round table. When he arrives and becomes one of Arthur's knights, he also becomes the king's close friend. This causes some tension, as he dislikes Arthur's new wife Guinevere. In order to please her husband, Guinevere tries to befriend Lancelot and the two eventually fall in love. T.H. White's version of the tale elaborates greatly on the passionate love of Lancelot and Guinevere. Suspense is provided by the tension between Lancelot's friendship for King Arthur and his love for and affair with the queen. This affair leads inevitably to the breaking of the Round Table and sets up the tragedy that is to follow in the concluding book of the tetralogy, The Candle in the Wind.

The aging King Arthur faces the greatest challenge of his reign, when his own son threatens to overthrow him and destroy everything he has worked for.

This magical account of King Arthur's last night on earth spent weeks on the New York Times best-seller list following its publication in 1977. Even in addressing the profound issues of war and peace, The Book of Merlyn retains the life and sparkle for which White is known. The tale brings Arthur full circle, an ending, White wrote, that "will turn my completed epic into a perfect fruit, 'rounded off and bright and done.'"

Jack Gregory, the CIA's top assassin, bleeds out on a Calcutta operating table and is about to die.

But an alien entity has other plans for him.

If Jack is willing to act as a human host for this dark figure, he lives. Jack takes the deal. One year later, he is known internationally as The Ripper, fixer for hire, and finds himself increasingly drawn to dire, world-shattering events. Suffering strange premonitions and compulsions, Jack has more questions than answers. What destiny does this alien mind foresee? Why has it chosen him?