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Grey
by Jon ArmstrongFor Michael Rivers, life is perfect. He is tall, handsome and worshipped by billions of fans around the globe. He is wealthy beyond measure, the heir apparent to one of the high-tech corporations that controls the world. He is fashionable, setting trends with his wardrobe of immaculate designer suits. And Michael is in love with Nora, his beautiful, witty and equally perfect fiancée. When an assassin's bullets pierce Michael's body before the cameras at a press junket, everything changes. Forcibly separated from Nora, his illusions shattered, Michael seeks to uncover the reasons behind the attempted assassination. Michael delves deep into his past, finding that all paths lead to a time when he was the golden boy, dancing furiously to the beat of notorious all-night Rage parties thrown by his father.
Ceremony: Book Three of The Dark War Trilogy (Darkwar Trilogy #3)
by Glen CookThe world grows colder with each passing year, the longer winters and ever-deepening snows awaking ancient fears within the Dengan Packstead, fears of invasion by armed and desperate nomads, attack by the witchlike and mysterious Silth, able to kill with their minds alone, and of the Grauken, that desperate time when intellect gives way to buried cannibalistic instinct, when meth feeds upon meth. For Marika, a young pup of the Packstead, loyal to pack and family, times are dark indeed, for against these foes, the Packstead cannot prevail. But awakening within Marika is a power unmatched in all the world, a legendary power that may not just save her world, but allow her to grasp the stars themselves. From Glen Cook, author of the Black Company and Dread Empire novels. The final book in the Darkwar series.
Entropy in Bloom: Stories
by Jeremy Robert JohnsonFor more than a decade, Jeremy Robert Johnson has been bubbling under the surface of both literary and genre fiction. His short stories present a brilliantly dark and audaciously weird realm where cosmic nightmares collide with all-too-human characters and apocalypses of all shapes and sizes loom ominously. In "Persistence Hunting," a lonely distance runner is seduced into a brutal life of crime with an ever-narrowing path for escape. In "When Susurrus Stirs," an unlucky pacifist must stop a horrifying parasite from turning his body into a sentient hive. Running through all of Johnson's work is a hallucinatory vision and deeply-felt empathy, earning the author a reputation as one of today's most daring and thrilling writers. Featuring the best of his independently-published short fiction, as well as an exclusive, never-before-published novella "The Sleep of Judges"--where a father's fight against the denizens of a drug den becomes a mind-bending suburban nightmare--Entropy in Bloom is a perfect compendium for avid fans and an ideal entry point for adventurous readers seeking the humor, heartbreak, and terror of JRJ's strange new worlds.
And Blue Skies From Pain (The Fey and the Fallen)
by Stina LeichtNorthern Ireland, 1977. Liam Kelly is many things: a former wheelman for the IRA, a one-time political prisoner, the half-breed son of a mystic Fey warrior and a mortal woman, and a troubled young man literally haunted by the ghosts of his past. Liam has turned his back on his land&’s bloody sectarian Troubles, but the war isn&’t done with him yet, and neither is an older, more mythic battle–between the Church and its demonic enemies, the Fallen.After centuries of misunderstanding and conflict, the Church is on the verge of accepting that the Fey and the Fallen are not the same. But to achieve this historic truce, Liam must prove to the Church&’s Inquisitors that he is not a demon, even as he wrestles with his own guilt and confusion, while being hunted by enemies both earthly and unworldly.A shape-shifter by nature, Liam has a foot in two worlds–and it&’s driving him mad.
Heartland
by Mark TeppoThe second novel of the Codex of Souls furthers explores the strange occult world first introduced in Lightbreaker. Mark Teppo&’s vision of a magical underworld is a non-stop adventure that continues to bring new light to the occult origins of our history.Markham returns to Paris where he lost his love, and nearly his life. The ancient order of manipulative magicians that once cast him out is now in turmoil . . . a turmoil made all the greater by the swaths of destruction that Markham tried to avert in the Pacific Northwest.Teamed with an unlikely partner, Markham seeks to overturn the corrupt remains of an order no longer able to police its own practitioners. Yet, he can't escape the feeling that he's still just a pawn in a larger game.
Soft Apocalypse
by Will McIntoshWhat happens when resources become scarce and society starts to crumble? As the competition for resources pulls America's previously stable society apart, the "New Normal" is a Soft Apocalypse. This is how our world ends; with a whimper instead of a bang."It's so hard to believe," Colin said as we crossed the steaming, empty parking lot toward the bowling alley."What?""That we're poor. That we're homeless.""I know.""I mean, we have college degrees," he said."I know," I said.There was an ancient miniature golf course choked in weeds alongside the bowling alley. The astroturf had completely rotted away in places. The windmill had one spoke. We looked it over for a minute (both of us had once been avid mini golfers), then continued toward the door. "By the way," I added. "We're not homeless, we're nomads. Keep your labels straight."New social structures and tribal connections spring up across America, as the previous social structures begin to dissolve. Soft Apocalypse follows the journey across the South East of a tribe of formerly middle class Americans as they struggle to find a place for themselves and their children in a new, dangerous world that still carries the ghostly echoes of their previous lives.
Emissary: The Second Book of the Seven Eyes (The Seven Eyes)
by Betsy DornbuschDraken vae Khellian, bastard cousin of the Monoean King, had risen far from his ignominious origins, becoming both a Bowrank Commander and a member of the Crown&’s Black Guard. But when cursed black magic took his wife and his honor away, he fought past his own despair and grief, and carved out a new life in Akrasia. His bloody, unlikely path, chronicled in Exile: The First Book of the Seven Eyes, led him to a new love, and a throne.Draken has seen too much blood . . . the blood of friends and of enemies alike. Peace is what he wants. Now he must leave his wife and newborn child in an attempt to forge an uneasy peace between the Monoean King and the kingdom of Akrasia. The long bloody shadow of Akrasia&’s violent past hangs over his efforts like a shroud. But there are other forces at work. Peace is not something everybody wants . . . not even in the seemingly straightforward kingdom of Draken&’s birth.Factions both known and unknown to Draken vie to undermine his efforts and throw the kingdom into civil war. Forces from his days in the Black Guard prove to be the most enigmatic, and a bloody tide threatens to engulf Draken&’s every step.
Tails of Wonder and Imagination
by edited by Ellen DatlowFrom legendary editor Ellen Datlow, Tails of Wonder collects the best of the last thirty years of science fiction and fantasy stories about cats.
Rapture (Bel Dame Apocrypha)
by Kameron HurleyAfter years in exile, Nyxnissa so Dasheem is once more a bel dame, part of a sisterhood of elite government assassins trained to a cut a target&’s head off without remorse. But the end of a centuries-long war has thrown her native land of Nasheen into turmoil. A huge influx of unemployed–and unemployable–young soldiers have brought Nasheen to the brink of civil war, even as an alien spaceship stations itself in orbit above the capital.With aliens in the sky and revolution on the ground, Nyx figures it&’s a good time to get the hell out of Nasheen, so she assembles a team of renegades, shape-shifters, magicians, and mercenaries to rescue a missing political leader who may be the difference between peace and bloodshed.Just one problem: the politician is an old enemy whom Nyx once left to die in a ditch . . .
The Clockwork Rocket (Orthogonal)
by Greg EganIn Yalda's universe, light has no universal speed and its creation generates energy. On Yalda's world, plants make food by emitting their own light into the dark night sky. As a child, Yalda witnesses one of a series of strange meteors, the Hurtlers, that are entering the planetary system at an immense, unprecedented speed. It becomes apparent that her world is in imminent danger — and the task of dealing with the Hurtlers will require knowledge and technology far beyond anything her civilization has yet achieved! Only one solution seems tenable: if a spacecraft can be sent on a journey at sufficiently high speed, its trip will last many generations for those on board, but it will return after just a few years have passed at home. The travelers will have a chance to discover the science their planet urgently needs, and bring it back in time to avert disaster.
The Tower & Knife Trilogy
by Mazarkis WilliamsThe complete Tower & Knife Trilogy! Containing The Emperor's Knife, Knife Sworn, and The Tower Broken for the first time in one edition!
The Skinner (A Spatterjay Novel #1)
by Neal AsherThe Skinner is the first book in Neal Asher's Spatterjay series set in a lethal waterworld.To the remote planet Spatterjay come three travellers with very different missions. Janer is directed there by the hornet Hive-mind; Erlin comes to find the sea captain who can teach her to live; and Keech - dead for seven hundred years - has unfinished business with a notorious criminal.Spatterjay is a watery world where the human population inhabits the safety of the Dome and only the quasi-immortal hoopers are safe outside amidst a fearful range of voracious life-forms. Somewhere out there is Spatterjay Hoop himself, and monitor Keech cannot rest until he can bring this legendary renegade to justice for atrocious crimes committed centuries ago during the Prador Wars.Keech does not realize that Hoop's body is running free on an island wilderness, while his living head is confined in a box on an Old Captain's ships. Nor does he know that the most brutal Prador of all is about to pay a visit, intent on wiping out all evidence of his wartime atrocities. Which means major hell is about to erupt in this chaotic waterscape.
Shower of Stones: A Novel of Jeroun
by Zachary JerniganThe follow-up to Zachary Jernigan&’s critically-acclaimed literary debut No Return.At the moment of his greatest victory, before a crowd of thousands, the warrior Vedas Tezul renounced his faith, calling for revolt against the god Adrash, imploring mankind to unite in this struggle.Good intentions count for nothing. In the three months since his sacrilegious pronouncement, the world has not changed for the better. In fact, it is now on the verge of dying. The Needle hangs broken in orbit above Jeroun, each of its massive iron spheres poised to fall and blanket the planet's surface in dust. Long-held truces between Adrashi and Anadrashi break apart as panic spreads.With no allegiance to either side, the disgraced soldier Churls walks into the divided city of Danoor with a simple plan: murder the monster named Fesuy Amendja, and retrieve from captivity the only two individuals that still matter to her—Vedas Tezul, and the constructed man Berun. The simple plan goes awry, as simple plans do, and in the process Churls and her companions are introduced to one of the world&’s deepest secrets: A madman, insisting he is the link to an ancient world, offering the most tempting lie of all... Hope.Concluding the visceral, inventive narrative begun in No Return, Shower of Stones pits men against gods and swords against civilization-destroying magic in the fascinatingly harsh world of Jeroun.
The Book of Cthulhu
by Ross LockhartThe Cthulhu Mythos is one of the 20th century's most singularly recognizable literary creations. Initially created by H. P. Lovecraft and a group of his amorphous contemporaries (the so-called "Lovecraft Circle"), The Cthulhu Mythos story cycle has taken on a convoluted, cyclopean life of its own. Some of the most prodigious writers of the 20th century, and some of the most astounding writers of the 21st century have planted their seeds in this fertile soil. The Book of Cthulhu harvests the weirdest and most corpulent crop of these modern mythos tales. From weird fiction masters to enigmatic rising stars, The Book of Cthulhu demonstrates how Mythos fiction has been a major cultural meme throughout the 20th century, and how this type of story is still salient, and terribly powerful today.
The Best Horror of the Year (Best Horror of the Year)
by Ellen DatlowAn elderly man aggressively defends his private domain against all comers?including his daughter;a policeman investigates an impossible horror show of a crime; a father witnesses one of the worst things a parent can imagine; the abuse of one child fuels another&’s yearning; an Iraqi war veteran seeks a fellow soldier in his hometown but finds more than she bargains for . . . The Best Horror of the Year showcases the previous year&’s best offerings in short fiction horror. This edition includes award-winning and critically acclaimed authors Adam L. G. Nevill, Livia Llewellyn, Peter Straub, Gemma Files, Brian Hodge, and more. For more than three decades, award-winning editor and anthologist Ellen Datlow has had her finger on the pulse of the latest and most terrifying in horror writing. Night Shade Books is proud to present the ninth volume in this annual series, a new collection of stories to keep you up at night.Table of Contents: Summation 2016 - Ellen Datlow Nesters -- Siobhan Carroll The Oestridae -- Robert Levy The Process is a Process All its Own -- Peter Straub The Bad Hour -- Christopher Golden Red Rabbit -- Steve Rasnic Tem It's All the Same Road in the End -- Brian Hodge Fury -- DB Waters Grave Goods -- Gemma Files Between Dry Ribs -- Gregory Norman Bossert The Days of Our Lives -- Adam LG Nevill House of Wonders -- C.E. Ward The Numbers -- Christopher Burns Bright Crown of Joy -- Livia Llewellyn The Beautiful Thing We Will Become -- Kristi DeMeester Wish You Were Here -- Nadia Bulkin Ragman -- Rebecca Lloyd What&’s Out There? -- Gary McMahon No Matter Which Way We Turned -- Brian Evenson The Castellmarch Man -- Ray Cluley The Ice Beneath Us -- Steve Duffy On These Blackened Shores of Time -- Brian Hodge Honorable Mentions
The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions
by William Hope HodgsonThe fifth of a five volume set collecting all of Hodgson's published fiction. Each volume contains one of Hodgson's novels, along with a selection of thematically-linked short fiction.
Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle (Girl Genius)
by Phil Foglio Kaja FoglioIn the third installment of the Girl Genius novels, Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle begins as Agatha Heterodyne returns to her ancestral home, the warped little town of Mechanicsburg. There she must claim her inheritance by convincing the artificial intelligence that animates her family&’s castle that she is, in fact, the new Heterodyne. But this apparently simple task is made complicated in several ways: An imposter claiming to be the legitimate heir appears. The Empire is convinced that Agatha is the person responsible for the Long War (and to be fair, they are not entirely incorrect). And, worst of all, the Castle itself is insane.From the Hugo Award–winning Girl Genius online comics comes this third book in the Agatha H. trilogy; and just like the first two, Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle will grab you from the first page and not let go!
Chains of the Heretic: Bloodsounder's Arc Book Three (Bloodsounder's Arc)
by Jeff SalyardsMen are more easily broken than myths.Emperor Cynead has usurped command of the Memoridons—Tower-controlled memory witches—and consolidated his reign over the Syldoonian Empire. After escaping the capital city of Sunwrack, Captain Braylar Killcoin and his Jackal company evade pursuit across Urglovia, tasked with reaching deposed emperor Thumarr and helping him recapture the throne. Braylar&’s sister, Soffjian, rejoins the Jackals and reveals that Commander Darzaak promised her freedom if she agreed to aid them in breaking Cynead&’s grip on the other Memoridons and ousting him.Imperial forces attempt to intercept Braylar&’s company before they can reach Thumarr. The Jackals fight through Cynead&’s battalions but find themselves trapped along the Godveil. Outmaneuvered and outnumbered, Braylar gambles on some obscure passages that Arki has translated and uses his cursed flail, Bloodsounder, to part the Godveil, leading the Jackals to the other side. There, they encounter the ruins of human civilization, but they also learn that the Deserters who abandoned humanity a millennium ago and created the Veil in their wake are still very much alive. But are they gods? Demons? Monsters?What Braylar, Soffjian, Arki, and the Jackals discover beyond the Godveil will shake an empire, reshape a map, and irrevocably alter the course of history.
Lightbreaker
by Mark TeppoMarkham has returned to Seattle, searching for Katarina, the girl who, a decade ago, touched his soul, literally tearing it from his body. But what he discovers upon arriving is dark magick — of a most ancient and destructive kind! An encounter with a desperate spirit, leaping destructively from host to host, sets Markham on the trail of secretive cabal of magicians seeking to punch a hole through heaven, extinguishing forever the divine spark. Armed with the Chorus, a phantasmal chain of human souls he wields as a weapon of will, Markham must engage in a magickal battle with earth-shattering stakes! Markum must delve deep into his past, calling on every aspect of his occult training for there to be any hope of a future. But delve he must, for Markham is a veneficus, a spirit thief, the Lightbreaker...
Eclipse 3
by edited by Jonathan StrahanTo observe an eclipse is to witness a rare and unusual event. Under darkened skies the sun becomes a negative image of itself, its corona transforming the landscape into a strange space where anything might happen, and any story may be true...In the spirit of classic science fiction anthologies such as Universe, Orbit, and Starlight, master anthologist Jonathan Strahan (The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year) presents the non-themed genre anthology Eclipse: New Science Fiction and Fantasy. Here you will find stories where strange and wonderful things happen--where reality is eclipsed by something magical and new.Continuing in the footsteps of the multiple-award-nominated anthologies Eclipse One and Eclipse Two, Eclipse Three delivers new fiction by some of the genre's most celebrated authors, including Karen Joy Fowler's story of a family's desperation and a rebellious young woman's strange incarceration; Ellen Klages's fable of a practical girl, an unusual tortoise, and an ancient mathematical puzzle; Pat Cadigan's story of a mysterious photograph and two friends' journey through space and time in order to solve its riddle; Jeffrey Ford's tale of a legendary sword imbued with the power to turn flesh to coral, and of the artist that wields it; Daniel Abraham's story of divine providence, sacred oaths, and the omens that indicate whether a man is fit to be king; and Caitlin R. Kiernan's chronicle of an astronaut whose memories of a lover lost to an alien intelligence haunt her.
Butcher Bird: A Novel of the Dominion (Sandman Slim)
by Richard KadreyButcher Bird, an early protoype for dark urban fantasy from the New York Times bestselling author of Sandman Slim, is reissued in a special tenth anniversary edition. Spyder Lee is a happy man. He lives in San Francisco and owns a tattoo shop. He has his favorite drinking buddy, Lulu Garou, and other friends all over town. One night a pissed-off demon tries to bite his head off and he's saved by a stranger?a small, blind woman with a sword as wicked as her smile. After that, Spyder&’s life is turned upside down. The demon infected Spyder with something awful?the truth. He can suddenly see the world as it really is: full of angels and demons and monsters and monster-hunters; a world full of black magic and mysteries. These are the Dominions, parallel worlds full of wonder, beauty and horror, of which Spyder&’s is only one. Each Dominion is home to another race of creatures from human myth. If you&’re clever or lucky, you can pass from one Dominion to another, but the Dominions themselves never touch. At least, they&’re not supposed to. The Black Clerks, infinitely old and infinitely powerful beings whose job it is to keep the Dominions in balance, seem to have new interests and a whole new agenda. Dropped into the middle of a conflict between the Black Clerks and other forces he doesn't fully understand, Spyder searches for a magic book with the blind swordswoman who saved him. Their journey will take them from deserts to lush palaces, to underground caverns, to the heart of Hell itself.
Orbus (A Spatterjay Novel)
by Neal AsherThis is a follow-up to The Voyage of the Sable Keech tracing the journey of an Old Captain, Orbus – a sadist in charge of a crew of masochists - to a planetary wasteland called The Graveyard&’ lying between the Polity and the Prador Kingdom. An ancient war drone by the name of Sniper has stowed away aboard his spaceship, and the purpose of the journey is not entirely what the captain expected. Also heading in the same direction is the Prador king and the Prador Vrell. Vrell, having been mutated by the Spatterjay virus into something powerful and dangerous, has seized control of a Prador dreadnought, killing much of its crew, and is intent on heading back to the Prador Third Kingdom to exact vengeance on the King of the Prador, who tried to have him killed. All three ships are heading towards a climatic confrontation to The Graveyard, where underlying truths about the virus are revealed and an ancient menace to civilization reappears…
Darkwar
by Glen CookThe world grows colder with each passing year, the longer winters and ever-deepening snows awaking ancient fears within the Dengan Packstead, fears of invasion by armed and desperate nomads, attack by the witchlike and mysterious Silth, able to kill with their minds alone, and of the Grauken, that desperate time when intellect gives way to buried cannibalistic instinct, when meth feeds upon meth. For Marika, a young pup of the Packstead, loyal to pack and family, times are dark indeed, for against these foes, the Packstead cannot prevail. But awakening within Marika is a power unmatched in all the world, a legendary power that may not just save her world, but allow her to grasp the stars themselves.From Glen Cook, author of the Black Company and Dread Empire novels, comes Darkwar, collecting for the first time, the stunning science fantasy epic that originally appeared as Doomstalker, Warlock, and Ceremony.
The Reign of the Departed: The High and Faraway, Book One
by Greg KeyesA young man looking for death finds purpose in a world beyond our own in this sweeping fantasy from Greg Keyes (The Briar King, Newton&’s Cannon). Errol Greyson hadn&’t intended to commit suicide. Or so he told himself. But waking up after his &“cry for help&” in the body of a wood-and-metal construct magically animated by Aster?the strange girl from school?was not a result he could have imagined. Aster&’s wild explanations of a quest to find the water of health that would cure her father seemed as unreal as her description of Errol&’s own half-dead existence, his consciousness stuck in an enchanted automaton while his real body was in a coma from which it might never wake. And of course, they would need to recruit a girl?a virgin, no less?who had been dead for thirty years, to lead them through something called the Pale, beyond which a bunch of magical kingdoms existed. Plus, the threat that Aster could turn him off like a light switch, sending him into a hellish oblivion, was a convincing incentive to cooperate. It all seemed quite mad: Either Aster was nuts, or Errol was hallucinating. But if it meant a new chance at life, he reckoned it was worth playing along.
Other Worlds Than These
by John Joseph AdamsWhat if you could not only travel any location in the world, but to any possible world?We can all imagine such &“other worlds&”--be they worlds just slightly different than our own or worlds full of magic and wonder--but it is only in fiction that we can travel to them. From The Wizard of Oz to The Dark Tower, from Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass to C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, there is a rich tradition of this kind of fiction, but never before have the best parallel world stories and portal fantasies been collected in a single volume--until now.