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A suspenseful, politically charged SF thriller . . . that could be day-after-tomorrow reality . . .

Twenty-year-old Russ arrives in the northern California town of Freedom to visit his dad. Freedom has peculiarities other than its odd name: the local mayor’s ideas of “decentralization” have left it without normal connections to state or federal government and minimal public services. Russ meets an interesting young woman, Pendra, but before he can get to know much about Freedom or its people, a savage tsunami strikes the West Coast. The wave of human brutality that soon hits the isolated town proves more dangerous to the survivors than the natural disaster. Russ, his father, Pendra, and the other townsfolk must tap all their courage and ingenuity—and find strength they never knew they had—if they have any hope of living to find real freedom.

Reviews:

In this slim, grim, and powerful novel, Shirley lets his imagination loose on the frightening possibilities of a massive natural disaster striking a small American town. A tidal wave transforms Freedom, Calif., from seaside idyll into a broken and perilously unstable landscape. Survivors include some natural helpers like Drew Haver and his son, Russ, as well as psychopaths Dickie Rockwell, a gang leader and drug dealer, and Lon Ferrara, the town’s ultralibertarian mayor, who privatized emergency services and now refuses help from FEMA. Treating women like commodities and wielding a plethora of weapons, these men fight for survival and ownership of the ruins. Shirley’s vision is vivid and horrifying… —Publishers Weekly

“One of our best and most singular writers. A powerhouse of ideas and imagery.”—New York Times best-selling author William Gibson

“John Shirley achieves things that other writers wouldn’t dare attempt. Brilliant. The true quill.”—Bruce Sterling

“John Shirley is an adventurer, returning from dark and troubled regions with visionary tales to tell. I heartily recommend a journey with John Shirley at your side.”—Clive Barker

Award-winning author John Shirley is considered seminal in the SF cyberpunk movement and the “post-modern Poe” of dark fiction. He was co-screenwriter of the film The Crow, and has written other films and teleplays as well. As a musician, Shirley has written lyrics recorded by Blue Öyster Cult and others. His latest books are collection In Extremis: The Most Extreme Stories of John Shirley and the best-selling Bioshock: Rapture.

The award-winning writer of Tea With the Black Dragon and other acclaimed novels returns to fantasy with the intriguing story of Chinese-American artist Ewen Young who gains the ability to travel between the worlds of life and death. This unasked-for skill irrevocably changes his life—as does meeting Nez Perce veterinarian Dr. Susan Sundown and her remarkable dog, Resurrection. After defeating a threat to his own family, Ewen and Susan confront great evils—both supernatural and human—as life and death begin to flow dangerously close together.

” I love R.A. MacAvoy’s books. Do yourself a favor and pick this up.”—Charles de Lint

“For the brilliantly talented R. A. MacAvoy, no aspect of human life is beyond reach.”—Orson Scott Card

About the Author: R.A. MacAvoy is the author of twelve novels. Her debut, Tea With the Black Dragon, won the John W. Campbell Award, the Locus Award for best first novel, and a Philip K. Dick Award special citation. It was also nominated for the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, the Ditmar Award, and listed in David Pringle’s Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, she has been married for thirty-three years to Ronald Cain. They live in the Cascade Foothills of Washington State.

Reviews:
MacAvoy clearly still has the talent for the ingratiating characters and revealing detail that made her first novel so delightful; almost every chracter is handled with wit and grace…Death and Resurection turns out to be far less portentious adventure romance than its title implies…and almost inevitably more enjoyable…it’s good to have her back.—Gary Wolfe, Locus

MacAvoy’s expansion of her 2009 novella “In Between” will please fans of her thoughtful hero Black Dragon, though new protagonist Ewen Young goes past philosophical to passive. Ewen, a Chinese Buddhist, just wants to be a painter and practice kung fu, but fate has other plans. He’s always had a touch of the spiritual, whether it’s an empathic bond with his twin sister or a psychic retreat he can share with others. When a brush with death kicks it up several notches, he ends up reluctantly guiding an investigation and a school as well as building a relationship with a strong-willed Native American vet and her body-hunting dog. Ewen’s (and MacAvoy’s) refusal to explore the origins of his powers takes the tone of the book further from most Western speculative fiction and toward magical realism or mysticism, which will delight some readers and irritate others.—Publishers Weekly

Death and Resurrection is the first novel by R.A. MacAvoy in quite a while, and although it is science fiction/fantasy, there is a romance subplot that becomes more rewarding as the novel proceeds, and I think that romance readers in general will be interested in MacAvoy’s work for its distinctive and likable characters.—Fresh Meat

Excerpt from Death and Resurrection:

Between one moment and the next Ewen was fully awake. He sat up, listening, peering around in the light of a new-risen moon, and the black dread came up in him. He disciplined it as he had before, but it welled up again. This time the object of fear was not in his mind.
It was outside.

He examined the darkness and now it was painted with the faces of bears and monsters. They were quite realistic, for—as he knew—they had been painted by his own imagination. His heart was pounding, and he felt a shred of fear that it might break open from the old scar of the summer, and out here there would be no medical science that could put it whole again. This thought, too, he disciplined.

Beside him Resurrection stood, stiff and lean, like the statue of the wolf suckling Romulus and Remus, and her growl echoed through the cabin like the engine of a Harley.

Susan gasped, sat up and whispered, “I had a nightmare . . .” and then “Oh God. Oh shit! It’s here.”

The dog shot a deep amber glance at her human and her growl rose into a series of thunderous barks. She backed into Susan, straddling her.

“It’s fear,” shouted Ewen over the barks. “It’s only fear.”

“You goddamn well bet it’s fear!” Susan cried back and she was shaking. “That doesn’t mean it’s less dangerous!”

Ewen leaned over and touched her over her heart. “Step away from it,” he said, very slowly. “Let it move past you . . . I’ve been in situations like this before,” he added gently. Once, he added silently. And then it took a cop to haul me out of it.

Better not to tell her that part. Someone had to be cool and calm. Someone.

She looked at him, her face edged and delineated by the light of the moon, and she put her hands to her own breast, over his. Her shaking slowed. The voice of the dog, which had risen to a siren’s wail, also slowed, deepened, and again became a threatening roar.

Susan glanced at her dog and took an immensely deep breath. “You’re right. I gotta get over this. There’s something here and I can’t punk out this way now. Or ever. I’m the boss and it isn’t fair to Rez.”

Ewen almost grinned as she echoed his thoughts. She pushed his hand away from her and turned around in her bag, reaching beneath her for the cedar boughs. She pulled one free. “Here,” she said. “Rub this on yourself. Your hands. Your head.”

---

Ewen was busy: looking and listening. Feeling. But though he had no confidence in Susan’s own Indian magic, he saw that Susan needed something to do. In moments such as these, something to do made the difference between fight and panic. Ewen rubbed the soft needles into his hands and hair, and then wiped his aromatic hands over his face. It smelled good. Felt good. Not as good as a sharpened broadsword would feel in his hand, but good. He looked at Resurrection, who was now bounding repeatedly over them, from one side of the cabin to the other. Her eyes were shining, but she still growled.

Ewen wiggled out of his bag. He put his hand on the door latch. “I’m going to get out of here,” he said.

Susan’s eyes widened. “Out there? Bad idea! Ewen, that’s a very bad idea.”

“If something comes, I’ve got no room to meet it in here,” he answered, and he popped the door open and jumped out. What was actually in his mind was: It will follow me. It always follows men. It’s probably been following me since I went to the temple. I won’t lead it in here.

Outside it was very cold and crystals of ice sparkled on the dirt of the runway. The crackle of his own breath made Ewen strain for any other sound. He walked away from the plane, feeling his body heat sucked up by the night. Whatever it was, the cold was its ally.

Standing under the moon, Ewen did a breathing technique taught to him, not by his fighting uncle, but by Theo the pacifist. Tibetan snow-meditation. Heat-yoga. He raised the heat in his belly and sent it down his arms and legs. He felt it like a fire in his limbs. Hearth-fire. He looked about and waited.

The thing approached Ewen from behind, but when he leaped around, it was behind him still. This presence was not just fear: it was a lightless center that moved the air around it, and scraped over the ground. Ewen darted to a large tree and put his back against it. The thing spread slow fingers of itself around each side of the trunk, coming again from behind.

Across the runway stood another tree, its cascading branches reaching almost to the ground. It was a cedar. On an impulse, Ewen sprinted the width of the bare earth, slipping and sliding on the ice. He ducked under the spread of the tree, which was fragrant even in the frozen night.

It came straight for him and under the moonlight he could see it, though it tricked his eyes. It had a head of dissolution, of rotting death. It turned his guts to water and his stomach cramped.

The vision came into his mind of a drum made from a human skull Theo sometimes played. It had seemed a tasteless act to Ewen, once. But he remembered Theo saying to young Teddy, “It’s what we’re made of, son. We come and we go. It’s all okay.” Ewen visualized the rotting face as only a different form of the skull by Theo’s altar. A different form of his own face. The cramps in his stomach loosened. He moved a step away from the cedar trunk to see the thing better.

Behind him he heard Susan chanting something he did not recognize and the low howl of Rez. “Rub the cedar oil on your hands,” she called to him. “I’ve put magic in it.”

Susan’s Indian magic. Ewen felt a moment of pity for her and then remembered how pitiful his own story would seem to any number of people, had he been brave enough to share it. He hadn’t been brave enough, but now he rubbed his hands together. “Susan’s magic,” he growled with as much authority as he could muster.

And the thing moved away from him. For a moment he felt almost euphoric, but then he saw it was turning toward the airplane. This was not what he had intended, whether Susan’s magic surpassed his own or not.

The dog, howling, charged out of the plane to meet the heavy rotten thing. Wolf-like, she slashed with her teeth at the decayed flesh and her momentum carried her right into the blackness within it.

“Rez!” screamed Susan. She jumped from the plane and ran forward.

I am the boss she had said. And, It isn’t fair to Rez.

Ewen bellowed “No!” and he, too, ran from his place of safety. He saw the dog pitched out of the mass of darkness. Rez spun in the air and came down on the runway, skidding on the frozen ground. “No! No! It’s me you want!” he shouted. “I’m the holy man! I’m the man of power!” He was so frantic that he didn’t even hear himself shouting these absurdities. He ran and skidded, and came to the plane with legs spread to catch balance, sailing like a snowboarder over the ice.

Susan stood over the limp form of her dog, with only a cedar bough for weapon. She shook it in front of the encroaching shape of horror and she shouted, “You cannot come here! You cannot come!”

The thing turned its head back toward Ewen. “Throw me a branch,” he called to her. “Throw me a cedar branch. Magic it!” Without hesitation she reached back into the cabin and brought one out: a long and sturdy thing. She threw it at Ewen and the cedar bough made a lazy circle in the air toward him. She threw well.

The thing—the rotten monster—extended one heavy limb in a swipe at the spinning cedar. There were long, chunky claws at the end of its arm, if arm it was, but they did not reach the branch. Ewen grabbed it from the air and hefted it. This weapon was front-heavy, but then so was a broadsword. He tore a few of the lower twigs from it and strode toward the monster.

Which then took the shape of a bear—a bear not out of nature but straight out of Ewen’s worst imagination. It was much higher at the shoulder than Ewen’s head. It was black; it reeked and it roared.

Bear techniques, thought Ewen. I should have learned cedar broadsword against a monster bear. I missed that class.

It raised an arm the size of Ewen’s body and swiped its spiked claws at him. He leaped back and came down in a high-back stance, with his weight on his rear leg, and as the claws swept by him he lunged, sweeping down and to the right with his feathery weapon. The monster screamed. It reared up, so very, very high, and then struck with its other arm.

Now Ewen was no longer seeing the branch as a piece of rough wood and needles. He was seeing a Chinese broadsword, and he was very comfortable with a broadsword. He continued the sweep up, making a circle, and sliced into the other arm as it came at him. There was even a little red flag at the end of his broadsword. For some reason that gave him confidence.

The bear-thing stood like a man—a giant—a building—and it came down at him with all its terrible mass. Ewen bounced back, and found he was stopped by a heavy bough of his cedar tree stronghold and could go no further. The thing came down over him.

An image rose in his mind, and it was not one of broadsword work, or of martial arts at all. “Sam Gamgee!” he cried and flattened himself on the ground beneath the falling terror, his “broadsword” propped straight up beside him against the earth.

It was huge blackness and weight and fear, but the fear in it was not all his own fear. The shriek he heard was deep and deafening, and it was not from him at all.

Visit Jason Stoddard’s Web Site

In the near future, Jere Gutierrez presents astounding “impressed reality” shows, and even in an outdated medium, draws million of viewers. His Neteno network is proof both old-fashioned linear stories and television can still be popular and profitable. But his “true in-the-moment” stories are really carefully orchestrated fabrications—and the public and his backers are catching on. Desperate for a story big enough to entrance the entire world, he teams up with a retired TV executive to create the ultimate reality show: a space mission to Mars, complete with corporate sponsors and competitors risking their lives for the ultimate prize of Winning Mars. But Jere has no idea just how captivating—and risky—his Winning Mars will be . . .

Reviews:
In a future where the art of “linear entertainment”—better known as TV shows—is giving way to interactive, massive multiuser online gaming (MMOs), producer Jere Gutierrez conceives of a “reality show” set on yet-to-be-colonized Mars. Eleven players, divided into teams that are each assigned a different goal, travel to the Red Planet to compete in a $50 million contest while the world watches on a five-minute time delay. The risk: a high probability of death. VERDICT Stoddard’s highly original story draws on the latest trends in reality TV and tension over U.S. vs. Chinese control of space travel. Powerful storytelling, a minimalist prose style that does not diminish the three-dimensional characters, and a keen ear for dialog add to this novel’s many pleasures.”—Library Journal, Starred Review, Debut of the Month

Excerpt:

Pitch

“Of course, someone is going to die. Probably lots of someones.”

Jere Gutierrez had heard a lot of stupid pitches, but most of them didn’t start so bluntly. He glanced at the old guy’s name and CV, scrolling in his eyeset: Evan McMaster. His last show: Extreme Losers.

“Death is a legal problem,” Jere said.

“For Neteno?”

“Neteno doesn’t do snuff.”

Evan gave him a thin smile. “What about the Philippines?”

“That was news.”

“How about the Three-Day Fever?”

Jere just looked at Evan, waiting for him to look away. Evan looked fifty, meaning he was probably at least seventy, scraping the last of the best med-tech before the docs threw up their hands and said, in fatalistic voices, We’re not miracle workers here!
While he waited, Jere skimmed his CV. Evan’s career started in the mythical hegemony of the 1970s, when television was God, and audiences sat rapt on their cheap sofas scarfing down microwave dinners, going to work the next day brimming with the warm commonality of experience. From staff writer for Five in a Room, he went on to produce a bunch of mindless crap to fill thirty-minute second-slots in the eighties and nineties. He’d been exec producer on one of the first reality shows, Endurance. From there, Evan’s work descended completely into the ghetto after the dawn of the internet era, and he’d done nothing past the aughties. The usergab on Extreme Losers pegged it a timewaster of the worst sort, a parade of physically unfit people put into situations where they were sure to kick it, except for some heroics at the end to save them. Most of the time.

Jere realized Evan was still looking at him.

“Make your pitch,” he said.

Evan just smiled, but said nothing.

“I’m amusing to you?”

“Not at all. I respect what you’ve done with Neteno.” Zero expression. Eyes like lead.

Jere turned to look through the window and out over the gray concrete expanse of Old Hollywood to the smog-brown west and the invisible Pacific. The view from Neteno’s office at the top of what had once been the Capitol Records building was always soothing. A reminder of how far he’d come.

“Are you going to pitch, or are you going to leave?”

“It’s a simple idea,” Evan said. “We resurrect the reality show. And we take it to Mars.”

Jere snapped back to look at Evan. To see if he was smiling, ha ha, good joke there. He wasn’t.

“Resurrect the reality show?”

“Yes.”

“And take it to . . . Mars? As in, the planet?”

“Yes. The planet.”

“For real? Not CGed?”

“For real.”

Jere stopped again. You gotta be fucking kidding me, he wanted to say. But . . . but it was a damn good idea. Except for the fact that it had to be colored all shades of expensive.

“I have data,” Evan said said, waving a tiny projector. “Can I show it?”

Jere nodded. “Lights down, screen down” he said. The window dimmed to twilight, and the room light ramped down, turning and blue as the screen descended.

There were brief flashes as the projector’s lasers found the screen, then garish graphics lit. WINNING MARS, it said, A Proposal for Neteno.

“First, let’s dispense with the death thing,” Evan said.

“Sponsors don’t like it.”

“Don’t lie. Sponsors love it. They just look properly horrified and give some insignificant percentage of their profits to the survivors and everyone’s happy. Your big problem is legal, and that can be surmounted.”

“And budget, I bet.”

Evan’s cocky expression wavered for a moment. He turned to the screen. “Let’s start with the reasons, first.”

Jere’s screen lit with colorful data, demographics, charts, multicolored peaks spiking like some impossible landscape. Standard 411, Inc. audience-inference data: size, engagement, propagation ability, monetization effectiveness. All stuff he’d seen before.

But this . . . this was wacky. Way out of proportion . . . Jere took a screengrab with his eyeset and blinked it out to 411 for verification. A message from one of their IAs shot back: Yes, this is ours.

Evan zoomed in on one of the datasets, labeled Political/Social factors. “First reason: the Chinese space program.”

“Didn’t the Chinese stop at the moon?”

“Yeah. But they said they’d go to Mars, and a whole lot of Chinese still want to go to Mars. And Koreans. And Japanese. And Americans.” Evan pointed out separate spikes on the chart, big, rabid, we-care-about-this-like-crazy spikes.

“Another reason is NASA. They’re gutted. After the Economic Rethink, everything’s de facto under Oversight. And if it ain’t promoting stability or leading to a shiny happy lower-consumption future, or helping someone get reelected, it’s a permanent deader. But there’s still an itch. People still want to see some great endeavor. Deep down, they dream about escape. It’s the Frontier Factor.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Henry Kase. Started on YouTube like you, but from the brainiac side. He’s been invited to the TED conference eight times, got a standing ovation from Zuckerberg at the last one. His algorithms found the guys planning that DC nuke. The Frontier Factor is his latest hobbyhorse.”

Jere’s eyeset barfed up lots of Kase video, but he blinked it away. “Go on.”

“Third reason, the Rabid Fan.”

Jere nodded. Everyone dreamed of creating a new Star Trek, still in syndication after all these years, or a new Simpsons, or a new Buffy. A show that made people dress up, go to conventions, meet in real life, invent languages, change dictionaries, and, most importantly, spend money in numerous ways.

“They’ll think this is too game show,” Jere said.

“Yeah. But they’ll watch. They’ll bitch, they’ll moan, but they’ll watch. All the trekkies and sci-fi nuts and people who dream about getting out, getting away, people who hate their lives for whatever reason, they’ll all watch. Look at the numbers.”

Data zoomed, showing tags of audience stickiness and inferred engagement, peaky and perfect and tantalizing. If they could create something like that . . . Jere sat silent for a long time, thinking, dreaming, imagining himself in control of a neverending, ever-licensing franchise.

Evan stole a glance at Jere, his eyes cool and calculating in the reflected laserlight.

Jere let him wait. Even though he was thinking about all the things he could do with a project like this. Selling ads was only the start. What would it be worth to have your logo on Mars? To have contestants drinking Starbucks and eating Marie Callenders? To have exclusive coverage of the tech? Reality advertising with the contestants?

Hell, how many trillions of impressions would they have for lead-up, and what kind of money could they make with user voting?

“Show me the budget,” Jere said.

Evan licked his lips, and his eyes stuttered sideways before fixing on Jere. “First, let me show you the vision.”

The screen switched to renderings of spacesuits with Nike logos, and something that looked like a big hamster wheel with a spacesuited person inside it, bouncing over the surface of Mars. The hamster wheel sported a Toyota logo. More data appeared: suggested sponsors, customized programs, and the like.

“I get the vision,” Jere said.

“The revenue possibilities—”

“I get that. The budget.”

“But I think we’ve found some additional opportunities—”

Jere just looked at Evan and waited. This time, Evan dropped his eyes. The slides flickered forward to black and white numbers, prettified by more renderings.

“We’re using Russian tech, the kind they’re using for the quarter million-dollar weeklong orbital packages. And we’re pushing it even farther, so we have some significant economies of scale—”

Jere laughed, long and hard.

“I don’t think you understand—”

“Oh, no,” Jere said. “I understand. I get it. I totally get it. And, you know what, I really like the idea. But that budget is bigger than the biggest of the massively multiplayer online games, and we’re stick down here in the linear narrative ghetto. Hell, that’s our topline for all of Neteno.”

“I think you’re missing out on the revenue opportunities, which counterbalance the investment.”

Jere glanced at the screen, expecting to see king-sized cost-per-impressions, exaggerated audiences, and sponsorship fees blown out of proportion.

But the numbers were solid. Evan hadn’t fudged. For a moment, Jere wondered: What if?

“It’s a show that could double the size of your network,” Evan said. “It could be your network.”

“Even if I said yes, our bankers would laugh us out of the room.”

“There are other ways of raising capital,” Evan said. “I would throw in personally.”

“How rich are you, Evan?”

Evan looked away. After a few moments, he turned off the projector.

“Lights up,” Jere said. The room brightened.

Evan turned to look at him, defeated. In that moment, he looked every bit of seventy, like something old and cold and prehistoric, dredged from the the La Brea tar pits. Evan didn’t wear animated clothing, didn’t have any visible tattoos, didn’t wear an eyeset. His jacket was black and boring and imperfectly tailored, as if it had been made by real, imperfect humans somewhere in the world, rather than grown to his shape. He wore a gray collarless shirt underneath, devoid of even a corporate logo. He even had a big clunky metal watch, one of those awful things that throbbed and ticked on your wrist like a bomb.

“I thought Neteno took chances,” Evan said.

“What?”

“I thought you still wanted to push the edge.”

Jere flushed, the hot stab of anger like a Buffy-stake in the heart. “We’ve pushed it.” Farther than you think, old man.

“I thought—”

“You’re not going to guilt me into this,” Jere said. “I told you how I feel. It’s a great idea. But the numbers don’t work.”

Evan opened his mouth as if to say something. Then he closed it. He put his little projector away, went to the door, and walked out without a word. He left it open as he slouched down the hall.

For a moment, Jere really felt sorry for him. It would’ve been a fun project.

But it just didn’t add up.

For more than eighty years H.P. Lovecraft has inspired writers of supernatural fiction, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and gaming. His themes of cosmic indifference, the utter insignificance of humankind, minds invaded by the alien, and the horrors of history — written with a pervasive atmosphere of unexplainable dread — today remain not only viable motifs, but are more relevant than ever as we explore the mysteries of a universe in which our planet is infinitesimal and climatic change is overwhelming it.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century the best supernatural writers no longer imitate Lovecraft, but they are profoundly influenced by the genre and the mythos he created. New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird presents some of the best of this new Lovecraftian fiction — bizarre, subtle, atmospheric, metaphysical, psychological, filled with strange creatures and stranger characters — eldritch, unsettling, evocative, and darkly appealing . . .

Contributors in Alphabetical Order

• The Crevasse, Dale Bailey & Nathan Ballingrud
• Old Virginia, Laird Barron
• Shoggoths in Bloom, Elizabeth Bear
• Mongoose, Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
• The Oram County Whoosit, Steve Duffy
• Study in Emerald, Neil Gaiman
• Grinding Rock, Cody Goodfellow
• Pickman’s Other Model (1929), Caitlin Kiernan
• The Disciple, David Barr Kirtley
• The Vicar of R’lyeh, Marc Laidlaw
• Mr Gaunt, John Langan
• Take Me to the River, Paul McAuley
• The Dude Who Collected Lovecraft, Nick Mamatas & Tim Pratt
• Details, China Mieville
• Bringing Helena Back, Sarah Monette
• Another Fish Story, Kim Newman
• Lesser Demons, Norm Partridge
• Cold Water Survival, Holly Phillips
• Head Music, Lon Prater
• Bad Sushi, Cherie Priest
• The Fungal Stain, W.H. Pugmire
• Tsathoggua, Michael Shea
• Buried in the Sky, John Shirley
• Fair Exchange, Michael Marshall Smith
• The Essayist in the Wilderness, William Browning Spencer
• A Colder War, Charles Stross
• The Great White Bed, Don Webb

Reviews:

(Starred) Horror writer H.P. Lovecraft has long inspired a wide range of authors. This latest anthology features 27 Lovecraftian tales published between 2000 and 2010. A father’s death and a tape recording force a young man to confront a horrible family secret in John Langan’s subtly revelatory tale, “Mr. Gaunt.” In a twist on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Neil Gaiman’s “A Study in Emerald” features a famous consulting
detective who investigates a royal murder in a Victorian England ruled by beings from beyond the stars. The contributors’ list consists of a
who’s who in contemporary sf and dark fantasy, including China Miéville, Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, Charles Stross, Caitlín R. Kiernan, and John Shirley. VERDICT For fans of Lovecraftian fiction and well-wrought horror–Library Journal

The lore underlying H.P. Lovecraft’s tales of cosmic horror has inspired some of the best talents in fantastic fiction, and Prime editor Guran’s latest anthology puts 27 exemplars on tentacle-wreathed display. Both Laird Barron in “Old Virginia” and Charles Stross in “A Colder War” speculate on the horrors that might ensue if government research teams were allowed to explore Lovecraftian monsters as potential weapons. In Cherie Priest’s “Bad Sushi,” a chef uncovers a cosmic conspiracy involving supernaturally corrupted seafood. Sherlock Holmes foils worshipers of Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones in Neil Gaiman’s “A Study in Emerald,” while in Elizabeth Bear’s “Shoggoths in Bloom,” an African-American scientist finds himself sympathizing with enslaved creations of those eldritch entities. Comic riffs on Lovecraftian themes include “The Essayist in the Wilderness,” William Browning Spencer’s hilarious account of a navel-gazing writer oblivious to his wife’s transformation. Guran (The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror) smartly selects stories that evoke the spirit of Lovecraft’s work without mimicking its style.–Publishers Weekly

…It’s a pretty impressive line-up, with nary a clunker to be found….You don’t have to be a Lovecraft fan to enjoy this collection. Heck, you don’t even have to be that well-versed in the Cthulhu Mythos to appreciate the stories. Sure, it helps if you know your shoggoths from your Nyarlathotep, but most of these stories are accessible nonetheless. You’ll find alienation, inhumanity, desperation, cruelty, insanity, hopelessness and despair, all set against the backdrop of a vast, unknowable universe filled with vile, indifferent monstrosities. You’ll also find beauty, hope, redemption, and the struggle for survival. What more can you ask for?—Tor.com

Lightspeed: Year One compiles all the fiction published by the online science fiction magazine Lightspeed in its first year. Originally published stories include Nebula Award finalists Vylar Kaftan’s “I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno” and Adam-Troy Castro’s “Arvies” as well as Carrie Vaughn’s Hugo Award-nominated “Amaryllis”. Plus there are classic stories by Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, and more.

The popular, critically-acclaimed Lightspeed is edited by bestselling anthologist John Joseph Adams. Lightspeed publishes all types of science fiction, from near-future sociological soft sf to far-future star-spanning hard sf—and everything in between. Each month, Lightspeed features a mix of original and classic stories, from a variety of authors, showcasing the best new genre voices along with bestsellers, award-winners, fan favorites, and notable authors readers already know.

Reviews:

Lightspeed editor Adams (Brave New Worlds) provides an outstanding print anthology of stories collected during the online SF magazine’s first year. These stories make it clear why Adams and the magazine have already separately been nominated for Hugo awards. The roster includes such longtime stars as Robert Silverberg, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Tanith Lee, as well as impressive up-and-comers like Genevieve Valentine, John R. Fultz, and Maggie Clark. The stories, though short, are hard-hitting and powerfully suggestive. Yoon Ha Lee’s “Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain” twists time into knots. Catherynne M. Valente discusses the path to supreme leadership in “How to Become a Mars Overlord.” Joe R. Lansdale’s “Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back” is a stunning mix of horror and SF. Years of work on F&SF and numerous lauded reprint anthologies have clearly honed Adams’s talents and prepared him to be a major force in the field.—Publishers Weekly (Starred)

Contents:

Introduction – John Joseph Adams

June 2010, Issue One
I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno – Vylar Kaftan
The Cassandra Project – Jack McDevitt
Cats in Victory – David Barr Kirtley
Amaryllis – Carrie Vaughn

July 2010, Issue Two
No Time Like the Present – Carol Emshwiller
Manumission – Tobias S. Buckell
The Zeppelin Conductors’ Society Annual Gentlemen’s Ball – Genevieve Valentine
…For a Single Yesterday – George R. R. Martin

August 2010, Issue Three
How to Become a Mars Overlord – Catherynne M. Valente
Patient Zero – Tananarive Due
Arvies – Adam-Troy Castro
More Than the Sum of His Parts – Joe Haldeman

September 2010, Issue Four
Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain – Yoon Ha Lee
The Long Chase – Geoffrey A. Landis
Amid the Words of War – Cat Rambo
Travelers – Robert Silverberg

October 2010, Issue Five (SF-Horror Hybrids Issue)
Hindsight – Sarah Langan
Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back – Joe R. Lansdale
The Taste of Starlight – John R. Fultz
Beachworld – Stephen King

November 2010, Issue Six
Standard Loneliness Package – Charles Yu
Faces in Revolving Souls – Caitlin R. Kiernan
Hwang’s Billion Brilliant Daughters – Alice Sola Kim
Ej-Es – Nancy Kress

December 2010, Issue Seven
In-Fall – Ted Kosmatka
The Observer – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Jenny’s Sick – David Tallerman
The Silence of the Asonu – Ursula K. Le Guin

January 2011, Issue Eight
Postings from an Amorous Tomorrow – Corey Mariani
Cucumber Gravy – Susan Palwick
Black Fire – Tanith Lee
The Elephants of Poznan – Orson Scott Card

February 2011, Issue Nine
Long Enough And Just So Long – Cat Rambo
The Passenger – Julie E. Czerneda
Simulacrum – Ken Liu
Breakaway, Backdown – James Patrick Kelly

March 2011, Issue Ten
Saying the Names – Maggie Clark
Gossamer – Stephen Baxter
Spider the Artist – Nnedi Okorafor
Woman Leaves Room – Robert Reed

April 2011, Issue Eleven
All That Touches the Air – An Owomoyela
Maneki Neko – Bruce Sterling
Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son – Tom Crosshill
Velvet Fields – Anne McCaffrey

May 2011, Issue Twelve
The Harrowers – Eric Gregory
Bibi From Jupiter – Tessa Mellas
Eliot Wrote – Nancy Kress
Scales – Alastair Reynolds

The first non-themed collection of the critically acclaimed author’s best short fiction. To paraphrase Hugo-award winner Elizabeth Bear’s introduction: Monette’s prose is lapidary, her ideas are fantastical and chilling. She has studied the craft of fantastic fiction from the pens of masters and mistresses of the genre. She is a poet of the awkward and the uncertain, exalter of the outcast, the outré, and the downright weird. There is nothing else quite like Sarah Monette’s fiction.

“Sarah Monette can write like a dream.” —Charlaine Harris

“Monette is a highly original writer with her own unique voice.” —Publishers Weekly

“Monette’s authorial voice is abundantly blessed with originality, sophistication, and artistry.”—Booklist

Reviews:

In a world where vampires rule the night, a human insomniac makes a startling discovery in “The World Without Sleep.” A young woman visiting the maritime museum in a seaside town aids a local selkie and uncovers the secret behind a strange collection of ship figureheads in “Somewhere Beneath Those Waves Was Her Home.” These and 25 other tales and one poem make up this standout collection by one of fantasy’s most elegant and dazzling writers (Melusine), who pushes the boundaries of emotional content and modern storytelling. VERDICT: Monette invites comparison with Tanith Lee, Storm Constantine, and Jacqueline Carey for her sensuously evocative prose and strong yet delicate storytelling.”—Library Journal, starred review

Monette’s lyrical tales vacillate between despair and hope in this powerful collection. The 25 short stories touch on such weighty topics as the substantial consequences of saving the world, or how ghosts eventually out their killers with frightening results for those who hear and see the revelations. While the tales may be carried by their unusual environments and dilemmas, Monette displays an equally strong gift for characterization. The pair of paranormal investigators in “A Night in Electric Squidland” and “Impostors” are such strong characters that they merit their own, larger work; the gender-bending spy of “Amante Dorée” is a heartbreakingly compelling protagonist. Though the tales vary in theme and tone, there is not a weak note in the collection, and both fans and new readers will be drawn into Monette’s strange and imaginative worlds.—Publishers Weekly, starred review

Contents:

• Draco campestris
• Queen of Swords
• Letter from a Teddy Bear on Veterans’ Day
• Under the Beansidhe’s Pillow (click to read)
• The Watcher in the Corners
• The Half-Sister
• Ashes, Ashes
• Sidhe Tigers
• A Light in Troy (selected for Best New Romantic Fantasy 2006)
• Amante Dorée
• Somewhere Beneath Those Waves Was Her Home
• Darkness, as a Bride
• Katabasis: Seraphic Trains
• Fiddleback Ferns
• Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland (Spectrum Award Winner)
• Night Train: Heading West. (selected for The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror XIX)
• The Séance at Chisholm End
• No Man’s Land
• National Geographic On Assignment: Mermaids of the Old West
• A Night in Electric Squidland.
• Impostors
• Straw
• Absent from Felicity
• The World Without Sleep
• After the Dragon

Kyle Murchison Booth is the unlikeliest of characters to gain a cult following, yet he has. Eccentric, socially awkward Booth is an introverted museum archivist, descended from a most unusual family, who frequently finds himself in the midst of most unsettling supernatural experiences and involved in strange necromantic mysteries. A gentleman and a scholar, this unwilling hero persevered through THE BONE KEY, a series of interconnected short stories, to win readers’ hearts (and possibly their souls).

This new edition—with a “puzzle” cover and a new introduction by one of Booth’s “successors” at the Samuel Mather Parrington—will please current fans and allow even more to discover its dark charms.

“Sarah Monette writes like a dream.” – Charlaine Harris

“This entrancing collection will appeal to fans of literary horror, dark fantasy and supernatural mystery.” – Publishers Weekly

Shivers and spirits…the mystical and macabre…our darkest fears and sweetest fantasies…the fun and frivolity of tricks, treats, festivities, and masquerades. Halloween is a holiday filled with both delight and dread, beloved by youngsters and adults alike. Celebrate the most magical season of the year with this sensational treasury of seasonal tales—spooky, suspenseful, terrifying, or teasing—harvested from a multitude of master storytellers.

Contributors in Alphabetical Order:

1. The October Game by Ray Bradbury
2. Tessellations by Gary Braunbeck
3. Memories by Peter Crowther
4. Universal Soldier by Charles de Lint
5. Auntie Elspeth’s Halloween Story (or The Gourd, The Bad, And The Ugly) by Esther Friesner
6. Struwwelpeter by Glen Hirshberg
7. Pranks by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
8. By the Book by Nancy Holder
9. The Sticks by Charlee Jacob
10. Riding Bitch by K.W. Jeter
11. On the Reef by Caitlin R. Kiernan
12. Memories of el Dia de los Muertos by Nancy Kilpatrick
13. The Great Pumpkin Arrives at Last by Sarah Langan
14. On a Dark October by Joe R. Lansdale
15. Conversations in a Dead Language by Thomas Ligotti
16. Hallowe’en in a Suburb by H.P. Lovecraft (poem)
17. Pumpkin Night by Gary McMahon
18. The Halloween Man by William F. Nolan
19. Monsters by Stewart O’Nan
20. Three Doors by Norman Partridge
21. Ulalume by Edgar Allan Poe (poem)
22. Night Out by Tina Rath
23. Hornets by Al Sarrantonio
24. Tamlane by Sir Walter Scott (poem)
25. Mask Game by John Shirley
26. Pork Pie Hat by Peter Straub
27. Halloween Street by Steve Rasnic Tem
28. Tricks & Treats: One Night on Halloween Street by Steve Rasnic Tem
29. The November Game by F. Paul Wilson
30. Sugar Skulls by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Monsters: As old as the oldest of stories, as new as our latest imaginings. From the ancient stone corridors of the labyrinth to the graffitied alleyways of the contemporary metropolis, they stalk the shadows. Leering from the darkness of the forest, jostling for space in our closets, they walk, crawl, creep and scuttle through our nightmares. Close as the clutter under the bed or waiting just the other side of the mirror, they are our truest companions.

Creatures! The best monster fiction from the past thirty years offers a wide variety of the best monster tales–including three original stories–from speculative fiction’s most relevant names and hottest newcomers including Clive Barker, Sarah Langan, Joe R. Lansdale, Kelly Link, China Miéville, and Cherie Priest.

Creatures! Contents

IT CAME AND WE KNEW IT
“Godzilla’s Twelve-Step Program,” Joe R. Lansdale
“The Creature from the Black Lagoon,” Jim Shepard
“After Moreau,” Jeffrey Ford
“Among Their Bright Eyes,” Alaya Dawn Johnson
“Under Cover of Night,” Christopher Golden
“The Kraken,” Michael Kelly
“Underneath Me, Steady Air,” Carrie Laben

IT CAME WE COULD NOT STOP IT
“Rawhead Rex,” Clive Barker
“Wishbones,” Cherie Priest
“The Hollow Man,” Norm Partridge
“Not from Around Here,” David J. Schow
“The Ropy Thing,” Al Sarrantonio
“The Third Bear,” Jeff Vandermeer

IT CAME FOR US
“Monster,” Kelly Link
“Keep Calm and Carillon,” Genevieve Valentine
“The Deep End,” Robert R. McCammon
“The Serpent and the Hatchet Gang,” F. Brett Cox
“Blood Makes Noise,” Gemma Files
“The Machine Is Perfect, the Engineer Is Nobody,” Brett Alexander Savory
“Proboscis,” Laird Barron

IT CAME FROM US
“Familiar,” China Miéville
“Replacements,” Lisa Tuttle
“Little Monsters,” Stephen Graham Jones
“The Changeling,” Sarah Langan
“The Monsters of Heaven,” Nathan Ballingrud
“Absolute Zero,” Nadia Bulkin

Visit Brenda Cooper’s website

“Wonderful read! A lively and thought-provoking story that moves between the past and present of the Mayan world, filled with engaging characters, vivid descriptions, and unexpected turns. Kept me up late into the night.”—Barb Hendee co-author of the Noble Dead Saga

“A fresh, inventive look at the 2012 end of the world. Whatever you’re expecting, this will be different, including a rich portrayal of vanished Mayan culture and wonderfully extravagant ending. Journey with Alice and Nixie and Ah Bahlam to places we would all like to go; the journey will repay you tenfold.”—Nancy Kress

Dr. Alice Cameron is a famous scientist – an archeoastronomer – devoted to studying ancient Mayan culture. The era driving her career has always been the end of the Mayan baktun, so she’s on the Yucatan Peninsula in December 2012 with her daughter Nixie…and so are fellow serious scholars, plenty of end-of-the-world crazies, and – at an international summit – the President of the United States and other heads of state. When Nixie disappears into the past in the Mayan jungle, rationality and mysticism, the present and the past start merging. Meanwhile, Alice is drawn into the machinations of statecraft by an old friend. A savvy scientist, a handsome dreadlocked time-traveler, an ancient shaman, a Mayan couple, a computer nerd, and an 11-year old traverse the past and present in a search for the meaning of life and a way to save two worlds.

Publishers Weekly Review:

Cooper interweaves past and present in this elegantly understated narrative of the Mayan calendar ending in 2012…Alice Cameron is an archeoastronomer visiting the Yucatán to view the December 2012 celestial alignment. Her 11-year-old daughter, Nixie, sees the trip as an adventure, but she gets more excitement than she bargains for when she walks into the past and meets Ah Bahlam, a young Mayan lord, and a weeping young woman named Hun Kan. As time thins, the two Mayans, their world crumbling into war, will have their destinies altered by the encounter, and the changes may ripple through Alice’s and Nixie’s increasingly grim present…Nixie is delightful, and Cooper illuminates the colorful Mayan world with imagination-hugging historical and cultural detail.

Locus Review:

[A] seemingly fictional oddity that appears in our own world is predictions of impending doom based on ancient Mayan religious beliefs that place the drastic end of an epoch this year or next, according to their ideas about celestial cycles. Though modern scientists don’t buy the prediction, it did come from a civilization with sophisticated knowledge of astronomy. It’s that, rather than the crazies ranting about the end days, which inspires archaeo-astronomer Dr. Alice Cameron to make her latest visit to the Yucatan Peninsula during the fated final month of 2012, in Brenda Cooper’s fantasy Mayan December. As the book begins, the scientist’s preteen daughter Nixie prefers immediate things like “a thousand tiny patterns in the sand” beneath her feet, the “stench of stale frying oil mixed with the scent of salt and seaweed,” and the babble of languages from visitors and natives who throng this beach. Switching between perspectives that include Alice’s educated skepticism, Nixie’s attention to details, and some early Mayans’ very different notions of their world, Mayan December achieves the unlikely feat of making a novel about time travelers at a crucial (shared) moment not just vivid but convincing. It never loses all connection with sanity or hope, despite threats ranging from the possibility of wholesale collapse for two great civilizations to more specific elements like Mayan religious rites of human sacrifice: a weird belief which becomes a very real possibility for Hun Kan, the young woman captured while our time-traveling moderns look on but cannot help her. (In a gory vignette, that fate does befall one of Hun’s friends.) Though she becomes a kind of tribal Juliet to the tyro priest/shapechanger Ah Balam’s Romeo, almost resigned to early death, in more optimistic moments she can still picture a happy ending: just herself and Ah Balam, together in a household with their very own slaves. After Nixie abruptly disappears, her mother and a little band of misfits—an educated local woman, a geek, and an obsessed explorer whose growing interest in Alice rattles her just when she needs all her wits about her—try to find the girl in a zone where time has become strangely porous. Even those seeming opposites, magic and technology, don’t always stay where they belong. Things like a quetzal’s gorgeous feather shifting between centuries, cell-phone snapshots of Itza’s temples in their original gaudy paint-jobs, and the gift of a modern watch to a baffled Mayan girl lead to some bloodshed and may portend far worse. These dangers concentrate the mind, heart and spirit (and produce internal quarrels). Cooper handles one further complication, an international conference that brings world leaders to the Yucatan, through a deft interplay of scenes in the two eras. How is an archaeological tour for VIPs like a ritual dance for one’s own fetish beast? Mayan December provides some provocative answers.

Book Trailer:

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