Thirteen creepy tales (and one poem), to make you squirm, and to send chills up your spine. It's got a haunted house, bloodsucking feathers, ancient evil entities with unpronounceable names, cybernetically enhanced zombies, mutant human-dragonfly hybrids, and a particularly nasty breed of psychic eel. Being scared has never been so much fun!

Uncle Sam leaned back in his chair to light a new Cignals, the dead one smoldering in the ashtray, smoke settling over his shoulder before squiggling in ribbons to join the coiled clouds hanging from the ceiling. After another drink and another suck, he leaned his head back and rounded his mouth into an O and blew a smoke ring to hang like a giant Cheerio above his head in a yellow-fogged halo, like the one in that picture of the upside-down Jesus. Leonard, a live-off-the-grid guy, decides...

Salty Saltzmanous's life was pretty dull. After years of hopping from trailer park to trailer park with his family, he thought he would get a new start in a little house deep in Mennonite country; but all that's there to do is work, drink, and argue with his wife. He didn't think it could get much worse-until he accidentally killed her. So he ran. Now it's been fourteen years on the run, living with a lively cast of homeless outcasts in the big city, all of them on the run from their pasts...

As 14-year-old-Katria watches her father, Ivan, step-by-step sweep his spray of poison brew back to front over the lawn, she imagines the little creatures beneath the fall of his steel- toed boots curling up dead the minute he passes. She imagines his poison percolating through the soil and travelling underground to his patch of rhubarb stalks that he stewed in pots and forced Moms to eat in large quantities to make her lose weight. Then, Katria can hardly believe the voice she hears comin...

After years of revolving-door foster care, one home to another, Owen and Martha are suddenly moved to a house in Toronto, where Sister Charlotte comes to take care of them. "When Sister Charlotte limped through the front door of our house, I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I was. Her face was lined, her skin grey, and her hair dead and stringy, as though she belonged in a coffin. She didn’t wear a nun’s white head-cover; her plain blue dress with black socks and flat black shoes was the...

From the 1898 Martian Siege of Baltimore to a forlorn AI attack dog on the blue-star-scarred surface of MZ458-C and from the merc-manned Freestead Mayflower off the coast of post-apocalyptic Portland to the man-desperate shores of the Red Sea, here are seventeen science fiction stories of valiant endurance. These heroes battle conspiracies of usurpers, confront the unearned consequences of others’ willful lunacy, seek out buried truths at unbearable personal expense and endure the ...

A short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. The tale has been translated into over a hundred languages.

A short tale by Hans Christian Andersen about two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes that is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent. The tale has been translated into over a hundred languages.

From the Imperium-controlled aetherlanes to a tech noir restitution agency in the Free Zone and from a steampunk, 1894 China with clockwork automatons to a post-1984 Orwellian dystopia with mandatory goodpharm, here are ten science fiction stories of defiance and daring.Split evenly between strong female and male leads, these heroes fight losing battles on principle alone, discover lies hidden deep inside themselves, execute daring rescues and fight for love and liberty in a societ...

Eighteen exhilarating journeys into Rush-inspired worldsThe music of Rush, one of the most successful bands in history, is filled with fantastic stories, evocative images, and thought-provoking futures and pasts. In this anthology, notable, bestselling, and award-winning writers each chose a Rush song as the spark for a new story, drawing inspiration from the visionary trio that is Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart.Enduring stark dystopian struggles o...

Under normal conditions a whole person has a decided advantage over a handicapped one. But out in deep space the normal may be reversed--for humans at any rate.

A mutant baby goes on a rampage through Central Park. An immigrant reveals secrets in the folds of a perfect gift. Lucky Cats extend their virtual paws to salute a generous revolution. The Internet invades a third-world village.The premier speculative-fiction magazine Fantasy & Science Fiction continues to discover and showcase many of the most inventive authors writing in any genre. Now drawing even more deeply upon F&SF's impressive history, this extraordinary c...