It’s 1938 and the world’s mammal tribes teeter on the brink of war. In New York, a mysterious lodger takes up residence at the Explorers Club. Who is Edmund Mouse? What is it he knows about the peculiar Barrow stones in Times Square? Who is hunting him and why? As our narrator Mole confronts these questions, he is lured into a nocturnal web of intrigue and magic where nothing is what it seems.Enter an imaginative landscape that is at once hauntingly familiar and utterly alien. The ...

Hell to Pay is a comprehensive and compelling examination of the many complex issues that encompassed the strategic plans for the proposed American invasion of Japan. U.S. planning for the invasion and military occupation of Imperial Japan was begun in 1943, two years before the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In its final form, Operation Downfall called for a massive Allied invasion—on a scale dwarfing D-Day—to be carried out in two stages. In the first stage, O...

I’ve been told to go to Hell more times than I can count. But this time I’m actually going.My name’s Bobby Dollar, sometimes known as Doloriel, and of course, Hell isn’t a great place for someone like me—I’m an angel. They don’t like my kind down there, not even the slightly fallen variety. But they have my girlfriend, who happens to be a beautiful demon named Casimira, Countess of Cold Hands. Why does an angel have a demon girlfriend? Well, certainly not because it helps ...

About to depart on his first vacation in years, Edward Wozny, a hot-shot young investment banker, is sent to help one of his firm's most important and mysterious clients. When asked to uncrate and organize a personal library of rare books, Edward's indignation turns to intrigue as he realizes that there may be a unique medieval codex hidden among the volumes, a treasure kept locked away for many years and for many reasons. As friends draw Edward into a peculiar and addictive computer game,...

"Joyously wild stuff. Highly recommended." —The New York TimesOne of the 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time, according to Time MagazineA Finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards for Best NovellaOne of the 25 Best Fantasies of All Time, according to Good HousekeepingThe Black Tides of Heaven is one of a pair of unique, standalone intr...

The depth and breadth of what science fiction and fantasy fiction is changes with every passing year. The two dozen stories chosen for this book by award-winning anthologist Jonathan Strahan carefully maps this evolution, giving readers a captivating and always-entertaining look at the very best the genre has to offer.

A survey of the last 100 years of science fiction, with representative stories and illuminating essays by the top writers, poets, and scholars, from Edgar Rice Burroughs and Samuel Butler to Robert A. Heinlein and and Jack Vance, from E.E. "Doc" Smith and Clifford D. Simak to Ted Chiang and Charles Stross-- and everyone in between. More than one million words of classic fiction and essays!

Explore the Realities of Tomorrow in the Best Science Fiction of the YearIn The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection, the world's top science fiction authors blur the line between life and art as they explore the secrets that lay beyond the far reaches of the universe in the new millennium. This venerable collection brings together award-winning and master authors such as Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Damien Broderick, Elizabeth Bear,...

Strahan's fifth anthology contains 29 wide-ranging tales. Neil Gaiman's "The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains" is a deceptively simple folktale-styled story of the price one may pay for gold. "The Sultan of the Clouds" by Geoffrey Landis untangles a complex knot of childish power. Sarah Rees Brennan's "The Spy Who Never Grew Up" gives a beloved childhood icon a sinister update; Diana Peterfreund's "The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn" turns unicorn lore on its head; and ...

LEAP INTO THE FUTURE, AND SHOOT BACK TO THE PASTH. G. Wells’s seminal short story “The Time Machine,” published in 1895, provided the springboard for modern science fiction’s time travel explosion. Responding to their own fascination with the subject, the greatest visionary writers of the twentieth century penned some of their finest stories. Here are eighteen of the most exciting tales ever told, including“Time’s Arrow” In Arthur C. Clarke...

No matter your expectations, the dark is full of the unknown: grim futures, distorted pasts, invasions of the uncanny, paranormal fancies, weird dreams, unnerving nightmares, baffling enigmas, revelatory excursions, desperate adventures, spectral journeys, mundane terrors, and supernatural visions. You may stumble into obsession - or find redemption. Often disturbing, occasionally delightful, let The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror be your annual guide through the mysteries and wonders...

The best stories of the year: here is a collection of the year's best fantasy stories, by some of the genre's greatest authors, and selected by Rich Horton, a contributing reviewer to many of the field's most respected magazines. In this volume you'll find stories Peter Beagle, Paul Di Filippo, Neil Gaiman, Theodora Goss, Kelly Link, Gene Wolfe and many more!Complete contents:PIP AND THE FAIRIES, by Theodora GossCOMBER, by Gene WolfeTHREE URBAN FOLK TALES, by ...