Like your science fiction / fantasy on the darker side?Do you like to read about personal struggles and challenges made all the more difficult by technology or something really bizarre or fantastic?Do you feel stories don't always have to wrap up all cheery and warm, with extra rice pudding and happily ever after for everyone?Me too.Here are six of my dark sci-fi tales purchased and published by e-zines from 2007 through 2011 plus one previously unpublished ...

She sought her place, potential and purpose. Who knew a killer guarded them inside a whirling cone of havoc and death?Raven hated suffocating. So after nineteen years of relentless maternal smothering she fled from lifeless vacuum to utopia, at least Austin's reasonable approximation thereof, where a girl might discover herself and have some fun. Freewheeling turns to awe when she becomes an instrumental part of cutting-edge research that, with sufficient and dangerous determinatio...

The Whumpy Printing Press presents: High Stakes and Bloody BusinessFrom bloodthirsty monsters to misunderstood victims, this anthology brings together thirty vampire stories. The vampires in these stories are sometimes good, sometimes bad, but they're always hungry.So sink your teeth into this collection to satisfy your (fictional) bloodlust.Included authors: Kailey Alessi, Ennis Rook Bashe, Max Browne, Mill Cohen, Alfie Court, Megan Renee Doyle, Booker G. ...

Adam Griffey is living two lives. By day, he teaches literature. At night, he steals it. Adam is a plagiarist, an expert reader with an eye for great works. He prowls simulated worlds perusing virtual texts, looking for the next big thing. And when he finds it, he memorizes it page by page, line by line, word for word. And then he brings it back to his world.But what happens when these virtual worlds begin to seem more real than his own? What happens when the people within them mea...

Every flame begins with a spark.Blackwood Academy was supposed to be a fresh start for Ashline Wilde. A secluded boarding school deep in the heart of California’s redwood forests, three thousand miles from her old life—it sounded like the new beginning she needed after an act of unspeakable violence left a girl in her hometown dead. But Blackwood is far from the peaceful haven Ashline was searching for. Because terrifying, supernatural beasts roam the forests aroun...

All's quiet in the small town of Holliswood - television sets, computers, and portable devices aglow in every home, classroom, and store. But everything is not as perfect as it may seem. An evil is lurking, just out of sight, behind the screen.From the darkest depths of imagination flickers the most terrifying enemy Daniel X is yet to face. A villain with more ambition than the world can withstand, dead set on throwing the sleepy neighbourhood into chaos and documenting the destruc...

Kiiki has spent ten years in the Dome, the first to be dumped there when she was fourteen. Now, the Citadel is offering her a chance to get out and she is not hesitating. Her family will keep, she needs out NOW.Harken is a cloud-formed Nishan and Kiiki’s new partner. How can she trust a man who can choose any shape he wishes on a world where they want her to use her power talent for hours a day?Her attraction to her strange companion grows with his appreciation of her skill...

The Year’s Best SF 17 is a showcase of the best short form science fiction of 2011, selected by World Fantasy Award winners David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, two of the most respected editors in the field of speculative fiction. Like the previous sixteen volumes of the series that has been called “the finest modern science fiction writing,” The Year’s Best SF 17 features stories from some of the brightest lights in sf—including Gregory Benford (Beyond Human), Na...

Angel Eastland knows that she's different from the other kids, and not just because she has strikingly violet eyes—but when she meets Michael Vallant, who also has violet eyes, Angel realizes they are both very different and both in danger.Angel Eastland knows she's different. It's not just her violet eyes that set her apart. She's smarter than her classmates and more athletically gifted. Her only real competition is Michael Vallant, who also has violet eyes—eyes t...

WELCOME TO THE SECOND “GOLDEN AGE” OF SUPERHEROES AND HEROINESSuperheroes have come a long way since the “Man of Steel” was introduced in 1938. This brilliant new collection features original stories and novellas from some of today’s most exciting voices in comics, science fiction, and fantasy. Each marvelously inventive tale shows us just how far our classic crusaders have evolved—and how the greatest of heroes are, much like ourselves, all too human.In “C...

The best science fiction short stories of 2002 and 2003, selected by David G. Hartwell, one of the most respected editors in the field.The short story is one of the most vibrant and exciting areas in science fiction today. It is where the hot new authors emerge and where the beloved giants of the field continue to publish.Now, building on the success of the first seven volumes, Eos will once again present a collection of the best stories of the year in mass...

Magic lives in remarkable realms -- and in the short fiction of today's top fantasists. In this fifth breathtaking volume of the year's best flights of the fantastic, award-winning editors David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer present a dazzling new array of wonders -- stories that break through the time-honored conventions of the genre to carry the reader to astonishing places that only the most ingenious minds could conceive.In the able hands of Neil Gaiman, Kage Baker, Tim Powers...