Bringing together 34 flash fiction stories from 14 authors, SPARK offers a host of stories to thrill, move, and challenge fans of short-short fiction. A woman physically at war with her mother's legacy inside her own body, a young girl given a vision of a utopic past at the end of the world, a man psychically bonded to the living weapon for which he is the failsafe, a harem of "female" androids newly capable of questioning their subservient status—these are a few of the characters you'll m...

30 powerful stories from around the world to benefit two children's charities: PROTECT: The National Association to Protect Children and Children 1st Scotland.Stories by David Ackley, Kevin Aldrich, David Barber, Lynn Beighley, Seamus Bellamy, Paul D. Brazill, Sif Dal, James Lloyd Davis, Roberto C. Garcia, Susan Gibb, Nancy A. Hansen, K.V. Hardy, Gill Hoffs, Fiona "McDroll" Johnson, J.F. Juzwik, MaryAnne Kolton, Benoit Lelievre, Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw, Vinod Narayan, Paula Pahnk...

What Endures is a story of powerful love. It is a story that will break your heart. Inspired by true events, it tells of the incredible bond between a mother and daughter, and with gut-wrenching poignancy reminds us of the little things that make life worth living.“Holdstock’s writing manages to be both heartbreakingly poetic and densely detailed … sad passages, ghostlike recollections, written almost from the vantage point of the present, establish the book as a great wor...

Everyone loves their grandma but these three are just a little...different. They have certain skills in war and strategy developed over forty years through military training and discipline. They are the definition of "never judge a book by its cover." They now work as contractors for the extra money. Follow the hapless Clem as he is hired to drive the three on their latest mission of destruction.

The acclaimed author "assembles a stellar collection of twenty stories that create their own worlds in twenty pages or less" ( USA Today ).Tom Perrotta explains in his introduction that "all of [these stories] took me somewhere I didn't expect to go, and jolted me into that state of heightened awareness and emotional receptivity that's one of the great rewards of reading good fiction."In Nathan Englander s What We ...

The fourth volume of the annual Unidentified Funny Objects series features the theme of dark humor.What happens when you ask some of the genre's masters to interpret this theme? The enclosed twenty-three darkly humorous tales range from black comedy to biting satire to morbid irony and everything in between.Inside this book you'll find Faustian bargains gone awry, time-traveling ghosts, flawed supervillains, talking hamsters, and much more.Featuring stories by:

Forty-six very short science fiction, fantasy and horror stories. Perfect for reading while commuting, standing in line while waiting to renew your driver's licence, waiting for that friend who is always running late for drinks or other situations where you just don't have time to spend on a longer story.  Travel to fantasy worlds, fly with super heroes and tremble in the face of unkind mysteries and horrible horrors.  There are 46 stories. That's about 2 cents pe...

This sophisticated, scary anthology collects the best horror fiction published between 1984 and 2005, one of horror’s most innovative eras. These exceptionally diverse stories, hand-picked by horror-expert editor Ellen Datlow, are tales of the subtly psychological, the unpredictably mischievous, and the disturbingly visceral.Here are classics, such as horror master Stephen King’s Chattery Teeth,” the tautly drawn account of a traveling salesman who unwisely picks up yet another hi...

"A heady, infectious celebration."-The New Yorker"Shaughnessy's voice is smart, sexy, self-aware, hip . . . consistently wry, and ever savvy."-Harvard ReviewBrenda Shaughnessy's heartrending third collection explores dark subjects-trauma, childbirth, loss of faith-and stark questions: What is the use of pain and grief? Is there another dimension in which our suffering might be transformed? Can we change ourselves? Yearning for new gods, new worlds, and new...

Liz is determined to carve out some alone time to spend with her husband, Jimmy. But fate and the kids seem destined to interfere. And worse, her attempts to find a happy balance between responsibility and romance may prove more a comedy of errors than the night, well—fifteen minutes—of hot sex she's hoping for. Or will it?

A young man writes letters in a last gasp at finding meaning in the world.

This story collection "showcases that lighter side of Paul Di Filippo . . . with some memorable moments of brilliant wit and storytelling" (Infinity Plus).With twenty tales, a bold lack of restraint, and amazing stylistic diversity, Di Filippo makes strange bedfellows of a range of characters—from Jayne Mansfield to Pythagoras to Disney "imagineers" to the Virgin Mary—fit together inside a bountiful collection of surprises, humor, and the very, very strange. William...