Sometimes things are not as they appear, especially when religion, magic, and shady dealings mix.It's 1908, and itinerant spirit medium Madame Ilsa von Hoffmann is at the end of her professional rope, facing down two unappealing options: join an ill-conceived commune founded by some fellow trans ex-vaudevillians, or take on a high-paying but mysterious job offered by a religious extremist in Salt Lake City. Madame Ilsa opts for Utah and the employ of one R...

The Book of Mormon prophet Nephi describes the journey to eternal life as going through a gate of ordinances and traveling a “straight and narrow path.” Twenty-three authors took that gospel roadmap passage as a prompt to write “a Mormon story.” They responded with a surprisingly wide range of realistic and fantastic tales. Many are human reactions to unexpected steps on the path: a lifetime of faith in a patriarchal blessing’s unfulfilled promise, a survivor of violence calling a divided ...

An exhilarating, original novel, set in Brazil, Idaho, and outer space, about an obsessive librarian, a down-at-heel author, and a disgraced historian who go on the hunt for a mystical, life-changing book--and find it.The Infinite Future is a mindbending novel that melds two page-turning tales in one. In the first, we meet three broken people, joined by an obsession with a forgotten Brazilian science-fiction author named Salgado-MacKenzie. There's Danny, a...

An exhilarating, original novel, set in Brazil, Idaho, and outer space, about an obsessive librarian, a down-at-heel author, and a disgraced historian who go on the hunt for a mystical, life-changing book--and find it.The Infinite Future is a mindbending novel that melds two page-turning tales in one. In the first, we meet three broken people, joined by an obsession with a forgotten Brazilian science-fiction author named Salgado-MacKenzie. There's Danny, a...

Literary critic Shearman Waxx can kill a good book with just a few acidly worded bon mots. And as one unlucky author is about to discover, that’s not all he’s prepared to kill. . . .From #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense Dean Koontz comes a mesmerizing thriller about the battle of wills that ensues when a successful author and likable family man confronts a reclusive sociopath who wields an all-too-deadly poison pen. Respect Shearman Waxx’s opinion and you might esca...

Combining the soul-baring insight of Wild, the profound wisdom of Shop Class as Soulcraft, and the adventurous spirit of Eat, Pray, Love: Lynn Darling’s powerful, lyrical memoir of self-discovery, full of warmth and wry humor, Out of the Woods.When her college-bound daughter leaves home, Lynn Darling, widowed over a decade earlier, finds herself alone—and utterly lost, with no idea of what she wants or even who she is. Searching for answers, she leaves New York for the solitary woo...

"A dazzling memoir that reminds us of the most primal function of literature—to heal, to nurture and to connect us to our truest selves." —Thrity Umrigar, author of The Space Between UsCatalyzed by the loss of her sister, a mother of four spends one year savoring a great book every day, from Thomas Pynchon to Nora Ephron and beyond. Nina Sankovitch's soul-baring and literary-minded memoir is a chronicle of loss, hope, and redemption. Nina ultimately turns t...

Credited with sparking the current memoir explosion, Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club spent more than a year at the top of the New York Times list. She followed with two other smash bestsellers: Cherry and Lit, which were critical hits as well.For thirty years Karr has also taught the form, winning teaching prizes at Syracuse. (The writing program there produced such acclaimed authors as Cheryl Strayed, Keith Gessen, and Koren Zailckas.) In The Art of Memo...

Following the international best-seller "PC Bedtime Stories" come these nurturing tales for pre-adults. These stories purge the cultural biases, sexism, speciesism, and other -isms from the "classics" that have been handed down from one social power structure to another. Plus new material: a chapter of "Rex Koko, Private Clown," from the award-winning mystery, Honk Honk, My Darling.

From acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin, a collection of thoughts—always adroit, often acerbic—on aging, belief, the state of literature, and the state of the nation.Ursula K. Le Guin on the absurdity of denying your age: “If I’m ninety and believe I’m forty-five, I’m headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub.”On cultural perceptions of fantasy: “The direction of escape is toward freedom. So what is ‘escapism’ an accusati...

Science fiction and crime go hand-in-tentacle, if you’ll pardon the expression. Many of the science fiction field’s greatest writers also wrote mysteries…and vice versa. And sometimes the science fiction stories were mysteries. Our latest MEGAPACK® contains nothing but those blended SF-and-Mystery stories, by some of the greatest writers in the field. Included are:ORIGINS OF GALACTIC LAW, by Edward WellenDragNeuroNet, by John Gregory BetancourtDON'T GET TECHNATAL, by ...

LIGHTSPEED is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine. In its pages, you will find science fiction: from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF--and fantasy: from epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, and contemporary urban tales, to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folktales.This month, we have original science fiction by Jeremiah Tolbert ("In the Dying Light, We Saw a Shape") and Anaea Lay ("Salamander Patterns"), along with SF reprints by ...