Enjoy today's most awesome and innovative science fiction, chosen by acclaimed editor David G. Hartwell from the best short fiction published over the last year. Like its two distinguished processors, Year's Best SF 3 is a cybercopia of astonishing stories from familiar favorites and rising stars, all calculated to blow your mind, scorch your, senses, erase your inhibitions, and reinitialize your intelligence. With stories from: Gregory Benford, Terry Bisson, Greg Egan, William Gibson, Nancy Kress, Robert Silverberg, Gene Wolfe and more...

The first instalment of a thrilling new crusader series in the style of Conn Iggulden and Bernard Cornwell. France 1096. Crowds gather in a square in Sens to hear the man known as the Hermit speak. He talks of a pilgrimage to the city of Jerusalem, a pilgrimage filled with promises for Christian soldiers who march with him. In Jerusalem all sinners will be forgiven and the pious rewarded with great riches. Sybille's husband is a reckless man and easily swayed by the Hermit's words. Even knowing the jeopardy and risk of the road ahead Sybille has no choice but to follow her husband and join the march. Fulk, a young blacksmith, is hungry for adventure. The pilgrimage is exactly the excitement he's craving. For his brother Odo the march is far more serious and sparks a dangerous fanaticism even Fulk doesn't see coming. Jeanne and Guillemette have been treated badly by the men in their life but this is...

The long-awaited return to Emma Newman's popular fantasy series, A Little Knowledge takes us back to the Split Worlds, where dynastic families feud across the ages, furthering the agendas of their cruel supernatural patrons. "Emma Newman is an extraordinary new voice in SF/F." - Paul Cornell, Hugo Award winner, and author of London Falling and Saucer Country Cathy and Will are now the Duchess and Duke of Londinium, the biggest Fae-touched Nether city, but they have different ideas of what their authority offers. Pressured by his Fae patron, Lord Iris, Will struggles to maintain total control whilst knowing he must have a child with his difficult wife. Cathy wants to muscle the Court through two hundred years of social change and free it from its old-fashioned moral strictures. But Cathy learns just how dangerous it can be for a woman who dares to speak out... Meanwhile, as Sam learns more about the Elemental Court it becomes clear that the Fae are not the only threat to humanity. Sam realises that he has to make enemies of the most powerful people on the planet, or risk becoming the antithesis of all he believes in. Threatened by secret societies, hidden power networks and Fae machinations, can Sam and Cathy survive long enough to make the changes they want to see in the world?  

The Agency by Donna AugustineDe Facto by Annie BelletVenom by Sarra CannonHoneysuckle Memories: A Scarlett Smith Memoir by Selene CharlesSpirits of Bourbon Street by Deanna ChaseThe Ghost & Mrs. MacKay by Kate DanleyFull Moon Mischief by Debra DunbarDog Days of Summer by Hailey EdwardsAtomic by C. GockelVictoria Gardella: Vampire Slayer by Colleen GleasonHighland Magic by Helen HarperContents May Have Shifted by Shawntelle MadisonIllusions by Christine PopeDying Night by SM ReineBrea's Tale: Arrival by Anthea SharpAngels and Demons by Colleen VanderlindenDragon's Fury by Phaedra Weldon

From Roald Dahl, the master of the sting in the tail, a newly collected book of his darkest stories.'The cruelest lies are often told in silence . . .'Why do we lie? Why do we deceive those we love most? What do we fear revealing? In these ten tales of deception master storyteller Roald Dahl explores our tireless efforts to hide the truth about ourselves.Here, among many others, you'll read about how to get away with the perfect murder, the old man whose wagers end in a most disturbing payment, how revenge is sweeter when it is carried out by someone else and the card sharp so good at cheating he does something surprising with his life.Dahl understood our deepest secrets, desires and fears and Deception is one of four books - the rest being Lust, Cruelty and Madness - that explore our hidden selves.

A dash from an empty house at the sight of a murdered man with a dragon-topped hatpin protruding from one eye! An escape from the police on the back of a speeding roadster. The discovery that its driver, a curly-haired, beautiful girl, clutches in one hand the headless body of that same fatal dragon-topped hatpin!This is the first climax of breathless action that winds about the figure of Ford Harling, penniless derelict in Chicago, and plunges him into the heart of another famous web-work plot of Harry Stephen Keeler. He is caught in a maelstrom of circumstances that whirl about a stolen ruby, counterfeit bills, a nocturnal visit to a cemetery, and a peculiarly baffling murder involving a lovely heiress.It is the fastest-moving mystery ever written by Harry Stephen Keeler, expert in bafflement and tantalizing clues.

fiction , prose

A reconstruction of Melville's original text omits the "Pierre as author" subplot that was later assimilated and is accompanied by thirty full-color pictures by Maurice Sendak.

'On days of combat, the crew would mix gunpowder with their liquor' Borges became famous as a writer of short stories that contained new realities: elaborately conceived, ingenious and gamesome pr�cis of impossible worlds or imaginary books. In these five stories there is danger on the high seas, an ungracious teacher of etiquette and an encyclopaedia of an unknown planet - and Borges's unique imagination and intellect plays throughout. This book includes The Widow Ching-Pirate, Monk Eastman, Purveyor of Iniquities, The Uncivil Teacher of Court Etiquette K�tsuk�, Tl�n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, Pierre Menard and Author of the Quixote.

These sixteen stories by the much-celebrated Alix Ohlin illuminate the connections between all of us—connections we choose to break, those broken for us, and those we find and make in spite of ourselves.Review“Smart, satisfying, surprising stories. Ohlin has a big, calm, seductive talent.” —Joy Williams“Ohlin has a marvelous will to explore and it’s clear that she’s in complete command of her art.  These stories are smart, tough, deeply felt and beautifully delivered, without one wasted word.  Signs and wonders, all right.  I’ve seldom come upon a book so aptly titled for what’s inside, page to page.” —Richard Bausch“Nothing short of marvelous.  Olin writes like an Old Master, with confidence and clarity, a steady hand.  She is immensely gifted, and every story here is a lucid chunk of reality—the flesh made word.” – Jay Parini“With an emotional intelligence that is nearly telepathic and a great storyteller’s knack for riveting your attention from the opening line, Ohlin makes us understand that beneath everything that drives and distracts us there is, first and foremost, the struggle to love.  She is a ferocious talent, a writer not only to watch but also to admire.” —Adam Ross“I love the way Alix Ohlin’s stories teach us, with wit and tenderness, about those grown-up selves we don’t recognize; about the way our failures make us adults; and about how powerfully relieved we are to understand that, despite everything, our hearts can still move.” —Jim Shepard“Ohlin’s stories are gripping from the get-go, and they don’t turn you loose.  On virtually every page she surprised me and, more times than I could count, put a lump in my throat.  She is one spectacular writer, and this is a beautiful book.” —Steve Yarbrough"Unputdownable: crisp, focused, lovely, and lasting. . . . Sixteen stories about connectedness—between friends, families, and lovers—and the predicaments that come from navigating those relationships.  Ohlin's characters are so genuine you'll be reminded of people you know, love, and hate.  For better or worse, you may even see yourself in these pages." —*Marie Claire “Alix Ohlin working at the top of her powers… showing us in a remarkably mature and flat-out realistic style a new series of twists and turns in the lives of quite ordinary people – school teachers, women on the rebound, married folks and divorced folks, travelers, home bodies… There closely worked stories about life on earth – they soar.” —Alan Cheuse, NPR“Calling all fans of Lorrie Moore, Deborah Eisenberg, and Robin Black:  You have a new favorite writer [with a] deliciously addictive collection.” – Sheila Anne Fenney, Newark Star-Ledger“Alix Ohlin’s wondrously engrossing Inside and Signs and Wonders display her characteristic strengths—dynamic plots, keenly observed settings, and characters so idiosyncratic, ambivalent, and contradictory they could be your family, your neighbors, people you work with…..She has a rare gift for examining the confusions of the 21st century, exploring the ways in which addictions, afflictions, attractions, and random impulses shape our lives.  Her intense and beautifully shaped new novel and stories offer tentative yet illuminating answers.” – Jane Ciabattari, The Boston Globe“Ohlin’s a master at drawing a character, a skill even more evident in the short story form, [and] she’s got a surgeon’s hand with the fine points of relationship dissection… Signs and Wonders makes me want to say to you, dear reader, one simple thing: Read this!” —Ian McGillis, Montreal Gazette“Impressive… With enjoyably mordant humour and a surgical hand with relationship dissection… Ohlin crafts stories with consistent excellence.” —Brett Josef Grubisic, National Post*“One of the best story collections I’ve read in a decade… tough, original, funny and tragic, all at once.” —William McKeen, Creative Loafing Tampa About the AuthorAlix Ohlin is the author of The Missing Person, a novel, and Babylon and Other Stories. Her work has appeared in Best American Short Stories, Best New American Voices, and on NPR’s “Selected Shorts.” Born and raised in Montreal, she teaches at Lafayette College and in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.