Anthology Science

Space pirates! Words that conjure up rousing tales of adventure, derring-do, brave heroes battling the scurvy vermin of the galaxy. Those vermin have taken to pillaging cargo ships and, even worse, space liners, relieving the helpless passengers of their valuables, and worse with the comely women passengers, then spacing the lot - unless one or more of the aforementioned brave heroes arrive in the nick of time, and turn the tables, making the spaceways safe again for the innocent and helpless.

The only thing Benji lacks more than ambition is luck. And his new job has to be the lowest of the low. But something is stirring in the zero-footprint economy of New St. Louis. And Benji’s about to find himself chin deep in the muck! This story was originally published in the Hugo Award-nominated METAtropolis.

When bar owner Devon Kincaid finds a bleeding man - a hot, hard, handsome, naked bleeding man - in the snow one night, she brings him home to care for him. He's definitely not like any man she's ever met before, but what she doesn't realize is that he's not just a man.

"The Secret" is set in the world where the Broken Empire and Red Queen's War trilogies take place. I've been writing short stories based on the various members of Jorg Ancrath's brotherhood of the road, exploring their origins. When I saw that the Blackguards anthology was seeking tales of assassins, I thought it was time to write about Brother Sim.

During a time of political and social unrest in Egypt, a god-like force, Nyarlathotep, emerges. He travels the land dazzling people with electricity and psychology. While witnesses of this god-like creature encourage others to see him, afterwards, people seem terrified. As the narrator recounts his experiences, he becomes disoriented. By the end of the story, the narrator and the other viewers of Nyarlathotep begin to lose touch with reality.

Get ready for a collection of thirteen short stories that will chill your bones, tingle your spine, and scare your pants off. Debut author Josh Allen masterfully concocts horror in the most innocent places, like R. L. Stine meets a modern Edgar Allan Poe. A stray kitten turns into a threatening follower. The street sign down the block starts taunting you. Even your own shadow is out to get you! Spooky things love hiding in plain sight. The everyday world is full of sinister secrets, and these stories show that there's darkness even where you least expect it.

This sequel to the Hugo and Audie Award nominated METAtropolis features interconnected stories by today’s top writers of speculative fiction – performed by a galaxy of Star Trek stars. As the mid-20th century approaches, the Pacific Northwest has been transformed - politically, economically, and ecologically - into the new reality of Cascadia. Conspiracies and secrets threaten the tenuous threads of society. And the End of Days seems nearer than ever.

A conspiracy looms that threatens Cascadia itself. So why is Reg, a demolition crew worker, the last, best hope to stop it? Because there’s more to Reg than meets the eye…

Return to the zombie apocalypse wasteland that is the Rot & Ruin in this short story collection from Jonathan Maberry. Benny Imura's zombie-infested adventures are well-chronicled in the gripping novels Rot & Ruin, Dust & Decay, Flesh & Bone, and Fire & Ash. But what else was happening while he was on his quest? Who were the others navigating the ravaged landscape full of zombies? Bits & Pieces fills in the gaps about what we know about First Night, surviving the plague, and traveling the land of Rot & Ruin.

Katya deals in Authenticities, trading on nostalgia for a past long gone. But when she encounters a stranger who calls himself Johnny in the woods - even she can't say whether it's real or not.

The centerpiece of Borrowed Time is "Betty Knox and Dictionary Jones in the Mystery of the Missing Teenage Anachronisms". When you've traveled through time and are stuck in the body of your 15-year-old self, it isn't the best time to have some other time travelers looking to kill you. Especially when the person who's supposed to be keeping an eye out for the bad guys is stuck in his own 15-year-old body.

A Royal Witch: There are new roommates in the Beechwood Manor, and one of them is a royal witch. When tragedy strikes, it's going to take all hands on deck if the paranormal roomies hope to make it out alive. First Place Witch: With her potions shop officially open for business, Holly sets off to the San Francisco Haven to compete with the most elite potions masters in the entire country. Sassy Witch: It's Valentine's Day in Beechwood Harbor, and the town is rolling out the rose-colored carpet to host a group of eager singles in an effort to boost town tourism.

When police officer Rick LaFLeur is infected with the taint of black were-leopard, he goes to Jane Yellowrock for help. But her idea of "help" is not quite what he was expecting: she knocks him out and he wakes up in a cage.

FBI special agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder go hunting in the shadows for dangerous truths in this new collection of original, never-before-published tales of The X-Files. Edited by New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry, Secret Agendas features heart-stopping stories by some of today's hottest writers of mystery, thrillers, science fiction, and horror.

The highly-anticipated final volume of the critically-acclaimed science fiction anthology series....

Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery will take the classic tropes of tales of witchcraft and infuse them with fresh, feminist perspective and present-day concerns - even if they're set in the past. These witches might be monstrous, or they might be heroes, depending on their own definitions. Even the kind hostess with the candy cottage thought of herself as the hero of her own story. After all, a woman's gotta eat.

"Red Wine and Blood": The Blood Wars raged for centuries across Boston. Witness a brief glimpse into the brutal history of the Wars with Ignacio Salvatore and the vampire he loves, Ashwin Metcalfe, in 1897. "A History of Trouble": Angel was joking when he asked O'Malley if someone resurrected a mammoth. Little did he know that was exactly what someone did. "A Dragon in the City": What happens when Eroch goes adventuring in Beacon Hill without Angel? Chaos, pure chaos. "Fae's Gold": Daniel is helping the newly-resurrected fae, Ruairi Brennan, become accustomed to modern-day living.

Years after a war that destroyed America, Sam Monson, the governor of the state of Deseret, negotiates a peace treaty with a woman out of his past - on behalf of the son he left behind.

This story is included in Orson Scott Card's collection The Folk of the Fringe.

In this story from the Jane Yellowrock universe, undercover agent Rick LaFleur has been working on gaining access to Leo Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans. But he wakes up naked and bound in an old barn, at the mercy of a magic-working tattoo artist and an insane vampire.

"In The Falling World", Jade, sister queen of the Indigo Cloud Court, has traveled with Chime and Balm to another Raksuran court. When she fails to return, her consort, Moon, along with Stone and a party of warriors and hunters, must track them down. Finding them turns out to be the easy part; freeing them from an ancient trap hidden in the depths of the Reaches is much more difficult. "The Tale of Indigo and Cloud" explores the history of the Indigo Cloud Court, long before Moon was born.