If you’re a fan of fiction that is more than just black and white, this latest story collection from number-one New York Times best-selling author George R. R. Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois is filled with subtle shades of gray. Twenty-one all-original stories, by an all-star list of contributors, will delight and astonish you in equal measure with their cunning twists and dazzling reversals. And George R. R. Martin himself offers a brand-new A Game of Thrones tale chronicling one of the biggest rogues in the entire history of Ice and Fire.

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a "full empty", something goes wrong.

An atmospheric debut novel set on the gritty streets of Victorian London, Some Danger Involved introduces detective Cyrus Barker and his assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, as they work to solve the gruesome murder of a young scholar in London's Jewish ghetto. When the eccentric and enigmatic Barker takes the case, he must hire an assistant, and out of all who answer an ad for a position with "some danger involved", he chooses downtrodden Llewelyn, a gutsy young man with a murky past.

In Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection.

In the aftermath of WWII, an alien virus struck the Earth, endowing a handful of survivors with extraordinary powers. Originally published in 1987, the newly expanded saga contains additional original stories by eminent writers.

When the souls of the innocent cry for justice, one man hears their call: The Undead Avenger - Brother Bones. He stalks the Depression-era streets of Cape Noire, waging a never-ending war against the forces of darkness. Bones has never met a foe he could not defeat, but now he faces an enemy unlike any he has ever known. With a motley crew of unlikely allies - and his silver-plated twin .45s - Bones must stop an ancient evil that threatens not only Cape Noire, but the entire world.

New York Police Lieutenant Danny Pak has a problem. When one of his officers calls him out to an unusual crime scene, Danny realizes that it’s terrifyingly similar to something the department thought was dead and buried. Across town, Agent William “Buddy” Redhorn of the FBI has two problems. He’s been assigned a potentially career-ending case with magical ties, and his sorceress boss is out of town. The case involves a stolen statue that belongs to the government of Brunei, but the more he chases the thieves, the more bodies begin to drop. Bodies affected by an unknown magic.

Amidst a murky underworld of flesh-trafficking, prostitution, and institutionalized corruption, elite soldier Jez Kornfeld is thrown into a world where nothing is what it seems, nobody can be trusted, and everything can be violently torn from him.

Every city has its dangers. But in the city of Embrenil, the thieves steal eyesight as well as coin. No one knows why its citizens are being mystically blinded. Is it merely a way to make victims easier to rob? Or are these blindings part of a greater conspiracy? With no leads and options limited, the Embrenil Civic Police enlist the aid of four supernatural individuals to solve the case and combat the dark powers of the Mystic Mafia.

Joe Spork repairs clocks, a far cry from his late father, a flashy London gangster. But when Joe fixes one particularly unusual device, his life is suddenly upended. Joe's client, Edie Banister, is more than just a kindly old lady - she's a former superspy. And the device? It's a 1950s doomsday machine. And having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the government and a diabolical South Asian dictator, Edie's old arch-nemesis.

The Given Day explores the crippling violence and irrepressible exuberance of a country at war with, and in the thrall of, itself. As Danny, Luther, and those around them struggle to define themselves in increasingly turbulent times, they gradually find family in one another and, together, ride a rising storm of hardship, deprivation, and hope that will change all their lives.

When Brendan Doyle is flown from America to London to give a lecture on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, little does he expect that he will soon be traveling through time and meeting the poet himself. But Brendan could do without being stranded penniless in the teeming, thieving London of 1810.

London, 1889. For Ira Adler, former rent-boy and present plaything of crime lord Cain Goddard, stealing back the statue from Goddard's blackmailer should have been a doddle. But inside the statue is evidence that could put Goddard away for a long time under the sodomy laws, and everyone's after it, including Ira's bitter ex, Dr. Timothy Lazarus.

For the Sake of the Game is the latest volume in the award-winning series from New York Times best-selling editors Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger, with stories of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and friends in a variety of eras and forms. King and Klinger have a simple formula: Ask some of the world's greatest writers-regardless of genre - to be inspired by the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. The results are surprising and joyous.

Cady McCall is ready to be rich and famous. She has sacrificed everything, putting her work ahead of family and friends. Now, with breakout success and huge, insane wealth so close she can taste it, her life is blown apart by Deputy Marshal John "Titanic" Smith, the man who rescues her from two muggers only to carry her off into history. Lost on the seas of time, Smith is desperate to get home to his family in 1876, and now Cady is lost along with him.

London, 1889. For Ira Adler, former rent-boy and present plaything of crime lord Cain Goddard, stealing back the statue from Goddard's blackmailer should have been a doddle. But inside the statue is evidence that could put Goddard away for a long time under the sodomy laws, and everyone's after it, including Ira's bitter ex, Dr. Timothy Lazarus.

Deep in the trenches of Flanders Fields, men are dying in the thousands every day. So one more death shouldn't be a surprise. But then a body turns up with bizarre injuries, and Sherlock Holmes' former sidekick, Dr. John Watson - unable to fight for his country due to injury but able to serve it through his medical expertise - finds his suspicions raised.

Charlie Howard travels the globe writing suspense novels for a living. To supplement his income - and keep his hand in - Charlie has a small side business: stealing for a very discreet clientele on commission. When a mysterious American offers Charlie 20,000 euros to steal two small monkey figurines to match the one he already has, Charlie is suspicious; the job seems too good to be true, and of course, it is. He soon finds the American beaten nearly to death, while the third figurine has disappeared.

Joe Spork repairs clocks, a far cry from his late father, a flashy London gangster. But when Joe fixes one particularly unusual device, his life is suddenly upended. Joe's client, Edie Banister, is more than just a kindly old lady - she's a former superspy. And the device? It's a 1950s doomsday machine. And having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the government and a diabolical South Asian dictator, Edie's old arch-nemesis.

In 523 BC, the Persian pharaoh Cambyses dispatched an army across Egypt's western desert to destroy the oracle at Siwa. Legend has it that somewhere in the middle of the Great Dune Sea his army was overwhelmed by a sandstorm and lost forever. Two and a half millennia later, a mutilated corpse is washed up on the banks of the Nile at Luxor, an antiques dealer is savagely murdered in Cairo, and a British archaeologist is found dead at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara.

In Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection.

London, 1946. The Nazis have conquered and now occupy Great Britain. John Henry Rossett, a decorated British war hero and former police sergeant, has been reassigned to the Office of Jewish Affairs. He now answers to the SS, one of the most powerful and terrifying organizations in the Third Reich. Now assigned a job he did not ask for and cannot refuse: rounding up Jews for deportation. But they are not the only victims, for the war took Rossett's wife and son, and shattered his own humanity.

Dr. Laura Pavlov, an American forensic archaeologist, is about to unravel a mystery that promises to solve one of the twentieth century’s greatest enigmas. Dr. Pavlov is a member of an international team digging on the outskirts of the present-day Russian city of Ekaterinburg, where the Romanov royal family was executed by their captors in July 1918. When Pavlov discovers two bodies perfectly preserved in permafrost in a disused mine shaft, they offer dramatic new clues to the disappearance of the Romanovs and, in particular, their famous daughter, Princess Anastasia, whose murder has always been shrouded in doubt.

Sir Richard Francis Burton and Algernon Charles Swinburne are sucked into the perilous depths of a moral and ethical vacuum when Lord Palmerston commissions Burton to investigate assaults on young women committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack - and to find out why werewolves are terrorizing London's East End.

Join scholar and spell-caster Everson Croft in this five-book urban fantasy set, from the discovery of his magic in the prequel novella, Book of Souls, to his battle against a mind-warping evil in the shocking finale, Death Mage.

When Brendan Doyle is flown from America to London to give a lecture on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, little does he expect that he will soon be traveling through time and meeting the poet himself. But Brendan could do without being stranded penniless in the teeming, thieving London of 1810.

It will take more than angels and demons to stop him. Reporter Spencer Finch is embroiled in the hunt for a missing book, encountering along the way cat burglars and mobsters, hackers and mysterious monks. At the same time, he's trying to make sense of the legacy left to him by his late grandfather, a chest of what appear to be pulp magazines from the golden age of fantasy fiction.

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a "full empty", something goes wrong.

Aida Palmer performs a spirit medium show onstage at Chinatown's illustrious Gris-Gris speakeasy. However, her ability to summon (and expel) the dead is more than just an act. Winter Magnusson is a notorious bootlegger who's more comfortable with guns than ghosts. Unfortunately for him, he's the recent target of a malevolent hex that renders him a magnet for hauntings. After Aida's supernatural assistance is enlisted to banish the ghosts, her spirit-chilled aura heats up as the charming bootlegger casts a different sort of spell on her.

Dr. Warthrop is a scientist who tracks and studies real-life monsters. Assisted by his 12-year-old apprentice, Will Henry, Dr. Warthrop discovers a pod of Anthropophagi and launches a hunt to destroy the foul beasts.

When Charles Morris is forced into retirement, the old multinational company CEO has to accept that it is all over. The days of running his financial empire have finally come to an end. All because of a stupid heart attack. While Charles is attending a fundraiser, however, something happens and he's transported into a strange medieval world where magic is real and legendary heroes coexist with mythical monsters. Follow him as he builds roads and shops, hires heroes, develops alliances with neighboring villages...but also fights terrible foes.

Jarl Beckström dreams of one day becoming a great warrior. Sadly, he had the misfortune of being lowborn-classless, unable to level up. He lives the mundane life of a poor mud-farmer, subjected to the whims of the infamous battleborn and the magical fireborn. But legend says that deeds of great courage can change a person's class. When the Clan Lord's son unexpectedly disappears, Jarl sees an opportunity to prove himself a hero and rise above the lowly station of his birth. He goes against the traditions of his people to seek his destiny...and possibly even his death.

Hate your job. Win the lottery. Get a superpower. Roman Martin is a normal guy until he happens upon a winning lottery ticket that grants him an incredible superpower. Unfortunately, Roman has to keep his new power a secret, and in a society that separates superpowereds from half-powereds, that's a big deal. There's also his troubled past, a dark secret that constantly looms over him, his coworker's mysterious death, and the fact that Roman is being blackmailed by two beautiful female spies at war with one another.

By day, Mark Wojcik can be found elbow-deep in engine grease, making cars and trucks safe for the highway. By night, he can be found traipsing through the wilds of Pennsylvania, making the world safe for humans. He's more than just a mechanic, he's a New Templar Knight. He travels the backroads and byways fighting weresquonks, ningen, selkies, ghosts, and . . . gnomes? Is that gnome . . . naked? (Sigh.) Season One collects the first four novellas in the Spells, Salt, & Steel series: Spells, Salt, & Steel; Open Season; Deep Trouble; and Close Encounters.

It was supposed to be just another Sunday night fantasy role-playing session between friends.... But after years of playing, the game had become so real to David, Tyrone, Scott, and Melanie that all their creations now had existences of their own. And when the four outside players decide to end their game, the characters inside the game world - warriors, scholars, and the few remaining wielders of magic - band together to keep their land from vanishing.