Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas have co-edited and co-published Uncanny Magazine since its launch in 2014. They brought readers stunning cover art, passionate science fiction and fantasy fiction and poetry, gorgeous prose, and provocative nonfiction by writers from every conceivable background, including some of science fiction and fantasy's most fabulous award-winning and bestselling authors. In its first four years, Uncanny Magazine won the Best Semiprozine Hugo Award three times (2016, 2017, 2018), Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas won the 2018 Best Editor—Short Form Hugo Award for their work on the magazine, and numerous stories from Uncanny Magazine have been finalists or winners of Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards—including the novelette “Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang (translated by Ken Liu) which won the 2016 Best Novelette Hugo Award and the novelette “You'll Surely Drown Here If You Stay” by Alyssa Wong which won the 2017 Best Novelette Locus Award. This Best of Uncanny anthology collects those two novelettes and many of the other best stories and poems from the first 22 issues of Uncanny Magazine. Naomi Novik plunges you into a delicious fractured fairy tale retelling in “Blessings.” Delilah S. Dawson explores superpowers, harassment, and revenge in “Catcall.” Neil Gaiman takes you along to keep pace with his gorgeous and powerful poem “The Long Run.” Charlie Jane Anders shakes up a haunting cocktail of comedy clubs and love with “Ghost Champagne.” Mary Robinette Kowal weaves a heartbreaking tale of marriage, duty, and magical curses in “Midnight Hour.” N.K. Jemisin ruminates on dangerous fans, awards, and legacy in “Henosis.” Maria Dahvana Headleys links into a Classic Hollywood of animal actors and sleazy secrets with “If You Were a Tiger, I'd Have to Wear White.” Catherynne M. Valente travels to a colony world infested with strange psychic cats in “Planet Lion.” Carmen Maria Machado wrestles with predators, identity, and death in “My Body, Herself.” And Seanan McGuire sings a tragic song of misunderstandings and unfortunate consequences with “Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands.” Those pieces are only the beginning. The Best of Uncanny features some of the uncanniest stories and poetry in SF/F today, by its current leading voices. Sit down and immerse yourself in 44 original science fiction and fantasy stories and poems that can make you feel.
Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas have co-edited and co-published Uncanny Magazine since its launch in 2014. They brought readers stunning cover art, passionate science…
Reading Backwards is John Crowley's first collection of non-fiction since In Other Words was published in 2007. Like its predecessor, this new book reflects an astonishing range of interests, both literary and otherwise. Like its predecessor, it is a book that no John Crowley fan can afford to miss. The volume opens with the autobiographical “My Life in the Theater,” a memoir of the younger Crowley's earliest ambitions, and closes with the moving and memorable “Practicing the Arts of Peace.” In between, the author offers us more than thirty carefully crafted essays, each one notable for its insight, intelligence and typically graceful prose. The opening section, A Voice from the Easy Chair, reflects Crowley's tenure as Easy Chair columnist for Harper's Magazine. Subjects include life under the once omni-present threat of the Selective Service Board, the enduring personal importance of the Encyclopedia Britannica, and thoughts on what it means to be truly well read. The second section, Fictional Voices, is filled with acute commentary on a wide range of books and writers, among them SF masters such as Paul Park, Ursula K. le Guin and Thomas Disch; the important, if neglected, historical novelist David Stacton (a model for the fictional Fellowes Kraft of the Ægypt novels); classic science fiction novels of the 1950s, and much, much more. The final section, Looking Outward, Looking In, ranges freely across a wide variety of subjects and ideas, such as UFO literature, the utopian architecture of Norman Bel Geddes, the life and career of renowned theosophist Helen Blavatsky, and the nature of time. Reading Backwards is a book that can be read from beginning to end with enormous pleasure. It can also be read and enjoyed in whatever order the reader prefers. However it's read, it's a multifarious source of entertainment, illumination, and thought, and offers a fascinating glimpse into the intellectual life of one of the finest novelists of our time.
Reading Backwards is John Crowley's first collection of non-fiction since In Other Words was published in 2007. Like its predecessor, this new book reflects an astonishing range…
For more than two decades, Neal Stephenson has been the reigning master of the epic fictional narrative. His vast, intellectually rigorous books have ranged in setting from the distant past (The Baroque Cycle) to the modern era (Reamde) to the remote future (Anathem, Seveneves). But when Stephenson turns his attention to shorter forms, the results can be every bit as impressive, as this dazzling novella—itself a kind of tightly compressed epic—clearly indicates. Atmosphæra Incognita is a beautifully detailed, high-tech rendering of a tale as old as the Biblical Tower of Babel. It is an account, scrupulously imagined, of the years-long construction of a twenty-kilometer-high tower that will bring the human enterprise, in all its complexity, to the threshold of outer space. It is a story of persistence, of visionary imaginings, of the ceaseless technological innovation needed to bring these imaginings to life. At the same time, it shows us our familiar planet from an entirely new perspective, and offers vivid snapshots of the unique beauties and unexpected hazards of the “atmosphæra incognita” that lies between this world and “the deep ocean of the cosmos.” The result is pure pleasure, pure excitement, pure Neal Stephenson. No one with an interest in Stephenson's work, or in science fiction at its most thoughtful and ambitious, can afford to miss this latest edition to an extraordinary body of work.
For more than two decades, Neal Stephenson has been the reigning master of the epic fictional narrative. His vast, intellectually rigorous books have ranged in setting from the…
Oberon the Irish wolfhound is off to Portland to smell all the things with canine companions wolfhound Orlaith and Boston terrier Starbuck, and, of course, his human, ancient Druid Atticus O'Sullivan. The first complication is an unmistakable sign of sinister agendas afoot: a squirrel atop the train. But an even more ominous situation is in store when the trio plus Atticus stumble across a murder upon arrival at the station. They recognize Detective Gabriela Ibarra, who's there to investigate. But they also recognize the body—or rather that the body is a doppelganger for Atticus himself. The police, hampered by human senses of smell and a decided lack of canine intuition, obviously can't handle this alone. Not with Atticus likely in danger. Oberon knows it's time to investigate once more—for justice! For gravy! And possibly greasy tacos!
Alongside his faithful Druid, Oberon and the other loyal hounds navigate by nose through Portland to find a bear-shifter friend with intel, delicious clues at the victim's home, and more squirrels. Always more squirrels!
But will our hungry band of heroes be able to identify the culprit before someone else is murdered? Will there be mystery meat in gravy as a reward or tragedy in store for the world's (or at least the Pacific Northwest's) greatest dog detective.
Oberon the Irish wolfhound is off to Portland to smell all the things with canine companions wolfhound Orlaith and Boston terrier Starbuck, and, of course, his human, ancient…
The year is 1703, and Matthew Corbett, professional "problem solver," is missing. Last seen by his friends in New York before he departed on a lucrative, seemingly straightforward mission for the Herrald Agency in Charles Town, he's been too long absent. His comrade-in-arms Hudson Greathouse has an increasing sense the young friend he thinks of as a son must have met with some unexpected peril. Following his hunch, Greathouse retraces Matthew's steps only to find him first presumed dead, then accused of murdering a young woman and apparently en route to London with a devious Prussian count last encountered on Professor Fell's Pendulum Island.
Little does he know that Matthews's circumstances are growing worse by the second. For when Matthew arrives in the bustling squalor of Londontown, he's come shackled, charged for the murder of Count Anton Mannerheim Dahlgren. No matter the lack of body, presumed lost to the ocean. He soon finds himself locked up in the infamous Newgate prison, and has drawn the interest of a mysterious mask-wearing vigilante accused of several gruesome murders. Greathouse and the woman Matthew loves, Berry Grigsby, travel across the high seas to England to aid their friend, but it is impossible to know whether they will reach him in time to save his life.
Freedom of the Mask is the sixth installment in bestselling author Robert McCammon's acclaimed series of standalone historical thrillers featuring the exploits of a young hero the USA Character Approved Blog has called "the Early American James Bond." The most surprising and ambitious volume to date, this is a novel filled with unpredictable twists and a note-perfect depiction of early 1700s London. Fans will not want to miss Matthew Corbett's most dangerous adventure yet.
The year is 1703, and Matthew Corbett, professional "problem solver," is missing. Last seen by his friends in New York before he departed on a lucrative, seemingly straightforward…
When the Imagine Network commissioned a documentary on mermaids, to be filmed from the cruise ship Atargatis, they expected what they had always received before: an assortment of eyewitness reports that proved nothing, some footage that proved even less, and the kind of ratings that only came from peddling imaginary creatures to the masses.
They didn’t expect actual mermaids. They certainly didn’t expect those mermaids to have teeth.
This is the story of the Atargatis, lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a maritime tragedy. Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the bathypelagic zone in the Mariana Trench…and the depths are very good at keeping secrets.
When the Imagine Network commissioned a documentary on mermaids, to be filmed from the cruise ship Atargatis, they expected what they had always received before: an assortment of…
For the first time in his esteemed career, Tim Powers returns to the setting (and a central character) from his landmark time travel novel, The Anubis Gates.
Tracking the murderer of her fiancee through 19th century London's darkest warrens, Jacky Snapp has disguised herself as a boy — but the disguise fails when, trying to save a girl from the ghost of her jealous husband, Jacky finds that she has made herself visible to the ghosts that cluster around the Thames — аnd one of them is the ghost of her fiancee, who was poisoned and physically transformed by his murderer but unwittingly shot dead by Jacky herself.
Jacky and the girl she rescued, united in the need to banish their pursuing ghosts, learn that their only hope is to flee upriver to the barge known as Nobody's Home — where the exorcist whose name is Nobody charges an intolerable price.
For the first time in his esteemed career, Tim Powers returns to the setting (and a central character) from his landmark time travel novel, The Anubis Gates.
For nearly sixty years, Grandmaster Robert Silverberg has been a significant presence in the world of science fiction. As prolific as he is gifted, Silverberg has amassed a body of work unique both in its richness and its variety. That work has influenced generations of other writers and has enriched the lives of untold numbers of devoted readers.
In The Book of Silverberg, editors Gardner Dozois and William Schafer have assembled a tribute anthology fully worthy of the Master himself. The book begins with a pair of affectionate appreciations from Greg Bear and Barry Malzberg, and continues with a series of wonderfully original stories that inhabit and extend some of Silverberg's most memorable creations. In 'In Old Pidruid,' the late Kage Baker turns to the world of Majipoor in a humorous and moving tale of rivalry and reconciliation. Kristine Kathryn Rusch's 'Voyeuristic Tendencies' shows us the world of the 1972 novel Dying Inside from a wholly different perspective. Nancy Kress's 'Eaters' provides a bleak and harrowing conclusion to the classic short story 'Sundance.' In 'Silverberg, Satan, and Me or Where I Got the Idea for My Silverberg Story for This Anthology,' the incomparable Connie Willis offers what might be the only plausible explanation for the whole Silverberg phenomenon. And elsewhere in the anthology, some of today's most notable writers--Mike Resnick, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Elizabeth Bear, James Patrick Kelly, and Tobias S. Buckell--ring equally brilliant changes on a number of Silverberg's signature fictions.
Funny, tragic, provocative, intelligent and always richly imagined, the stories in The Book of Silverberg are all notable accomplishments in themselves. Together, they comprise an exhilarating--and altogether fitting--celebration of one of science fiction's indisputable masters.
For nearly sixty years, Grandmaster Robert Silverberg has been a significant presence in the world of science fiction. As prolific as he is gifted, Silverberg has amassed a body…
Poul Anderson (1926-2001) was one of the seminal figures of 20th century science fiction. Named a Grand Master by the SFWA in 1997, he produced an enormous body of standalone novels (Brain Wave, Tau Zero) and series fiction (Time Patrol, the Dominic Flandry books) and was equally at home in the fields of heroic fantasy and hard SF. He was a meticulous craftsman and a gifted storyteller, and the impact of his finest work continues, undiminished, to this day.
Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds is a rousing, all-original anthology that stands both as a significant achievement in its own right and a heartfelt tribute to a remarkable writer--and equally remarkable man. A nicely balanced mixture of fiction and reminiscence, Multiverse contains thirteen stories and novellas by some of today's finest writers, along with moving reflections by, among others, Anderson's wife, Karen, his daughter, Astrid Anderson Bear, and his son-in-law, novelist and co-editor Greg Bear. (Bear's introduction, My Friend Poul, is particularly illuminating and insightful).
The fictional contributions comprise a kaleidoscopic array of imaginative responses to Anderson's many and varied fictional worlds. A few of the highlights include Nancy Kress's 'Outmoded Things' and Terry Brooks' 'The Fey of Cloudmoor,' stories inspired by the Hugo Award-winning 'The Queen of Air and Darkness;' a pair of truly wonderful Time Patrol stories ('A Slip in Time' by S. M. Stirling and 'Christmas in Gondwanaland' by Robert Silverberg); Raymond E. Feist's Dominic Flandry adventure, 'A Candle;' and a pair of very different homages to the classic fantasy novel, Three Hearts and Three Lions: 'The Man Who Came Late' by Harry Turtledove and 'Three Lilies and Three Leopards (And a Participation Ribbon in Science)' by Tad Williams. These stories, together with singular contributions by such significant figures as Larry Niven, Gregory Benford, and Eric Flint, add up to a memorable, highly personal anthology that lives up to the standards set by the late--and indisputably great--Poul Anderson.
Poul Anderson (1926-2001) was one of the seminal figures of 20th century science fiction. Named a Grand Master by the SFWA in 1997, he produced an enormous body of standalone…
There’s a good reason Civil War veteran Trevor Lawson travels by night: he’s a vampire. Wounded at the Battle of Shiloh, he was bitten by the vampire LaRouge, and now, a quarter century later, he lives a tortured life, the humanity slowly draining out of him. His only hope: find LaRouge and kill her before he has completely turned from man to vampire. When a man begs Lawson to ransom his daughter from the clutches of a madman (a madman who, by the way, specifically required that Lawson deliver the ransom), Trevor hopes this is his chance to save himself. McCammon demonstrates once again—not that any proof was needed at this point—that he is one of the masters of the horror genre. The novel is brief but not thin. Lawson is a tragic hero, and his story is hauntingly sad. Subtext counts for a lot here: McCammon knows his readers will be familiar with vampire lore, and he knows that our imaginations will provide the dark atmosphere and the creeping terror, with only a few, well-chosen words to get us in the right frame of mind.
There’s a good reason Civil War veteran Trevor Lawson travels by night: he’s a vampire. Wounded at the Battle of Shiloh, he was bitten by the vampire LaRouge, and now, a quarter…
A skeletal hand clutching an iron key lies hidden within a mermaid's wooden sarcophagus; a hand-drawn map is stolen from beneath the floorboards an old museum; an eccentric sleeping inventor dreams of a passage to the center of the hollow earth, and by dreaming of the passage, brings it into being....
Pursued by kidnappers thinking of riches and murder, Katherine Perkins and her two cousins, junior members of The Guild of St. George, must descend into the depths of the hollow earth in order to return the Sleeper to his ancestral home on the shores of Lake Windermere. But to awaken him might mean the end of his dream, the closing of the Windermere Passage, and the three intrepid explorers marooned in a savage land forgotten by time itself....
Zeuglodon, set in the world envisioned in James Blaylock's The Digging Leviathan, is a landscape of color, mystery, and adventure, in which reality and fantasy are shifting currents, and nothing is quite what it seems to be.
A skeletal hand clutching an iron key lies hidden within a mermaid's wooden sarcophagus; a hand-drawn map is stolen from beneath the floorboards an old museum; an eccentric…
The Providence Rider is the fourth installment in the extraordinary series of historical thrillers featuring Matthew Corbett, professional problem solver. The narrative begins in the winter of 1703, with Matthew still haunted by his lethal encounter with notorious mass murderer Tyranthus Slaughter. When an unexplained series of explosions rocks his Manhattan neighborhood, Matthew finds himself forced to confront a new and unexpected problem. Someone is trying--and trying very hard--to get his attention. That someone is a shadowy figure from out of Matthew's past: the elusive Dr. Fell. The doctor, it turns out, has a problem of his own, one that requires the exclusive services of Matthew Corbett.
The ensuing narrative moves swiftly and gracefully from the emerging metropolis of New York City to Pendulum Island in the remote Bermudas. In the course of his journey, Matthew encounters a truly Dickensian assortment of memorable, often grotesque, antagonists. These include Sirki, the giant, deceptively soft-spoken East Indian killer, Dr. Jonathan Gentry, an expert in exotic potions with a substance abuse problem of his own, the beautiful but murderous Aria Chillany, and, of course, the master manipulator and 'Emperor of Crime' on two continents, Dr. Fell himself. The result is both an exquisitely constructed novel of suspense and a meticulous recreation of a bygone era. Filled with danger, narrative surprises, and an almost tangible sense of place, The Providence Rider is historical fiction at its finest and most developed. It is the novel that McCammon's many devoted readers have been waiting for. They will not be disappointed.
The Providence Rider is the fourth installment in the extraordinary series of historical thrillers featuring Matthew Corbett, professional problem solver. The narrative begins in…
Subterranean Press is proud to present Caitlin Kittredge's first novella-length foray into her Black London series, with an all-original tale of dark magic and darker shadows.
Jack Winter used to be a bad man, but he left black magic and wickedness behind him for a simpler life exorcising ghosts in London. Then Fiona Hannigan, the girl he abandoned to a life of depraved sorcery, turns up murdered and it's not long before Jack finds himself accused of the crime, along with three other slayings. Someone is hunting London's black magicians--and they've decided Jack is going to pay the price.
Running from the police and pursued by his own ghosts, Jack must go back to the supernatural underworld he left behind to find who wanted Fiona dead, who framed him for the deed and why the spirit of Aleister Crowley is turning up in his living room. Because it's not just Jack's ghosts who are running free in London--older, darker spirits are stirring, and the same person who murdered Fiona has their sight set on performing a binding ritual to gain unimaginable power. Jack's out of options and out of time, and his past may be the only thing that can save him...if he can survive the trip.
Subterranean Press is proud to present Caitlin Kittredge's first novella-length foray into her Black London series, with an all-original tale of dark magic and darker shadows.…
The Five tells the story of an eponymous rock band struggling to survive on the margins of the music business. As they move through the American Southwest on what might be their final tour together, the band members come to the attention of a damaged Iraq war veteran, and their lives are changed forever.
The Five tells the story of an eponymous rock band struggling to survive on the margins of the music business. As they move through the American Southwest on what might be their…
Return to the world of The Warded Man and The Desert Spear in an illustrated new novella by Peter V. Brett.
Humanity has been brought to the brink of extinction. Each night, the world is overrun by demons bloodthirsty creatures of nightmare that have been hunting the surface for over 300 years. A scant few hamlets and half-starved city-states are all that remain of a once proud civilization, and it is only by hiding behind wards, ancient symbols with the power to repel the demons, that they survive. A handful of Messengers brave the night to keep the lines of communication open between the increasingly isolated populace.
Arlen Bales is seventeen, an apprentice Messenger in brand new armor, about to go out for the first time alongside a trained Messenger on a simple overnight trip. Instead Arlen finds himself alone on a frozen mountainside, carrying a dangerous cargo to Count Brayan's gold mine, one of the furthest points in the duchy. And One Arm, the giant rock demon, hunts him still.
But Brayan's Gold may offer a way for Arlen to be free of One Arm forever, if he is willing to wager his life on the chance.
Return to the world of The Warded Man and The Desert Spear in an illustrated new novella by Peter V. Brett.
Humanity has been brought to the brink of extinction. Each night,…
Subterranean Press is proud to present Robert McCammon's first contemporary novel in nearly two decades, a tale of the hunt and unlikely survival, of the life and soul, set against a supernatural backbeat. Robert McCammon, author of the popular Matthew Corbett historical thrillers (Speaks the Nightbird, Mister Slaughter), now gives us something new and completely unexpected: The Five, a contemporary novel as vivid, timely, and compelling as anything he has written to date.
The Five tells the story of an eponymous rock band struggling to survive on the margins of the music business. As they move through the American Southwest on what might be their final tour together, the band members come to the attention of a damaged Iraq war veteran, and their lives are changed forever.
The narrative that follows is a riveting account of violence, terror, and pursuit set against a credible, immensely detailed rock and roll backdrop. It is also a moving meditation on loyalty and friendship, on the nature and importance of families those we are born into and those we create for ourselves and on the redemptive power of the creative spirit. Written with wit, elegance, and passionate conviction, The Five lays claim to new imaginative territory, and reaffirms McCammon's position as one of the finest, most unpredictable storytellers of our time.
Subterranean Press is proud to present Robert McCammon's first contemporary novel in nearly two decades, a tale of the hunt and unlikely survival, of the life and soul, set…
Black Hills is an important and revelatory novel, the most singular accomplishment to date by the always unpredictable Dan Simmons. With empathy and great narrative power, it illuminates a significant chapter in the nation s history, and takes us deep into the heart of an extraordinary American life.
The story begins at the Battle of Little Big Horn in June of 1876. Eleven-year-old Paha Sapa (whose name, in the Lakota dialect, means Black Hills ), is present at the precise moment of Custer s death, a moment that will have enormous ramifications. The narrative that follows encompasses eighty years of highly charged history and ranges from the eponymous (and sacred) Black Hills of South Dakota to the Dust Bowls of the Great Depression to the emerging face of Mount Rushmore, where an astonishing revelation awaits.
On one level, Black Hills is a story of profound and inescapable loss: of family, of cultural heritage, of the ancient gods that once dominated the Lakota's world. On another, it is a visionary account of love, hope, and unexpected discovery, and a meditation on the Mystery that lies 'at the heart of the heart of the universe.' Absorbing, moving, and constantly surprising, Black Hills is, by any standard, a major novel, another landmark achievement in a constantly evolving career.
Black Hills is an important and revelatory novel, the most singular accomplishment to date by the always unpredictable Dan Simmons. With empathy and great narrative power, it…
As in all good storybooks, in this one there was once a princess. She and her stalwart bear, Mr. Whiffle, live in a marzipan castle and have adventures. All is happy and cheerful except, of course, for the monster living under her bed. Sounds like a bedtime story, to be sure, but that’s only its superficial veneer. Toss in the odd bit of violence and a smidgen of stuffed-animal rebellion, and we are faced with a different sort of book. Rothfuss and Taylor share a wonderfully wicked sense of humor. The inclusion of three successive ending points, each darker in nature than its predecessor, allows the faint of heart the chance to stop, but really, the payoff for hanging on to the final ending is too good to miss. Taylor’s art is gleefully subversive while maintaining an appropriate sweetness without becoming overly precious. Fans of the classic cartooning of Calvin and Hobbes and Loony Toons will be pleased by this little gem in which children’s picture-book format expresses not-for-kids attitudes.
As in all good storybooks, in this one there was once a princess. She and her stalwart bear, Mr. Whiffle, live in a marzipan castle and have adventures. All is happy and cheerful…
