Fantasy Short Fiction

Mysterious alien entities have emerged to enslave humanity. They draw their identities and their immense powers from the gods of ancient myth and legend. Only David Montague, billionaire inventor, stands in their way. With the ability to read auras, he’s amassed for himself wealth and power, but now his ability will be turned toward more noble ends: defending humanity.

In this striking and bleak, yet luminous debut collection, Nathan Ballingrud, winner of the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award, uses the trappings of the Gothic and the uncanny to investigate a distinctly American landscape: The loneliest and darkest corners of contemporary life. Ballingrud’s stories are love stories. They’re also monster stories. Sometimes the monsters collected here are vampires or werewolves.

Surviving the first days of the apocalypse, William is a wreck and hiding in an attic. The daily acid storms, floating elementals, and bizarre mutated animals are the least of his problems. The reality-warping apocalypse has rules and a system much like those in video games. To survive, he must learn how the new uncooperative system works, choose a class without any real knowledge of what it does and create a place safe from the spawning horrors.

Dubbed "the American Tolkien" by Time magazine, #1 New York Times bestselling author George R.R. Martin is a giant in the field of fantasy literature and one of the most exciting storytellers of our time. Now he delivers a rare treat for readers: a selection of his shorter works, collected...

In a realm where wizards rule, magic reigns supreme. Power. The ambitious thirst for it. But when a power-hungry wizard lord seeks to expand his might, he triggers a series of events unforeseen. The balance of magic is altered, races of old return, and beasts of legend stalk the land. This omnibus includes the first three books in the series.

Sammy struggled through college until she's magically transported to another realm. In this new world, she's been transformed into the wholly (holy?) different form of a goddess. Now she has to acquire followers to appease the ever-helpful System while avoiding the blades of those who despise deities. To make matters worse, a certain god hungers for war, bringing a fated showdown closer with each passing day. And while her adjustment is challenging, the most intriguing part is that her powers have something to do with mirrors.

Maxine was made to do one thing: die. Except the minor non-player character in the world Riley is building makes her own impossible decision - veering wildly off course and exploring the boundaries of the map. When the curious Riley extracts her code for closer examination, an emotional relationship develops between them. Soon Riley has all new plans for her spontaneous AI, including bringing Max into the real world. But what if Max has real-world plans of her own?

New York Times best-selling author Nalini Singh delivers a smoldering story with Secrets at Midnight, as the scent of Bastien Smith's elusive lover ignites a possessiveness in him that's as feral as it is ecstatic. And now that he's found his mate, he'll do anything to keep her.

It's been one year since a virus triggered junk DNA and people all over the world started changing, becoming something else, craving blood. It's been 10 months since the word vampire stopped being something from old monster stories and Hollywood movies. It's been six months since our world and theirs erupted into war, two since an uneasy peace was signed, and one hour since that peace was shattered. The war is here again - the vampire war.

The Complete Series in a single offering! The Dragon Sovereign—my father—has ruled our land with integrity and wisdom for almost a hundred years. And now, as his time on the throne nears its end, mine is about to begin. But claiming my rightful destiny won’t be easy. The Great Houses plot my family's downfall, and they will oppose me at every turn. Yet the throne stands ready for a new dragon to claim it, and as the last scion of our honored house, I will not allow anyone to stand in my way.

After the alien virus struck humanity in the wake of World War II, a handful of the survivors found they possessed superhuman powers. The Wild Cards shared-world volumes tell their story. Here in book two, we trace these heroes and villains through the tumultuous 1980s, in stories from SF and fantasy giants such as George R. R. Martin, Roger Zelazny, Pat Cadigan, Lewis Shiner, Walter Jon Williams, and others.

The first three books in this action-packed, wildly original fantasy series by New York Times bestselling author Jasmine Walt. This kick-ass urban fantasy series has been compared to books by Ilona Andrews, Patricia Briggs, Karen Marie Moning, and more. You're sure to enjoy it if you like spunky heroines, kick-ass fight scenes, wild new worlds, and sizzling, slow-building romance.

Roguish swordsman Korm and his cyclops companion, Aebos, are no strangers to death, yet neither would have expected that starvation on the high seas would be the foe to eventually lay them low. When a beautiful spellcaster in a magical ship arrives just in time to save them from being roasted alive by mutinous sailors, it seems like their luck may finally be turning around - yet are they jumping from the frying pan into the fire?

This collection features 10 original stories, and three of the best narrators around: Steve Lee, Rodney Tompkins, and Dan Levy. You’ll get a sweet and sexy first-time story and a story about rediscovering sex after a bad breakup. You’ll meet a young man obsessed with the MILF he met at the store and a young woman and her smoking hot sugar daddy. My writers do not hold back!

Of all the sports played across the globe, none has more curses, superstitions, or supernatural events like baseball, America's national pastime. While some of these can easily be explained, there are just as many that cannot. Field of Fantasies delves right into that superstition with short stories written by several key authors about baseball and the supernatural.

The war is tearing our world apart. Instead of big armies with tanks in the field, the Vampire War is fought in the streets, neighbor against neighbor, family against family. Anyone can turn at any time. The blood hunger can suddenly appear in the middle of a kiss. The person who sleeps next to you every night could wake up in the dead of night... hungry. So hungry.

Tales of Dune collects eight of Herbert and Anderson’s Dune short stories, ranging from the period of the Butlerian Jihad to the time of young Paul Atreides to a story set during the events of the novel Dune to the very end of Frank Herbert’s future history.

The beachside town of Oyster Cove had everything a man could want—endless white sand beaches, plentiful summer activities, and of course, more beautiful women than you could shake a tail at. I came to Oyster Cove to enjoy a leisurely summer of surf and sun, but I find out pretty quickly that there’s more to this town than meets the eye. My next door neighbor has eyes that are very similar to a cat’s, and I could have sworn the gorgeous waitress at my favorite food spot has scales on her legs.

The best-selling Extinction Cycle series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith first introduced listeners to a world ravaged by an engineered virus that turned men into monsters. Now, for the first time ever, comes a collection of Extinction Cycle short stories that explore the human spirit and the fight for survival in the face of overwhelming odds from some of the leading voices in the post-apocalyptic genre.

This statement was true when H. P. Lovecraft first wrote it at the beginning of the twentieth century, and it remains true at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The only thing that has changed is what is unknown. With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. But this light creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year, edited by Ellen Datlow, chronicles these shifting shadows.