Fantasy Short Fiction

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. Humanity's only hope was not a cure, but another bioweapon. When deployed it killed 90 percent of the infected, but the remaining 10 percent transformed into even more terrifying creatures called Variants. Here's 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.

Originally written for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and '30s, H. P. Lovecraft's astonishing tales blend elements of horror, science fiction, and cosmic terror that are as powerful today as they were when first published. This tome brings together all of Lovecraft's harrowing stories, including the complete Cthulhu Mythos cycle, just the way they were when first released.

It is one of the most well-known and well-loved fantasy epics of the twentieth century: the story of Elric, emperor of the dying kingdom of Melniboné. For a hundred centuries the Melnibonéans have ruled from the Dragon Isle of Imrryr. Now, after years of corruption and decadence, Elric’s amoral cousin Prince Yyrkoon, the brother of his beloved Cymoril, sets his eyes on the Ruby Throne. Elric must face his treacherous cousin not as a warrior but as a sorcerer king once again in league with the ancient gods of Melniboné, the Chaos Lords, and thus sealing his inexorable fate.

Spanning Gaiman’s career to date, The Neil Gaiman Reader: Selected Fiction is a captivating collection from one of the world’s most beloved writers, chosen by those who know his work best: his devoted fans. A brilliant representation of Gaiman's groundbreaking, entrancing, endlessly imaginative fiction, this captivating volume includes excerpts from each of his five novels for adults—Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Anansi Boys, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane—and nearly fifty of his short stories.

Kitty Norville is everybody's favorite werewolf DJ and out-of-the-closet supernatural creature. Over the course of eight books, she's fought evil vampires, were-creatures, and some serious black magic. She's done it all with a sharp wit and the help of a memorable cast of werewolf hunters, psychics, and if-not-good-then-neutral vampires by her side. Kitty's Greatest Hits not only gives listeners some of Kitty's further adventures, it offers longtime fans a window into the origins of some of their favorite characters.

After his son gives him a pair of "X-ray" glasses as a gift, Martin Blackstone tries them on just for the hell of it - and all they do is give him a headache...until he sees things he can’t possibly be seeing. Glimpses of things on the other side of a wall or beneath someone’s clothing. He wants to believe it’s just his overactive imagination, but the “X-ray” specs actually work.

This audiobook brings together 13 uproarious short stories and one novella, focused on Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium. His stories are celebrated as heroic propaganda pieces, but he’s simply trying to stay alive in a hostile galaxy.

On Mars, a scientist experiments with a new engine that will one day become the drive that fuels humanity's journey into the stars. On an asteroid station, a group of prisoners are oblivious to the catastrophe that awaits them. On a future Earth beset by overpopulation, pollution, and poverty, a crime boss desperately seeks to find a way off planet. On an alien world, a human family struggles to establish a colony and make a new home. All these stories and more are featured in this unmissable collection of short fiction set in the hardscrabble world of The Expanse.

In a futuristic world where predictive software can map out the lives of every living person and their descendants, Naomi Prynne is on trial. The charge: endangerment by way of a pregnancy. Thirteen jurors will determine whether Naomi is allowed to carry the pregnancy to term, but the jurors are also all plaintiffs, the software having predicted how Naomi Prynne’s child will affect each of them in life-changing ways.

The Starship Atlantis takes you on an unforgettable journey through the extraordinary. From alien civilizations and rogue AI to desperate missions on the brink of collapse, these stories will transport you across the stars into the heart of the unknown. This anthology features six never-before-published novellas and short stories, plus two exclusive bonus tales.

A classic tale featuring two of the most-memorable characters in sword and sorcery, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Over a span of 50 years, the late Fritz Leiber wrote dozens of adventures, set in the fictional city of Lankhmar, featuring the seven-foot-tall barbarian and the diminuitive thief. The stories were recognized with both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

This short story introduces you to Eileen Wilks’ World of the Lupi, one the central werewolves in the series, and a powerful menacing evil that continues to plague her characters. Originally Human is a richly engaging side trip of the epic journey in the World of the Lupi series coming to you in Graphic Audio.

Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are back in a chilling collection of all-new tales of dark secrets, alien agendas, terrifying monsters, and murderous madmen. Edited by New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry, The Truth Is out There features original stories by best-selling authors Rachel Caine, David Wolverton, Hank Philippi Ryan, Kelley Armstrong, Kami Garcia, Greg Cox, and many others.

The Union army may be full of bastards, but there's only one who thinks he can save the day single-handed when the Gurkish come calling: the incomparable Colonel Sand dan Glokta. Curnden Craw and his dozen are out to recover a mysterious item from beyond the Crinna. Only one small problem: No one seems to know what the item is.

This series presents Clark Ashton Smith's fiction chronologically, based on composition rather than publication. Editors Scott Connors and Ron Hilger have compared original manuscripts, various typescripts, published editions, and Smith's notes and letters in order to prepare a definitive set of texts. The Maze of the Enchanter includes, in chronological order, all of his stories from The Mandrakes (February, 1933) to The Flower-Women (May, 1935). This volume also features an introduction and extensive notes on each story.

In a Tokyo suburb, a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife’s missing cat—and then for his wife as well—in a netherworld beneath the city’s placid surface. As these searches intersect, he encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists. Gripping, prophetic, and suffused with comedy and menace, this is one of Haruki Murakami’s most acclaimed and beloved novels.

For the better part of five decades, Jerry Pournelle's name has been synonymous with hard-hitting science fiction. For the first time, all of Pournelle's best short work has been collected in a single volume. Herein you will find over a dozen short stories, each with a new introduction by editor and longtime Pournelle assistant John F. Carr, as well as essays and remembrances by Pournelle collaborators and admirers.

Moon, Jade, and other favorites from the Indigo Cloud Court return with two new novellas from Martha Wells, who continues to enthusiastically ignore genre conventions in her exploration of the fascinating world of the Raksura. Her novellas and short stories contain all the elements fans have come to love from the Raksura books: courtly intrigue and politics, unfolding mysteries that reveal an increasingly strange wider world, and threats both mundane and magical.

Travel on an unpredictable and unforgettable literary journey. Find a horrified mother who gives birth to a strange blue pyramid. Encounter an amazing Electrical Grandmother who comes to live with a grieving family. Meet an old parrot who learned over long evenings to imitate the voice of Ernest Hemingway, and becomes the last link to the last link to the great man. Each of these magnificent creations has something to tell us about our own humanity - and all of their fates await you in this collection of 28 classic Bradbury stories and one luscious poem.

Here, together for the first time, are the shorter works of best-selling author Jim Butcher - a compendium of cases that Harry and his cadre of allies managed to close in record time. The tales range from the deadly serious to the absurdly hilarious.