Horror Fiction Fantasy

X is trapped living in the slums of the last remaining city on Earth. He can only venture out beyond the towering walls to scavenge relics of the old world when the sun is up. At night, like everybody else, he hides inside from the monsters of the shadows...until an unexpected death occurs a little too close to home. With the blame on his shoulders, and trigger-happy guards on his trail, X has no choice but to run. But the city was never a safe place to begin with, not really, and his only slim chance of survival lies outside the walls, in a landscape empty of humanity.

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.

These stories present electric messiahs, identity constructs, the Beatles, and even a nuclear Armageddon, which serve as comic foils for Lain's everyman characters. Here is an America where packets of Sea Monkeys arrive in the mail containing secret messages, and the girl next door can breathe underwater. With Last Week's Apocalypse, Douglas Lain arrives with a punch line and a warning.

Virus. Chaos. Survival. Alienated in a world where he doesn't fit in, Christian Black survives because he's different. Then the virus came, and made the world turn different, too. Now people are dying by the million. Food supplies are short. Riots are blazing through the streets, and Christian's only goal is to keep his family alive. But safety lies far from the city, and just getting out will be tougher than anyone knows.

One October morning, Laina gets the news that her brother has been shot and killed by Boston cops. But what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger. Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it. As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence.

Someone is drugging the fairest of them all and hurting them in the dark corners of the forests around Port Mackenzie - shrouding the town in mystery and darkness. But nothing is as it seems. In the dark corners of the small town there is also a light, a cure to what ails the sick. But everything comes at a cost, a price that must be paid. Aimee James discovers that cost the moment she dies. She discovers there are worse things than dying. She finds herself cursed.

Doc never wanted to be in charge; but now that he is, nothing is going to stop him from protecting the people of the Hidden. As Doc fights to undo all of Mitcham's remaining schemes and free those trapped in Blackwater Prison, it becomes clear that not everyone approves of his leadership. Thankfully, Doc couldn't care less; and he's more than happy to take on anyone who's foolish enough to stand in his way...

The witch known as the Patron has been controlling Tessa since childhood with compulsion and pain magic, but she's come to realize that she isn’t the only one. Tessa now knows that if she fails and dies before she can stop him that there may never be another detective good enough to find him, which would leave thousands of victims enslaved to him forever. But with the weight of his magic ripping her mind apart, Tessa may already be too far gone to keep fighting. Will she have the strength to give her all one last time, or will she fall and take the Hidden down with her...?

Black Hollow is a town with a dark secret. For centuries, residents have foretold the return of the Dreamwalker - an ominous figure from local folklore said to lure young women into the woods and possess them. Yet the boundary between fact and fable is blurred by a troubling statistic: Occasionally, women do go missing. And after they return, they almost always end up dead.

The best science fiction and fantasy stories of 2021, selected by series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Veronica Roth. This year’s selection of science fiction and fantasy stories, chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and bestselling author of the Divergent series Veronica Roth...

In April 2020, the world faced imminent lock-down, so a group of filmmakers started a virtual support group. Once a week, these diverse voices would assemble to do what they do best: tell each other stories. Campfire horror tales, emotional cosmic mysteries, and anything else that either made them take their minds off what was happening to the world, or help them understand it. HAUNTED REELS is the best of those stories.

Vitus Adamson has a second chance at life now that he's no longer a zombie. But after killing his brother, Jamie, Vitus lands in prison on murder charges. Jamie's death exposes secret government projects so deep in the black they cannot be seen - without Vitus, that is. Sprung from jail, the government hires Vitus to clean up Jamie's messes, but tracking down his brother's homemade monsters gone rogue is easier said than done. The first of them is a convicted killer assumed to be safely behind bars.

A psychologically twisted story of the escape of a lifelong prisoner.

The Oblivion Guard is trying to kill Cain. That should be impossible. After all, Cain has a bargain with the summer and winter queens that keeps him safe from them directly or indirectly harming him. Cain discovers that many of these would-be assassins come from Alpha and Beta dimensions, and they seem to have found a loophole that allows them to kill him without harming the queens. Anyone associated with Cain is fair game, and Aura and Layla are forced to hide out at Sanctuary with Cain. But not even his secret hideout is safe anymore.

STOP. You should not have touched this flyer with your bare hands. NO, don't put it down. It's too late. They're watching you. My name is David Wong. My best friend is John. Those names are fake. You might want to change yours. You may not want to know about the things you'll read on these pages, about the sauce, about Korrok, about the invasion, and the future. But it's too late. You touched the book. You're in the game. You're under the eye. The only defense is knowledge. You need to read this book, to the end. Even the part with the bratwurst. Why?

A parent should never have to bury a child. Lydia and Wade Jones live a simple life with their daughter, Adeline, in the rural countryside of southeastern Virginia. But when Adeline passes in a devastating accident, Lydia’s life falls apart and her perception of reality is altered forever.

Sally has recently left an unfulfilling job to volunteer at a living history museum, where she is assigned to the Death House. Every day, she dons Victorian mourning garb and describes traditional funeral services to tourists. It sounds depressing as hell, but for Sally, it’s less depressing than her tepid marriage to her childhood sweetheart. This becomes all too clear when she accidentally travels through time and space to a liminal world where the ghosts of the living history museum haunt its grounds. There, she meets and falls hard for Victorian-era pretty boy Nathaniel.

The best of the year's science fiction and fantasy stories as selected by the multiple award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan. Distant worlds, time travel, epic adventure, unseen wonders, and much more! The best, most original and brightest science fiction and fantasy stories from around the globe from the past 12 months are brought together in one collection by multiple award winning editor Jonathan Strahan.

They say no good deed goes unpunished, and Cain is living proof of it. His quest to help the gorgon Dusa and his favorite bartender, Aura, went terribly right and horrifically wrong. Now, the sword Soultaker has claimed two more souls and added them to its undead army. Zeus and Mars tell Cain to fix the situation, or they'll erase him permanently along with everyone he cares about. To free souls from Soultaker, Cain needs information from the original Thanatos, Greek god of death.

Walter was a petty crook, struggling to make ends meet, when he was suddenly abducted to another world. One of many people from Earth drafted by aliens to participate in "the trials" in order to gain "ascension," he must now endure hazardous environments and hostile creatures, strengthening his physical and mental skills to superhuman levels.