Short Science Fiction Fantasy Stories

Father John has lived his whole life without knowing a woman’s touch. Hard at first, his self-denial grew easier over time, as he learned to master his urges with a regimen of prayer, cold showers, and jigsaw puzzles. That changes the day that Debra Rocks enters his confessional. A rough-talking adult film actress, she has come to ask him to pray for a murdered costar. Her cinnamon perfume infects Father John, and after she departs he becomes obsessed.

A shopping mall where droids sell organs harvested from street trash. A murderous imaginary friend. A psychotic composer drafting music from pain. All in a day's work for the Lawman of the Future. Edited by and with an introduction by Dredd veteran Michael Carroll, Judge Fear's Big Day Out and Other Stories gathers the very best short stories from more than a decade of the Judge Dredd Megazine, including stories by legends Alan Grant, Gordon Rennie and Simon Spurrier, among countless others.

Quantum Hughes doesn't know how long he's been trapped in a cyber noir world known as The Loop. For each day that passes, Quantum adds an item to his inventory list, hoping that he'll one day be free. Has it really been nearly 550 days? Has he gone mad? Will Quantum ever be free?

People work; folk play. That is how it has been in this country for as long as Sam can remember. He is happy, and he understands that this is the way it should be. People are bigger than folk. They are stronger. They do not need food or water. They do not need the warmth of a fire. All they need are jobs to do and a blacksmith to fix them when they break. The people work so the folk can drink their moonshine, fish a little, and throw horseshoes. But once Sam starts to wonder why the world is like this, his life will never be the same.

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 33 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2020.

The Shadow Market is a meeting point for faeries, werewolves, warlocks, and vampires. There, the Downworlders buy and sell magical objects, make dark bargains, and whisper secrets they do not want the Nephilim to know. As a Silent Brother, Brother Zachariah is a sworn keeper of the laws and lore of the Nephilim. But once he was a Shadowhunter called Jem Carstairs, and his love, then and always, is the warlock Tessa Gray. And Jem is searching through the Shadow Markets, in many different cities over long years, for a relic from his past.

First Meetings is a collection of three novellas (plus the original "Ender's Game") that journey into the origins and the destiny of one Ender Wiggin.

While humans lost their knowledge of magic and monsters, the Ironwoods have been fighting against evil for centuries. While gods, fae, and magicians turned into tall tales and ghost stories, the Ironwoods became the stuff of legends themselves. Now, with Morrigan’s Generals free again in the world, the Ironwoods are going to need all their training—and their new fae brothers—to stop them. This box set collects all four stories of the Ironwood women as they get into plenty of trouble, slay their enemies, and find true love.

Life can kick us when we are down. In Shawn Speakman's case, he is fighting back. Lacking health insurance and diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2011, Speakman beat the disease as well as the massive medical debt he amassed from its treatment. He did this by publishing Unfettered, an anthology featuring short stories donated by some of the best science fiction and fantasy writers working today. Speakman has again collaborated with celebrated genre authors to publish Unfettered II.

In this dark and gritty collection - featuring short stories from Jim Butcher, Seanan McGuire, Kevin J. Anderson, and Rob Thurman - nothing is as simple as black and white, light and dark, good and evil.... Unfortunately, that's exactly what makes it so easy to cross the line.

The essential short story collection set in the universe of Ninefox Gambit. An ex-Kel art thief has to save the world from a galaxy-shattering prototype weapon.... A general outnumbered eight-to-one must outsmart his opponent.... A renegade returns from seclusion to bury an old comrade....

After killing the prince, the evil queen refuses to pay, so Rogar the orc kisses Snow. White as revenge, causing the princess to wake up, desperate for his large muscular body and throbbing shaft. Steamy paranormal fairytale impregnation smutt quick listen for adults 18+. All smut with little plot. Contains pregnancy and unrealistic pick sizes.

As the future pack leader of the Silver Wolves, my life was carefully planned: stay hidden and learn to fight. In an instant, everything changes. My pack was slaughtered by an unknown enemy. Alone and unsure who to trust, I search for safety. Now, there's a pack leader who offers me something that no one else can—protection. He’s sexy, an absolute jerk, and my fated mate. The more I try to fight our bond, the more fate pushes us together. But the price may be too much for both of us. I’m being hunted, and the choices I'm forced to make could destroy me.

After losing her partner in the line of duty, Agent Sidney Shaw is forced to team up with a renegade bounty hunter. And she doesn’t like it. John Smoke—an incarcerated wild card—is released into her custody, only to push her vaunted training to the limits and toss the FBI playbook out. But a vast hidden network of criminals with the terrifying ability to shape-shift into monsters is spreading its supernatural sickness in the very fabric of human society. Innocents end up dead or missing.

With 15 new and original stories, this first-of-its-kind anthology is inspired by the events of the original Aliens vs. Predators movies, graphic novels, and novels. Includes a new story written by Jonathan Maberry and Louis Ozawa (“Hanzo” from the movie Predators) as Hanzo’s brother faces the eternal threats of both the Yautja and the Xenomorphs.

An anthology celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Predator franchise, If It Bleeds includes 17 brand new, never-before-seen or heard stories featuring the Predators throughout space and time. Based entirely on the original films, novels, and comics, Predator: If It Bleeds reveals the Predators stalking prey in 12th-century Japan, ninth-century Viking Norway, World War I, Vietnam, the Civil War, Hurricane Katrina, and the modern day, as well as across the far reaches of future space.

The iconic duo find themselves swiftly drawn into a series of puzzling and sinister events: an otherworldly stone whose touch inflicts fatal bleeding; a hellish potion to unlock a person’s devilish psyche; a fiendishly clever, almost undetectable method of revenge and many more—including a brand-new Cthulhu Casebooks story.

Ein is on a mission from God...the God of Death. Time is up for the emperor of Ten Kings, and it falls to Ein, an eight-year-old boy, to render the judgement of the reaper. He can't do it alone, but luckily the world is full of travelling heroes. There's only one catch; in order to serve him, they must first die.

Stephen Leeds is perfectly sane. It's his hallucinations who are mad. A genius of unrivaled aptitude, Stephen can learn any new skill, vocation, or art in a matter of hours. However, to contain all of this, his mind creates hallucinatory people - Stephen calls them aspects - to hold and manifest the information. Wherever he goes, he is joined by a team of imaginary experts to give advice, interpretation, and explanation. He uses them to solve problems...for a price. Then a company hires him to recover stolen property - a camera that can allegedly take pictures of the past....

From the dusty Great Depression to the far future to the Wild West to the era of big-fin automobiles, soda shops, and double features, as well as dark journey on an icy ocean full of ravenous sharks and a fantastic shipwreck that leads its survivors into a nightmarish Lovecraftian world of monsters and mystery, Joe R. Lansdale returns with a pack of stories for your consumption and enjoyment.