Short Science Fiction Fantasy Stories

A powerful, eerily unsettling story collection from a major international literary star. Unearthly and unexpected, the stories in Mouthful of Birds burrow their way into your psyche and don't let go. Samanta Schweblin haunts and mesmerizes in this extraordinary, masterful collection. Schweblin's stories have the feel of a sleepless night, where every shadow and bump in the dark take on huge implications, leaving your pulse racing, and the line between the real and the strange blur.

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.

Let the secret history of the world be told - of the alien virus that struck Earth after World War II and of the handful of the survivors who found they now possessed superhuman powers. Some were called Aces, endowed with powerful mental and physical prowess. The others were Jokers, tormented by bizarre mind or body disfigurements. Some served humanity. Others caused terror. And now, 40 years later, as a gang war between the Shadow Fists and the Mafia rages out of control in the streets of Jokertown.

After a decade as a single dad, I thought I had life figured out. I put my broken heart on the shelf to raise my daughter Maddie, and watching her grow into a confident, successful woman has been reward enough. Still, life has a way of throwing curves at you–the kind of curves that will get any guy’s attention. When Maddie’s best friends Lexie and Olivia find themselves homeless after losing their apartment, there’s no question I’m going to offer them refuge. They were there for Maddie during our darkest hours, and it’s my turn to be there for them now.

Famine. Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the End of the World. In science fiction, the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm. But before any catastrophe, there are people who see it coming. During, there are heroes who fight against it. And after, there are the survivors who persevere and try to rebuild. "The Apocalypse Triptych" will tell their stories.

Today's hottest urban fantasy authors come together in this delicious brew that crackles and boils over with tales of powerful witches and dark magic! For anyone who's ever wondered what lies beyond the limits of reality, who's imagined the secret spaces where witches wield fearsome magic, come and drink deep. Let yourself fall under the spell of this bewitching collection!

Ijon Tichy, Lem's Candide of the Cosmos, encounters bizarre civilizations and creatures in space that serve to satirize science, the rational mind, theology, and other icons of human pride.

The hottest military science-fiction series of all time continues. The mission: to boldly explore David Weber’s Honorverse; to deliver all the action, courage, derring-do, and pulse-pounding excitement of space naval adventure with tales set in a world touched by the greatness of one epic heroine: Honor Harrington.

My life took a turn I never expected on the day the world ended. Suddenly forced to fight in a bloody arena by a faceless System, I find the only way to survive is to win. I’m told that ten victories in the arena will give me my freedom, but if I’m going to get there, I’ll need a crack team of hardened allies to fight with me. What I got instead was a bratty college girl with a jealousy streak, a momma’s boy roommate who now inhabits the body of a piglet, and a devastatingly gorgeous teacher whose sword is as sharp as her tongue.

Varangantua is in turmoil. After the district of Korsk is obliterated in a fiery cataclysm, the city’s enforcers must pick up the pieces. As sanctioner teams comb the wreckage for survivors, dogged probators such as Agusto Zidarov and Lycia Calix seek to uncover the truth about what happened. Their stories become intertwined with those of petty criminals and desperate citizens, even drawing the vaunted attention of agents beyond Alecto itself, painting a picture of sprawling conspiracy.

It is in Skinwalker that Jane Yellowrock first meets George Dumas (Bruiser) and Leo Pellissier. Now, in "First Sight", that encounter is revisited - only this time from Bruiser’s point of view.

For Fox, Caleb, Gage and the other residents of Hawkins Hollow, the number seven portends doom - ever since, as boys, they freed a demon trapped for centuries when their blood spilled upon The Pagan Stone.

Tanis is looking forward to a long journey in stasis before arriving at the newly terraformed world of New Eden. New Life. New Start. Getting a berth on the Intrepid is her ticket out of the Sol System. But nothing proves easy for Major Tanis Richards. Nothing is at it seems. What should be a simple trip is fraught with danger and filled with adventure. An array of forces seek to stop the Intrepid - no matter the cost, or lives lost. From competing corporations, to stellar eco-terrorists, no one wants the Intrepid to arrive at New Eden.

Allen Ming awakens in an unfamiliar realm, trapped within an unfamiliar form—feeble in body and spirit. Thrust into a world of cultivation, Allen Ming finds himself grappling with a reality of a wastrel body, and a world filled with danger and killing. With an AI-enhanced eye, he seeks his way through the dark world of cultivation. But with his newfound family haunted by a looming threat, he has to take charge of the situation even before he gets familiar with the new body.

The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, and the Pushcart Prize, Ursula K. Le Guin is renowned for her lyrical writing, rich characters, and diverse worlds. The Wind's Twelve Quarters collects 17 powerful stories, each with an introduction by the author, ranging from fantasy to intriguing scientific concepts, from medieval settings to the future.

Ryan doesn’t remember much about his life before becoming a dungeon core. Only that he had a bit of a disagreement with the church—something to do with a beheading? Now reborn, Ryan begins to arm his darkness dungeon with devious traps, bestial zombies and ill-named skeletal creations, without doing anything too evil. Well, mostly. Some adventurers just deserve a stalactite to the head.

Here is the precursor to Jurassic Park. Victorian explorers have heard there is a remote plateau where dinosaurs still survive, and a group set outs on a dangerous mission to find out more about it.

This is a collection of the second six short stories in the Caverns and Creatures series.

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.

Finding seeds of inspiration in the Brothers Grimm, seventeenth-century French lore, and Scottish ballads, Kelly Link spins classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers—characters on the hunt for love, connection, revenge, or their own sense of purpose. Twisting and winding in astonishing ways, expertly blending realism and the speculative, witty, empathetic, and never predictable—these stories remind us once again of why Kelly Link is incomparable in the art of short fiction.