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An anthology of fantasy, science fiction, and horror stories themed around spiders.
Is the gold real, or is Pat on a fool's errand? It's January 1986, and Pat Kowalski has just turned 18, but there's no cause for celebration. His father is dying, and the local bank is foreclosing on their house. Pat talks to his senile great-grandmother, who tells him a story about a man dying in front of her in 1894. What she doesn't tell him is that the man – Mister Good Boots - had been carrying a suitcase worth of gold coins. These coins would be worth a fortune today – if any of them are still left. But Pat's not the only person in their small Central Illinois town who needs money. Pat's classmate Vince is watching his college dream evaporate. Vince has also convinced himself that ...
From outer space to inner space, from realms of magic to the here-and-now, from the distant past to the far future, the twenty-one stories and poems in this third collection of science fiction and fantasy by authors featured on the Aurora Award-winning podcast The Worldshapers will take you on incredible adventures in the company of unforgettable characters. A pampered, overweight cat from the present saves the world from alien invasion in Ancient Egypt. A musician whose special horn helped bring down the walls of Jericho is fated to bring down walls again and again throughout history. A house ghost is troubled by a new owner who proves unhauntable. Robots programmed to love humanity take th...
A few years in our future, Ken Murphy is a National Guard Colonel and senior manager at a factory in tranquil Highview, West Virginia. When the local economy is thrown into a tailspin by a plant shutdown, Murphy is thrown out of work, with no way to pay for medical care for his son. In an attempt to prove they can operate on their own, the workers move in and occupy the factory. The government intervenes, escalating the labor dispute into a deadly confrontation. As the conflict intensifies, politicians on both sides refuse to back down or compromise, tipping the nation into a bloody civil war.
With a foreword from Colin Quinn. When Ursula and Jed Barnett win the lottery, they think their troubles are over. But they've just begun. Ursula's sister-in-law Fionnuala Flood rallies the family against them. Why should the Barnetts live in luxury when the Floods are eking out a meager living? A hilarious, sad, insightful series about the politics of envy. A must-read for anyone from a dysfunctional family, and even from a functional one! From the hilarious and heartbreaking bestseller An Embarrassment of Riches ("A masterpiece"--Colin Quinn) to the laugh-a-minute world tour of Fleeing The Jurisdiction, all your favorite characters from Derry, Northern Ireland are here: mother-from-hell Fionnuala Flood, kind but feisty Ursula Barnett, their husbands Paddy and Jed, and Fionnuala's children, Dymphna, Siofra and all the others. Wince, gasp, laugh at their adventures from the lottery win to the Titanic cruise, from the Semtex in the canned vegetables to the liaisons in the fish factory! The first three books of the beloved series are together in this classy box set. (Please note, book four Best Served Frozen and book five Static Cling not included here)
Publishers Weekly: "The Irish family at the heart of this hilarious novel is so tawdry and despicable, it's a wonder they don't kill off each other in the first few pages. ...The central figure is Ursula, whose husband had won the lottery and has since gambled away much of the winnings. Ursula's new (and fading) riches have strained many of her personal relationships, particularly with her sister-in-law, Fionnuala, a first-rate villain who concocts get-rich-quick schemes based on the misery of others. ...Once the vulgarity and shenanigans set in, the novel is as absorbing as it is hysterical." When Ursula Barnett and her husband Jed win the Irish lottery, they think their troubles are over. ...
What if future criminals played games of skill for their freedom? Would spellcasters dare use magic to skew chance in their favor? What if aliens judged us based on the games we play? Can a dying woman literally cheat Death? Games are about more than winning and losing. They’re about risk and reward, strategy and blind fortune, our need to win and our fear of being outplayed. And when magic and science infuse a game, the stakes can be of cosmic importance. Each move could decide life or death. Are you ready to play? In this anthology, seventeen of today’s leading fantasy and science fiction authors explore the role games play in worlds both seen and unseen. Join Aliette de Bodard, Jennifer R Povey, Ed Greenwood, Cory Swanson, David Hankins, Cat Rambo, Wulf Moon, Jo Miles, James Alan Gardner, Karen Aria Lin, Mike Rimar, Eric Choi, Tris Lawrence, Mark Silcox, Melissa Yi, Michael Picco, and Sean Williams as they share with us games played for unimaginable stakes. The board is set, the cards are dealt—now it’s GAME ON!
Within these pages lie eighteen stories, from eighteen worlds shaped by some of today’s best writers of science fiction and fantasy, all guests on the Aurora Award-winning podcast The Worldshapers during its first year. Some are international bestsellers. Among them are winners and nominees for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Aurora, Sunburst, Aurealis, Ditmar, British Science Fiction Association, and Dragon Awards. Some have been writing for decades, others are at the beginning of their careers. All have honed their craft to razor-sharpness. A teenage girl finds something strange in the middle of the Canadian prairie. An exobiologist tries to liberate a giant alien enslaved on its homewo...
Insurgent is the riveting sequel to the surprise bestseller Republic: A Novel of America's Future. Three months after the end of the West Virginia civil war, Valerie Murphy faces her worst fears as the violence escalates. Former Congressman Al Clark, now Governor of the bankrupt state, must quell an insurgency even as he struggles to put the state back together. In a small town south of Charleston, West Virginia, Corporal Jim Turville meets a young ballet dancer who dreams of moving beyond her small coal mining town. As the young couple grows closer, their love and their lives will be at risk as insurgents move to disrupt the town with shocking violence.
Would you kill for your art? Would it kill for you? A painter who kills with blood-tinged pigment. A tattoo artist with a dark past who treats with demons. A sculptor on Venus who carves his life’s history into ice at the cost of his sanity. A ceramic vase that might avenge the life of a murder victim. A haunted song that drives listeners to kill. Art surrounds us. It entertains and nurtures. And for some it can do far more. It can protect a family over generations or bridge the boundary between the realms of the living and the dead. It can be a curse or a boon, a path to riches or to damnation. In Artifice and Craft, speculative fiction authors Lyndsay E. Gilbert, Laura E. Price, Adam Stemple, Brian K. Lowe, James R. Tuck, Briana Una McGuckin, Jordan Davidson, James Maxey, Madeline Dau, Joel Armstrong, C.E. Murphy, Mark Painter, Alex Bledsoe, Alethea Kontis, Gerri Leen, and Jelena Dunato craft tales of art and artistry that are shaded with the supernatural, tuned to the fantastic, and glazed with the unexpected. So listen, watch, admire. But don’t touch, and don’t turn your back. Because these works of art are far more than they seem.