Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Anthologies & Short Stories

From the pulpy pages of Black Mask Magazine in the 1920s and '30s, through the film noir era of the 1940s, to today, noir fiction has lured many a reader and movie-goer away from the light and into the dark underbelly of society. Names such as Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain; titles like The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, The Postman Always Rings Twice...these have inhabited our collective consciousness for decades. Humanity, it seems, loves the dark. And within the dark, one figure stands out: that of the femme fatale.

A fantasy, science fiction, and horror anthology featuring seven short stories by well-received authors. They may scare you, thrill you, and capture your imagination. If you enjoy high-quality short stories that will excite you, then this is for you! E. R. Robin Dover’s “The Trees” (horror): In a remote desert region of southwestern New Mexico, centered along the Rio Grande, is an ancient grove of trees permeated with an evil that has always existed.

Face it, fairy tales were always kind of kinky: from beautiful queens tied up in knots by wicked sorcerers to a wide variety of naughty and nice scenarios. Someone was always getting tied to a bed! In this new anthology of erotic romance fairy tales from the editor of the best-selling Fairy Tale Lust and Lustfully Ever After, the fairy tales are naughtier and have a BDSM twist. Retellings of the classics are joined with clever original tales, making for a darkly sensual and intensely romantic collection.

A vengeful ghost trapped in a goblin's ear...a flaming spider who must help stop a goddess from conquering a science-fiction convention...a goblin nursery worker who finds herself trapped in the middle of a war. This collection features six humorous short stories that explore the fantasy realm from the perspective of the lowest of the low, the unlikeliest of unheroes: the goblins.

This collection of short stories and novelettes includes the previously published stories "The Potter's Daughter" (a prequel to the novel The Element of Fire), "Holy Places", "Rites of Passage", "Houses of the Dead", "Reflections" (the Giliead and Ilias stories, prequels to the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy), as well as "Night at the Opera" (a Nicholas and Reynard story original to this collection, set before the Nebula-nominated novel The Death of the Necromancer).

Curvy Samantha is a dreamer looking for a happily ever after with Prince Charming. Her whole life changes when she finds a magical book that transports her to a tropical island with a hunk who thinks he's a wizard. For years, Suzie’s been running with her children, determined to not be found by her violent ex. Tired of hiding, she decides to settle down in suburbia, where she meets Hunter, a hot neighbor with a sword and secrets. The god of chance has sent Breanna on a quest to free the realm from a powerful spell. There’s just one problem.

Like the tanning of a leathered corpse, the inaugural release of Grimoire seeks to stretch the fleshy bounds of dark fiction and horror. Included within these unhallowed book are tales of medieval horror and cacophony, Lovecraftian delights and wretched Kaiju, accursed djinn and pestilential priests, all brought together for the very first time in one horrific collection. Engaging and provocative, these tales of the damned stalk the graveyards at night, crawl up from the empty and wet places of this world, and haunt the dreams of all who hear them.

This collection contains a mixture of stories about ghosts and contacts from spirits, some by celebrated authors, together with essays on psychical research. As Joseph French notes in the preface, even for the skeptic, tales of ghostly activity retain a distinct fascination. The widespread interest in psychic phenomena in the early twentieth century proved to be a significant stimulus to literary production.

These stories wrestle with the experience of loss—of loved ones, of relationships, of a sense of self, of health—and forge a path to hope as characters fight their way forward. From bestsellers and SPFBO finalists to rising voices, 13 exceptionally talented authors explore the many facets of grief and healing through the lens of fantasy and sci-fi.

Warring samurai clans fight with swords and magic for the Emperor's favor with these collected Legend of the Five Rings novellas, including a brand-new novella of the Crane Clan.

A sinister force threatens a teenage horror fan, and only a team of B movie monsters can come to his rescue. Fear stalks a group of punks when a scarecrow proves that birds aren’t the only things it can terrorize. And all hell breaks loose when a man discovers that his next-door neighbor possesses the power to reanimate the dead... Celebrate the music of the night with Scare Street’s latest collection of diabolical horror. Thirteen tales of paranormal horror haunt this new volume. More than enough to keep you listening on long after the sun goes down.

Dragons, magic, princesses of mighty kingdoms: elements of fantasy that have carried on throughout the many ages and yet may one day be forgotten. Enter, and delve into the roots of fantasy, rediscovering the fantastic, and exploring lost worlds. This is storytelling at its best. This collection of original works will take listeners back to the moment when they first fell in love with the genre; featuring stories from writers across the spectrum such as Mark Lawrence, R.S. Belcher, Miles Cameron, and many more.

Whether they are undeniably heroes and heroines or bloodthirsty monsters (or something in between), the undead are a lively lot. This anthology offers some of the best short fiction ever written by the "blood sisters" who know them best: stories you can really sink your teeth into.

An incubus disguised as a high school girl puts a disturbing spin on the teacher/student fantasy. An engineer creates a robot with unexpected consequences during the end of the world. A man becomes the pet of alien invaders. From stories of aliens in other worlds to those living among us, these tales will move you out of your comfort zone and open you up to experiencing something - or someone - completely different.

The four previous volumes in Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling's anthology series of fairly-tales retold with a distinctively modern edge have been hailded by reviewers as "brilliant", "provocative", and "disturbing". In this triumphant new collection of original fiction, 21 of today's leading writers spin the cherished fables of childhood into glittering gold - offering magical tales for adults, as seductive as they are sophisticated.

Ghost stories date back centuries, but those written in the Victorian era have a unique atmosphere and dark beauty. Michael Sims, whose previous Victorian collections Dracula’s Guest (vampires) and The Dead Witness (detectives) have been widely praised, has gathered twelve of the best stories about humanity’s oldest supernatural obsession. The Phantom Coach includes tales by a surprising and often legendary cast, including Charles Dickens, Margaret Oliphant, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as lost gems by forgotten masters such as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and W. F. Harvey. Amelia B. Edwards’s chilling story gives the collection its title, while Ambrose Bierce ("The Moonlit Road"), Elizabeth Gaskell ("The Old Nurse’s Story"), and W. W. Jacobs ("The Monkey’s Paw") will turn you white as a sheet. With a skillful introduction to the genre and notes on each story by Sims, The Phantom Coach is a spectacular collection of ghostly Victorian thrills.

A 300-year-old story collector enlists the help of the computer hacker next door to save her dying sister. A half-resurrected cleanup man for Death’s sprawling bureaucracy faces a phantom pachyderm, doll-collecting sorceresses, and his own ghoulish bosses. Gordo, the old Cubano who watches over the graveyards and sleeping children of Brooklyn, stirs and lights another Malaguea. Down the midnight streets of New York, a whole invisible universe churns to life in Daniel José Older’s debut collection of ghost noir.

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.

This invaluable collection of Avram Davidson's resonant, witty short stories describes some incidents in the career of many-times-Doctor Engelbert Eszterhazy, loyal subject of the Triune Monarchy of Scythia- Pannonia-Transbalkania, located in a 19th-century Europe whose political landscape will be, after a little reflection, familiar to most fantasy listeners. Enquire with Doctor Eszterhazy into curious matters: the lurley, the old woman who lived with a bear, gingerbread men, dancing goats, and more.

N. K. Jemisin is one of the most powerful and acclaimed speculative fiction authors of our time. In the first collection of her evocative short fiction, Jemisin equally challenges and delights listeners with thought-provoking narratives of destruction, rebirth, and redemption. In these stories, Jemisin sharply examines modern society, infusing magic into the mundane, and drawing deft parallels in the fantasy realms of her imagination. Dragons and hateful spirits haunt the flooded streets of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.