Dale Bailey

Nathan Ballingrud

Aliette de Bodard

Richard Bowes

Pat Cadigan

Siobhan Carroll

F. Marion Crawford

Indrapramit Das

Terry Dowling

Brian Evenson

Gemma Files

Ford Madox Ford

Jeffrey Ford

Alice Hoffman

Carole Johnstone

Stephen Graham Jones

Richard Kadrey

John Langan

Alison Littlewood

Bracken Macleod

Nick Mamatas

Vincent J. Masterson

Seanan McGuire

Garth Nix

Joyce Carol Oates

M. Rickert

M. L. Siemienowicz

Lee Thomas

Paul Tremblay

A. C. Wise

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories

The essential collection of beloved ghost stories, compiled by the editor who helped define the genre—including stories from award-winning, bestselling authors such as Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Hoffman, Seanan McGuire, and Paul Tremblay. Everyone loves a good ghost story, especially Ellen Datlow—the most lauded editor in short works of supernatural suspense and dark fantasy. The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories is her definitive collection of ghost stories. These twenty-nine stories, including all new works from New York Times bestselling authors Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Hoffman, Seanan McGuire, and Paul Tremblay, span from the traditional to the eclectic, from the mainstream to the literary, from pure fantasy to the bizarrely supernatural. Whether you’re reading alone under the covers with a flashlight, or around a campfire with a circle of friends, there’s something here to please—and spook—everyone. Contributors include: Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Hoffman, Vincent J. Masterson, A.C. Wise, M. Rickert, Seanan McGuire, Lee Thomas, Alison Littlewood, M.L. Siemienowicz, Richard Kadrey, Indrapramit Das, Richard Bowes, Nick Mamatas, Terry Dowling, Aliette de Bodard, Carole Johnstone, Dale Bailey, Stephen Graham Jones, Bracken MacLeod, Garth Nix, Brian Evenson, Jeffrey Ford, Gemma Files, Paul Tremblay, Nathan Ballingrud, Pat Cadigan, John Langan.

Echoes

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John Chu

Leah Cypess

Amal El-Mohtar

Sarah Gailey

Carlos Hernandez

Kat Howard

T. Kingfisher

Ann Leckie

Carmen Maria Machado

Arkady Martine

Naomi Novik

Rebecca Roanhorse

Alyssa Wong

J. Y. Yang

An all-new anthology of eighteen classic myth retellings featuring an all-star lineup of award-winning and critically acclaimed writers.

Madeleine L'Engle once said, "When we lose our myths we lose our place in the universe." The Mythic Dream gathers together eighteen stories that reclaim the myths that shaped our collective past, and use them to explore our present and future. From Hades and Persephone to Kali, from Loki to Inanna, this anthology explores retellings of myths across cultures and civilizations.

Featuring award-winning and critically acclaimed writers such as Seanan McGuire, Naomi Novik, Rebecca Roanhorse, JY Yang, Alyssa Wong, Indrapramit Das, Carlos Hernandez, Sarah Gailey, Ann Leckie, John Chu, Urusla Vernon, Carmen Maria Machado, Stephen Graham Jones, Arkady Martine, Amal El-Mohtar, Jeffrey Ford, and more, The Mythic Dream is sure to become a new classic.

The Mythic Dream

Nina Allan

Zen Cho

Rowan Coleman

Theodora Goss

Elizabeth Hand

Alix E. Harrow

Ellen Klages

Lavanya Lakshminarayan

Margo Lanagan

Sam J. Miller

Catherynne M. Valente

Carrie Vaughn

Sameem Siddiqui

Tales of Time-Crossed Romance

Even time travel can't unravel love

Time-travel is a way for writers to play with history and imagine different futures - for better, or worse.

When romance is thrown into the mix, time-travel becomes a passionate tool, or heart-breaking weapon. A time agent in the 22nd century puts their whole mission at risk when they fall in love with the wrong person. No matter which part of history a man visits, he cannot not escape his ex. A woman is desperately in love with the time-space continuum, but it doesn't love her back. As time passes and falls apart, a time-traveller must say goodbye to their soulmate.

With stories from best-selling and award-winning authors such as Seanan McGuire, Alix E. Harrow and Nina Allan, this anthology gives a taste for the rich treasure trove of stories we can imagine with love, loss and reunion across time and space. 

Including stories by: Alix E. Harrow, Zen Cho, Seanan McGuire, Sarah Gailey, Jeffrey Ford, Nina Allan, Elizabeth Hand, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, Catherynne M. Valente, Sam J. Miller, Rowan Coleman, Margo Lanagan, Sameem Siddiqui, Theodora Goss, Carrie Vaughn, Ellen Klages

Someone in Time

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Texas

Out of Body is a dark fantasy thriller from multi-award-winning author Jeffrey Ford. A small-town librarian witnesses a murder at his local deli, and what had been routine sleep paralysis begins to transform into something far more disturbing. The trauma of holding a dying girl in his arms drives him out of his own body. The town he knows so well is suddenly revealed to him from a whole new perspective. Secrets are everywhere and demons fester behind closed doors. Worst of all, he discovers a serial killer who has been preying on the area for over a century, one capable of traveling with him through his dreams. Praise for Jeffrey Ford's The Twilight Pariah "His trademark mix of intelligence, creeps, melancholy, integrity, and wit is as addictive as it is compelling. I want to be Jeffrey Ford when I grow up." —Paul Tremblay "Creepy, funny, and poignant—a delight for connoisseurs of fantastic fiction." —Liz Hand

Out of Body

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"Poignant and punchy." --The New York Times

Three friends go looking for treasure and find horror in Jeffrey Ford'sThe Twilight Pariah.

All Maggie, Russell, and Henry wanted out of their last college vacation was to get drunk and play archaeologist in an old house in the woods outside of town. When they excavate the mansion's outhouse they find way more than they bargained for: a sealed bottle filled with a red liquid, along with the bizarre skeleton of a horned child

Disturbing the skeleton throws each of their lives into a living hell. They feel followed wherever they go, their homes are ransacked by unknown intruders, and people they care about are brutally, horribly dismembered. The three friends awakened something, a creature that will stop at nothing to retrieve its child.

The Twilight Pariah

Gwendolyn Kiste

E. V. Knight

Clay MacLeod Chapman

Ronald Malfi

Elizabeth Massie

Jeremy Megargee

Bridgett Nelson

Candace Nola

Clint Smith

Jon Steffens

Brian Asman

L. Stephenson

Jeff Strand

Daniel Braum

V. Castro

Douglas Ford

Holly Rae Garcia

Owl Goingback

C. V. Hunt

American Cannibal

Eric J. Guignard

Michael Arnzen

California

A Primer to Jeffrey Ford

Author of the fantastic and the bizarre, Jeffrey Ford's work has won awards and acclaim across the globe for his stories of humor, horror, and unconventional beauty. "Powerful and disturbing in the best possible way" (Gawker) and "Intensely engaging" (Publishers Weekly), Ford crosses speculative genres with literary ideals, which has earned him the World Fantasy Award (seven times), the Shirley Jackson Award (four times), the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and France's vaunted Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire. Dark Moon Books and editor Eric J. Guignard bring you this introduction to his work, the fourth in a series of primers exploring modern masters of literary dark short fiction. Herein is a chance to discover-or learn more of-the extraordinary voice of Jeffrey Ford, as beautifully illustrated by artist Michelle Prebich. Included within these pages are: * Six short stories, one written exclusively for this book * Author interview * Complete bibliography * Academic commentary by Michael Arnzen, PhD (former humanities chair and professor of the year, Seton Hill University) * . . . and more! Enter this doorway to the vast and fantastic: Get to know Jeffrey Ford. AND THEN EXPLORE THE OTHER VOLUMES IN THE EXPLORING DARK SHORT FICTION PRIMER SERIES!

Exploring Dark Short Fiction #4

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At the end of a long journey, Captain Ahab returns to the mainland to confront the true author of the novel Moby Dick, his former shipmate Ishmael. For Ahab was not pulled into the oceans, deaths by a harpoon line, and the greatly exaggerated rumors of his untimely death have caused him grievous harm — after hearing it about Ahab‘s demise, his wife and child left Nantucket for New York, and now Ahab is on a desperate quest to find them. ￼

Or, the Last Voyage

“Jeffrey Ford is one of the few writers who uses wonder instead of ink in his pen.” – Jonathan Carroll A bold and intriguing fabulist novel that reimagines two of the most legendary characters in American literature—Captain Ahab and Ishmael of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick—from the critically acclaimed Edgar and World Fantasy award-winning author of The Girl in the Glass and The Shadow Year. At the end of a long journey, Captain Ahab returns to the mainland to confront the true author of the novel Moby-Dick, his former shipmate, Ishmael. For Ahab was not pulled into the ocean’s depths by a harpoon line, and the greatly exaggerated rumors of his untimely death have caused him grievous harm—after hearing about Ahab’s demise, his wife and child left Nantucket for New York, and now Ahab is on a desperate quest to find them. Ahab’s pursuit leads him to The Gorgon’s Mirror, the sensationalist tabloid newspaper that employed Ishmael as a copy editor while he wrote the harrowing story of the ill-fated Pequod. In the penny press’s office, Ahab meets George Harrow, who makes a deal with the captain: the newspaperman will help Ahab navigate the city in exchange for the exclusive story of his salvation from the mouth of the great white whale. But their investigation—like Ahab’s own story—will take unexpected, dangerous, and ultimately tragic turns. Told with wisdom, suspense, a modicum of dry humor and horror, and a vigorous stretching of the truth, Ahab’s Return charts an inventive and intriguing voyage involving one of the most memorable characters in classic literature, and pays homage to one of the greatest novels ever written.

Ahab's Return

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Stories

"Jeffrey Ford is one of the few writers who uses wonder instead of ink in his pen....A rare and wonderful talent."

--Jonathan Carroll, author of The Wooden Sea

Eclectic is certainly an adjective that can be used to describe the work of the phenomenal Jeffrey Ford--along with imaginative, provocative, mesmerizing, and brilliant. His powerful dark fantasy, The Physiognomy, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; his novel, The Girl in the Glass, won the Edgar® Award, mystery and crime fiction's most prestigious prize. Crackpot Palace is Ford's fourth superb collection of short fiction, and in it, his prodigious talent shines as brightly as ever. Here are twenty tales both strange and wonderful, filled with mad scientists, vampires, lost souls, and Native American secrets, from an author who has been glowingly compared to Kafka, Dante, and Caleb Carr (The Alienist).



Crackpot Palace

Laird Barron

"I want to be like John Langan when I grow up, okay? He blends meticulously crafted traditional narratives with joyous genre-bending and narrative rule-breaking. His stories are fiercely smart, timely, timeless, heartbreaking, and of course, flat-out scary. Langan fearlessly commits to his monsters, his characters, his readers, to his vision of the horror story and the messed-up, broken, frightening world we inhabit. Wide, Carnivorous Sky, indeed."-Paul Tremblay, author of The Little Sleep and Swallowing a Donkey's Eye. John Langan has, in the last few years, established himself as one of the leading voices in contemporary horror literature. Gifted with a supple and mellifluous prose style, an imagination that can conjure up clutching terrors with seeming effortlessness, and a thorough knowledge of the rich heritage of weird fiction, Langan has already garnered his share of accolades. This new collection of nine substantial stories includes such masterworks as "Technicolor," an ingenious riff on Poe's "Masque of the Red Death"; "How the Day Runs Down," a gripping tale of the undead; and "The Shallows," a powerful tale of the Cthulhu Mythos. The capstone to the collection is a previously unpublished novella of supernatural terror, "Mother of Stone." With an introduction by Jeffrey Ford and an afterword by Laird Barron.

The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies

"[Mamatas] is the People's Commissar of Awesome."
--China Miéville, author of Embassytown

Welcome to the People's Republic of Everything--of course, you've been here for a long time already. Make yourself at home alongside a hitman who always tells the truth, no matter how reality has to twist itself to suit; electric matchstick girls who have teamed up with Friedrich Engels; a telepathic boy and his father's homemade nuclear bomb; a very bad date that births an unforgettable meme; and a dog who simply won't stop howling on social media.

The People's Republic of Everything features a decade's worth of crimes, fantasies, original fiction, and the author's preferred text of the acclaimed short novel Under My Roof.

The People's Republic of Everything

In New York's Long Island, in the unpredictable decade of the 1960s, a young boy laments the approaching close of summer and the advent of sixth grade. Growing up in a household with an overworked father whom he rarely sees, an alcoholic mother who paints wonderful canvases that are never displayed, an older brother who serves as both tormentor and protector, and a younger sister who inhabits her own secret world, the boy takes his amusements where he can find them. Some of his free time is spent in the basement of the family's modest home, where he and his brother, Jim, have created Botch Town, a detailed cardboard replica of their community, complete with clay figurines representing friends and neighbors. And so the time passes with a not-always-reassuring sameness--until the night a prowler is reported stalking the neighborhood.

Appointing themselves ad hoc investigators, the brothers set out to aid the police--while their little sister, Mary, smokes cigarettes, speaks in other voices, inhabits alternate personas . . . and, unbeknownst to her older siblings, moves around the inanimate residents of Botch Town. But ensuing events add a shadowy cast to the boys' night games: disappearances, deaths, and spectral sightings capped off by the arrival of a sinister man in a long white car trawling the neighborhood after dark. Strangest of all is the inescapable fact that every one of these troubling occurrences seems to correspond directly to the changes little Mary has made to the miniature town in the basement.

Not since Ray Bradbury's classic Dandelion Wine has a novel so richly evoked the dark magic of small-town boyhood. At once a hypnotically compelling mystery, a masterful re-creation of a unique time and place, a celebration of youth, and a poignant and disquieting portrait of home and family--all balancing on a razor's edge separating reality from the unsettlingly remarkable--The Shadow Year is a monumental new work from one of contemporary fiction's most fearless and inventive artists.

The Shadow Year

Emily Dickinson takes a carriage ride with Death. A couple are invited over to a neighbor's daughter's exorcism. A country witch with a sea-captain's head in a glass globe intercedes on behalf of abused and abandoned children. In July of 1915, in Hardin County, Ohio, a boy sees ghosts. Explore contemporary natural history in a baker's dozen of exhilarating visions.

Praise for Jeffrey Ford:

"Outstanding. . . . Ford uses . . . incongruously lyrical phrases to infuse the everyday with a nebulous magic."--Publishers Weekly, Best Books of the Year(Starred Review)

"For lovers of the weird and fantastic and lovers of great writing, this is a treasure trove of disturbing visions, new worlds and fully realized craft."--Shelf Awareness(Starred Review)

"Properly creepy, but from time to time deliciously funny and heart-breakingly poignant, too."--Kirkus Reviews(Starred Review)

Jeffrey Ford was born on Long Island in New York State in 1955 and grew up in the town of West Islip. He studied fiction writing with John Gardner at S.U.N.Y. Binghamton. He's been a college English teacher of writing and literature for thirty years. He is the author of eight novels includingThe Girl in the Glassand four short story collections. He has received the World Fantasy, Nebula, Edgar, and Shirley Jackson awards. He lives with his wife Lynn in a century old farm house in a land of slow clouds and endless fields.

A Natural History of Hell

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Missouri

A Novel

The toast of 1893 New York society, the portraitist Piero Piambo has his pick of choice assignments. Acclaimed by his peers and his "betters," he is a fixture in the city's most opulent salons, yet he fears he has sold his soul to arrive there. But then comes a commission unlike any other -- one that will test Piambo's talents, his will...and his sanity.

The client is a Mrs. Charbuque, and the offer she makes to the artist is as bizarre and intriguing as it is financially rewarding. Piambo must paint the lady's portrait, and for the service he may name any price. However, though he may question her at length on any topic, he must never look upon his subject. And if the painting ends up a true likeness, his payment will be doubled.

With sketchbook in hand and his "model" hidden behind an elegant screen, the artist begins his haunting descent into her life and mind. Carried by her words through a strange childhood in a world of ice -- where she aided an obsessed, perhaps murderous, father in his study of the divine language of snowflakes -- and across a history marked by fame and despair, desire and rage, phantasm and myth, Piambo is alternately seduced and repulsed by the story she has to tell. Yet each session leaves him more determined than ever to unwrap the enigma that is Mrs. Charbuque.

But while he struggles to capture in oils the face of a woman he has never seen, a series of horrific and inexplicable deaths rocks the outside city. On street corners, in the alleys off the bustling shopping areas, and between the crumbling tenements, anonymous women are dying, their lifeblood flowing freely like tears from their eyes. And the deeper Piambo is drawn into Mrs. Charbuque's world, the more he begins to suspect that these terrible events, his impossible task, and his odd "benefactress" are somehow intimately connected.

An astonishing amalgam of the works of Henry James and Raymond Chandler, Jeffrey Ford's The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque is a rare and rewarding reading experience -- equally satisfying as a hypnotically compelling literary work, a richly atmospheric historical novel, and a page-turning thriller. It will leave an indelible mark.

The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque

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Iowa

The Great Depression has bound a nation in despair -- and only a privileged few have risen above it: the exorbitantly wealthy ... and the hucksters who feed upon them. Diego, a seventeen-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant, owes his salvation to master grifter Thomas Schell. Together with Schell's gruff and powerful partner, they sail comfortably through hard times, scamming New York's grieving rich with elaborate, ingeniously staged séances -- until an impossible occurrence changes everything. While "communing with spirits," Schell sees an image of a young girl in a pane of glass, silently entreating the con man for help. Though well aware that his otherworldly "powers" are a sham, Schell inexplicably offers his services to help find the lost child -- drawing Diego along with him into a tangled maze of deadly secrets and terrible experimentation. At once a hypnotically compelling mystery and a stunningly evocative portrait of Depression-era New York, The Girl in the Glass is a masterly literary adventure from a writer of exemplary vision and skill.

The Girl in the Glass

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Kim Stanley Robinson

Charlie Jane Anders

Ken Liu

Paul McAuley

Kathleen Ann Goonan

Lavie Tidhar

James Morrow

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

We stand on the brink of one of the greatest ecological disasters of our time - the world is warming and seas are rising, and yet water is life; it brings change. Where one thing is wiped away, another rises.

Drowned Worlds looks at the future we might have if the oceans rise - good or bad. Here you'll find stories of action, adventure, romance and, yes, warning and apocalypse. Stories inspired by Ballard's The Drowned World, Sterling's Islands in the Net, and Ryman's The Child Garden; stories that allow that things may get worse, but remembers that such times also bring out the best in us all. Multi-award winning editor Jonathan Strahan has put together sixteen unique tales of deluged worlds and those who fight to survive and strive to live.

Featuring fiction by Paul McAuley, Ken Liu, Kim Stanley Robinson, Nina Allan, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Christopher Rowe, Nalo Hopkinson, Sean Williams, Jeffrey Ford, Lavie Tidhar, Rachel Swirsky, James Morrow, Charlie Jane Anders, Sam J. Miller and Catherynne M. Valente.

Drowned Worlds

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Oversized Paperback (4 to 6 lbs)

Illinois

A feared and powerful functionary in Master Drachton Below's dark metropolis, the Well-Built City, Physiognomist First Class Cley can divine good or evil in a person by studying facial and bodily features. But now Cley has been ordered out of the city on a seemingly trivial assignment in the rural hinterlands.

In a strange and unfamiliar place, far from the Master's omnipresent scrutiny, the great physiognomist falls prey to seductions of the flesh and the spirit. And there are inescapable revelations awaiting the eminent Cley that could shatter his perception of himself, his profession, and his world.

The Physiognomy

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Colorado

And Other Stories

A new collection from Jeffrey Ford, author of Shirley Jackson and World Fantasy Award-winner A Natural History of Hell.

Big Dark Hole

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Bizhan Khodabandeh

Maryland

A quirky collection of short sci-fi stories for fans of Kij Johnson and Kelly Link Assimilation is founded on surrender and being broken; this collection of short stories features people who have assimilated, but are actively trying to reclaim their lives. There is a concert pianist who defies death by uploading his soul into his piano. There is the person who draws his mother's ghost out of the bullet hole in the wall near where she was executed. Another character has a horn growing out of the center of his forehead--punishment for an affair. But he is too weak to end it, too much in love to be moral. Another story recounts a panda breeder looking for tips. And then there's a border patrol agent trying to figure out how to process undocumented visitors from another galaxy. Poignant by way of funny, and philosophical by way of grotesque, Hernandez's stories are prayers for self-sovereignty.

The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria

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There is a town that brews a strange intoxicant from a rare fruit called the deathberry--and once a year a handful of citizens are selected to drink it. . . .

There is a life lived beneath the water--among rotted buildings and bloated corpses--by those so overburdened by the world's demands that they simply give up and go under. . . .

In this mesmerizing blend of the familiar and the fantastic, multiple award-winning New York Times notable author Jeffrey Ford creates true wonders and infuses the mundane with magic. In tales marked by his distinctive, dark imagery and fluid, exhilarating prose, he conjures up an annual gale that transforms the real into the impossible, invents a strange scribble that secretly unites a significant portion of society, and spins the myriad dreams of a restless astronaut and his alien lover. Bizarre, beautiful, unsettling, and sublime, The Drowned Life showcases the exceptional talents of one of contemporary fiction's most original artists.

The Drowned Life

At times literary, at other times surreal, this collection offers a diverse range of stories that deal with real-life conflicts, human values, and coming-of-age experiences, all placed within fantastical settings. An author's search for an elusive Kafka story leads to a potentially cursed book in "Bright Morning", while in the award-winning "Exo-Skeleton Town", humans dress in protective exoskins conveying the personas of bygone Hollywood movie stars in order to barter old Earth movies for an alien aphrodisiac. A young boy comes to term with "Creation" when he moulds a man out of the detritus of a nearby forest, and in the title story, a great fantasy writer loses touch with the world he has created and pleads with his young assistant to help him visualise the story's end and enable him to complete his greatest novel ever. An eclectic offering, these witty and modern fables blend mundane surroundings with eerie situations.

The Fantasy Writer's Assistant

Browse by categories

Dale Bailey

Echoes

John Chu

The Mythic Dream

Nina Allan

Someone in Time

Jeffrey Ford

Out of Body

Jeffrey Ford

The Twilight Pariah

Gwendolyn Kiste

American Cannibal

Eric J. Guignard

Exploring Dark Short Fiction #4

Jeffrey Ford

Ahab's Return

Jeffrey Ford

Crackpot Palace

John Langan

The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies

Nick Mamatas

The People's Republic of Everything

Jeffrey Ford

The Shadow Year

Jeffrey Ford

A Natural History of Hell

Jeffrey Ford

The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque

Jeffrey Ford

The Girl in the Glass

Kim Stanley Robinson

Drowned Worlds

Jeffrey Ford

The Physiognomy

Jeffrey Ford

Big Dark Hole

Carlos Hernandez

The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria

Jeffrey Ford

The Drowned Life

Jeffrey Ford

The Fantasy Writer's Assistant

Jeffrey Ford

Exploring Dark Short Fiction #4