A Concept of Right Now explores the tension between uncertainty and truth. It is a collection that exists where many elements of culture and society converge: the internal and external geographies of shared human experience. Blending narrative and lyrical modes, in a searching yet grounded voice, it is an attempt to reconcile and reveal what it means to be a person of the early 21st century.

A Concept of Right Now explores the tension between uncertainty and truth. It is a collection that exists where many elements of culture and society converge: the internal and external geographies of shared human experience. Blending narrative and lyrical modes, in a searching yet grounded voice, it is an attempt to reconcile and reveal what it means to be a person of the early 21st century.Paradox. In everyday American life, it is a thing to be avoided. Truly difficult intellectua...

They say that people go there when they're ready to die. They say Death himself is a patron. That's where the tavern gets its name. Azrael's Stop. Watering hole for the Angel of Death.Since Ceph started tending bar there, many people have come through the Stop, whether looking for some peace in the death of a loved one, or themselves looking for a quiet place to die after passing on their tale. These are their stories.Tales of the Stop is a sequel to the experimental novell...

When his magical multistring duar snaps in half, Jon-Tom the spellsinger sets out on a journey that will take him all the way back to...America!Jon-Tom has been trapped in a strange land of talking owls and wizarding turtles for a year now, his sole consolation that in this universe his musical abilities have inadvertently made him something of a sorcerer. But when an encounter with some burglars leads to him snapping the magical duar that channels his power, he finds himself an or...

THE SECRET IS IN THE TOWER. THE PROBLEM IS THE BEAST. THE ANSWER IS TWO THIEVES.When a destitute young woman hires Royce and Hadrian to help save her remote village from nocturnal attacks, they are once more drawn into the schemes of the wizard Esrahaddon. While Royce struggles to breech the secrets of an ancient elven tower, Hadrian attempts to rally the villagers to defend themselves against the unseen killer. Once more, what begins with the simple theft of a sword places the two...

It’s time to kick your shoes off and put your talons up on the dashboard! This is Weird Fiction Quarterly’s Summer Road Trip!The old jalopy is gassed up, the tires and oil checked, and the trunk is loaded with an ice chest, plenty of towels, and maybe even a body or two as fifty authors take turns driving to some incredibly out of the way places, the like of which you’ve never seen this side of your nightmares!We have a massive itinerary including stops on other planes, far...

Cal Carver and his Space Team may have lost their ship, but they haven't lost their knack for attracting trouble.Just hours after setting foot on a new planet, Cal and the crew find themselves caught up in an interplanetary kidnapping plot. Reuniting the suspiciously-silent young victim with her parents on their far-off home world will make Cal rich beyond his wildest dreams. Unfortunately, half the pirates and bounty hunters in the galaxy have the same idea, and they're more than ...

Preacher leads a search party for a missing woman—and finds himself caught in the crossfire of cutthroat kidnappers, savage Sioux warriors, and one cunning captive...Preacher is heading home to the mountains when he’s approached by a wealthy European with an unusual proposition. He wants the legendary mountain man to track down his missing cousin—a reckless young woman who fled to America with her lover—and he’s willing to pay a small fortune to find her. Preacher isn’t one to get ...

Writers of the modern essay can trace their chosen genre all the way back to Michel de Montaigne (1533–92). But save for the recent notable best seller How to Live: A Life of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell, Montaigne is largely ignored. After Montaigne—a collection of twenty-four new personal essays intended as tribute—aims to correct this collective lapse of memory and introduce modern readers and writers to their stylistic forebear.Though it’s been over four hundre...

"Cal Carver's time is about to run out.He and his Space Team are broke. Forced to take low-paying gun-for-hire jobs just to keep the food replicator working, their prospects are not looking good.When they pick up a distress signal from a luxury space cruiser, they think their luck might be about to change. And it does. Sadly, not in the way they'd hoped.Someone has detonated a Time Bomb aboard the cruiser - an experimental device designed to shatter time itself. As ...

What started as a routine hunt and grab—putting outlaw Thorp McCluskey on a train to Cheyenne and prison—has just gone straight to hell for bounty hunter Luke Jensen. First came the beautiful prostitute who pointed her alluring attentions in Luke's direction. Then came a man who fought by Luke's side in the war—but the war is over and friendships can turn deadly. Luke gets bushwacked, his prisoner is gone, and so is a fortune in gold.Now Luke is riding back into the Wyoming wildern...

D is a vampire hunter--and he's just been paid ten times his asking price to do exactly that, an assignment to destroy Duke Van Doren, administrator of the northern Frontier.Among the complications are that no less than three other groups, each with their own agenda, are headed for the Duke themselves...and D's supposed to hang back from striking until his target has eliminated all three! The question is, will the Duke oblige the terms of the contract--or does he a...