This year’s Fiction Vortex Horror Contest has some of the best short fiction horror we’ve ever seen. Entries ran the gamut from personal to apocalyptic. Filled with strangeness and terror, madness and fear, these stories are a tour to the dark places of the imagination. FICTION VORTEX: Founded in the 277th year of the Takolatchni Dynasty, Fiction Vortex set out to encourage people to write and publish great speculative fiction. It sprang fully formed...

Stories by Ken Liu, Charlie Jane Anders, Victor LaValle, Elizabeth Bear, and others—guest-edited by the author of the mega–bestselling Outlander series.Today's readers of science fiction and fantasy have an appetite for stories that address a wide variety of voices, perspectives, and styles. There is an openness to experiment and pushing boundaries, combined with the classic desire to read about spaceships and dragons, future technology and ancient magic, and the p...

SAM DOLAN is a young man coming to terms with his life in the process and aftermath of making his first film. He has a difficult relationship with his father, B-movie actor Booth Dolan—a boisterous, opinionated, lying lothario whose screen legacy falls somewhere between cult hero and pathetic. Allie, Sam’s dearly departed mother, was a woman whose only fault, in Sam’s eyes, was her eternal affection for his father. Also included in the cast of indelible characters: a preco...

In a time beyond the apocalypse, when the remnants of society are trying to restore life to the way it once was, three young circus children go exploring in the town where the circus is camped. As they wander the empty streets they stumble upon a building they will never forget, in which floor after floor is crammed with an abundance of books. This library is heaven for these child survivors of the apocalypse, but they may not be the only ones who feel this way.

Imagine driving home alone at night. You roll your window down, stop at a red light, and fiddle with the radio.Then you die.That's just the beginning of award-winning writer Annie Reed's story THEY LIE, the harrowing tale of one young woman's savage death and rebirth as a vampire."The appearance of a new Annie Reed story is a treat. Try one and you'll be hooked." -- Dave Hendrickson, author of CRACKING THE ICE, forthcoming from WestSide Press"A friend recomm...

Something is wrong in Lab 6—what are Sam’s parents hiding?Sam Hughes has always been too smart for his own good. It’s in his genes—both his parents are scientists who specialize in artificial intelligence—and sometimes it gets him into trouble. Sick of the bully who always steals his computer homework, Sam gives him a disk laced with a virus as a prank. To escape the bully’s wrath, Sam runs and hides in his parents’ lab.Inside, Sam hears a voice calling to ...

SOMETIMES THE BIGGEST HORRORS COME IN THE SMALLEST PACKAGES…There's nothing better than a short, sharp slice of flash fiction to get the mind working. 99 Tiny Terrors is an anthology that the reader can dip into for something deliciously dangerous in a short amount of time, or spend an afternoon trolling through blood-soaked stories from all over the world, including Canada, England, Germany, Greece, Ireland, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United Sta...

Soar to new heights of Science Fiction & Fantasy.Who are the top science fiction writers and illustrators of the future? The answer is here. Get to know tomorrow’s brightest creative talents chosen by some of today’s bestselling authors and celebrated artists including Kevin J. Anderson, Orson Scott Card, Larry Elmore, Brandon Sanderson, Dan dos Santos, and Robert J. Sawyer.Enter brilliantly realized worlds of dystopian politics, magical re...

Being the most successful serial killer in New England is not as easy as it sounds. Really. It takes a lot of lying, cheating, and stealing. It also requires way more honesty than you'd imagine.I'm not going to tell you my secrets, because my publisher would probably get sued for publishing a how-to on murder. He doesn't deserve it. Me on the other hand, I'm a whole different kettle of fish.

When Andy pulled Blair into a 'real' magic store things started to happen.

Quick fiction for readers on the go!Quick fiction for readers on the go! Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Presents Flush Fiction is a tantalizing collection of 88 short-short stories custom-picked for the Bathroom Reader aficionado. We scoured the nation for talented writers and asked them to send us their best quick reads. The result: mysteries, horror, sci-fi, adventure, plenty of laughs--and a few gasps--in these startling short stories. They’re li...

Although shapeless, perhaps immaterial, destiny is lurking. It's raining. A black Ford runs along a quite desert road, in the middle of Vermont woods. It's running toward something threatening, while the notes of an old piece by The Doors hover in the air.