Ten years ago, Ron and his then-girlfriend, Jill, did the impossible. They bought condemned property—a big Baltimore Victorian brownstone and vowed to bring it back to its original glory. The house had been home to Baltimore's most notorious fraternity for a decade and now, wrecked and abandoned, it was filled with garbage. As if that weren't daunting enough: Ron and Jill had been dating for only six months and they knew nothing about fixing up old houses. Friends, family, and concerned on...

Ron and Jill, after six months together, discovered the house of their dreams: a landmark Victorian row house that had belonged to a notorious fraternity in Baltimore. Unfortunately, it was now a condemned, abandoned property. But Jill wanted the house and Ron wanted Jill. Beyond the wall-to-wall graffiti, collapsed fireplaces and banisters, and three dumpsters worth of trash, the couple envisioned this as their future dream home. So Ron bought the 4,500-square-foot ruin, despite the fact ...

In a time defined by uncertainty, change and inequality, speculative fiction is fast-becoming the genre of the 21st century. Straddling genres such as fantasy, science fiction, dystopia, alternative history, and horror, this book is a comprehensive introduction to the art of writing in this imaginative, fluid, and inclusive mode. An all-in-one textbook combining a craft guide with an extensive, diverse anthology, Speculative Fiction explores the multiplicity of in...

Set in an unnamed country sometime in the past, present, or future, Kiss Me, Stranger is the story of one woman's attempts to keep her family together while a civil war rages around her.Penelope, her husband and her fourteen children live in a small war-torn country built atop a landfill. After her husband and eldest son are drafted by opposing factions in the war, Penelope and her remaining children, desolate and nearly starving, are forced to scavenge for scrap--comprise...

In the Marshall Islands, an island-nation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that was once a testing ground for nuclear bombs, American engineers and programmers are making and testing missiles while their "hosts," the indigenous Marshallese, sweep their streets and clean their houses. It's 2004, the Iraq war is heating up, and 9/11 is fresh in everyone's minds. Following four interconnected story lines-the meltdown of a burned-out cultural liaison who has "gone native" and bitterly resent...

From the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh to Norse prophecies of Ragnarok to the Revelations of Saint John to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and any number of fictional zombie Armageddons and the dystopic world of The Hunger Games, we have always wondered what will happen after the world as we know it ends. No matter what the doomsday scenario—cataclysmic climate change, political chaos, societal collapse, nuclear war, pestilence, or so many other dreaded variations—we inevitably believe that even ...

For The New York Times #1 bestselling author Sue Grafton's PI Kinsey Millhone, danger comes with the job—but she never expects to find herself at the top of a hit man's list . . .The award-winning author's knockout series introduced detective Kinsey Millhone—and a hot new attitude—to crime fiction…**“Exceptionally entertaining...an offbeat sense of humor and a feisty sense of justice.”**—San Francisco Chronicle...

“Short stories have to accomplish a nearly impossible magic trick: to introduce a world often much stranger than our own and make you care about it in a matter of pages,” writes R. F. Kuang in her introduction. “The most important part of this magic trick is just a willingness to get weird.” The stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 are brimming with bizarre and otherworldly premises. Women can’t lie or fall in love. Fathers feed their children ghost preser...

" The Enchanted wrapped its beautiful and terrible fingers around me from the first page and refused to let go after the last. A wondrous book that finds transcendence in the most unlikely of places. . . . So dark yet so exquisite." — Erin Morgenstern, author of The Night CircusAn astonishing and redemptive novel for readers of Alice Sebold and Toni Morrison, told from the point of view of a convict whose magical interpretations of prison ...

Romance is a luxury Zoe Bloom simply cannot afford.After her childhood was shattered by unspeakable tragedy, Zoe has grown into a woman with walls so high, they're impossible to scale. And that's just how she likes it — especially given her line of work. As an accomplished computer hacker, she's made more than a few enemies in Boston's seedy underworld.Falling in love would be nothing but a weakness.When a freelance job brings her into contact with Parker West — hei...

**#1 New York Times bestseller!In this unforgettable collection of essays, acclaimed humorist David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface.**Sedaris plays in the snow with his sisters. He goes on vacation with his family. He gets a job selling drinks. He attends his brother's wedding. He mops his sister's floor. He gives directions to a lost traveler. He eats a hamburger. He has his blood sugar tested. It all so...

LIGHTSPEED is an online science fiction and fantasy magazine. In its pages, you will find science fiction: from near-future, sociological soft SF, to far-future, star-spanning hard SF—and fantasy: from epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery, and contemporary urban tales, to magical realism, science-fantasy, and folktales.This month, we present our special anniversary issue, Women Destroy Science Fiction!, an all-science fiction extravaganza entirely written—and edited!—by women.Gu...