Motes played.She played because she was play. She played because that was her role in life, because that is just who she was. She played with color, played with life, played with death.She played with fire.Motes played, because how could she not?

New Year's Eve, 2399, and Lagrange is celebrating centuries of relative peace. Life has been, by and large, good for those who chose to upload their consciousnesses. They mark milestones, fall in and out of love, dwell in peace. They fork, copying themselves for specific tasks or to go live separate lives. Memories pile up as they carry on.And then everything grinds to a halt.One year, one month, and eleven days have gone missing...and so has one percent of the population o...

This thirteenth volume of the year's best science fiction and fantasy features thirty-four stories by some of the genre's greatest authors, including Leah Cypess, John Kessel, Yoon Ha Lee, Naomi Kritzer, Sarah Langan, Ken Liu, Annalee Newitz, Sarah Pinsker, Sofia Samatar, Michael Swanwick, Tade Thompson, and many others. Selecting the best fiction from Asimov's, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Uncanny, Tor.com, and other top venues, The Year's Best ...

A new book of poetry from internationally acclaimed, award-winning and bestselling author Margaret AtwoodIn Dearly, Margaret Atwood’s first collection of poetry in over a decade, Atwood addresses themes such as love, loss, the passage of time, the nature of nature and - zombies. Her new poetry is introspective and personal in tone, but wide-ranging in topic. In poem after poem, she casts her unique imagination and unyielding, observant eye over the landscape of a life carefully and...

Cyberpunk is dead. The revolution has been co-opted by half-assed heroes, overclocked CGI, and tricked-out shades. Once radical, cyberpunk is now nothing more than a brand.Time to stop flipping the channel.These sixteen extreme stories reveal a government ninja routed by a bicycle repairman, the inventor of digitized paper hijacked by his college crush, a dead boy trapped in a warped storybook paradise, and the queen of England attacked with the deadliest of forbidden techn...

You just read your manuscript and discovered that your characters nod like marionettes in every chapter. When they're not nodding, they roll their eyes.Time to slash the Pinocchio strings and turn them into real people. Award-winning author Kathy Steinemann provides the tools. She cuts through the so-called rules and offers simple solutions.Too many repetitions of "little"? There's a cure for that. Do you rely on "very" too often? There's a cure for that too. You'll find th...

In her newest collection, Lorna Crozier describes the passage of time in the way that only she can. Her arresting, edgy poems about aging and grief are surprising and invigorating: a defiant balm. At the same time, she revels in the quirkiness and whimsy of the natural world: the vision of a fly, the naming of an eggplant, and a woman who — not unhappily — finds that cockroaches are drawn to her. “God draws a life. And then rubs it out / with the eraser on his pencil.” Lorna Crozier draws ...

Finalist of Big Other Book Award for Poetry, given by Big Other, 2020Rae Armantrout has always taken pleasure in uncertainties and conundrums, the tricky nuances of language and feeling. In Conjure that pleasure is matched by dread; fascination meets fear as the poet considers the emergence of new life (twin granddaughters) into an increasingly toxic world: the Amazon smolders, children are caged or die crossing rivers and oceans, and weddings mak...

"Butler is an original force who is fearless with form. . . . [an] inventive and deeply promising young author." — Time Out New York"[Butler's] sentences. . . twist and evolve, and there's a perverse joy that comes from watching just how his paragraphs are shaped, of tracing their contractions and rhythms." — FlavorpillWith echoes of Justin Taylor, Tony O'Neill, and Dennis Cooper, breakout novelist Blake Butler delivers a wildly inventive, impressionistic ...

What will we call the last generation before the looming end times? With Finalists Rae Armantrout suggests one option. Brilliant and irascible, playful and intense, Armantrout nails the current moment's debris fields and super computers, its sizzling malaise and confusion, with an exemplary immensity of heart and a boundless capacity for humor. The poems in this book find (and create) beauty in midst of the ongoing crisis.CONTRASTWhat's to likeif not contras...

Slenderman is nothing but a myth, a creature born out of a photoshop-contest, who has since been featured in hundreds of stories, games, and vlogs. If only that were the case …You might not believe me, and I can't blame you for doubting my words, but the tall, faceless man is among us. And he is as powerful as the stories make him out to be.The nightmare began on Halloween, with a simple recreation of Slender - The Eight Pages...

The year's best science fiction and fantasy as selected by The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers AssociationThis latest installment of the prestigious Nebula Awards Showcase anthology series—published annually since 1966—reprints winning and nominated works from the 59th Annual Nebula Awards, as voted on by members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA).Nebula Awards Showcase 59 features stories and excerpts by this year's Nebula Aw...