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Bjorn and Frytha share a bond, both orphans and survivors of Norman attacks on their homes in the Lake country. Growing up together in Jarl Buthar’s Norse stronghold, they become fast friends, with Bjorn dreaming of becoming a harper like his father.

As they come of age within this secret fortress, they hear word of the Norman attacks beyond their walls, drawing ever closer to the safety of their home.

Can they help protect their adoptive home and family, or will they lose everything all over again?

Welcome to the Tomorrow Factory.

On your left, post-human hedonists on a distant space station bring diseases back in fashion, two scavengers find a super-powered parasite under the waves of Sunk Seattle, and a terminally-ill chemist orchestrates an asteroid prison break.

On your right, an alien optometrist spins illusions for irradiated survivors of the apocalypse, a high-tech grifter meets his match in near-future Thailand, and two teens use a blackmarket personality mod to get into the year’s wickedest, wildest party.

This collection of published and original fiction by award-winning writer Rich Larson will bring you from a Bujumbura cyberpunk junkyard to the icy depths of Europa, from the slick streets of future-noir Chicago to a tropical island of sapient robots. You’ll explore a mysterious ghost ship in deep space, meet an android learning to dream, and fend off predatory alien fungi on a combat mission gone wrong.

Twenty-three futures, ranging from grimy cyberpunk to far-flung space opera, are waiting to blow you away.

So step inside the Tomorrow Factory, and mind your head.

It’s the mid-twenty-first century. The oceans are rising, the world’s population is growing, terrorist organizations are running rampant, and it has become readily apparent that humanity’s destructive nature is at the heart of the matter.

When all faith in humanity seems lost, a startling proposal is announced: Solomon Chavez, the mysterious son of the world’s first trillionaire, announces that he, backed by a consortium of governments and wealthy donors, will build an interstellar starship-one that will convey a select group of six thousand individuals, all under the age of fifty, with no living relatives, to a recently discovered planet in the Epsilon Eridani star system. His goal is lofty: to build a colony that will ensure the survival of the human race. However, Solomon Chavez has a secret that he doesn’t dare share with the rest of the world.

With the launch date rapidly approaching, great odds must be overcome so that the starship Solomon’s Arrow can fulfill what the human race has dreamed of for millennia: reaching for the stars. The goal is noble, but looming on the horizon are threats nobody could have imagined-ones that may spell the end of all human life and end the universe as we know it.

Lieutenant Commander Shaila Jain has been given the assignment of her dreams: the first manned mission to Saturn. But there’s competition and complications when she arrives aboard the survey ship Armstrong. The Chinese are vying for control of the critical moon Titan, and the moon Enceladus may harbor secrets deep under its icy crust. And back on Earth, Project DAEDALUS now seeks to defend against other dimensional incursions. But there are other players interested in opening the door between worlds . . . and they’re getting impatient.

For Thomas Weatherby, it’s been nineteen years since he was second lieutenant aboard HMS Daedalus. Now captain of the seventy-four-gun Fortitude, Weatherby helps destroy the French fleet at the Nile and must chase an escaped French ship from Egypt to Saturn, home of the enigmatic and increasingly unstable aliens who call themselves the Xan. Meanwhile, in Egypt, alchemist Andrew Finch has ingratiated himself with Napoleon’s forces . . . and finds the true, horrible reason why the French invaded Egypt in the first place.

In the Shadow of the Towers compiles nearly twenty works of speculative fiction responding to and inspired by the events of 9/11, from writers seeking to confront, rebuild, and carry on, even in the face of overwhelming emotion.

Writer and editor Douglas Lain presents a thought-provoking anthology featuring a variety of award-winning and best-selling authors, from Jeff VanderMeer (Annihilation) and Cory Doctorow (Little Brother) to Susan Palwick (Flying in Place) and James Morrow (Towing Jehovah). Touching on themes as wide-ranging as politics, morality, and even heartfelt nostalgia, today’s speculative fiction writers prove that the rubric of the fantastic offers an incomparable view into how we respond to tragedy.

Each contributor, in his or her own way, contemplates the same question:

How can we continue dreaming in the shadow of the towers?

In a world stripped bare of digital images and promotainment, unveiled with the audiovisual overlay of the ImmaNet, in an exposed world, a naked world, Amon Kenzaki awakens, lost and alone. He must now travel deep into the District of Dreams in search of Anisha Birla, the one person that might help him unravel the mystery of jubilee. But deprived of the apps and informational tools he’s depended on his entire life, traversing the largest bankdeath camp on Earth is no easy task.

Inside an ephemeral labyrinth of slowly-dissolving disposable skyscrapers clogged to the limit with the bankdead masses, Amon soon finds himself face to face with two dangerous groups: a luddite cult called the Borginans, who preach bizarre superstitions about electronic banking, and a supposedly humanitarian army called the Charity Brigade, whose mandate of protecting the bankdead conceals opportunistic motives.

Taking refuge in a hospital that strives to improve conditions in the camps, Amon begins to work towards its cause and reconciles himself to his newfound poverty. But when political forces threaten the community’s existence and the lives of its members, he is forced to team up with a vending-machine designer, an Olympic runner, a fertility researcher, a corporate tycoon, and many others to expose the heinous secret festering at the heart of the action-transaction market he once served.

In book two of the Jubilee Cycle, Eli K. P. William delves beneath the surface of his cyber-dystopian Tokyo to unearth the fate of outcasts trapped in its depths and shine a light on the financial obstacles blocking one individual’s efforts to help them.

Eighteen-year-old Aidan Salt isn’t a superhero. With his powerful (and unpredictable) telekinetic abilities he could be one if he wanted to, but he doesn’t. He’s unambitious, selfish, and cowardly, and he doesn’t want to have to deal with all the paperwork required to become a professional superhero. But since the money, fame, and women that come with wearing the cape are appealing, he decides to become the first supervillain the world has seen in more than twenty years: Apex Strike.

However, he soon finds villainy in a world where the heroes have long since defeated all the supervillains. While half the world’s heroes seem to want him dead, the other half want to hire him as their own personal villain to keep them relevant. Choosing the latter course, Aidan enters a world of fame, fortune, and staged superhero fights that is seemingly everything he ever dreamed of . . . at least until he sees what truly hides behind the cape-and-mask lifestyle.

When a tycoon and reality TV star improbably wins his party’s nomination for the presidency, pundits and analysts are as baffled as they are certain that he will never win the general election. What can a man who already lives at the top of a golden skyscraper with a supermodel wife still want?

Absent entirely from their prognostications is the possibility that it could be to gorge upon the brains of the living! That he dreams of building a border wall to better keep delicious humans in! That he seeks to make American great again. . . for zombies!

Only an unlikely journalistic partnership between a reporter fresh from J-school and a blogger who is derided and dismissed as “fake news” seems to have any chance of derailing the tycoon’s plans and exposing him as a member of the walking dead.

Yet a terrifying question still remains. . . In a nation divided along political lines as never before, will such a revelation change anything? Or will a candidate revealed to be a proud “Zombie American” simply be another stepping stone on a historic (and not-so-above-board) journey to the presidency?

Vitus Adamson has a second chance at life now that he’s no longer a zombie, but after killing his brother Jamie, Vitus lands in prison on murder charges. Jamie’s death exposes secret government projects so deep in the black they cannot be seen-without Vitus, that is.

Sprung from jail, the government hires Vitus to clean up Jamie’s mess, but tracking down his brother’s homemade monsters gone rogue is easier said than done. A convicted killer safely behind bars may not be so safe after all when it appears he is still committing murder through his victim’s dreams. High on Atroxipine (the drug that once kept him functioning among the living) and lapsing into addiction, Vitus’s grip on reality takes a nasty turn when his own dreams start slipping sideways.

His problems multiply as he deals with his failed friendship with wheelchair-bound officer Geoff Lafferty, his wrecked romance with the town mortician Niko, government agents working for his father, sinister figures lurking in the shadows, and least of all, the complications of learning how to be human again.

A collection of short stories from the master author of THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS and THE MIDWICH CUCKOOS.

Giselle is a very talented monkey, although she goes by the name Jizzle. She can draw incredible portraits, as lifelike as can be. But Jizzle isn’t just a camera. Jizzle has feelings. And Jizzle can take revenge, when she wants . . .

This collection combines fantasy, science fiction, and horror to delight, astound and unsettle you.

STORIES INCLUDED:
“Jizzle””Technical Slip””A Present from Brunswick””Chinese Puzzle””Esmeralda””How Do I Do?””Una””Affair of the Heart””Confidence Trick””The Wheel””Look Natural, Please!””Perforce to Dream””Reservation Deferred””Heaven Scent””More Spinned Against”

Robs Hayward is a loner, a nobody. But when she plays the piano, she shines.

Cool kids Maddy and Jef ask her to join their band and she is giddy. They’re cool! They’re two years older than her! It’s a dream come true! Except for the part where their rehearsal space gets turned into a car park. Determined not to lose the first chance at being cool she’s ever had, Robs suggests the mysterious, derelict industrial building. The one in the Wild Park.

The one she’s afraid is haunted.

But the Council have repurposed it, and they share the space with the slightly eccentric Artist in Residence, and actually, everything is fine! Except for Maddy becoming obsessed with the murder mystery linked to the building.

And a seance is suggested.

And the ghost of a child that Robs sees out of the corner of her eye promises something more supernatural at play . . .

The Powerhouse is another chilling teen ghost story by award-winning author Gwyneth Jones, writing as Ann Halam. You can find more information on the writing Gwyneth did as Ann Halam on her website:http://www.gwynethjones.uk/HALAM.htm

Jessica Raven’s brother is going to die.

She dreams of finding a cure for Adam’s illness, but that isn’t going to happen.

While on holiday in France, she encounters a strange band of children, mysterious and ragged, who seem to urgently want HER help. Who are they? And who is Jean-Luc, their leader?

As she learns more, Jessica realises that the game they’re playing isn’t a game, that Jean-Luc is a prisoner, and the children aren’t children but nightmares, guarding a priceless treasure. Adam is the only one who could help them, but Adam is dying.

And his cure is trapped in the ghosts of a horrifying past . . .

Award-winning author Gwyneth Jones, writing as Ann Halam, delivers another terrifying story for teens that raises the dead and spans time, from the modern day back to WWII. You can find more information on the writing Gwyneth did as Ann Halam on her website: http://www.gwynethjones.uk/HALAM.htm

When Maurice’s family moves to the Middle East, they leave Maurice – self-centred, asthmatic, allergy-plagued and an impossible semi-invalid – to live with his great aunt in Brighton. Initially feeling abandoned, Maurice soon becomes fascinated by the eerie and romantic cemetery next door.

Isolated from the world around him, he discovers he can travel through time amongst the graves. He dreams of glory, once he figures out how to control the travel, but the more he travels, the more he realises that things aren’t what they seem.

He isn’t seeing the past with his eyes. He isn’t experiencing these adventures with his own body. And the real owners are getting restless.

It’s dangerous to pick the flowers that grow in King Death’s Garden, but despite some alarming warnings, Maurice, who doesn’t believe in ghosts, just can’t stay away.

You can find out more about the fiction Gwyneth Jones wrote as Ann Halam here: http://www.gwynethjones.uk/HALAM.htm

Aboriginal anthropologist Alf Dean Djanyagirnji, with his autistic nephew Mouse, seek evidence that the Rainbow Serpent is a desert myth sprung from the ancient skeleton of a dinosaur. Instead, they find a gate that teleports them into a vault miles beneath sacred Uluruh, the huge eroded monolith once dubbed Ayers Rock by the white invaders. They are not alone. American and Russian scientists and military personnel have drilled into the Vault, and only Mouse’s damaged brain can communicate with the Vault intelligence.
Elsewhere, in California’s Big Sur, former hippie physicist and student of the occult Dr. Bill DelFord is commissioned to explain an equally ancient ruin on the far side of the moon. A non-human, extraterrestrial intelligence? A long forgotten intelligent dinosaur species destroyed at the apex of their civilization by the cataclysmic asteroid impact 66 million years ago? Or something worse?

What these researchers and explorers find, step by incredible step, is a bond between that vanished species and human consciousness, mortal and post-mortem. The Dreaming (originally published under the misleading title The Dreaming Dragons) is a headlong cascade of mythology and advanced physics, hurtling toward an unexpected apotheosis.

A millennium from now, global warming has gone into retreat as the Sun’s dynamics convulse. The great ice returns, driving humankind back to its primitive origins. Here, bands of brutal warriors wage war in the bitter cold. Xaraf Firebridge, powerful young son of a barbarian chieftain, enrages his sire by adopting the pacifistic doctrine of an outland mystic, Darkbloom. Before he can break his vow and slay his father, he is drawn into a temporal wormline and flung a further million years into the Earth of the Failing Sun.

Clever and determined, Xaraf wanders landscapes haunted by prospects of doom and overseen by a trio of godlike Powers. Since childhood he has dreamed of a beautiful young woman. His fate, he sees, is to rescue her from captivity–and perhaps save the whole world, now moved into the outer solar system and lit by a string of tiny orbiting suns.

He has yet to meet his true foe, the dragon whose history stands opposed to humankind’s. But which will prove to be this world’s mythic Galahad?

In the aftermath of World War II, 8-year-old Luellen Enright is orphaned and shipped to San Francisco and the care of a covetous aunt, over-friendly uncle, and adolescent male cousins.
Her only friend is a neighbor boy-the sickly and eccentric “Chickweed”, who writes in his “Book of Dreams” and makes home movies. Lulu suffers indignities and all manner of abuse, is finally accused of murder, and sent to juvenile detention.
Years later Lulu sets out to reclaim what was taken from her-a priceless Sung vase left by her missionary father, baldly stolen by her aunt.
One of four Jack Vance mystery novels which never found a mainstream publisher, The View from Chickweed’s Window tells in delicate detail the misery of a defenseless child in the hands of unpleasant adults, and cruel older children. In typical style Vance gives us a robust heroine who, rather than crushed by hardship-is instead motivated strongly to restore justice, with a focus on result over scruple!

Will she ever escape her past?

Romantic suspense for fans of Joan Aiken and Bridgerton

Young Hester Malpass knew little of her past. Only that she was an orphan who was now working in a railway station restaurant for a tyrannical old woman. She dreamed of escape, of finding a brighter place for herself out in the world.

Then one day, dashing Captain Deveraux, a famous balloonist, lured her away to become his partner in a new aerial adventure. Had Hester not fallen in love with the captain, she would never have dared. But dare she did.

Life took a violent and frightening turn. Suddenly Hester was confronted with the strange ghosts of her past, and the deadly secret of the fine and handsome captain.

Ever since ancient man first gazed in wonder at the stars, humanity has dreamed of traveling to outer space. Now scientists agree that space-flight may very soon become a reality.

When young Joe Kenmore came to Bootstrap to install pilot gyros in the Platform he hadn’t bargained for sabotage or murder or love. But Joe learned that ruthless agents were determined to wreck the project. Joe and his companions would have to fight with their bare hands to make man’s age old dream of space travel come true.

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.

Modern man’s most persistent and powerful dream is about to come true. He is ready to travel through time. And who better to take the leap than Mark Elverson, a man with an inoperable heart condition? The far future can only be an improvement for him … or can it?

Drawn from together from publication in such outlets as Weird Tales, Night Visions and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Plots and Misadventures is the second collection of short stories from the award-winning author of Valley of Lights, Chimera, and The Kingdom of Bones. Includes Doctor Hood, the novella that inspired the TV series Eleventh Hour, and World Fantasy Award nominee Little Dead Girl Singing. Contents: Little Dead Girl Singing The Back of his Hand Restraint The Plot Doctor Hood Jailbird for Jesus Hunter, Killer My Repeater The Wishing Ball Like Clockwork The Blackwood Oak Endpiece: Nine Horrors and a Dream

Beloved Son told how the world was given atomic power and chose the atom bomb, was given the key to genetic miracles and chose biological warfare.

The world was lucky the first time; enough of it remained for salvaging in a few decades. It was simply unfortunate that in those difficult years a new menace arose-the offer of dreams-come-true in this world, here and now. There was a price of course. What World Council could not realize-and did not properly query-was the immensity of the price, but the offer was one nobody in his right mind could refuse. Or could he?

Psychiatrist James Lindley recognized the danger of dealing with the Devil but fanatical Police Controller Parker saw it as the Gift of God; Angus, whose name and face changed as often as his coat, saw it as a fine game to be played, while Commissioner Ferendija saw it as an exercise in pragmatism-and Security Tech Sanders lost everything he believed in as the welter of guilt and disillusionment swallowed him whole.

Under the pressure of decision the cracks showed in the highest echelons of the proud Ethical Culture. Is there a benefit so great that, if the price were the end of homo sapiens, we would pay it?

George Turner’s Beloved Son was the first volume in what is now recognized as on of the outstanding science fiction achievements of the past decade. Vaneglory is its successor; and, though completely self-contained, it develops with gripping imaginative brilliance the characters and situations already established in Beloved Son.

Kelder had always dreamed of a life more exciting than what waited for him on the family farm. So when a fortune-teller predicted a glorious future, that he’d roam free and unfettered and be a champion of the lost and forlorn, he immediately set out on the fabled Great Highway to Shan in search of adventure.

But once he was on the road, life was hardly as exciting as he’d hoped – until he met Irith. She was the most beautiful girl, and the only girl with wings, Kelder had ever seen. They teamed up to see the world, and then Kelder found adventures aplenty: there were bandits and demons, and there were curses to lift, wizards to seek spells from, orphans to champion, and legendary cities to visit. For the young and carefree, life on the Great Highway was filled with fun, action, and magic.

But Kelder began to wonder about his beautiful companion. Irith certainly had seen a lot of the world for one so young – and everyone along the highway seemed to know her . . .

Soon, discovering Irith’s secrets became Kelder’s greatest adventure of all . . .

It was definite – Dumery had no magical talent at all. He could never fulfill his dream to become a wizard’s apprentice. Hurt, angry, and mortally disappointed, he despaired of ever choosing a trade.

But then Dumery spied a so-called great wizard humbling himself before a man selling dragon’s blood – the precious stuff that made difficult spells work. If Dumery couldn’t be a wizard, maybe he could become a dragon-hunter and have all those scornful wizards crawling to him.

So, leaving his family, city, and comfortable home, Dumery began trailing Kensher, the man in brown – even though Kensher said he didn’t need a dragon-hunting apprentice. But when Dumery finally caught up with Kensher, he would discover Kensher’s great secret of how the precious fluid was obtained – a secret from which only Kensher’s kin could profit.
Once again, Dumery would be left without career or future.

Unless . . .