<b>Back in print in new trade paperback editions, the fourth of five volumes collecting the complete stories of renowned "weird fiction" author Clark Ashton Smith.</b> <p></p>"None strikes the note of cosmic horror as well as Clark Ashton Smith. In sheer daemonic strangeness and fertility of conception, Smith is perhaps unexcelled by any other writer." --H. P. Lovecraft <p></p>Clark Ashton Smith, considered one of the greatest contributors to seminal pulp magazines such as <i>Weird Tales</i>, helped define and shape "weird fiction" in the early twentieth century, alongside contemporaries H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, drawing upon his background in poetry to convey an unparalleled richness of imagination and expression in his stories of the bizarre and fantastical. <p></p>The Collected Fantasies series presents all of Smith's fiction chronologically. Authorized by the author's estate and endorsed by Arkham House, the stories in this series are accompanied by detailed background notes from editors Scott Connors and Ron Hilger, who in preparation for this collection meticulously compared original manuscripts, various typescripts, published editions, and Smith's own notes and letters. Their efforts have resulted in the most definitive and complete collection of the author's work to date. <p></p> <i>The Maze of the Enchanter</i> is the fourth of five volumes collecting all of Clark Ashton Smith's tales of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. It includes all of his stories from "The Mandrakes" (1932) to "The Flower-Women" (1933), and an introduction by Gahan Wilson. <p></p>Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a <i>New York Times</i> bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.
<b>Hard science fiction's grand master delivers the stunning conclusion to his Orthogonal trilogy.</b> <p></p>In a universe where the laws of physics and the speed of light are completely alien to our own, the travelers on the ship <i>Peerless</i> have completed a generations-long struggle to develop advanced technology in a desperate attempt to save their home world. But as tensions mount over the risks of turning the ship around and starting the long voyage home, a new complication arises: the prospect of constructing a messaging system that will give the <i>Peerless</i> news of its own future. <p></p>While some see this as a guarantee of safety and a chance to learn of their mission's ultimate success, others are convinced that the knowledge will be oppressive or worse--that the system could be abused. The conflict over this proposed communication system tears the travelers' society apart, culminating in terrible violence. To save the <i>Peerless</i> and its mission, two rivals must travel to a world where time runs in reverse. <p></p>Continuing in the tradition of <i>The Clockwork Rocket</i> and <i>The Eternal Flame</i>, Greg Egan's Orthogonal trilogy has continuously pushed the boundaries of scientific fiction, without ever losing track of the lives of the individuals carrying out this grand mission. <i>The Arrows of Time</i> brings this fascinating space opera to a close while offering insight into human nature and the struggles we face, both as individuals and as a species. <p></p>Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a <i>New York Times</i> bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.
<b>When the laws of physics are suddenly called into question, a whole new potential for life and death is brought to the entire universe.</b> <p></p>For twenty thousand years, every phenomenon that has ever been observed in the universe has been explainable through the means of the Sarumpaet Rules. These rules are the essential laws of quantum graphs that explain the makeup of the geometric structure of space-time. <p></p>Cass, a humanoid physicist from Earth, discovers that the Sarumpaet Rules may not be the only applicable set of the laws of physics in the universe. Cass travels to a remote experimental facility in hopes to test her theory--that the "novo-vacuum" will begin to decay the moment it is created. Cass's theory proves greater than she'd anticipated, and the "novo-vacuum" begins to expand out from the research facility at half the speed of light. <p></p>More than six hundred years pass, and at least two thousand inhabited systems have been consumed by the "novo-vacuum." Those fascinated by the phenomenon choose to study it under two differing categories: Preservationists and Yielders. Preservationists are forever hypothesizing on how to destroy the vacuum; Yielders believe it holds a purpose in reinvigorating civilization. <p></p>Tchicaya is a Yielder and Mariama is a Preservationist. These childhood friends will put their beliefs and their history to the test when violence breaks out among the two groups. Tchicaya must form an alliance with Mariama so that she can help them both escape the violence and confront the fate of the universe before it is too late. <p></p>Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a <i>New York Times</i> bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.
Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon -- these are our guides through the Wastelands... From the Book of Revelations to The Road Warrior; from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. Gathering together the best post-apocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today's most renowned authors of speculative fiction, including George R.R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King, Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. <p></p>Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a <i>New York Times</i> bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.
Fugitive Rachel Nolander is a newcomer to the city of Dogsland, where the rich throw parties and the poor just do whatever they can to scrape by. Supported by her brother Djoss, she hides out in their squalid apartment, living in fear that someday, someone will find out that she is the child of a demon. Corporal Jona Lord Joni is a demon's child too, but instead of living in fear, he keeps his secret and goes about his life as a cocky, self-assured man of the law. The first book in the Dogsland Trilogy, Never Knew Another is the story of how these two outcasts meet. <p></p>Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a <i>New York Times</i> bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.
May 1975. St. Louis. In a snow-swept street, a cop finds the body of a man who died fifty years ago. It's still warm. July 1866, Lidice, Bohemia: A teenage girl calmly watches her parents die as another being takes control of her body. August 2058, Prague: Three political rebels flee in to the past, taking with them a terrible secret. As past, present, and future collide, one man holds the key to the puzzle. And if he doesn't fit it together, the world he knows will fall to pieces. It's just A Matter of Time! <p></p>Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a <i>New York Times</i> bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.
Publishers Weekly,Fans of literate fantasy may embrace the 22 inventive tales in Bear's first story collection, but others will be put off by the experimental entries with their nonlinear, often static narratives and extreme emotional detachment. Little happens, for example, in the opening tale, "L'esprit d'escalier: Not a Play in One Act," about a man writing a play about Christopher Marlowe, John Keats and Allen Ginsberg in the afterlife. Bear (Hammered) is better when forced into the more traditional discipline of the Victorian pastiche with "Tiger! Tiger!" in which the world of Sherlock Holmes collides with that of H.P. Lovecraft. Perhaps the most successful story is "Seven Dragons Mountain," which mixes Chinese dragons and airships, but again a clever idea could have benefited from a more gripping execution. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Publishers Weekly,Overflowing with complexity and eloquence, the conclusion to Martinez's Daedalus Trilogy (following The Enceladus Crisis) seamlessly blends popular elements from science fiction and fantasy, producing a work that raises the bar for both. In our high-tech near future, Maj. Gen. Maria Diaz and Lt. Cmdr. Shaila Jain are faced with the fallout from recent events on Saturn's moon Enceladus. In the alchemistic past of a parallel dimension, Sir Thomas Weatherby and Lady Anne Baker are fighting in slightly steampunkish Napoleonic wars, in which the French have used the Egyptian Book of the Dead to raise zombie troops. Their timelines collide when minions of Althotas, a Martian trapped in a nightmarish prison of nothingness, endeavor to free him. Love and friendships are tested, mysteries and betrayals are unearthed, political games are played among both humans and aliens, an astronaut in a space suit hugs a 19th-century British admiral, and Martinez somehow makes it all work. He skillfully handles the intricacies of characterization and the many moving parts, building to the trilogy's utterly satisfying and quite epic finale. Agent: Sara Megibow, KT Literary Agency. (May) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.,Publishers Weekly,Publishers Weekly,Overflowing with complexity and eloquence, the conclusion to Martinez's Daedalus Trilogy (following The Enceladus Crisis) seamlessly blends popular elements from science fiction and fantasy, producing a work that raises the bar for both. In our high-tech near future, Maj. Gen. Maria Diaz and Lt. Cmdr. Shaila Jain are faced with the fallout from recent events on Saturn's moon Enceladus. In the alchemistic past of a parallel dimension, Sir Thomas Weatherby and Lady Anne Baker are fighting in slightly steampunkish Napoleonic wars, in which the French have used the Egyptian Book of the Dead to raise zombie troops. Their timelines collide when minions of Althotas, a Martian trapped in a nightmarish prison of nothingness, endeavor to free him. Love and friendships are tested, mysteries and betrayals are unearthed, political games are played among both humans and aliens, an astronaut in a space suit hugs a 19th-century British admiral, and Martinez somehow makes it all work. He skillfully handles the intricacies of characterization and the many moving parts, building to the trilogy's utterly satisfying and quite epic finale. Agent: Sara Megibow, KT Literary Agency. (May) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Publishers Weekly,The conclusion to Egan's trilogy, which follows 2012's The Eternal Flame, is at least as opaque as its confusing predecessors, and appealing only to readers who have managed to wrap their minds around the world building from them. This volume could not be more user- unfriendly for first-timers. Egan buries the series' underlying concept in an afterword; the prose is so dense ("Perhaps a physicist will find a way to transform our positive luxagens into negative ones"), and the hard science so hard, that very few will comprehend either. Apart from the complex physics, the trilogy's plot is not unfamiliar: it is the tale of a desperate attempt to save a world from a cosmic menace, here meteors known as the Hurtlers, by traveling forward in time to benefit from future scientific advances. The debate over the right survival strategy never grips the reader because Egan fails to render his imagined science intelligible-the frequent graphs and charts only make things worse. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Publishers Weekly,The near-future United States of Ziegler's impressive debut is dominated by Satori, a bioengineering megacorporation only nominally answerable to the weak government that distributes Satori's genetically modified seed stock to migrants in a land ravaged by climate change. When Satori engineer Pihadassa, the seed's developer, goes rogue, agent Sienna Doss heads out to capture her and persuade her to work for the government. Meanwhile, migrant brothers Brood and Pollo are drawn into the plans laid by both Pihadassa and Satori. Fans weary of common postapocalyptic tropes will greatly appreciate Ziegler's imaginative world-building, vivid writing, and compelling and racially diverse cast full of unique voices. Some of the science tends toward the fantastical, but Ziegler never swamps the narrative with explanations, focusing instead on the intriguing, fast-paced adventure nuanced with precise, uncomfortably plausible details of hardscrabble life. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.,Publishers Weekly,Publishers Weekly,The near-future United States of Ziegler's impressive debut is dominated by Satori, a bioengineering megacorporation only nominally answerable to the weak government that distributes Satori's genetically modified seed stock to migrants in a land ravaged by climate change. When Satori engineer Pihadassa, the seed's developer, goes rogue, agent Sienna Doss heads out to capture her and persuade her to work for the government. Meanwhile, migrant brothers Brood and Pollo are drawn into the plans laid by both Pihadassa and Satori. Fans weary of common postapocalyptic tropes will greatly appreciate Ziegler's imaginative world-building, vivid writing, and compelling and racially diverse cast full of unique voices. Some of the science tends toward the fantastical, but Ziegler never swamps the narrative with explanations, focusing instead on the intriguing, fast-paced adventure nuanced with precise, uncomfortably plausible details of hardscrabble life. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Today the names of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith, all regular contributors to the pulp magazine <i>Weird Tales</i> during the first half of the twentieth century, are recognizable even to casual readers of the bizarre and fantastic. And yet despite being more popular than them all during the golden era of genre pulp fiction, there is another author whose name and work have fallen into obscurity: Seabury Quinn. <p></p>Quinn's short stories were featured in well more than half of <i>Weird Tales</i>'s original publication run. His most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave, often set in the small town of Harrisonville, New Jersey. In de Grandin there are familiar shades of both Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, and alongside his assistant, Dr. Samuel Trowbridge, de Grandin's knack for solving mysteries--and his outbursts of peculiar French-isms ( <i>grand Dieu!</i>)--captivated readers for nearly three decades. <p></p>Collected for the first time in trade editions, The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, edited by George Vanderburgh, presents all ninety-three published works featuring the supernatural detective. Presented in chronological order over five volumes, this is the definitive collection of an iconic pulp hero. <p></p>The first volume, The Horror on the Links, includes all of the Jules de Grandin stories from "The Horror on the Links" (1925) to "The Chapel of Mystic Horror" (1928), as well as an introduction by Robert Weinberg. <br />