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Contents:

• "A Guide to the Zoo" - Stepan Chapman
• "The Beautiful Gelreesh" - Jeffrey Ford
• "The Toes of the Sun" - Rhys Hughes
• "My Stark Lady" - D.F. Lewis
• "Python" - Ursula Pflug
• "Free Time" - James Sallis
• "The Scream" - Michael Cisco
• "Dr. Black in Rome" - Brendan Connell
• "Lights" - D.F. Lewis
• "Mortal Love" - Elizabeth Hand
• "A Dream of the Dead" - Steve Rasnic Tem
• "A Hero for the Dark Towns" - Jay Lake
• "The Catgirl Manifesto" - Christina Flook
• "Eternal Horizon" - Rhys Hughes
• "Maldoror Abroad" - K. J. Bishop

Perhaps "Errata" is a metafictional narrative about a short story assigned to Jeff VanderMeer (or a fictional version of Jeff VanderMeer) by a now-defunct literary journal (or a fictional version of a now-defunct literary journal) explicitly for the purposes of determining THE FATE OF THE WORLD. Or perhaps it's just a story about a Siberian penguin. It is incumbent upon you, the reader, to decide which stream of reality we are lazily floating along in.

The real Jeff VanderMeer's recent books include the acclaimed novels Finch and Shriek: An Afterward. His short fiction has appeared in several Year's Best anthologies and has been shortlisted for Best American Short Stories. VanderMeer has also edited or co-edited several anthologies, including the prestigious Leviathan fiction anthology series, The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, and the acclaimed Steampunk anthology. He has won the World Fantasy Award twice.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Do you love the sound of a peg leg stomping across a quarterdeck? Or maybe you prefer a parrot on your arm, a strong wind at your back? Adventure, treasure, intrigue, humor, romance, danger -- and, yes, plunder! Oh, the Devil does love a pirate -- and so do readers everywhere!

Swashbuckling from the past into the future and space itself, Fast Ships, Black Sails, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, presents an incredibly entertaining volume of original stories guaranteed to make you walk and talk like a pirate.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: A Fascination with Pirates - essay by Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer
• Boojum - short story by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette
• Castor on Troubled Waters - short story by Rhys Hughes
• I Begyn as I Mean To Go On - short story by Kage Baker
• Avast, Abaft! - short story by Howard Waldrop
• Elegy to Gabrielle, Patron Saint of Healers, Whores, and Righteous Thieves - short story by Kelly Barnhill
• Skillet and Saber - short story by Justin Howe
• The Nymph's Child - short story by Carrie Vaughn
• 68° 07′ 15″ N, 31° 36′ 44″ W - short story by Conrad Williams
• Ironface - short story by Michael Moorcock
• Pirate Solutions - short story by Katherine Sparrow
• We Sleep on a Thousand Waves Beneath the Stars - short story by Brendan Connell
• Voyage of the Iguana - short story by Steve Aylett
• Pirates of the Suara Sea - short story by Eric Flint and Dave Freer
• A Cold Day in Hell - short story by Paul Batteiger
• The Adventures of Captain Black Heart Wentworth: A Nautical Tail - short story by Rachel Swirsky
• Araminta, or, The Wreck of the Amphidrake - short story by Naomi Novik
• The Whale Below - short story by Jayme Lynn Blaschke
• Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarsköe - short story by Garth Nix
• Author Notes - essay by uncredited

This novelette originally appeared in the anthology Extraordinary Engines (2008), edited by Nick Gevers. It can also be found in the anthologies:

• The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Three (2009), edited by Jonathan Strahan
• Year's Best SF 14 (2009), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
• The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2009, edited by Rich Horton
• The Mammoth Book of Steampunk (2012), edited by Sean Wallace
• Galactic Empires (2017), edited by Neil Clarke

The story is included in the collection The Third Bear (2010).

Security consultant "Jane Smith" receives an envelope with a key to a storage unit that holds a taxidermied hummingbird and clues leading her to a taxidermied salamander. Silvina, the dead woman who left the note, is a reputed ecoterrorist and the daughter of an Argentine industrialist. By taking the hummingbird from the storage unit, Jane sets in motion a series of events that quickly spin beyond her control.

Soon, Jane and her family are in danger, with few allies to help her make sense of the true scope of the peril. Is the only way to safety to follow in Silvina's footsteps? Is it too late to stop? As she desperately seeks answers about why Silvina contacted her, time is running out – for her and possibly for the world.

Secret Life is the definitive collection by a young writer widely regarded as one of the best fantasists in the world. Jeff VanderMeer has handpicked these 23 stories (three written exclusively for this collection), which reflect a diversity of approaches to key questions about the human condition: mortality, love, obsession and creativity -- all shot through with dark humor and irony. Secret Life represents the author's continuing effort to stretch the narrative boundaries of fiction while still entertaining the reader. Yet all of these stories are related thematically: transformation and what it means to be human -- and the reader too will be transformed, into one of the faithful, a confirmed believer in the short fiction of Jeff VanderMeer.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: The Secrets of VanderMeer - essay by Jeffrey Ford
• Learning to Leave the Flesh - [Ambergris] - (1996) - short story
• The General Who Is Dead - [Ambergris] - (1996) - short story
• The Festival of the Freshwater Squid - short story
• The Bone-Carver's Tale - (1995) - short story
• Secret Life - novelette
• Ghost Dancing with Manco Tupac - (2000) - novelette
• The Sea, Mendeho, and Moonlight - [Veniss] - (1990) - short story
• Flight Is for Those Who Have Not Yet Crossed Over - (1998) - short story
• Greensleeves - (1992) - short story
• Detectives and Cadavers - [Veniss] - (1992) - short story
• Exhibit H: Torn Pages Discovered in the Vest Pocket of an Unidentified Tourist - (1998) - short story
• Black Duke Blues - (1996) - short story
• The Emperor's Reply - (1993) - short story
• The Compass of His Bones - short story
• Balzac's War - [Veniss] - (1997) - novella
• A Heart for Lucretia - [Veniss] - (1993) - short story
• London Burning - (1994) - short story
• Corpse Mouth and Spore Nose - short story
• The Machine - (2002) - short story
• Mahout - (1992) - short story
• The Mansions of the Moon (A Cautionary Tale) - (2001) - short story
• The City - short story
• Experiment #25 from the Book of Winter: The Croc and You - (1999) - short story

Sisters of the Revolution gathers a highly curated selection of feminist speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror and more) chosen by one of the most respected editorial teams in speculative literature today, the award-winning Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. Including stories from the 1970s to the present day, the collection seeks to expand the conversation about feminism while engaging the reader in a wealth of imaginative ideas. Sisters of the Revolution seeks to expand the ideas of both contemporary fiction and feminism to new fronts.

Table of Contents:

• "The Grammarian's Five Daughters" by Eleanor Arnason
• "The Men Who Live in Trees" by Kelly Barnhill
• "The Evening the Morning and the Night" by Octavia Butler
• "My Flannel Knickers" by Leonora Carrington
• "The Fall River Axe Murders" by Angela Carter
• "The Forbidden Words of Margaret A." by L. Timmel Duchamp
• "Boys" by Carol Emshwiller
• "And Salome Danced" by Kelley Eskridge
• "The Perfect Married Woman" by Angelica Gorodischer
• "Tales From the Breast" by Hiromi Goto
• "Stable Strategies for Middle Management" by Eileen Gunn
• "The Glass Bottle Trick" by Nalo Hopkinson
• "Their Mother's Tears: The Fourth Letter" by Leena Krohn
• "Northern Chess" by Tanith Lee
• "Sur" by Ursula K. Le Guin
• "Seven Losses of Na Re" by Rose Lemberg
• "Love and Sex Among the Invertebrates" by Pat Murphy
• "The Palm Tree Bandit" by Nnedi Okorafor
• "Gestella" by Susan Palwick
• "The Mothers of Shark Island" by Kit Reed
• "The Sleep of Plants" by Anne Richter
• "When It Changed" by Joanna Russ
• "Fears" by Pamela Sargent
• "The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet" by Vandana Singh
• "Detours on the Way to Nothing" by Rachel Swirsky
• "Aunts" by Karin Tidbeck
• "The Screwfly Solution" by James Tiptree, Jr.
• "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Space/Time" by Catherynne M. Valente
• "Home By The Sea" by Elisabeth Vonarburg

Descend into shadowy cities, grotesque rituals, chaotic festivals, and deadly cults. Plunge into terrifying domains, where bodies are remade into surreal monstrosities, where the desperate rage against brutal tyrants. Where everything is lethal and no one is innocent, where Peake began and Lovecraft left off--this is where you will find the New Weird.

Edgy, urban fiction with a visceral immediacy, the New Weird has descended from classic fantasy and dime-store pulp novels, from horror and detective comics, from thrillers and noir. All grown-up, it emerges from the chrysalis of nostalgia as newly literate, shocking, and utterly innovative.

Here is the very best of the New Weird from some of its greatest practitioners. This canonic anthology collects the original online debates first defining the New Weird and critical writings from international editors, culminating in a ground-breaking round-robin piece, "Festival Lives," which features some of the hottest new names in New Weird fiction.

Steampunk -- a grafting of Victorian aesthetic and punk rock attitude onto various forms of science-fiction culture -- is a phenomenon that has come to influence film, literature, art, music, fashion, and more.

The Steampunk Bible is the first compendium about the movement, tracing its roots in the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells through its most recent expression in movies such as Sherlock Holmes. Its adherents celebrate the inventor as an artist and hero, re-envisioning and crafting retro technologies including antiquated airships and robots. A burgeoning DIY community has brought a distinctive Victorian-fantasy style to their crafts and art. Steampunk evokes a sense of adventure and discovery, and embraces extinct technologies as a way of talking about the future.

This ultimate manual will appeal to aficionados and novices alike on a wild ride through the clockwork corridors of Steampunk history.

Steampunk, the retro-futuristic cultural movement, has become a substantial and permanent genre in the worlds of fantasy and science fiction. A large part of its appeal is that, at its core, Steampunk is about doing it yourself: building on the past while also innovating and creating something original. VanderMeer's latest book offers practical and inspirational guidance for readers to find their individual path into this realm. Including sections on art, fashion, architecture, crafts, music, performance, and storytelling, The Steampunk User's Manual provides a conceptual how-to guide that motivates and awes both the armchair enthusiast and the committed creator. Examples range from the utterly doable to the completely over-the-top, encouraging participation and imagination at all levels.

In a world where magic is fading and science begun to ascend, a young surgeon in medical school experiences an obsession so forbidden that its realization will change him forever. "She looked as if she were asleep, still with that slight smile, floating on the thick sargassum, glowing from the emerald tincture that would keep the small crabs and other scavengers from her. She looked otherworldly and beautiful." Sometimes life is not enough. Also including five more stories of dark wonder from Rambo and VanderMeer, from "The Dead Girl's Wedding March" to "The Farmer's Cat." Enter a world of rat suitors, severed arms, and Fungi Et Fruits de Mer, served up with prose both appetizing and uncanny. Dark fantasy has never been quite so decadent...

Table of Contents:

• The Surgeon's Tale - (2007) - novella by Jeff VanderMeer and Cat Rambo
• The Dead Girl's Wedding March - (2006) - short story by Cat Rambo
• The Farmer's Cat - (2005) - short story by Jeff VanderMeer
• A Key Decides Its Destiny - (2007) - short story by Cat Rambo
• Three Sons - (2001) - short story by Cat Rambo
• The Strange Case of the Lovecraft Cafe - (2004) - novelette by Jeff VanderMeer, D. F. Lewis and M. F. Korn

Shirley Jackson Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, #7 April 2007. The story can also be found in the anthologies Realms: The First Year of Clarkesworld Magazine (2007), edited by Sean Wallace and Nick Mamatas, and Creatures: Thirty Years of Monsters (2011), edited by Paul Tremblay and John Langan. It is included in the collection The Third Bear (2010).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

The award-winning short fictions in this collection highlight the voice of an inventive contemporary fantasist who has been compared by critics to Borges, Nabokov, and Kafka. In addition to highlights such as The Situation, in which a beleaguered office worker creates a child-swallowing manta ray to be used for educational purposes and Errata, which follows an oddly familiar writer who has marshaled a penguin, a shaman, and two pearl-handled pistols with which to plot the end of the world, this volume contains two never-before-published stories. Chimerical and hypnotic, this compilation leads readers through the postmodern into what is emerging into a new literature of the imagination.

Table of Contents:

• The Third Bear - (2007)
• The Quickening - (2010)
• Finding Sonoria - (2008)
• Lost - (2005)
• The Situation - (2008)
• Predecessor - (2009)
• Fixing Hanover - (2008)
• Shark God Versus Octopus God - (2004)
• Errata - (2009)
• The Goat Variations - (2009)
• Three Days in a Border Town - (2004)
• The Secret Life of Shane Hamill - (2006)
• The Surgeon's Tale - (2007) - novella by Jeff VanderMeer and Cat Rambo
• Appoggiatura - (2007)
• Afterword (The Third Bear) - (2010) - essay by Jeff VanderMeer

The Time Traveler's Almanac is the largest and most definitive collection of time travel stories ever assembled. Gathered into one volume by intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, this book compiles more than a century's worth of literary travels into the past and the future that will serve to reacquaint readers with beloved classics of the time travel genre and introduce them to thrilling contemporary innovations.

This marvelous volume includes nearly seventy journeys through time from authors such as Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, William Gibson, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, Michael Moorcock, H. G. Wells, and Connie Willis, as well as helpful non-fiction articles original to this volume (such as Charles Yu's "Top Ten Tips For Time Travelers").

In fact, this book is like a time machine of its very own, covering millions of years of Earth's history from the age of the dinosaurs through to strange and fascinating futures, spanning the ages from the beginning of time to its very end. The Time Traveler's Almanac is the ultimate anthology for the time traveler in your life.

World Fantasy Award winning novella. It originally appeared in the anthology Palace Corbie Eight (1999), edited by Wayne Edwards. The story is included in the collection City of Saints and Madmen (2001).

From Lovecraft to Borges to Gaiman, a century of intrepid literary experimentation has created a corpus of dark and strange stories that transcend all known genre boundaries. Together these stories form The Weird, and its practitioners include some of the greatest names in twentieth and twenty-first century literature.

Exotic and esoteric, The Weird plunges you into dark domains and brings you face to face with surreal monstrosities. You won't find any elves or wizards here...but you will find the biggest, boldest, and downright most peculiar stories from the last hundred years bound together in the biggest Weird collection ever assembled.

The Weird features 110 stories by an all-star cast, from literary legends to international bestsellers to Booker Prize winners: including William Gibson, George R. R. Martin, Stephen King, Angela Carter, Kelly Link, Franz Kafka, China Miéville, Clive Barker, Haruki Murakami, M. R. James, Neil Gaiman, Mervyn Peake, and Michael Chabon.

An alien invasion comes to one man's doorstep in the form of a story-creature, followed by death and rebirth in a transformed Earth.

This short story is included in the anthology Worlds Seen in Passing: Ten Years of Tor.com Short Fiction (2018), edited by Irene Gallo.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

In his debut novel, literary alchemist Jeff VanderMeer takes us on an unforgettable journey, a triumph of the imagination that reveals the magical and mysterious city of Veniss through three intertwined voices. First, Nicholas, a would-be Living Artist, seeks to escape his demons in the shadowy underground–but in doing so makes a deal with the devil himself. In her fevered search for him, his twin sister, Nicola, spins her own unusual and hypnotic tale as she discovers the hidden secrets of the city. And finally, haunted by Nicola's sudden, mysterious disappearance and gripped by despair, Shadrach, Nicola's lover, embarks on a mythic journey to the nightmarish levels deep beneath the surface of the city to bring his love back to light. There he will find wonders beyond imagining…and horrors greater than the heart can bear.

By turns beautiful, horrifying, delicate, and powerful, Veniss Underground explores the limits of love, memory, and obsession in a landscape that defies the boundaries of the imagination. This special edition includes the short stories "The Sea, Mendeho, and Moonlight"; "Detectives and Cadavers"; and "A Heart for Lucretia" and the novella Balzac's War, offering a complete tour of the fantastic world of Veniss.

This all-new definitive guide to writing imaginative fiction takes a completely novel approach and fully exploits the visual nature of fantasy through original drawings, maps, renderings, and exercises to create a spectacularly beautiful and inspiring object. Employing an accessible, example-rich approach,Wonderbook energizes and motivates while also providing practical, nuts-and-bolts information needed to improve as a writer. Aimed at aspiring and intermediate-level writers, Wonderbook includes helpful sidebars and essays from some of the biggest names in fantasy today, such as George R. R. Martin, Lev Grossman, Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Catherynne M. Valente, and Karen Joy Fowler, to name a few.

Praise for Wonderbook:

"Jammed with storytelling wisdom." --Fast Company's Co.Create blog

"This is the kind of book you leave sitting out for all to see... and the kind of book you will find yourself picking up again and again." --Kirkus Reviews online

"If you're looking for a handy guide to not just crafting imaginative fiction like sci-fi, fantasy, and horror, but to writing in general, be sure to pick up a copy of Steampunk Bible author Jeff Vandermeer's lovingly compiled Wonderbook." --Flavorwire

"Jeff Vandermeer and Jeremy Zerfoss have created a kaleidoscopically rich and beautiful book about fiction writing." --Star Tribune

"Because it is so layered and filled with text, tips, and links to online extras, this book can be read again and again by both those who want to learn the craft of writing and those interested in the process of others." --Library Journal

From the author of Borne and Annihilation comes the one-volume hardcover reissue of his cult classic Ambergris Trilogy.

Before Area X, there was Ambergris. Jeff VanderMeer conceived what would become his first cult classic series of speculative works: the Ambergris Trilogy. Now, for the first time ever, the story of the sprawling metropolis of Ambergris is collected into a single volume, including City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, andFinch.

Sturgeon Award nominated novella. It appeared as a chapbook in 1996 and was later in the collection City of Saints and Madmen (2001).

Read the full story for free at infinity plus.

A mesmerizing novella -- one moment hilarious, the next utterly chilling -- that is not only a tour guide through the dream city of Ambergris, but through the very architecture of the imagination. This brilliant work, presented as an actual "artifact" from Ambergris, and stunningly intricate in its construction, builds upon the world introduced in Dradin, In Love: A Tale of Elsewhen & Otherwhere (Buzzcity Press, 1996).

The Early History of Ambergris was listed as one of the Books of the Year by acclaimed British author Brian Stableford in Vector, the Critical Journal of the British Science Fiction Association.

Reprinted (with other tales from Ambergris) in City of Saints and Madmen, published by Cosmos Books (2001), Prime Books (2002), Wildside Press (2003), Tor UK (2004), and Spectra (2006).

Once upon a time, on the banks of the River Moth, a city sprang up like no other in or out of history. Founded on the blood of the original inhabitants, the stealthy gray caps, and steeped for centuries in the aftermath of that struggle, Ambergris has become a cruelly beautiful metropolis--a haven for artists and thieves, for composers and murderers. City includes the World Fantasy Award-winning novella The Transformation of Martin Lake.

Narrated with flamboyant intensity by one-time society figure Janice Shriek, and presenting a vivid gallery of strange characters and even stranger events, this is an account of the adventures of her brother Duncan, a historian obsessed with a doomed love affair and a dark secret that may kill or transform him. It involves, too, a war between rival publishing houses which threatens to change Ambergris forever, and rivalry with a marginalised race known as the "grey caps" who, armed with advanced fungal technologies, wait underground for their chance to recover the city that was once theirs. This story of the family Shriek is an exotic and colourful novel of love, life and death which brings to fruition the author's genius for capturing the truly weird.

In Finch, mysterious underground inhabitants known as the gray caps have reconquered the failed fantasy state Ambergris and put it under martial law. They have disbanded House Hoegbotton and are controlling the human inhabitants with strange addictive drugs, internment in camps, and random acts of terror. The rebel resistance is scattered, and the gray caps are using human labor to build two strange towers.

Against this backdrop, John Finch, who lives alone with a cat and a lizard, must solve an impossible double murder for his gray cap masters while trying to make contact with the rebels. Nothing is as it seems as Finch and his disintegrating partner Wyte negotiate their way through a landscape of spies, rebels, and deception. Trapped by his job and the city, Finch is about to come face to face with a series of mysteries that will change him and Ambergris forever.

A prestigious new anthology series, Best American Fantasy is guest edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, with Matthew Cheney serving as the series editor. This inaugural volume showcases the best North American fantasy short fiction from the preceding year.

Table of Contents:

• Preface - (2007) - essay by Matthew Cheney
• Introduction - (2007) - essay by Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer
• A Hard Truth About Waste Management - (2006) - shortstory by Sumanth Prabhaker
• The Stolen Father - (2006) - shortstory by Eric Roe
• The Saffron Gatherers - (2006) - shortstory by Elizabeth Hand
• The Whipping - (2006) - shortstory by Julia Elliott
• A Better Angel - (2006) - shortstory by Chris Adrian
• Draco Campestris - (2006) - shortstory by Sarah Monette
• Geese - (2006) - shortfiction by Daniel Coudriet
• The Chinese Boy - (2006) - novelette by Ann Stapleton
• The Flying Woman - (2006) - shortstory by Meghan McCarron
• First Kisses from Beyond the Grave - (2006) - novelette by Nik Houser
• Song of the Selkie - (2006) - shortstory by Gina Ochsner
• A Troop [sic] of Baboons - (2006) - shortstory by Tyler Smith
• Pieces of Scheherazade - (2006) - shortstory by Nicole Kornher-Stace
• Origin Story - (2006) - novelette by Kelly Link
• An Experiment in Governance - (2006) - shortfiction by E. M. Schorb
• The Next Corpse Collector - (2006) - novelette by Ramola D
• Village of Ardakmoktan - (2006) - shortstory by Nicole Derr
• The Man Who Married a Tree - (2006) - shortstory by Tony D'Souza
• A Fable with Slips of White Paper... - (2006) - shortstory by Kevin Brockmeier
• Pregnant - (2006) - shortstory by Catherine Zeidler
• The Warehouse of Saints - (2006) - shortstory by Robin Hemley
• The Ledge - (2006) - novelette by Austin Bunn
• Lazy Taekos - (2006) - shortstory by Geoffrey A. Landis
• For the Love of Paul Bunyan - (2006) - shortstory by Fritz Swanson
• An Accounting - (2006) - shortstory by Brian Evenson
• Abraham Lincoln Has Been Shot - (2006) - shortstory by Daniel Alarcón
• Bit Forgive - (2006) - shortstory by Maile Chapman
• The End of Narrative (1-29; Or 29-1) - (2006) - novelette by Peter LaSalle
• Kiss - (2006) - shortfiction by Melora Wolff
• Contributor Notes - (2007) - essay by uncredited
• Recommended Reading - (2007) - essay by uncredited
• Publications Received - (2007) - essay by uncredited

A prestigious anthology series, Best American Fantasy is guest edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, with Matthew Cheney serving as the series editor, showcasing the best North American fantasy short fiction from the preceding year.

Table of Contents:

• Preface - essay by Matthew Cheney
• Introduction - essay by Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer
• Bufo Rex - (2007) - shortstory by Erik Amundsen
• The Seven Deadly Hotels - shortfiction by Bruce Holland Rogers
• The Revisionist - (2007) - shortfiction by Miranda Mellis
• The Ruby Incomparable - (2007) - shortstory by Kage Baker
• Interval - (2007) - shortfiction by Aimee Bender
• Memoir of a Deer Woman - (2007) - shortstory by M. Rickert
• In the Middle of the Woods - (2007) - shortfiction by Christian Moody
• Story with Advice II: Back from the Dead - (2007) - shortfiction by Rick Moody
• Logorrhea - (2007) - shortstory by Michelle Richmond
• Ave Maria - (2007) - shortfiction by Micaela Morrissette
• Chainsaw on Hand - (2007) - shortstory by Deborah Coates
• The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French - (2008) - shortstory by Peter S. Beagle
• Minus, His Heart - (2007) - shortfiction by Jedediah Berry
• Abroad - (2007) - shortstory by Judy Budnitz
• Mario's Three Lives - (2007) - shortstory by Matt Bell
• The Naming of the Islands - (2007) - shortfiction by David Hollander
• The Drowned Life - (2007) - novelette by Jeffrey Ford
• Light - (2007) - novelette by Kelly Link
• How the World Became Quiet: A Post-Human Creation Myth - (2007) - shortstory by Rachel Swirsky

The Strange Bird is a new kind of creature, built in a laboratory -- she is part bird, part human, part many other things. But now the lab in which she was created is under siege and the scientists have turned on their animal creations. Flying through tunnels, dodging bullets, and changing her colors and patterning to avoid capture, the Strange Bird manages to escape.

But she cannot just soar in peace above the earth. The sky itself is full of wildlife that rejects her as one of their own, and also full of technology -- satellites and drones and other detritus of the human civilization below that has all but destroyed itself. And the farther she flies, the deeper she finds herself in the orbit of the Company, a collapsed biotech firm that has populated the world with experiments both failed and successful that have outlived the corporation itself: a pack of networked foxes, a giant predatory bear. But of the many creatures she encounters with whom she bears some kind of kinship, it is the humans -- all of them now simply scrambling to survive -- who are the most insidious, who still see her as simply something to possess, to capture, to trade, to exploit. Never to understand, never to welcome home.

"Am I a person?" Borne asked me.
"Yes, you are a person," I told him. "But like a person, you can be a weapon, too."

In Borne, a young woman named Rachel survives as a scavenger in a ruined city half destroyed by drought and conflict. The city is dangerous, littered with discarded experiments from the Company--a biotech firm now derelict--and punished by the unpredictable predations of a giant bear. Rachel ekes out an existence in the shelter of a run-down sanctuary she shares with her partner, Wick, who deals his own homegrown psychoactive biotech.

One day, Rachel finds Borne during a scavenging mission and takes him home. Borne as salvage is little more than a green lump--plant or animal?--but exudes a strange charisma. Borne reminds Rachel of the marine life from the island nation of her birth, now lost to rising seas. There is an attachment she resents: in this world any weakness can kill you. Yet, against her instincts--and definitely against Wick's wishes--Rachel keeps Borne. She cannot help herself. Borne, learning to speak, learning about the world, is fun to be with, and in a world so broken that innocence is a precious thing. For Borne makes Rachel see beauty in the desolation around her. She begins to feel a protectiveness she can ill afford.

"He was born, but I had borne him."

But as Borne grows, he begins to threaten the balance of power in the city and to put the security of her sanctuary with Wick at risk. For the Company, it seems, may not be truly dead, and new enemies are creeping in. What Borne will lay bare to Rachel as he changes is how precarious her existence has been, and how dependent on subterfuge and secrets. In the aftermath, nothing may ever be the same.

A messianic blue fox who slips through warrens of time and space on a mysterious mission. A homeless woman haunted by a demon who finds the key to all things in a strange journal. A giant leviathan of a fish, centuries old, who hides a secret, remembering a past that may not be its own. Three ragtag rebels waging an endless war for the fate of the world against an all-powerful corporation. A raving madman who wanders the desert lost in the past, haunted by his own creation: an invisible monster whose name he has forgotten and whose purpose remains hidden.

Jeff VanderMeer's Dead Astronauts presents a City with no name of its own where, in the shadow of the all-powerful Company, lives human and otherwise converge in terrifying and miraculous ways. At stake: the fate of the future, the fate of Earth... all the Earths.

Leviathan Three is the third volume in the World Fantasy Award and British Fantasy Award finalist Ministry of Whimsys Leviathan series.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Jeff VanderMeer
• The Library: 1. Virtual Library - shortstory by Zoran Živkovic
• While Wandering a Vanished Sea - shortstory by James Bassett
• The Fork - shortstory by Jeffrey Thomas
• State Secrets of Aphasia - novelette by Stepan Chapman
• Up - shortstory by James Sallis
• The Library: 2. Home Library - shortstory by Zoran Živkovic
• A Season with Doctor Black - novelette by Brendan Connell
• The Camus Referendum - shortstory by Michael Moorcock
• The Vengeance of Rome (Chapter 3) - shortfiction by Michael Moorcock
• Phocas - shortfiction by Remy de Gourmont (trans. of Phocas 1895)
• The Evenki - shortfiction by Eugene Dubnov
• The Library: 3. Night Library - shortfiction by Zoran Živkovic
• Kafka in Brontëland - shortstory by Tamar Yellin
• The Weight of Words - novelette by Jeffrey Ford
• The Swan of Prudence Street - shortstory by Scott Thomas
• Moonlight - shortstory by Tamar Yellin
• The Library: 4. Infernal Library - shortstory by Zoran Živkovic
• The Progenitor - shortstory by Brian Evenson
• The Face of an Angel - novelette by Brian Stableford
• Village of the Mermaids - shortstory by Lance Olsen
• The Genius of Assassins - novelette by Michael Cisco
• The Library: 5. Smallest Library - shortstory by Zoran Živkovic
• The Divided Knight - shortstory by Théophile Gautier (trans. of Le chevalier double 1840)
• The Fool's Tale - novelette by L. Timmel Duchamp
• The Prince of Mules - shortstory by Carol Emshwiller
• Buz - shortfiction by Rikki Ducornet
• The Library: 6. Noble Library - shortstory by Zoran Živkovic

In time for the holidays, a single-volume hardcover edition that brings together the three volumes of the Southern Reach Trilogy, which were originally published as paperback originals in February, May, and September 2014.

Annihilation is the first volume in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, Authority is the second, and Acceptance is the third.

Area X-a remote and lush terrain-has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer.

This is the twelfth expedition.

Their group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers-they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding-but it's the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another, that change everything.

After the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the Southern Reach-the secret agency that monitors these expeditions-is in disarray. In Authority, John Rodriguez, aka "Control," is the team's newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselves-and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he's promised to serve. And the consequences will spread much further than that.

It is winter in Area X in Acceptance. A new team embarks across the border on a mission to find a member of a previous expedition who may have been left behind. As they press deeper into the unknown-navigating new terrain and new challenges-the threat to the outside world becomes more daunting. The mysteries of Area X may have been solved, but their consequences and implications are no less profound-or terrifying.

Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide; the third expedition in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.

The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers--they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding--but it's the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.

In the second volume of the Southern Reach Trilogy, questions are answered, stakes are raised, and mysteries are deepened...

Following the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in 'Annihilation', the second book of the Southern Reach trilogy introduces John Rodriguez, the new head of the government agency responsible for the safeguarding of Area X. His first day is spent grappling with the fall-out from the last expedition. Area X itself remains a mystery. But, as instructed by a higher authority known only as The Voice, the self-styled Control must battle to 'put his house in order'.

From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the mysteries of Area X begin to reveal themselves--and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he's promised to serve.

Undermined and under pressure to make sense of everything, Rodriguez retreats into his past in a labyrinthine search for answers. Yet the more he uncovers, the more he risks, for the secrets of the Southern Reach are more sinister than anyone could have known.

The third volume of the extraordinary Southern Reach trilogy.

It is winter in Area X. A new team embarks across the border, on a mission to find a member of a previous expedition who may have been left behind. As they press deeper into the unknown – navigating new terrain and new challenges – the threat to the outside world becomes only more daunting. In this last instalment of the Southern Reach Trilogy, the mysteries of Area X may have been solved, but their consequences and implications are no less profound – or terrifying.

Contains:

• It's a Steampunk Universe, Victoria essay by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer
• The 19th Century Roots of Steampunk essay by Jeff Nevins
• Benediction (excerpt from The Warlord of the Air) by Michael Moorcock
• Lord Kelvins Machine, by James P. Blaylock
• The Giving Mouth by Ian R. MacLeod
• A Sun in the Attic by Mary Gentle
• The God-Clown is Near by Jay Lake
• The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel by Joe R. Landsdale
• The Selene Gardening Society by Molly Brown
• Seventy-Two Letter by Ted Chiang
• The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance by Michael Chabon
• Victoria by Paul Di Fillipo
• Reflected Light by Rachel E. Pollack
• Minutes of the Last Meeting by Stepan Chapman
• Excerpt from the Third and Last Volume of "Tribes of the Pacific Coast" by Neal Stephenson
• The Steam Driven Time-Machine: A Pop-Culture Survey essay by Rick Klaw
• The Essential Sequential Steampunk: A Modest Survey of the Genre within the Comic Book Medium by Bill Baker

Contents:

• What is Steampunk? - essay by Jeff VanderMeer and Ann VanderMeer
• The Gernsback Continuum - (1981) - shortstory by William Gibson
• Great Breakthroughs in Darkness (Being, Early Entries from 'The Secret Encyclopaedia of Photography') - (1992) - shortstory by Marc Laidlaw
• Dr. Lash Remembers - shortstory by Jeffrey Ford
• The Unblinking Eye - (2009) - shortstory by Stephen Baxter
• The Steam Dancer (1896) - (2008) - shortstory by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• The Cast-Iron Kid - shortfiction by Andrew Knighton
• Machine Maid - (2008) - novelette by Margo Lanagan
• The Unbecoming of Virgil Smythe - shortfiction by Ramsey Shehadeh
• The Mechanical Aviary of Emperor Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar - (2010) - shortfiction by Shweta Narayan
• O One - (2003) - shortstory by Chris Roberson
• Wild Copper - (2006) - shortfiction by Samantha Henderson
• The Bold Explorer in the Place Beyond - (2010) - shortstory by David Erik Nelson
• Lost Pages from the Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana - shortfiction by Jess Nevins
• Tanglefoot (A Story of the Clockwork Century) - (2008) - novelette by Cherie Priest
• A Serpent in the Gears - (2010) - shortstory by Margaret Ronald
• The Strange Case of Mr. Salad Monday - (2009) - novelette by G. D. Falksen
• The Persecution Machine - (1994) - shortstory by Tanith Lee
• Balfour and Meriwether in the Adventure of the Emperor's Vengeance - (2009) - novelette by Daniel Abraham
• As Recorded on Brass Cylinders: Adagio for Two Dancers - (2010) - shortstory by James L. Grant and Lisa Mantchev
• Flying Fish Prometheus (A Fantasy of the Future) - shortfiction by Vilhelm Bergsøe (trans. of Erindringen fra en Reise med Flyvefisken "Prometheus" 1870)
• The Anachronist's Cookbook - shortfiction by Catherynne M. Valente
• Lovelace & Babbage: Origins, with Salamander - shortfiction by Sydney Padua
• A Secret History of Steampunk - shortfiction by The Mecha-Ostrich
• Which is Mightier, the Pen or the Parasol? - essay by Gail Carriger
• At the Intersection of Technology and Romance - essay by Jake Von Slatt
• The Future of Steampunk: A Roundtable Interview - essay by various

You hold in your hands the most complete and official guide to imaginary ailments ever assembled--each disease carefully documented by the most stellar collection of speculative fiction writers ever to play doctor. Detailed within for your reading and diagnostic pleasure are the frightening, ridiculous, and downright absurdly hilarious symptoms, histories, and possible cures to all the ills human flesh isn't heir to, including Ballistic Organ Disease, Delusions of Universal Grandeur, and Reverse Pinocchio Syndrome.

Lavishly illustrated with cunning examples of everything that can't go wrong with you, the Lambshead Guide provides a healthy dose of good humor and relief for hypochondriacs, pessimists, and lovers of imaginative fiction everywhere. Even if you don't have Pentzler's Lubriciousness or Tian Shan-Gobi Assimilation, the cure for whatever seriousness may ail you is in this remarkable collection.

You’ll be astonished by what you’ll find in The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities. Editors Ann and Jeff Vandermeer have gathered together a spectacular array of exhibits, oddities, images, and stories by some of the most renowned and bestselling writers and artists in speculative and graphic fiction, including Ted Chiang, Mike Mignola (creator of Hellboy), China Miéville, and Michael Moorcock. A spectacularly illustrated anthology of Victorian steampunk devices and the stories behind them, The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities is a boldly original, enthrallingly imaginative, and endlessly entertaining entry into a hidden world of weird science and unnatural nature that will appeal equally to fantasy lovers and graphic novel aficionados.

Contents:

• The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities - interior artwork by John Coulthart
• The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities [2] - interior artwork by John Coulthart
• Just One Shelf in Lambshead's Study - interior artwork by Jennifer Potter and J. K. Potter
• Introduction: The Contradictions of a Collection: Dr. Lambshead's Cabinet - short story by Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer
• Travailleurs de lacier - interior artwork by Sam Van Olffen
• Dissecator - interior artwork by Sam Van Olffen
• Family Portrait - interior artwork by Myrtle Von Damitz, III
• Mecha-Rhino - interior artwork by Vladimir Gvozdev
• Contructing an Elysian Pod for the Last Journey - interior artwork by Kristen Alvanson
• Cryptozoology Print - interior artwork by Jan Svankmajer
• Bassington & Smith Wlectro-Mechanical Brain - interior artwork by Jake Von Slatt
• More Evidence of the Disarray ... - interior artwork by J. K. Potter
• Mecha-Fish - interior artwork by Vladimir Gvozdev
• Mecha-Frog - interior artwork by Vladimir Gvozdev
• Holy Devices and Infernal Duds: The Broadmore Exhibits - interior artwork by John Coulthart
• The Broadmore Exhibits - short story by Jeff VanderMeer
• The Electric Neurheographiton - short story by Minister Faust
• Electrical Neurheographiton - interior artwork by Greg Broadmore
• St. Brendan's Shank - short story by Kelly Barnhill
• St. Brendan's Shank - interior artwork by Greg Broadmore
• The Auble Gun - short story by Will Hindmarch
• The Auble Gun - interior artwork by Greg Broadmore
• Cours Lapin, Cours! - interior artwork by Sam Van Olffen
• Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny - short story by Ted Chiang
• Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny - interior artwork by Greg Broadmore
• Honoring Lambshead: Stories Inspired by the Cabinet - interior artwork by John Coulthart
• Stories Inspired by the Cabinet - short story by Jeff VanderMeer
• Threads - short story by Carrie Vaughn
• Medieval Tapestry - interior artwork by James A. Owen
• Ambrose and the Ancient Spirits of East and West - novelette by Garth Nix
• Tree Spirits Rising - interior artwork by Jonathan Nix
• Relic with Fish - interior artwork by Ivica Stevanovic
• Relic - novelette by Jeffrey Ford
• Lord Dunsany's Teapot - short story by Naomi Novik
• Lord Dunsany's Teapot - interior artwork by Yishan Li
• Lot 558: Shadow of My Nephew by Wells, Charlotte - short story by Holly Black
• Portrait of a Bear Unbound (with Speaker) - interior artwork by Eric Orchard
• A Short History of Dunkelblau's Meistergarten - short story by Tad Williams
• The Meistergarten - interior artwork by John Coulthart
• Microbial Alchemy & Demented Machinery: The Mignola Exhibits - interior artwork by John Coulthart
• The Mignola Exhibits - short story by Jeff VanderMeer
• Addison Howell and the Clockroach - short story by Cherie Priest
• Addison Howell on His Clockroach - interior artwork by Mike Mignola
• Sir Ranulph Wykeham-Rackham, GBE, a.k.a. Roboticus the All-Knowing - short story by Lev Grossman
• Sir Ranulph Wykeham-Rackham - interior artwork by Mike Mignola
• Shamalung (The Diminutions) - short story by Michael Moorcock
• Shamalung - interior artwork by Mike Mignola
• Pulvadmonitor: The Dust's Warning - short story by China Miéville
• Pulvadmonitor - interior artwork by Mike Mignola
• The Miéville Anomalies - interior artwork by John Coulthart
• The Miéville Anomalies - short story by Jeff VanderMeer
• The Very Shoe - short story by Helen Oyeyemi
• The Very Shoe - interior artwork by China Miéville
• The Gallows-horse - short story by Reza Negarestani
• Gallows-horse - interior artwork by China Miéville
• Further Oddities - interior artwork by John Coulthart
• Further Oddities - short story by Jeff VanderMeer
• The Thing in the Jar - short story by Michael Cisco
• Thing in Jar - interior artwork by Aeron Alfrey
• The Singing Fish - short story by Amal El-Mohtar
• The Singing Fish - interior artwork by Edith Abendroth
• Frog Resurrection - interior artwork by Ron Pippin
• The Armor of Sir Locust - short story by Stepan Chapman
• Armor Montage - interior artwork by Ivica Stevanovic
• A Key to the Castleblakeney Key - short story by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• Castleblakeney Key - interior artwork by Aeron Alfrey
• Taking the Rats to Riga: A Critical Examination of Stigmata's Print - short story by Jay Lake
• Taking the Rats to Riga - interior artwork by Eric Schaller
• The Book of Categories - short story by Charles Yu
• The Book of Categories - interior artwork by Ron Pippin
• Objects Discovered in a Novel Under Construction - short story by Alan Moore
• The Dead Dead Gang Book Cover - interior artwork by John Coulthart
• Visits and Departures - interior artwork by John Coulthart
• Visits - short story by Jeff VanderMeer
• 1929: The Singular Taffy Puller - short story by N. K. Jemisin
• 1929: The Singular Taffy Puller - interior artwork by uncredited
• 1943: A Brief Note Pertaining to the Absence of One Olivaceous Cormorant, Stuffed - short story by Rachel Swirsky

Quite possibly the greatest science fiction collection of all time--past, present, and future!

What if life was neverending? What if you could change your body to adapt to an alien ecology? What if the pope were a robot? Spanning galaxies and millennia, this must-have anthology showcases classic contributions from H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Octavia E. Butler, and Kurt Vonnegut, alongside a century of the eccentrics, rebels, and visionaries who have inspired generations of readers. Within its pages, you'll find beloved worlds of space opera, hard SF, cyberpunk, the New Wave, and more. Learn about the secret history of science fiction, from titans of literature who also wrote SF to less well-known authors from more than twenty-five countries, some never before translated into English. In The Big Book of Science Fiction, literary power couple Ann and Jeff VanderMeer transport readers from Mars to Mechanopolis, planet Earth to parts unknown. Immerse yourself in the genre that predicted electric cars, space tourism, and smartphones. Sit back, buckle up, and dial in the coordinates, as this stellar anthology has got worlds within worlds.

Including:

• Legendary tales from Isaac Asimov and Ursula K. Le Guin
• An unearthed sci-fi story from W. E. B. Du Bois
• The first publication of the work of cybernetic visionary David R. Bunch in twenty years
• A rare and brilliant novella by Chinese international sensation Cixin Liu

Plus:

• Aliens!
• Space battles!
• Robots!
• Technology gone wrong!
• Technology gone right!

Unearth the enchanting origins of fantasy fiction with a collection of tales as vast as the tallest tower and as mysterious as the dark depths of the forest.

Fantasy stories have always been with us. They illuminate the odd and the uncanny, the wondrous and the fantastic: all the things we know are lurking just out of sight--on the other side of the looking-glass, beyond the music of the impossibly haunting violin, through the twisted trees of the ancient woods. Other worlds, talking animals, fairies, goblins, demons, tricksters, and mystics: these are the elements that populate a rich literary tradition that spans the globe. A work composed both of careful scholarship and fantastic fun, The Big Book of Classic Fantasy is essential reading for anyone who's never forgotten the stories that first inspired feelings of astonishment and wonder.

INCLUDING:

*Stories by pillars of the genre like the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Mary Shelley, Christina Rossetti, L. Frank Baum, Robert E. Howard, and J. R. R. Tolkien
*Fantastical offerings from literary giants including Edith Wharton, Leo Tolstoy, Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston, Vladimir Nabokov, Hermann Hesse, and W.E.B. Du Bois
*Rare treasures from Asian, Eastern European, Scandinavian, and Native American traditions
*New translations, including fourteen stories never before in English

PLUS:

*Beautifully Bizarre Creatures! *Strange New Worlds Just Beyond the Garden Path!
*Fairy Folk and Their Dark Mischief! *Seriously Be Careful--Do Not Trust Those Fairies!

WORLD FANTASY AWARD WINNER

A true horde of fantasy tales sure to delight fans, scholars, and even the greediest of dragons--from bestselling authors Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

Step through a shimmering portal... a worn wardrobe door... a schism in sky... into a bold new age of fantasy. When worlds beyond worlds became a genre unto itself. From the swinging sixties to the strange, strange seventies, the over-the-top eighties to the gnarly nineties--and beyond, into the twenty-first century--the VanderMeers have found the stories and the writers from around the world that reinvented and revitalized the fantasy genre after World War II. The stories in this collection represent twenty-two different countries, including Russia, Argentina, Nigeria, Columbia, Pakistan, Turkey, Finland, Sweden, China, the Philippines, and the Czech Republic. Five have never before been translated into English.

From Jorge Luis Borges to Ursula K. Le Guin, Michael Moorcock to Angela Carter, Terry Pratchett to Stephen King, the full range and glory of the fantastic are on display in these ninety-one stories in which dragons soar, giants stomp, and human children should still think twice about venturing alone into the dark forest.

Jonathan Lambshead stands to inherit his deceased grandfather's overstuffed mansion - a veritable cabinet of curiosities - once he and two schoolmates catalog its contents. But the three soon discover that the house is filled with far more than just oddities: It holds clues linking to an alt-Earth called Aurora, where the notorious English occultist Aleister Crowley has stormed back to life on a magic-fueled rampage across a surreal, through-the-looking-glass version of Europe replete with talking animals (and vegetables).

Swept into encounters with allies more unpredictable than enemies, Jonathan pieces together his destiny as a member of a secret society devoted to keeping our world separate from Aurora. But as the ground shifts and allegiances change with every step, he and his friends sink ever deeper into a deadly pursuit of the profound evil that is also chasing after them.