Fantasy Short Stories

When Michael Moorcock began chronicling the adventures of the albino sorcerer Elric, last king of decadent Melniboné, and his sentient vampiric sword, Stormbringer, he set out to create a new kind of fantasy adventure, one that broke with tradition and reflected a more up-to-date sophistication of theme and style. The result was a bold and unique hero: a rock-and-roll antihero who would channel all the violent excesses of the '60s into one enduring archetype.

Space pirates! Words that conjure up rousing tales of adventure, derring-do, brave heroes battling the scurvy vermin of the galaxy. Those vermin have taken to pillaging cargo ships and, even worse, space liners, relieving the helpless passengers of their valuables, and worse with the comely women passengers, then spacing the lot - unless one or more of the aforementioned brave heroes arrive in the nick of time, and turn the tables, making the spaceways safe again for the innocent and helpless.

Long lost to the public in out-of-print pulp magazines, dusty Victorian anthologies, and the pages of now defunct newspapers, these vintage vampire stories have truly proved immortal. Resurrected now for the year 2011, this is a stunning collection of nineteenth-century vampire stories by heavyweights such as Sabine Baring-Gould and Bram Stoker. These rare stories are arranged in chronological order from 1846 to 1913 and are compiled by two of the world's leading vampire anthologists and experts.

Hayley Phillips came to Memphis hoping for a new start, for herself and her unborn child. What she found was a home, said to be haunted but surrounded by beauty and friends - including Roz's son Harper. But to Hayley's chagrin, she has begun to dream about Harper - as much more than a friend. If Hayley gives in to her desire, she's afraid the foundation she's built with Harper will come tumbling down. Especially since she's begun to suspect that her feelings are no longer completely her own.

Over the course of two award-winning collections and a critically acclaimed novel, The Croning, Laird Barron has arisen as one of the strongest and most original literary voices in modern horror and the dark fantastic. Melding supernatural horror with hardboiled noir, espionage, and a scientific backbone, Barron's stories have garnered critical acclaim and have been reprinted in numerous year's best anthologies and nominated for multiple awards, including the Crawford, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy awards.

This bundle includes Activate, Reboot, and System Failure. This diverse group of kids from all over the world has plenty in common. They love computers, coding, hacking, and gaming—it literally flows through their veins. One more thing: they are all technically dead.

This bundle contains the complete Storm Below Saga - that's five audiobooks of epic fantasy! Action-packed, dark, and intense, this fantasy series features characters you are certain to love and others you will love to hate.

This boxset contains the trilogy of all three Fear books in the series. This horror anthology contains spine-tingling stories of murder, ghosts, zombies, werewolves, and even vampires in a steampunk universe....

Hugh Howey is known for crafting riveting and immersive tales of boundless imagination. Now comes Machine Learning, an impressive collection of Howey's science fiction and fantasy short fiction, including three stories set in the world of Wool, two never-before-published tales written exclusively for this volume, and 15 additional stories collected here for the first time. These stories explore everything from artificial intelligence to parallel universes to video games, and each story is accompanied by an author's note.

What will become of our self-destructed planet? The answer shatters all expectations in this subversive speculation from the Hugo Award - winning author of the Broken Earth trilogy. An explorer returns to gather information from a climate-ravaged Earth that his ancestors, and others among the planet’s finest, fled centuries ago. The mission comes with a warning: A graveyard world awaits him. But so do those left behind - hopeless and unbeautiful wastes of humanity who should have died out ages ago.

Kitty Norville is everybody's favorite werewolf DJ and out-of-the-closet supernatural creature. Over the course of eight books, she's fought evil vampires, were-creatures, and some serious black magic. She's done it all with a sharp wit and the help of a memorable cast of werewolf hunters, psychics, and if-not-good-then-neutral vampires by her side. Kitty's Greatest Hits not only gives listeners some of Kitty's further adventures, it offers longtime fans a window into the origins of some of their favorite characters.

Nominated for both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, this short story introduces the Warlock, who discovers to his horror that the world's mana, the fuel that makes magic work, is rapidly dwindling. The news spells doom for magic-based society. Unfortunately, no secret that powerful can stay hidden for long.

As the future pack leader of the Silver Wolves, my life was carefully planned: stay hidden and learn to fight. In an instant, everything changes. My pack was slaughtered by an unknown enemy. Alone and unsure who to trust, I search for safety. Now, there's a pack leader who offers me something that no one else can—protection. He’s sexy, an absolute jerk, and my fated mate. The more I try to fight our bond, the more fate pushes us together. But the price may be too much for both of us. I’m being hunted, and the choices I'm forced to make could destroy me.

A classic tale featuring two of the most-memorable characters in sword and sorcery, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Over a span of 50 years, the late Fritz Leiber wrote dozens of adventures, set in the fictional city of Lankhmar, featuring the seven-foot-tall barbarian and the diminuitive thief. The stories were recognized with both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

An unlikely vigilante slips through the alleys of Old Korvosa, the armor of the insidious Gray Maidens - former stormtroopers of an insane queen - imprisoning her within a past she can neither forget nor atone for. But when an innocent comes to her in need, this mercenary avenger must test her mettle against a foe just as resolute and merciless as she once was.

Immerse yourself in a land of bomnubbles and quarreling cousins, sea dragons and book publishers, thieves and Fangs and secret maps. Inside this book lie seven stories of the distant past, lost adventures, forgotten songs, and heartbreaking histories. The Shining Isle is restored, but Aerwiar is vast - and these authors have tales yet to tell.

Spell-slinger. Vampire-slayer. Magical albino ferret-rescuer. Meet Jacqueline Denna Knight, the best wizard detective in the city. Jax turns vampires to ash and pain into magic. She also has a knack for finding things. So, when a distraught - and obscenely wealthy - elf calls Jax at midnight to hire her for an intriguing job, she grabs the opportunity with both hands. But what Jax doesn’t know is that this case is going to unravel her life.

Sharon Shinn's Twelve Houses books have fascinated fans and critics alike with their irresistible blend of fantasy, romance, and adventure. Now in Quatrain, she weaves compelling stories in four of the worlds that fans love in "Flight", "Blood", "Gold", and "Flame".

Bradbury's Mars is a place of hope, dreams, and metaphor - of crystal pillars and fossil seas - where a fine dust settles on the great, empty cities of a silently destroyed civilization. It is here the invaders have come to despoil and commercialize, to grow and to learn - first a trickle, then a torrent, rushing from a world with no future toward a promise of tomorrow. The Earthman conquers Mars...and then is conquered by it, lulled by dangerous lies of comfort and familiarity, and enchanted by the lingering glamour of an ancient, mysterious native race.

It's Christmas Eve at St Mary's. And all through the house. Nothing is stirring.... Except for Max, Peterson, and Markham, sneaking out at midnight for an assignment that is very definitely off the books. It was ten years ago tonight that senior historians Bashford and Grey went missing in 12th century Jerusalem. So how did they end up in AD 60 Roman Colchester? Max has a theory. Peterson has a plan. Markham has bacon sandwiches. Colchester has Boudicca and her bloodthirsty Iceni hordes.