Monster Fiction

Set in a beautiful seaside town on the Italian Riviera, Luca is a coming-of-age story about one young boy experiencing an unforgettable summer filled with gelato, pasta, and endless scooter rides. Luca shares these adventures with his newfound best friend, but all the fun is threatened by a deeply held secret: They are sea monsters from another world just below the water’s surface.

In the twelve unforgettable tales of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century, the strange is made familiar and the familiar strange, such that a girl growing wings on her legs feels like an ordinary rite of passage, while a bug-infested house becomes an impossible, Kafkaesque nightmare. Each story builds a new world all its own: a group of children steal a haunted doll, a runaway bride encounters a sea monster, a vendor sells toy boxes that seemingly control the passage of time, an insomniac is seduced by the Sandman.

In a gauntlet-throwing essay at the start of this brilliant assemblage, Cynthia Ozick stakes the claim that, just as surely as critics require a steady supply of new fiction, novelists need great critics to build a vibrant community on the foundation of literary history. For decades Ozick herself has been one of our great critics, as these essays so clearly display. She offers models of critical analysis of writers from the mid-20th century to today, from Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, and Kafka to William Gass and Martin Amis, all assembled in provocatively named groups.

This Science Fiction Collection brings together 20 iconic works from some of the genre's most influential authors. Featuring Ray Bradbury's atmospheric The Monster Maker and Rocket Summer, Isaac Asimov's thought-provoking Youth, E.M. Forster's dystopian The Machine Stops, and H.G. Wells' timeless masterpiece The Time Machine, the anthology explores a wide range of speculative themes. From futuristic worlds and artificial intelligence to time travel and human survival, this collection delves into the challenges and possibilities of the future.

When my grandfather, a shipping tycoon, went missing, I quickly discovered that there are some problems that money can't solve. And this frightening situation was one of them. I didn't think things could possibly get worse, but then I woke up. To a monster standing over me. With his hand covering my mouth. My reluctant captor, Viktor, with his clipped Russian accent and scary looking guns, operates with military precision. Don't even get me started on his rules. As he drags me across the globe, we are plunged into a dark world that is filled with danger and violence.

After a teeny incident with red paint, my hometown votes that it’s done with my activist ways. Now I’m on an entirely different planet, holding a single suitcase, standing on a platform, waiting for my new alien husband to arrive in his vehicle. I bite my lip as I wait because there’s one serious problem with this whole situation. After a best forgotten, one-night stand gone wrong, I’m three months pregnant and obviously this baby won’t be his.

Snagging the hunter was the easy part. Now, I have to prove to him that a life filled with chaos, the most amazing fish ever, and delightful me is so much better than normal—trust me, he isn’t too hard to convince. But when a group of insolent chimeras laughably think they can target my one true love, they have another thing coming for them—likely death.

The last kids may have escaped the forbidden fortress by the skin of their teeth, but there isn't much to celebrate. Thrull has what he needs to complete the Tower, Rezzoch will most certainly come to Earth, and the world as they know it will cease to exist. Except Jack's Cosmic Hand is now even more powerful than he realized, and it might just be able to stop the inevitable from happening. To get the answers he seeks, he'll need to travel farther than he's ever been. He must go...to the monster dimension!

Lukan Gardova is a cardsharp, academy dropout, and—thanks to a duel that ended badly—the disgraced heir to an ancient noble house. His days consist of cheap wine, rigged card games, and wondering how he might win back the life he threw away. When Lukan discovers that his estranged father has been murdered in strange circumstances, he finds fresh purpose. Deprived of his chance to make amends for his mistakes, he vows to unravel the mystery behind his father's death. His search for answers leads him to Saphrona, fabled city of merchant princes, where anything can be bought if one has the coin.

The Empire's plans have come to fruition. Duran has fallen, and with it the other city-states of Nehatra. Only the dungeon town remains safe, but for how long? While the leadership struggle to deal with the crisis, the dungeon dwellers watch on. As Doc continues to unlock new slime evolutions, Rowen deepens his bond with Milly, and the two experience much together. When the final attack begins, will Rowen and Doc stand with the townspeople? Why has Doc been framed for murder? Who is the traitor lurking in the shadows?

I only got into trucking because my granddad was a trucker, and he was the best damn person I ever met. I'd always thought I was your average dude with an 18-wheeler and an addiction to energy drinks, but it turns out there might be something more brewing in my blood. Now instead of some desert highway, I'm stuck in a whole new realm, and it's full of worm cults, actual lot lizards, one seriously smoking catgirl mechanic, and enough sand and bloodthirsty creatures to make me think I took a wrong turn somewhere. But I might be able to add a whole new career path to my resume.

When Jerry follows the trail of his missing uncle, he discovers a mysterious monster-girl and an equally mysterious region called Delom where everything works like a video game. But there isn't time to gawk, because Jerry's inherited his uncle's farm, once the most famous animal breeder in Delom, and everything is falling apart. The animals are low level, there's not enough food to keep their health up, and a greedy developer wants to put Jerry and the farm out of business.

Jack Miller has spent his entire nine years in the same house on the same street in the same town with the same best friend. One day, while delivering papers on his same ordinary paper route, Jack finds himself amidst a very unordinary world. A world where strange and silly monsters become his friends. In this story, Jack and Annabelle meet Winston who is determined to get their help back in Monster World.

Gemma Cassata lives with her mother in an isolated antiques shop in Michigan, near a seductive patch of woods concealing an enchanted gateway to fairyland. Gemma knows she’s not supposed to go into the woods—her mother, Virginia, has warned her multiple times about the monsters that lurk there—and yet she can’t resist.

With the fall of Alvin the Unconquerable, the face of the Fourliance changes drastically. New alliances are made as the Factions prepare for war, and all while the Necro-Beast Faction keeps pushing for more territory. Keith, meanwhile, has other concerns. Mainly with the discovery of the next World Monster's location, and the formation of his Guild in the Fourliance. With powerful new allies backing him, things should be running smoothly, but when a raid goes south, he finds himself facing a powerful enemy he cannot hope to defeat.

When the Monster Relations Bureau tells me I've been identified as a kraken shifter's mate, my first instinct is to run. I learned the hard way what it means to be treated like someone's possession, and I'm not about to make the same mistake twice. Only, Elias is… different. Patient and careful with me, willing to wait as long as it takes for me to let him in. The more I learn to trust him, and the more he draws me under with the dark temptation of his touch, the more the defenses I've held onto for so long start to crumble.

The DEPP has transported Dave and his lovely women to another even more alien and dangerous version of Earth than the last. They have to begin fortifying their trans-dimensional territory if they have any hope of surviving these hostile environments. Cambrian Era monstrosities and massive tidal surges caused by an angry moon goddess are pretty nasty challenges for anybody to survive, but a flesh eating blob that wants to devour all life on Earth? That’s just not fair.

When a horrific loss throws Monster High into a state of grave upheaval, Draculaura and the other ghouls find themselves coping in different ways. For her part, the chaos at school is making Draculaura sick. She finds escape only by slipping away to the cemetery to pore over her mom's old journals. It's there that she meets Poe. If her ghoulfriends find out she's fallen for a normie, they'll freak. And if Poe discovers she's a vampire, his monster-hunting dad may have a stake in the matter.

Brett and Tom are crazy about video games. In fact, they became best friends when they discovered that they could beat all their opponents. Now they’re ready to take on the best one of all—Rodomonte’s Revenge—a new virtual reality game that just opened in the mall. Fire rivers, enormous buzz-bugs, impossible cliffs, and a treasure-filled castle are all exciting parts of the skill levels. But when the game begins to take over Brett and Tom’s minds, they fear that they might become a permanent part of the action.

Before the Age of Monsters, there was Monster Island. Top-secret habitat for genetically-resurrected dinosaurs. But something has gone terribly wrong. Somehow, the beasts have escaped – first there were scattered sightings worldwide – then people went missing. But now a pleasure-cruise shipwrecked on a tropical beach has discovered an entire savage prehistoric jungle.