Old Fantasy

On Al Chaudhury’s 12th birthday his beloved Grandpa Byron gives him a letter from Al’s late father. In it Al receives a mission: travel back to 1984 in a secret time machine and save his father’s life.

I’d given myself and Sisu 12 days to get settled into our new life before tackling my first official day as the head archivist of the magical archives at the National Museum of Ireland. Our new kitchen was under construction, with the electrical and plumbing upgrades in the main rooms of the estate well on the way. I knew how and where to buy groceries, and had arranged a tutor for Sisu. Totally under control.

The narrator - the old nurse of the title - is an old family retainer who has worked in the service of the same family for three generations. She tells the young children about a dark incident that she experienced in the company of the children’s mother, when she was a young woman and visiting her mother’s ancestral home.

I hadn’t set foot in the human world for more than a few hours in over three and a half months. Sure, I was stronger and faster than I’d ever been before, and I had a shiny new sword, but I was seriously chocolate deprived.

The plan was to hop a train to Oslo, hang out at a coffee shop, and connect my personal archive, Infinity, to the Internet. Yes, completely disregarding the well-established fact that magic and technology didn’t mix. At all.

At 58 years old, Jeff Mann had read dozens of those apocalyptic sci-fi novels, and all were wrong. The cause was the incompetence of the world's governments and the failure of the many financial Ponzi schemes. First, the riots and looting came, and then starvation and depravity followed. The billionaires built safe compounds while everyone else died off or fought to survive the holocaust at the end of the modern world. Jeff begins a crusade against human trafficking after saving two women from slavers. Can one man and two women make a difference in a world gone mad?

Prince Derek is set to marry Lady Lydia. Not his choice; not hers. It's his duty, so he tries to get to know his soon-to-be bride on their trek across the ocean to his kingdom. When their ship goes down and she is lost at sea, Derek is reminded of an Old Tale, a legend in his lands. When a woman dies at sea, she might not be lost forever. He, and Lydia's handmaiden, Alyana, find a sea witch and learn that this legend might be true. But what will it cost to see Lydia again?

Sixteen all-new stories by science fiction's top talents, collected by best-selling author George R. R. Martin and multiple-award-winning editor Gardner Dozois.

When jackal shifter Quade Danas was banished from his pack for being gay, he spent years in the military escaping his father's prejudice before returning to civilian life as a bodyguard for Roman Howell, the teenage son of a very rich man. After Roman is in an accident that leaves him physically scarred and emotionally distant, Quade is the only one who can get through to him. As Roman becomes a man, he realizes what he wants - his bodyguard by his side and in his bed.

Three months ago, I nearly lost my best friend while retrieving the first instrument of assassination. I also inadvertently released a rival who was definitely unhinged, way more powerful than me, and obsessed with harnessing the deadly power of the artifacts I’d been tasked by the guardian dragons to collect. Add a sexy sentinel and a nearly immortal vampire to the mix, and what could possibly go wrong?

A young school teacher learns about strange lights in a foreboding marsh; a nurse in a remote outport visits the baby she delivered weeks before to find a devastating change; a woman meets a mysterious funeral procession late one evening; a musician falls thrall to a group of strange little people and can’t stop playing. The stories in Spirited Away are populated by the fairy-led, by changelings, by people who stray onto fairy turf and experience unnerving events.

Five years after Sofia Lyon disappeared, her remains are found stuffed into the hollow of a tree bursting through the floorboards of an abandoned house in the woods. The women who loved her flock home to the North Carolina hills to face their grief.

Several years after the apocalypse slow rolled over the world, chaos still rules the day. Jeff and his small group survived the gangs and slavery groups on the island but had to flee Dauphin Island for Northern Florida. Jeff, the Old Man, might be in his late 50s but is up to the challenges met while leading his group to safety and freedom. Maria and Ollie learn valuable survival skills from Jeff and teach Jeff a thing or two about living.

Tras haber vivido una vida relativamente tranquila en la Tierra y el mismo día en que cumplen setenta y cinco años, 1,022 ancianos se enrolan en las Fuerzas de Defensa Coloniales, el ejército que lucha por la supervivencia de la humanidad en el universo. La vida en la Tierra transcurre sin demasiados contratiempos. Sin embargo, en el universo se está librando una guerra sin cuartel por los últimos planetas todavía deshabitados de la galaxia.

A masked gala. A solstice celebration with the werewolves. Broken relics and doorways leading not only to other realms, other mythical and magical creatures, but to other possible futures. For me, and maybe even for Kellan. That’s all just another day at the office for me.

The girl doesn't remember a thing about her life, but the intricate tattoo on her arm is proof that she's from the Dragonfly Territories and that she's protected by the king. Which means a reward for Piper if she can get the girl home. The one sure way to the Territories is the 401, a great old beauty of a train. But a ticket costs more coin than Piper could make in a year. And stowing away is a difficult prospect - everyone knows that getting past the peculiar green-eyed boy who stands guard is nearly impossible.

There is a Welsh legend about a harp of gold, hidden within a certain hill, that will be found by a boy and a white dog with silver eyes - a dog that can see the wind. Will Stanton knew nothing of this when he traveled to Wales to recover from a severe illness. But when he met Bran, the strange boy who owned a white dog, he began to remember. For Will is the last-born of the Old Ones, immortals dedicated to saving the world from the forces of evil, the Dark.

Tales of Old Japan (1871) is an anthology of classic tales compiled by Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford, Lord Redesdale. The narratives - adapted from Japanese sources - covers various aspects of Japanese life before the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Engaging with an arresting range of subjects such as Buddhist sermons, knightly exploits, ghost stories, fairy tales, folklore, terrifying vampires, noble samurai, and the plots of four Noh plays, the collection also serves as a treasure trove of information on the customs, characters, and places of the time.

Thirteen tales are unspun from the deeply familiar and woven anew into a collection of fairy tales that wind back through time. Emma Donoghue reveals heroines young and old in unexpected alliances--sometimes treacherous, sometimes erotic, but always courageous. Told with luminous voices that shimmer with sensuality and truth, these age-old characters shed their antiquated cloaks to travel a seductive new landscape, radiantly transformed.

I wasn’t even remotely interested in collecting the third instrument of assassination. It was far better for everyone involved—and for Warner, specifically—if I just let it be. And since I was the only one who could retrieve the artifacts, I figured it was my call to make.