Science Fiction Monsters

Drue Emmerson, noblewoman-turned-ranger, wants one thing: vengeance. With her family slain by the vicious shadow wraiths, she’s determined to defend her fallen kingdom. And that means carving out the hearts of every dark creature she can find. Talemir Starling, celebrated warrior of the realms, has a dangerous secret: he's a half-wraith, kin to the creatures wreaking devastation on the world. He’ll do anything to keep his true nature under control…especially around the woman who’s vowed to destroy him.

In this striking and bleak, yet luminous debut collection, Nathan Ballingrud, winner of the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award, uses the trappings of the Gothic and the uncanny to investigate a distinctly American landscape: The loneliest and darkest corners of contemporary life. Ballingrud’s stories are love stories. They’re also monster stories. Sometimes the monsters collected here are vampires or werewolves.

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.

Two weeks ago, I was writing press releases in a cubicle. Now I’m hunting giant crustaceans to feed a tribe of beautiful women. I awoke on a strange shore, far from Earth, with a new power raging in my muscles. In this primitive world, helpless women look to me for protection against goblin slavers and wild beasts.

Ryker Hayes is a licensed massage therapist, and a damn good one at that. It's a career he's passionate about, and all his plans for life are on track—until he winds up transported to the world of Werifesteria in the body of an infamous warlord, at least. Now all he really wants to do is forget the misdeeds of his alter ego and retire to a life of anonymity with a couple interesting women as his new partners. Together, they open the very first massage inn and spa in all the land, and take on all the responsibilities that come with it. Turns out, it's a lot of work!

Terrence Mack was born poor, grew up tough, and died hard. Waking up in a sea cave with nothing but the clothes on his back and a new bullet scar was enough to convince him that wherever his death had brought him, it wasn't paradise. His new world quickly proves to be a place of danger, magic, monsters, and - for Terry at least - women. Known on Celestine as a template, Terry's genes are key to the survival of the eldritch races. But the fiercely competitive eldritch don't typically leave their lovers alive long, and aren't accustomed to taking 'no' for an answer.

The Gruffalo said that no gruffalo should ever set foot in the deep dark wood. But one wild and windy night the Gruffalo's child disobeys her father's warnings and ventures out into the snow. After all, the Big Bad Mouse doesn't really exist...does he? Perfect for listening to at home, in the car, at bedtime - or any time at all!

The Changed are on the move. The Spared are out of time. The End…is now. When her parents died, Alex thought things couldn't get much worse - until the doctors found the monster in her head. She headed into the wilderness as a good-bye, to leave everything behind. But then the end of the world happened, and Alex took the first step down a treacherous road of betrayal and terror and death. Now, with no hope of rescue - on the brink of starvation in a winter that just won't quit - she discovers a new and horrifying truth. The Change isn't over.

Following the end of their quest to find the legendary Owen Deathstalker, Lewis and his group of Madness Maze survivors take the new rebel fleet in search of allies. On the Empire’s home world, the exiled King Douglas begins to marshal his own forces amid the outcasts of the Rookery, enlisting a number of unlikely elements to his cause. And the mightiest Deathstalker of them all plunges into the timestream to confront the relentless mad hunger of the being called the Terror.

A follow-up to the explosive showdown of Godzilla vs. Kong. This time the almighty Kong and the fearsome Godzilla face a colossal undiscovered threat hidden within our world, challenging their very existence—and our own. The latest epic will delve further into the histories of these Titans, their origins and the mysteries of Skull Island and beyond, while uncovering the mythic battle that helped forge these extraordinary beings and tied them to humankind forever.

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.

The game has changed. After receiving a mysterious message from a famous Proxima developer, Chase Knowles takes a step toward an incredible future. With an important tournament coming up, everything seems to be working in his favor. But there are other forces at play, even if some of those forces are internal. Wanting more from his relationship with Lady C., Chase goes to extreme lengths to bring her digital form to New York City through an android shell.

A town of magic and danger, where what one dons becomes who they are. A desperate priestess in another world calling for a champion, only to receive an unstoppable monster.

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, in this Tor.com Original science fiction tale from Jeff VanderMeer, the New York Times best-selling author of the Southern Reach trilogy.

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.

Something scary is happening in GOOSEBUMPS HORRORLAND, the all-new, all-terrifying series by R. L. Stine. Just how scary? You'll never know unless you crack open this classic prequel! Discover the fan-favorite thriller and chiller that first introduced the world to the wooden face of fear. The puppet who pulls all the strings. None other than Slappy the Dummy!

After slaying a leviathan of the deep, and gaining a magic he barely understands, an ordinary fisherman finds himself entangled in a magical game of the gods with the fate of his planet as the prize. Dean becomes Oakley's champion, competing in the Minotaur's Maze. He travels through a portal to Mixonia, a city of wonders, filled with magic and monster girls of all sorts. As he levels up in his noble quest to save his home world, he will earn and lose fortunes, rescue a bevy of beautiful babes, and protect the innocents of planet Oakley.

Max Best is not living his—ahem—best life. His job's a drag, his home's a shooting gallery, his hopes are nil, and lately, even his beloved game of football has devolved from a chaotic, ecstatic delight into a cold, calculating equation complete with stats, tech terms, and mindless lingo. But then Max rescues a mysterious old man from a mugging. "Nick" seems friendly enough . . . until he innocently asks his savior, "Would you sell your soul to be a top football manager?" Naturally, Max says yes, and in that instant, everything changes.

The small town of Beacon Point has always been plagued by eerie local phenomena. It’s a town where disappearances are common, strange creatures have been sighted with unnerving frequency, and a ghastly secret lurks in the woods. The adults in town are oblivious to these strange occurrences. Others prefer not to talk or even think about them. But over the course of several terrifying nights, a group of kids will come face to face with the horrors hiding within their sleepy town.

Gaia has an eldritch problem, and Cain is tasked with stopping it before it gets out of control. To do that, he'll have to make an uneasy alliance with a human black-ops organization called Aegis. Run by the US government, Aegis has the personnel and resources to stop an eldritch invasion in its tracks. The problem is, Aegis has been taking a short-term approach, blowing up eldritch wormholes as they form on Gaia rather than cutting them off at the source.