Short Stories Science

Libraries are much more than mere collections of volumes. The best are magical, fabled places whose fame has become part of the cultural wealth they are designed to preserve. The Library is a celebration of books as objects, a celebration of the anthropology and physicality of books and bookish space, and an account of the human side of these hallowed spaces by a leading and passionate bibliophile.

Among the greats of 20th-century horror and fantasy, few names stand above Richard Matheson. Though known by many for novels like I Am Legend and his 16 Twilight Zone episodes, Matheson truly shines in his chilling, masterful short stories. Since his first story appeared in 1950, virtually every major writer of science fiction and fantasy has fallen under his influence, including Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub, and Joe Hill, as well as filmmakers like Stephen Spielberg and J. J. Abrams.

Owls Hoot in the Daytime & Other Omens is the 5th and final volume of Night Shade Books' five volume "Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman." This volume contains all of the John the Balladeer stories (sometimes better known as Silver John), Manly's most famous character.

Mr. and Mrs. Twit are the smelliest, nastiest, ugliest people in the world. They hate everything - except playing mean jokes on each other, catching innocent birds to put in their Bird Pies, and making their caged monkeys, the Muggle-Wumps, stand on their heads all day. But the Muggle-Wumps have had enough. They don't just want out, they want revenge.

"Children of the Bedtime Machine”, a story by Robert McCammon, was originally published in the 2012 anthology Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury.

"White", a story by Robert McCammon, was originally published in 2014 on robertmccammon.com.

Long before movies like Minority Report and The Matrix, the world's writers have been recording the future as it might exist - and as it turns out, they were right. This bizarre anthology collects the most stunning predictions and imagined inventions here for the first time. Visions of Tomorrow includes "The Land Iron Clads" by H. G. Wells, who described a military tank in 1903 - long before it was ever a possibility; "The Yesterday House" by Fritz Leiber, who wrote about cloned humans; and more.

This collection includes The Alien's Mail Order Bride, When She's Married, Pretty Human, and When She's Bold.

I am a bashful, dorky human—your average refugee on Risda III. Haina is tall, blue, and magnificent. She is effortlessly confident, and her laugh is contagious. I might hide behind the candle section at the store in Risda's port just to get a weekly glimpse at her when she makes her vendor runs. I might be in love with her from afar. Someday I'll get the courage to talk to her. Someday. But fate steps in, and 'someday' turns out to be a lot sooner than I expected.

Gotrek Gurnisson was the greatest monster slayer of the age, who met his doom at the End Times. The heroic duardin stepped forth into the Realm of Chaos to fight the daemons gnawing at the world's ending and satisfy his death oath, leaving behind his companion Felix Jaeger. Now Gotrek has returned, having outlived the old gods and the Old World. Spat from the ruinous depths with his redemption unfulfilled, he emerges into the Mortal Realms, a strange new world where gods walk the earth and dark forces are ascendant. Nothing is as he remembers.

E. E. Isherwood presents Books 1-3 of the Neighborhood Watch series.

The ancient Druid Atticus O’Sullivan gets more than greasy corn dogs and flat soda when he visits a carnival in Kansas to which his apprentice, Granuaile, drags him. He runs across a barker with a strange power over the crowd: attractive women leave their men and disappear into an unmarked tent, never to be seen again, and the men wander away, forgetting that they ever had girlfriends or wives. When Granuaile falls under the barker’s influence and enters the tent, Atticus isn’t about to forget it and move on.

Including the stories "Lispeth", "Beyond the Pale", and "In the Pride of His Youth", this collection tells of soldiers, wise children, exiles, forbidden romances, and divided identities, creating a rich portrait of Anglo-Indian society. Originally published for a newspaper in Lahore when Kipling was a journalist, the tales were later revised by him to re-create as vividly as possible the sights and smells of India for readers at home.

Elyana is an elven adventurer devoted to helping innocents escape the madness of revolutionary Galt. Together with her band of bold human companions, she is a powerful force for freedom, and one that many Galtan leaders would happily see tied up at the bottom of a guillotine. When one of their allies is gravely injured, it's up to Elyana and the wizard Arcil to buy time by leading the enemy on a wild chase into the dark depths of the Verduran Forest.

For over a quarter of a century, Gorlen Vizenfirthe has entertained fans of wandering bards. Famous for playing his silver-strung eduldamer with one hand of flesh and one of stone, he has traveled from the dankest dens of Dankden to the desiccated domiciles of Wumnal Wells, first in search of a gargoyle with a hand of flesh, and then on the trail of the elusive wizard who swapped their hands in the first place. The Gargoyle’s Handbook collects for the first time all the Gorlen tales that take place before the events of the novel Underneath the Oversea.

An IT whiz at the Babylon Casino is enlisted to upgrade security for the game of keno and its random-number generator. The new quantum computer system is foolproof. But someone on the inside is no fool. For once the odds may not favor the house - unless human ingenuity isn’t entirely a thing of the past.

Bradbury's imaginative field is boundless. In this audiobook, his stories carry us from the cozy familiarity of the small-town America we lived in in Dandelion Wine to the frozen desert and double moon that have been parts of our interior landscape since The Martian Chronicles.

Hot on the heels of Gardner Dozois's acclaimed anthology The Book of Swords comes this companion volume devoted to magic. How could it be otherwise? For every Frodo, there is a Gandalf... and a Saruman. For every Dorothy, a Glinda... and a Wicked Witch of the West. What would Harry Potter be without Albus Dumbledore... and Severus Snape? Figures of wisdom and power, possessing arcane, often forbidden knowledge, wizards and sorcerers are shaped - or misshaped - by the potent magic they seek to wield.

The profoundly original and wildly entertaining short stories of a legendary Twilight Zone writer. It is only natural that Charles Beaumont would make a name for himself crafting scripts for The Twilight Zone - for his was an imagination so limitless it must have emerged from some other dimension. Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont's finest stories, including five that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes.

Father John has lived his whole life without knowing a woman’s touch. Hard at first, his self-denial grew easier over time, as he learned to master his urges with a regimen of prayer, cold showers, and jigsaw puzzles. That changes the day that Debra Rocks enters his confessional. A rough-talking adult film actress, she has come to ask him to pray for a murdered costar. Her cinnamon perfume infects Father John, and after she departs he becomes obsessed.