"SFWA Grand Master Silverberg (Voyagers) demonstrates why he merits that plaudit in this superior collection of three novels and one short story linked by the theme of humanity encountering intelligent alien life, or, as he puts it in his introduction, “reach out to meet others with uncertain hands.” “Those Who Watch” begins with an explosion over New Mexico that turns out to be a crashing spaceship; the ship’s three crew members survive and successfully pose as humans until three Earthlings see through their disguise. “The Man in the Maze” offers a less traditional story line, inspired by Sophocles’s tragedy Philoctetes and centered on diplomat Richard Muller. Muller’s the first human to contact the inhabitants of Beta Hydri IV—and he becomes a pariah upon his return to Earth. Silverberg shifts gears dramatically in “Tom O’Bedlam,” in which all of Earth’s governments have collapsed, and the eponymous lead has visions of fantastic crystalline beings that others dismiss as psychotic episodes. The anthology is enhanced by Silverberg’s introductions to each piece, which provide the personal and editorial background to the stories. Lovers of first contact fiction owe it to themselves to pick this up."--Publishers Weekly

Edith Pearlman manages to combine subtlety with extravagance, understatement with spectacle, drawing our focus to the eccentricities of those who would prefer to remain unnoticed. . . . Confronted with unexpected obstacles, these characters exchange the blurring comfort of routine with spontaneity and improvisation . . . . Full of vivid, intricate, nuanced portraits, confidently focused, restrained and yet spirited, saturated with a powerful imaginative sympathy, How to Fall is a remarkable collection by a remarkable writer. --From the Foreword by Joanna Scott How to Fall is a darkly humorous collection that welcomes the world's immense variety with confidence. Spanning no fewer than four countries in sixty years, these sixteen stories flesh out the complexities of people who, at first glance, live ordinary, unremarkable lives. Widowers, old men, estranged spouses, young restaurant workers, career women and Jewish grandmothers are all at the center of Pearlman's cool, studied observation. Each character is rendered with such unpredictable intricacy that they often astonish themselves just as much as the reader. Many of the stories either begin or wind their way back to one, mythical, two-by-three-mile Massachusetts town--Godolphin, a place that "called itself a town but was really a leafy wedge of Boston." Edith Pearlman has published over 100 stories in national magazines, literary journals, anthologies and online publications. Her work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories , The O. Henry Prize collection, New Stories from the South: The Year's Best and The Pushcart Prize collection. Her first collection of stories, Vaquita , won the Drue Heinz Prize for Literature, and her second, Love Among the Greats , won the Spokane Prize for Fiction. She now lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

A selection of twelve stories about aliens, a community pool filled with bullies, a surprising start to the Fourth of July fireworks, and other peculiar things, with comic-book style illustrations.

"Like all good stories in the Yiddish tradition, the pleasure of Geras' collection comes as much from the telling as from what happens. These are stories within stories: the narrator remembers herself as a young child hearing them from her grandmother, as they cooked, hung up laundry, prepared for the Sabbath, or cleaned house for Passover. This framing of the stories emphasizes their continuing pleasure across generations; and customs, idioms, traditions, even recipes that the Jews brought with them from Eastern Europe are an unobtrusive part of the telling." --"Booklist," Starred

From the author of 'The New York Trilogy', 'Moon Palace' and 'The Book of Illusions', comes a highly personal collection of essays, prefaces and occasional pieces written for magazines and newspapers.

"We Install offers a showcase of styles, from humor--in "Father of the Groom," a scientist with a penchant for wild experimentation helps his love-struck son by synthesizing a wedding ring out of two carrots--to classic science fiction, as in the Hugo Award-winning "Down in the Bottomlands" and "Hoxbomb," in which a regular guy just trying to make a living selling scooters has to deal with some very odd competition. The alternate history tale "Drang von Osten" begins on a bloody battlefield in World War II and ends somewhere quite different. In the brand-new "Logan's Law," a man discovers that sometimes, second chances really do work out. The book's three essays tackle the diverse subjects of how to write alternate history, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and the history of Chanukah"--

In his long and rich career as the author of masterworks such as The Crucible and Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller has charted some of the most hidden aspects of the American character. This year, Miller turns 80, and Viking is pleased to mark the occasion with a lavishly packaged work of fiction that shows all the insight, precision, and greatness of spirit of his classic plays.

A trio of short works by the Nobel laureate and "greatest writer of American prose of the twentieth century" (James Wood, "The New Republic") While Saul Bellow is known best for his longer fiction in award-winning novels such as "The Adventures of Augie March" and "Herzog," "Something to Remember Me By" will draw new readers to Bellow as it showcases his extraordinary gift for creating memorable characters within a smaller canvas. The loss of a ring in "A Theft" helps an oft-married woman understand her own wisdom and capacity for love. In "The Bellarosa Connection," Harry Fonstein has escaped from Nazi brutality with the help of an underground organization masterminded by the legendary Broadway impresario Billy Rose, and his story continues in America . In the title story, seventeen-year-old Louie--whose mother is dying of cancer--strays far from home and finds not solace but humiliation and, ultimately, the blessing of his father's wrath.

Crime is common ground for the twenty-one women writers in this extraordinary collection of contemporary mystery fiction, introduced and edited by Sara Paretsky The voices here include professional crime solvers who take you from the mean streets of V.I. Warshawski’s Chicago in a case of music and murder . . . to the California freeway where Kinsey Millhone's beloved VW skids into a shooting . . . to the gang-held turf of Sharon McCone’s San Francisco, where an eye witness to a slaying says mum’s the word. And then there are mothers, grandmothers, battered wives, and social workers—ordinary women in extraordinary situations whose voices reveal contemporary life as seen through a woman’s eye. From the opening tale of a girl down-and-out in London and what she steals from a corpse . . . to the final story of a summer vacation in the Berkshires, complete with romance and sudden death . . . this unique collection brings us great mystery writing that engages both our intellects and our hearts. This collection features stories from twenty-one authors, including: Sara Paretsky • Sue Grafton • Marica Muller • Susan Dunlap • Carolyn Hart • Antonia Fraser • Dorothy Salisbury Davis • Amanda Cross • Nancy Pickard • Dorothy B. Hughes • Faye Kellerman • Julie Smith • Barbara Wilson • Mary Wings • and more!

A collection of new and previously published stories and poems about unicorns by Jane Yolen.

Hand-picked authors and a literary legacy... You may want to read it in one quick bite... Or savor it slowly like fine Swiss chocolate... One delicious prose at a time! For 22 years, SF lovers from around the world have enjoyed the stories and poems of the Tesseracts series, ( Tesseracts One through Tesseracts Ten , and Tesseracts Q ). This unique collection of books has featured the work of some of Canada's finest speculative fiction writers, selected and edited by ever changing combinations of editors, hand-picked for each edition. For many science fiction writers, Tesseracts was a spring board to their fame. Tesseracts Eleven brings the series to a new height, with a tasty blend of past and present writers, with their own individual visions of the future. The literature of Tesseracts Eleven has been critically selected and shaped into the collection you see by this year's editors, two of Canada's finest writers - acclaimed authors Cory Doctorow and Holly Phillips. Together they have chosen a powerful combination of works by well-known writers, as well as newer authors whose futures you will want to follow. Some favorite Tesseracts ingredients are a featured part of this edition's literary blend: some very popular award winning names in Canada's SF scene, like Canada's grand dame of speculative fiction, Elisabeth Vonarburg, Claude Lalumiere, David Nickle and Candas Jane Dorsey, to name just a few. As well, readers will find some bright new stars in the science fiction world like Yukon's Jerome Stueart, or Calgary's Susan Forest - just 2 of the delicious authors featured in this fine offering. All told, Doctorow and Phillips have presented 22 pieces of literary delights to tantalize your imagination, and although you may want to consume the book in one sitting - take your time, and savor each exquisite morsel - delight in every bite. Grab your favorite beverage, settle down, and enjoy the latest in Canada's literary legacy - Tesseracts Eleven

Thirty-five ancient myths and legends, including lesser-known tales from Polynesia, the Americas, the Far East, Europe, and Africa as well as the greatest stories from Greece, are brought together in this far-ranging anthology of the tragedies and triumphs of the ancient world.

A hilarious collection of the many articles written by Stephen Fry for magazines, newspapers and radio. It includes selected wireless essays of Donald Trefusis, the ageing professor of philology brought to life in Fry's novel The Liar , and the best of Fry's weekly column for the Daily Telegraph . Perfect to dip into but just as enjoyable to read cover to cover, this book, perhaps more than any other, shows the breadth of Fry's interests and the depth of his insight. He remains a hilarious writer on whatever topic he puts his mind to.

Tired of the same old fantasy? Here are nineteen much-needed antidotes to clichéd tales of swords and sorcery. Fantasy is back, and it's better than ever!

"One of the funniest books you'll read this year."--Publishers Weekly Love can be messy, painful, and even tragic. When seen through the eyes of Simon Rich it can also be hilarious. In thirty short, sharp, ingenious stories, Rich conjures up some unforgettable romances: An unused prophylactic describes life inside a teenage boy's wallet; God juggles the demands of his needy girlfriend with the looming deadline for earth's creation; and a lovestruck Sherlock Holmes ignores all the clues that his girlfriend's been cheating on him. As enchanting, sweet, and absurd as love itself, these stories are Simon Rich's Valentine to readers, an irresistible collection of delights. All that's missing is the heart-shaped box.

James Salter is one of the finest writers of our time. From his first published story in the Paris Review in 1968, Salter's work in the form has been universally acclaimed: five have appeared in O. Henry collections, Dusk and Other Stories won the 1989 PEN/Faulkner Award, and more recently he was the recipient of PEN USA's 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2010 REA Prize for the short story, and the 2012 PEN/Malamud Award. Each indelible narrative in the Collected Stories is marked by Salter's great literary grace, his ability to show the subtleties of a character or situation with precision, and his equally assured ability to command reversals of fortune or shocking revelations. The stories concern men and women in their most intimate moments, struggling with loss, desire, or the burden of memory. A fallen rider lies in a field, alone but for the knowledge that these may be her last twenty minutes. A man assisting in his wife's suicide is devastated by the aftermath. Two New York attorneys on a trip to Italy discover that their recent wealth affords them the possibility of a higher life, the reality of which is somewhat sordid. A young woman is unable to share a life-changing piece of news with her closest friends. Including his two published collections, Dusk and Other Stories (1988) and Last Night (2005), and the previously uncollected 'Charisma', this volume confirms indisputably that 'James Salter is a master of the great American short story'(The Times).

Babbage Press, 2001. Trade paperback, reprints the 1976 Avon paperback original. Collection of science fiction stories from the author of "The Game of Thrones."

Masterly collection of short stories by an American novelist at the height of her powers. It is the stories upon which Cynthia Ozick's literary reputation rests. She writes about bitterness, cruelty and compulsion with brutal acuity and tenderness. She has created a timeless collection in which Greek mythology, superstition and the religious and cultural experience of the Jewish diaspora in America collide. The Pagan Rabbi is seduced by a tree sprite after seeing his daughter rescued from drowning by a water sprite. Such ecstasy is not permitted to mortals and so the scholar must die. He hangs himself with his prayer shawl as he watches the strangely beautiful nymph decay. In Envy, a Yiddish poet who watches the success of a contemporary, becomes very like a character in an I.B. Singer story entrapped by his anguish and haunted by the memory of a child. In the Doctor's Wife, the most gentle of the stories, a poor doctor not unlike Chekhov endures family life in which he is adored by his three sisters and oppressed by his family obligations. In these stories, we see Ozick defining herself and her literary territory. The stories may be read purely as evocations of Jewish experience, where time seems to have by-passed these characters. In the Butterfly and the Traffic Light, Jerusalem is seen upon a hill as only it can be in legend, and America is said not to have cities scarred by battles. This is a dazzling collection of short stories by an internationally celebrated novelist.

Expresses the author's deep concern with the problems of existence and identity and with the trials of childhood, motherhood, and friendship, and includes art criticism, aphorisms, and more