The fight against the root of all evil requires a master! Despite being a time traveler and literal Renaissance man, Dr. John Dee has adjusted admirably to life on Earth in 2100. But his mercantile genius is once again put to the test when he and his twenty-second-century comrades, Morgan d'Winter and Kelly Edwards, are called upon to protect their world from the machinations of an alien renegade posing as a messiah. When the chips are down, only John Dee can save the past, present, and future from this pretender and his expanding army of human zombies!

"In the third in the "spellbinding" (Seanan McGuire) series from the author of the Calliope Reaper-Jones novels, magic has been loosed upon the world--and the consequences could destroy all of humanity, magical and non-magical alike... Lyse MacAllister used to be like everyone else--blissfully ignorant of magic, of the dire battles being fought in shadows and secrecy. But that was before her great-aunt Eleanora died, leaving her in control of the Echo Park coven; before she found herself in the middle of the witches' clash with the anti-magic zealots known as The Flood; before her blood sisters lost their faith in her. As The Flood begins turning humans across the globe against the witches, Lyse must find a way to regain the trust of her former magical family and once again unify them. Because the final battle between good and evil is looming--and if the witches don't stand together, all of humankind could be lost.."--

An intelligent erotic novel that explores intimacy outside the gender binary. "Underneath all the androgyny and fluctuation, the book's about human connection. Rosenthal's use of sex and gender identities to illustrate how we reach toward and away from relationships is merely a new approach to an old idea: We all need intimacy with others to deepen our understanding of ourselves."- Time Out Chicago. Matt is dating Rye, a willfully free androgynous school teacher. Attracted to Matt's kinkiness and groundedness, Rye develops a taste for his masculinity and their top-bottom dynamic. At a weekend SexxCamp retreat, Matt meets Rain, a charming and snarky twenty-something GenderQueer woman. An unconventional three-way relationship develops, expanding their understanding of polyamory, gender identity, love and connection. "I spent some time devouring Rye and really really enjoyed not only the story and the characters and the death snark, but also the way that Sam tackled the new thing about relationships. It's the same as it ever was, and it's not the same as it ever was. And that melds so beautifully in Rye. Thanks for the good read "- Carol Queen, The Center for Sex and Culture, San Francisco. Read the first few chapters of Rye by clicking on the book cover above, to 'Look Inside.' In Rye, Brooklyn-based musician Sam Rosenthal expands his horizons beyond Black Tape For A Blue Girl, with a novel that takes the reader on a steamy, snarky and erotic walk on the wild side. "Rye is as intellectually stimulating as erotically charged. As for the erotic content, I can't hope to list of all that is covered, toys, BDSM, roleplay, gender fluidity in sex... the list goes on. A sense of realism triumphs; don't expect to read erotica with paper-thin characters you are only meant to overlay with your own fantasies (although if some of the book's scenes push your fantasy buttons in a good way, that's great too ). With fully developed characters who struggle through relationships, gender, and sexuality in an erotic context, Rye, is a unique work; quite the refreshing read " - Marilyn Roxie, genderqueerid.com ryethenovel.com

Claudia Corvette. From her tousled bedroom hair to her name–all the porn stars in this world take their names from supermodels and sports cars–she is adult entertainment's prototypical femme fatale. Her life is the collision of countless troubled–childhood cliches and grown–up wet dreams, projected onto her as surely as her videos project their blue light onto lonely men around the world. From its first panel, How to Make Money Like a Porn Star draws the reader into the dark world of girls like Claudia, the men who fantasize about them, and the monsters who control them. In the hands of Rolling Stone writer Neil Strauss and illustrator Bernard Chang, this adult graphic novel weaves together black humor and blacker reality. Like all great American stories, it features humble beginnings, life–changing tragedy, stripping, abuse, implants, fame, addiction, bigger implants, abduction, gunplay, downfall, and even bigger implants. Not to mention a thousand shades of latex and L'Oreal. Part parody, part morality tale, here is the truth about the porn life, its outsized visual splendor captured in a comic parade of doe–eyed centerfolds, its essence distilled in a story that will haunt every reader who has ever wondered where his next fantasy is coming from.

Meyer Levin was a Chicago-born Jewish author. His best-known book is "Compulsion", which is a novelization of the notorious Loeb and Leopold murder case of 1924. Levin was in a special position to tell the story, because he was personally acquainted with the perpetrators. Levin is also famous for bringing Anne Frank's diary to light. But "The Old Bunch" may be his greatest work. "The Old Bunch" was written in the mid-1930's, and it tells the tales of the kids of a Chicago Jewish ghetto coming of age and stepping out into the world. It's presumably something of a fantasy autobiography, echoing Levin's own adventures -- Levin was born in 1905, and the events in this book take place beginning in the year 1921 (when the "bunch" is graduating from school), and running through to 1934. The book is compelling for its individual stories and for its living window into times past. Because it was written prior to the horrors of WWII, it's a very pure view of the pre-war era. (Anything written later will necessarily be done with hindsight, and will likely de-emphasize "unimportant" details in favor of those that connect to major war events.) But the history is merely a fascinating byproduct of the vivid human stories that fill the pages. "The Old Bunch" is surprisingly unknown today, which is a shame. This really is one of the great novels, in a class with Tolstoy and Steinbeck. It conveys the entirety of the era: The people, the culture, the economics, Chicago politics (very dirty!), with a global perspective as well (some characters travel to Europe and Palestine). It covers the Roaring Twenties, Prohibition, the Great Depression, and the New Deal. To read the book is to live and breathe in these bygone days. Most importantly, Meyer Levin depicts events without agenda or judgment. Characters may be Democrats or Republicans or workers or bosses or religionists or atheists or many other things, but all are portrayed with depth, and none are simple heroes or villains or symbols. These are, in the end, tales about the very personal and individual transitions to adulthood, and the elusive quest for wisdom. It is the same challenge that every generation must face. "The Old Bunch" was critically acclaimed and went through numerous print editions, but it eventually passed into the public domain and was temporarily forgotten. A Wall Street Journal article in 2012 ("Destiny's Children", by Joseph Epstein) sparked a revival of interest, and Rancho Lazarus Publications is proud to present a new edition, accurately rendered and true to the original text, and with the addition of occasional footnotes to clarify details of historical accuracy that the modern reader may not have on tap. With almost 700 pages of text (the original hardback book ran to almost 1000 pages), this is an epic novel. But far from being overlong, it's the sort of reading that leaves you wishing there was more. "Written in good hard-driving colloquial prose, full of sharp characterizations. . . A very fine novel." -- New Republic "A landmark -- vivid and exciting reading. It brilliantly succeeds in taking the reader on a memorable tour of the world in which the old bunch lived." -- The New York Times

"The Apex Book of SF series has proven to be an excellent way to sample the diversity of world SFF and to broaden our understanding of the genre's potentials." --Ken Liu, winner of the Hugo Award and author of "The Grace of Kings" These stories run the gamut from science fiction, to fantasy, to horror. Some are translations (from German, Chinese, French, Spanish, and Swedish), and some were written in English. The authors herein come from Asia and Europe, Africa and Latin America. Their stories are all wondrous and wonderful, and showcase the vitality and diversity that can be found in the field. They are a conversation, by voices that should be heart. And once again, editor Lavie Tidhar and Apex Publications are tremendously grateful for the opportunity to bring them to our readers. Featuring: Amal El-Mohtar Ange Athena Andreadis Benjanun Sriduangkaew Berit Ellingsen Biram Mboob Crystal Koo Fadzilshah Johanabos Karin Tidbeck Ma Boyong Myra Cakan Nelly Geraldine Garcia-Rosas Swapna Kishore Uko Bendi Udo Xia Jia Zulaikha Nurain Mudzor Cover art by Sophia Tuska.

You will not find "'Repent, Harlequin ' Said the Ticktockman" in this book. Nor will you find "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream," "A Boy and His Dog," or "The Deathbird," or any of Harlan Ellison's myriad masterpieces. What will you find herein? The front cover might give you a nasty clue: stories of crime and amorality, of sex and violence. What the cover might not have conveyed was that the award-winning tales enumerated above were forged in an imagination stoked for the preceding decade by the need to trade tales to the pulps and slick men's magazine to make the rent ($7 a week). You hold in your hands the work of a writer painfully crawling forward, tale by tale, honing his craft in an industry where every word counted...of course, you knew all that; you got it from the title. AGAIN, HONORABLE WHOREDOM AT A PENNY A WORD kicks off with "Typewriters & Pipe Lighters," a collection of anecdotes from Ellison recalling the writing of these stories, which span his first full year as a professional writer (1956) to 1968, when he still dashed off the occasional thriller while making his name with the iconic fantasies listed above. A further essay-"Naked Deranged Psycho Thrill-Demon Or, Bitch-Slut Gun-Crazy Homicidal Rat" (1996)-discusses pulp editor W.W. Scott's propensity for re-titling Ellison's works for publication in such publications as Guilty and Trapped. Most of the stories are straight-forward thrillers never-before collected in an Ellison anthology: "Her Name Was Death" (1957), "Thirty Miles to Death Junction" (1957), "The Teaser with a Knife" (1967), "Don't Mind the Maid" (1957), "The Girl in the Red Room" (1964), "Hunchback" (1957), "Goodbye, Eadie" (1956), "The Clean Break" (1956), "Boss of the Big House"(1957), "Drive a Girl to Kill" (1957), "Hell's Holocaust" (1957), "Willie Just Won't Kick Off" (1968), "Mad Dog " (written with Henry Slesar, 1957), "The Women in the House" (1957), "Taxi Dancer"(1967). "The Music of Our Affair"(1963) features the author experimenting with style, to cacophonous effect. "Find One Cuckaboo" (1960) is a never-before reprinted novelette originally included in the paperback anthology THE SAINT MYSTERY LIBRARY, No. 11. "Clobber Me, Moogoo " (1956) and "McManus's Mental Mistress" (1968) exhibit a fantasy-tinged approach to stories of sex. "Only Death Can Stop It" (1960) compelled Harlan to add a disclaimer to the table of the contents. "The Final Push" (1957) is one of the author's three Westerns. While "Saddle Tramp" (collected in HONORABLE WHOREDOM AT A PENNY A WORD) was more tramp than saddle, this story has more in common with "The End of the Time of Leinard" in its evocation of a genre Ellison adores. "Night on the Mug Beat" is a never-before published cop story, appearing herein for the first time. The main body of the collection closes with "The Steep Road to the Gutter" (1965), an overlooked masterpiece of early Ellisonia that the editor is overjoyed to expose to a wider audience. But wait, there's more In preparing AGAIN, HONORABLE WHOREDOM AT A PENNY A WORD for publication, the editor stumbled across a file headed A WOMAN NAMED MIDNIGHT. After confirming that "A Girl Named Poison" (found in the author's 2013 collection PULLING A TRAIN) hadn't changed her name upon reaching maturity, the editor brought the forty-page typescript for an unfinished novel-credited to "Ellis Daye" on the first page, and written while Ellison lived in the treehouse on Bushrod Lane-to its author. Harlan read the story but had no recollection of writing it, nor why it had never been completed and published, but nevertheless gave his blessing for it to make its debut herein.

Jerry Bridges, sitting in the chair opposite his employer's desk, chewed on his knuckles and said nothing. One part of his mind wanted him to play it cagey, to behave the way the newspaper wanted him to behave, to protect the cozy Washington assignment he had waited four years to get. But another part of him, a rebel part, wanted him to stay on the trail of the story he felt sure was about to break. "I didn't mean to make trouble, Mr. Conners," he said casually. "It just seemed strange, all these exchanges of couriers in the past two days. I couldn't help thinking something was up." "Even if that's true, we'll hear about it through the usual channels," Conners frowned. "But getting a senator's secretary drunk to obtain information--well, that's not only indiscreet, Bridges. It's downright dirty."

FIRST EDITION The world's most distinguished author of the literature of the fantastic presents his most extraordinary stories of worlds lost and dreams fulfilled... In his illustrious forty-five year career as a novelist and author of short fiction, Robert Silverberg has belonged in the company of the best writers of the 20th century. His writing has been compared to Conrad, Huxley, and Orwell. In this definitive collection Silverberg presents the novellas that have won him multiple Hugo and Nebula Award nominations, including his Nebula Award winning achievement, "Sailing To Byzantium." Here are the virtuoso performances of the third phase of Silverberg's astounding the Nebula Award nominee "Homefaring"; the Hugo Award nominee "The Secret Sharer"; "Thomas The Proclaimer" and "We Are For The Dark." If you are a lover of Silverberg's work or are simply looking for a place to begin a relationship with the literature of science fiction and fantasy, this is the place to start.

For young Prince Harpirias, the journey into the frozen tundra of remote Majipoor might well have been a death sentence. His mission? To rescue a party of scientists kidnapped by an uncivilized race who dwell beyond Majipoor's borders. He faces blizzards, ice storms, strange beasts, and barbarism, not knowing whether he'll return a hero--or not return at all.

"Mid-level office drone Tony Areal receives an extravagant gift: the Lichtenberg wristwatch he has always coveted. Shortly afterward, he receives an even grander gift: the luxurious--and expensive--Porsche Cayman that has always been the car of his dreams. Accompanying the car is the mysterious Alice, who knows more about Tony's dreams and desires than Tony himself. This encounter opens the door to a rich and unexpected universe: the world behind the world"--Publisher description

Greek myths held that Oceanus to be a massive river surrounding the land. A Titan, son of sky and earth, he was depicted as a handsome, muscular man whose torso ended in a scaled tail. As the Olympians emerged, Oceanus retreated, his domain restricted to strange and dangerous shores, the realm of sailors' fortunes and worries. So, too, are the eleven tales within the pages of The Touch of the Sea: fantastical, at times eerie, with sightings of mermen, water spirits, and sea beasts (even the fabled ''living island,'' the aspidochelone) as well as a smattering of pirates. What makes these stories memorable is that they affirm the masculinity of the sea, the taste of brine on another man's lips. Become mates with such award-winning authors as Joel Lane and Jeff Mann--seasoned storytellers 'Nathan Bourgeoine, Chaz Brenchley, and Alex Jeffers--and a wide array of coxswains: Brandon Cracraft, Jonathan Harper, John Howard, Vincent Kovar, Matthew A. Merendo, Damon Shaw--under the helm of editor Steve Berman.

Otto of Schlepsig is risking his neck as an acrobat in a third-rate circus in the middle of nowhere when news arrives that the land of Shqiperi has invited Prince Halim Eddin to become its new king. Otto doesn't know the prince from Adam, but he does happen to look just like him-a coincidence that inspires Otto with a mad plan to assume Halim's identity and rule in his stead. True, Shqiperi is an uncivilized backwater, but even in uncivilized backwaters kings live better than acrobats. Plus, kingship in Shqiperi comes with a harem. Rank, as they say, has its privileges. With his friend Max, a sword-swallowing giant whose chronic cough makes every performance a potential tonsillectomy, Otto embarks on a rollicking journey filled with feats of derring-do, wondrous magic, and beautiful maidens-well, beautiful women. And that's before he enters a royal world that is truly fantastical.

In thirteenth-century China the Polo brothers--Marco, Niccolo, and Maffeo--request permission from Kublai Khan to return to Venice, but the aging ruler requires that they first bring him a legendary immortal princess

Hugo, Nebula, and Tiptree award–winning author Suzy McKee Charnas offers up her lush stories in this compelling retrospective story collection. In Stagestruck Vampires , the supernatural and the real intertwine seamlessly. A villainous maestro is redeemed by his lovely, apt pupil in “Beauty and the Opera or The Phantom Beast.” Inside the “Unicorn Tapestry,” a psychotherapist stalks a vampire. A dazzling performance of Tosca is marred by a shocking murder during “A Musical Interlude.” This collection features original work by Charnas—the mystical novelette, “Peregrines,” and two original essays. Also included is a collaborative story on vampire themes, “Advocates,” written with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, author of the Saint-Germain Chronicles.

The national bestselling saga of Robert Silverberg's stunning imagination continues in the first new hardcover Majipoor novel in nearly a decade. As a prequel to Silverberg's earlier Majipoor novels. Sorcerers of Majipoor provides a deep, dark vision for the background of the conflict inLord Valentine's Castle and Valentine Pontifex. Treachery and wizardry run rampant under the reign of the mighty Pontifex, as both the rightful and the unworthy heirs to the throne anxiously await his demise. Korsibar, son of the current Coronal, plots with his twin sister and ambitious companions to seize the power of the Coronal when his father ascends to the throne of the Pontifex. But the burdens of the crown and scepter exact more of a price than Korsibar is prepared to pay. His rival fights to take his appointed place as keeper of his beloved Majipoor...and to resbackse order to the utter chaos that has befallen their world.

Luke meets a Missing Person and an Unknown Soldier on the planet where lost things are found.

In a city where the fortune of the planet Oroga are concentrated in the hands of a privileged few, David is stolen as a baby and raised as a thief of the Lower City. When an alien offers David the key to the universe, how long can a master thief resist?

Several of them, in fact. He's the heir to an empire-but he doesn't want to be. And nobody believes that he could or would walk away, and give the job of ruling the kingdom to someone else. In this roller coaster of a sequel to Not Exactly the Three Musketeers , it looks like the stage is set for a major shake-up in the kingdom. Jason's help in keeping everything from blowing up are the self-appointed soldiers of the errant Jason, sent by that wily off-worlder Walter Slovotsky to keep Jason in one piece . . . more or less. There's Kethol, the long and lanky redhead with an easy smile, who's quick with a quip and quicker with a sword; Pirojil, the ugly one, whose looks deceive and whose might and loyalty are worth a kingdom; and the fledgling wizard Erenor, a man who tries to stay two steps ahead of his enemies--as well as one step ahead of his friends. They're all part of the Cullinane retinue, sworn to protect the Cullinane manse and the sometimes-heroic Jason Cullinane and they have their hands full. Because no one likes a vacuum--or one too many contenders for power, Jason's soldiers are going to have to do some fast adventuring to make it all turn out all right. Next in Joel Rosenberg's bestselling Guardians of the Flame series, Not Quite Scaramouche continues the adventures of the journeyman soldiers of Castle Cullinane (and their sometimes ill-fated leader) in all their raucous glory.

Kethol--The pretty fellow, a long and lanky redhead with an easy smile and an easygoing attitude that his clever eyes deny. He is quick with a quick...and quicker with a sword. Durine--The big man, a head taller than most and twice as wide, built like a barrel, with a loyal heart and hands too thick to use anything more delicate than an ax handle. Pirojil--The ugly one, his face heavy-jawed, with an eye ridge that would mark him as a Neanderthal only to the most gracious. But looks deceive, and his might be the rarest gift of all. Athos, Porthos, and Aramis they're not.