*The pleasure of your company is requested.* Graceful feet tracing courtly steps. Eyes behind jeweled masks meeting across a room of twirling dancers. Gloved hands touching fleetingly-or gripping swords... Anything can happen at a ball. You are invited to enjoy these stories of fancy and fantasy from thirteen authors, framed in the splendor and elegance of a ballroom. Be it at a house party for diplomats and thieves, or Almacks in a side-universe in which the Patronesses have magic, or a medieval festival just after the plague years ... *Prepare to be swept into the enchantment of the dance *

High comedy, low pratfalls, and thrilling derring-do combine in a magical and fantastic epic about the Ancient and Honorable Kingdom of the Hydrangeans; the mighty, though rather stupid, warrior Gudge; and the mysterious Black Weasel. "Confusion reigns in this often funny, frequently precious fantasy about usurped thrones and lost heirs. After the Gorgorian barbarians conquer the civilized kingdom of Hydrangea, their leader Gudge makes himself king, marries Hydrangean Princess Artemisia and settles down to a highly satisfactory life of drinking and debauchery. Royal triplets, separated at birth because of a Gorgorian superstition that multiple births suggest the mother's infidelity, receive very different upbringings. The only girl, Avena, is brought up in the palace as Prince Arbol, heir to the throne and a fearsome swordsman. One brother, Wulfrith, is raised by a shepherd; although a young ewe is his favorite companion, his size makes him a fearsome battler. The other brother, Dunwin, reared by the outlawed wizard Clootie, develops into a talented magician. To this basic brew Watt-Evans (the Ethshar series) and Freisner (Gnome Man's Land ) have added a couple of dragons, some attempted seductions, mistaken identities and misguided spells to produce a lighthearted fantasy." -- Publishers Weekly "If Robert Bechley and Dorothy Parker had teamed up to write epic fantasy, something like Split Heirs might have resulted."--John deChancie "An excruciatingly funny book."--Susan Shwartz

A move to the country introduces Steven and June Hood to the kitten Foudini and the largest dog anybody has ever seen, two talking animals who are preparing a return visit to the world from which they originally came and decide to take the children with them.

ICU Psychosis Something is very badly wrong in the Hospital ICU where Donna's father is supposedly convalescing. Nurses disappear and never return, necessary treatments are delayed without cause, and she can't get a straight answer out of anyone... except the dead guy who keeps talking to her post-op crazy father.

"I am Orpheus, the maker of songs. Great Apollo came to me often and instructed me in the art of melody so that what came from my lyre could touch the heart even of a stone, and when I went to my mother Calliope in her cave she taught me the secrets of making verses that would hold people entranced the way a magical spell might hold them. And so music has flowed from me all my life as though from an inextinguishable fountain, which is to say that there has been music in the world since the beginning of time and that music will endure to time's end, and beyond it to the moment of beginning again; and so it was that a shaggy-haired Thracian princeling entered into his role in the universe." Gifted with the golden lyre, Orpheus--rumored son of the god Apollo, and yet recognized as the heir of Oeagros, King of Thrace--tells us of the tale of his life as he writes songs throughout the known world. From his role as teacher and spiritual adviser to the Ciconian people, to the profound love and loss of his beloved Eurydice, to his quest with Jason and the Argonauts to claim the Golden Fleece, Orpheus' songs of his life experiences help him sculpt a world that, without his music, would be devoid of the passion and purpose only a muse of his power could provide. Aware of his own fate before he sets out, Orpheus nevertheless continues on the path pre-ordained for him, to discover if knowing your future prevents you from experiencing your present with a sense of wonder and immediacy that can allow Orpheus to connect with the lives around him in order to fulfill his destiny.

Through realms of oriental splender and superhuman conflict, a beautiful woman warrior and a fierce man-god journey to challenge a being more awesome than the gods for a magical sword that holds the power of death . . . and the key to enlightenment. "A sensuous, exotic odyssey through demon-haunted seas of swordplay, sorcery, conflict, and passion . . . " -Robert Silverberg "One of the most beautiful things I've ever read." -Theodore Sturgeon

CAN'T FIND A RATIONAL EXPLANATION TO A MYSTERY? CALL IN THE QUIET COUNCIL. The mysterious and glamorous Lady De Winter is one of their most valuable agents. A despicable murder inside a locked and bolted room on the Rue Morgue in Paris is just the start. This whirlwind adventure will take Milady to the highest and lowest parts of that great city - and cause her to question the very nature of reality itself. File Under : Steampunk [ Alternate History | Reptilian Royalty | Murder Most Foul | The World’s Fair ]

The hilarious Kinky Friedman puts a new twist on the holiday spirit in his inimitably Kinky way in The Christmas Pig. King Jonjo Mayo the First is in a bind. Every Christmas, he commissions an artist to paint a traditional nativity scene to be dramatically revealed after midnight mass. This year, though, the date is mere weeks away, and he still has not yet found his painter. The king decides to take a chance on a peculiar, mute boy whose artistic genius and clairvoyance are rumored throughout the kingdom. He sends three valiant, if begrudging, knights to seek out the boy in the remote countryside. Finally, they find Benjamin—and he is, indeed, peculiar. Nobody knows if the child is up to the task, but the king's Christmas tradition—and Benjamin himself—might just be saved by a Christmas miracle that comes in the form of a very special pig, who is rather peculiar herself.

Ghosts trail after us. They are our fears and the shape of our hates. We bring them into our lives and into our homes. Poltergeists and the spirits of drowned girls; malicious presences and portents; cat vampires and roaming bushrangers. These ghosts haunt Canberra - these ghosts can kill. Lil is elegant and troubled. Ann has just retired and is about to divorce: she sees vistas of nothingness in her future. Mabel is wedded to her garden. Kat is fifteen and has tried hard to drop out of life. It takes these four women, one cup of tea at a time, to face the ghosts and other supernatural beings in Canberra. But can they face down the darkness and keep Canberra's streets clear of danger?

Venture into this alarmingly convincing world, meet the horse whose stubbornness changed history, or the man damned to everlasting love, or the murderer who confessed... and confessed... and confessed. Learn, too the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile, or what really happened to Ambrose Bierce. And ponder, if you can, the case of Simple Simon, who lost the only important thing he had--and never even missed it. Lean back, relax, take a long look at the world of Kersh. You may never recover.

Children have begun traveling the Dreamfield with Alandra, they fall into a life threatening coma, Roan and Lumpy set off to find a cure. Roan's lost sister, Stowe may be the key, but Stowe is obsessed with her growing powers--powers that threaten to overwhelm her.

Miriam Beckstein is a young, hip, business journalist in Boston. She discovered in The Family Trade and The Hidden Family that her family came from an alternate reality, that she was very well-connected, and that her family was too much like the mafia for comfort. She found herself caught in a family trap in The Clan Corporate and betrothed to a brain-damaged prince, and then all hell broke loose. Now, in The Merchants' War , Miriam has escaped to yet another world and remains in hiding from both the Clan and their opponents. There is a nasty shooting war going on in the Gruinmarkt world of the Clan, and we know something that Miriam does not; something that she's really going to hate--if she lives long enough to find out.

A non-binary teenager may be from a small town but they remember at least a dozen past lives; a young trans woman auditions as an anime voice actor while the world is ending; in a future of constant change and transformation, one person is hesitant to undergo the next metamorphosis; a trans man comes back home to discover his parents have added to the household an android that has his deadface installed. Award-winning editor Bogi Takács has assembled a stellar line-up of stories that explore the frontiers of gender--using the imaginative tools of speculative fiction.

La 4e de couverture indique : " The coveted Nebula Awards are the only SF awards bestowed annually by the writers' own demanding peers, the Science-fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Just as the Nebula Awards honor only the finest science fiction and fantasy, the Nebula Awards series showcases the top selections from the ballot -- including work not collected in other best-of-the-year anthologies -- and offers an impressive array of essays written expressly for each volume."

In twelve original stories, Jane Yolen, Mike Resnick, Patricia C. Wrede, Susan Casper, Tanith Lee, and other premiere fantasy authors celebrate the universal magic and unrelenting courage of that most beautiful and beloved of fantasy's creatures--the fascinating, ferocious, and forever free unicorn.

Magic and Columbus clash in the New World. In 1492, as the flames of the Inquisition scorch the soul, and three ships set sail under the Spanish flag, a boatload of nuns transported by an unruly genie discover a new world unlike any other: the magical kingdom of Prestor John.

When Roan's parents and the people of Longlight perish in a raid, Roan is filled with rage. Torn between his desire for revenge and the legacy of peace he has inherited, he is taken in by a sect of warriors. Here he learns he has exceptional talent as a fighter. But Roan is haunted by visions he can't understand. When he commits his first act of violence, he flees in disgust into the most wasted lands of all, the Devastation. It is only when Roan meets the strange girl Alandra that he begins to understand his life's purpose and why the village of Longlight was destroyed. Dennis Foon has created an immensely powerful and disturbing look at a wasted world. Through the character of Roan, hope and the promise of renewed life seem possible.

VISIONS by Richard A. Lupoff is a collection of fantasy and horror short stories selected from decades of writing. The author consistently shows himself to be a master storyteller, and these short stories are fine examples, containing psychic detective tales, stories of Lovecraftian horror, and other fantasy and horror tales.

Fay invented a world of fantasy where she could dwell in happiness. Her friends in this perfect world were Belle and Persa, Enlai and Flor. She visited them on the edge of sleep, shaping their lives to suit herself. "I dream better than other people. More efficiently and effectively," she explained to herself. Her dreams were a flicker away from reality. After Gilbert turns up in her refuge, undesigned, unheralded, and disturbing, Fay's dream world shatters. But are her dreams really dreams, and should she leave her friends behind and live in the real world?

As with the first volume of Transcendent, Lethe Press has worked with a wonderful editor to select the best work of genderqueer stories of the fantastical, stranger, horrific, and weird published the prior year. Featuring stories by Merc Rustad, Jeanne Thornton, Brit Mandelo, and others, this anthology offers time-honored tropes of the genre--from genetic manipulation to zombies, portal fantasy to haunts--but told from a perspective that breaks the rigidity of gender and sexuality. A winner for the Lambda Literary Award for Best Transgender Fiction