One day, while playing in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, David and Leilah are thrilled to discover a real wizard living behind the little black door in Washington Square Arch. Alas, he is only a second-class wizard, he tells them, and sometimes he has trouble with his spells. So when the Wizard accidentally turns David's Scottish terrier, D. Dog, into a statue and the statue is stolen by Mr. Pickwell, a nasty antiques dealer, it's up to David and Leilah to get D. Dog back--before Mr. Pickwell sells him!

"It was totally impossible for Cliaand to wage interstellar war...but the crazy little planet was winning, whatever the odds. And there wasn't much the peaceful galaxy could do...." 196 pages

Bantam Books issued this paperback edition in 1977. This satirical science fiction novel was first published in 1955. Whereas in the authors' earlier novel "The Space Merchants" the world was ruled by advertising agencies, in this novel corporate lawyers have gained a stranglehold on the world.

Best known as the author of "Psycho", Robert Bloch is world-renowned for his stories of horror, mystery, fantasy, and science fiction. Many of the 25 stories in this first volume of "The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch" have been unavailable for decades. The stories are in his classic style of gripping suspense, science fiction and fantasy. As Bloch writes, "These stories in this collection have a common theme; they deal with monsters. Some of the monsters are human, some are not-- but all of them embody, in one way or another, the fears common to us in our dreams. We call these monsters by many names-- ghosts, vampires, extraterrestrials, changelings. But we recognize them for what they are; manifestations of the secret dreads and desires which lurk beneath the surface of consciousness." "Bloch has become a virtual fixture on the popular culture landscape." --Publishers Weekly "If you're not familiar with Bloch's short fiction, find someone to borrow this from; if you already are familiar, you know that you want to own these volumes." --Locus

Lacking health insurance and diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2011, Speakman beat the disease as well as the massive medical debt he amassed from its treatment. He did this by publishing Unfettered, an anthology featuring short stories donated by some of the best science fiction and fantasy writers working today. The fight will not stop there. In an effort to pay forward the aid he received--and to memorialize his mother who passed away from stomach cancer in early 2016--Speakman has again collaborated with celebrated genre authors to publish Unfettered II. All proceeds from the anthology will either help eliminate medical debt for other authors or be donated to cancer research hubs around the world. Twenty original new tales comprise this amazing collection and, as the title suggests, the writers were again free to contribute whatever they wished. With the help of New York Times bestselling authors as well as talented newcomers, Speakman has taken the platform Unfettered created to not only confront medical debt but to support the battle against one of our gravest illnesses. Unfettered II is a fantastic sequel anthology but it is more than that; it is proof that we are stronger together than we are apart. After all, isn't that what genre fiction is all about?

"A moving, thoughtful feminist novel set in a gritty and believable dystopian future."-- Kirkus Reviews In Book One of the Holdfast Chronicles, Aldera the Messenger, along with all other women, is a slave. In Book Two, Aldera the Runner lives in two worlds, both consisting entirely of women. Now In Book Three, The Furies, Aldera the Conqueror leads an army back over the mountains, hoping to end the tyranny and free the salves she left behind.

A Nebula-nominated classic by a Grandmaster of Science Fiction, Robert Silverberg, The Masks of Time tells the story of Vornan-19...a naked man who suddenly appears on the Spanish Stairs. *** Vornon-19 claims to have come from the far future and has access to technological marvels that support his claim. But is he really what he claims to be? *** Leo Garfield and his fellow scientists must unravel the truth about Vornon-19, but are they up to the job, or will they too fall under his magic-like spell, just like the rest of the world who is ready to worship a new kind of a messiah?

In the classic noir tradition of "Have Gun, Will Travel," Rachel Pollack--one of the world's foremost authorities on the Tarot--gives us the tale of Jack Shade, an occult shaman for hire. Jack Shade has a secret, and this hidden part of his past sends him on a journey through time and space and a great number of metaphysical doorways. From the cosy poker table in the eleventh floor apartment of the Hotel de Reve Noire to the ethereal Forest of Souls to the faded houses along the Gold River, Jack flows in and out of this world. Even when his own duplicate hires him to kill himself, Jack is mercury in motion. Jack the Nimble. Jack the Quick. The Fissure King: A Novel in Fire Stories collects the four existing Jack Shades novellas and shows us Jack's final trick--one last story that finally reveals Jack's true nature. Only Rachel Pollack, one of the world's greatest authorities of tarot and an award-winning novelist and comic book writer, could dream of someone as mischievous and mythopoeic as Jack Shade. The King is dead. Long live the King.

Welcome to a society governed through computer games! On New Earth, society is governed and conflicts are resolved in the arena of a fantasy computer game, Epic. If you win, you have the chance to fulfill your dreams; if you lose, your life both in and out of the game is worth nothing. When teenage Erik dares to subvert the rules of Epic, he and his friends must face the Committee. If Erik and his friends win, they may have the key to destroying the Committeeas tyranny. But if they lose . . .

Ballantine Books, mass market paperback. One of several printings. First published in 1956, this is the author's second collection of science fiction tales. Collects eight stories: Project Hush (1954); The Discovery of Morniel Mathaway (1955); Wednesday's Child (1956); The Servant Problem (1955); Party of the Two Parts (1954); The Flat-Eyed Monster (1955); The Human Angle (1948); A Man of Family (1956).

The eighth in a series of superb science fiction. The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality and importance to the science fiction genre. Here is another set of the best stories, stories which were ahead of their epoch when they were new, which display a freshness and vigor that make them almost indistinguishable from the best of today's s-f, and which set the standard by which modern writers have guided their careers. A DUSK OF IDOLS: Not only are the gods cruel, but they can make you like it. THE HUMAN OPERATORS: The great ships possess unlimited cruising range--and unbounded ferocity. WARM: It's just a simple guessing game: to be? or not to be? KLYSTERMAN'S SILENT VIOLIN: Powerful weapons are a fine thing--but you wouldn't want your lover to marry one. THE NEW REALITY: It's amazing how much destruction you can wreak with a few simple tools--if you put your mind to it. These and six other tales of the highest quality--the most amazing conviction

The seventh in a series of superb science fiction. The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality and importance to the science fiction genre. Since its inception in 1970, the Alpha series has been dedicated to the proposition that science fiction can be a literature not only of stimulating and unfamiliar ideas but also of skilful and vigorous writing. Thus far Alpha has offered sixty-odd stories that exemplify the best of science fiction: challenging, provocative views of the universe, presented in crisp, sparkling prose. The volumes in the series offer some of the liveliest work produced in the short-story form anywhere in the world, and not just of the science-fiction category. Alpha serves a secondary purpose: to rescue from oblivion stories that might otherwise be undeservedly forgotten. Herewith, the seventh feast of outstanding fiction.

The sixth in a series of superb science fiction. The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality. More of the same, the mixture as before--so Silverberg is tempted to describe this sixth Alpha collection. Not unfair phrases, either, for, like its five predecessors, Alpha Six is a volume of science-fiction stories that have no thematic links, that are held together only by their literary excellence and stimulating science-fictional content. As before, Alpha owes no allegiance to any single literary "school" within the faction-ridden science-fiction cosmos: it hews to a solidly middle-of-the-road line, seeking strong narrative drive and avoiding the excesses of the zap-zap ray-gun school on the one hand and the evanescently precious avant-garde on the other. As always, Silverberg's selection of stories represent the best across a four-dimensional slice of science-fiction publishing.

The second in a series of superb science fiction. The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality. Two criteria were used in the selecting of these stories—literary merit and importance to the genre. The result is that the variety of subjects is matched only by the richness and diversity of their handling—brilliant, frightening, clever, bizarre, powerful, witty, funny—and several steps in-between. Whatever else these stories may be doing, they all explore the interplay between human beings and the technological society man has created for himself. Good science fiction simultaneously peers into remote realms of space and time and holds a mirror to the contemporary moment; and if the reflection in that mirror is somewhat distorted, so be it. Blame not the messenger for bearing bad tidings. Herewith ten stories which demonstrate the unsettling kinds of insights that science fiction alone can offer. More are on the way. The nine volumes of this series provide an exciting cumulative view of a field in which some of the most vigorous and inventive fiction of our times has been produced. Simply put, here is the best science fiction from the best science fiction writers.

The first in a series of superb science fiction. Alpha is, aside from the first letter of the Greek alphabet, a term that denotes excellence and primacy in a variety of disciplines: in nuclear physics, for example, it is the name of a particle of unusually large mass and charge. It seemed a useful label to attach to this volume, the first of an intended series of collections of science fiction stories. The Alpha series of anthologies will center on no particular theme except that of literary quality. The presence in any one volume of a cluster of stories bearing other thematic resemblance-as in this volume, where there are four or five time-travel stories-will be purely coincidental. I propose to cull the files of the science fiction magazines for stories that an educated and sophisticated reader will find stimulating, and to assemble them in books of roughly equal size that will appear once a year over the next few years. Some of the stories will be fifteen or twenty years old and richly in need of restoration to print. Others will be quite recent: the literary level of the science fiction short story has undergone an extraordinary transformation in the past few years, a fact that demands recognition here. Appropriately enough, this first volume of the ALPHA series covers a roster of writers from A to Z. Specifically, Aldiss to Zelazny-although this coincidence in alphabet is merely incidental to the fact that both these gentlemen, and the several others represented in this anthology, all write superb science fiction. Two criteria were used in the selecting of these stories-literary merit and importance to the genre. The result is that the variety of subjects is matched only by the richness and diversity of their handling-brilliant, frightening, clever, bizarre, powerful, witty, funny-and several steps in-between. So much for policy. The nine volumes of this series provide an exciting cumulative view of a field in which some of the most vigorous and inventive fiction of our times has been produced. Simply put, here is the best science fiction from the best science fiction writers.

The Journey of Joenes, also published as Journey Beyond Tomorrow, tells the tale of a picaresque journey through an imagined future taken by a naive and innocent man unprepared for the wonders and oddities he encounters. Sheckley examines the present through the distorting lens of a future wonderfully skewed from and yet darkly, hilariously, similar to our own world.

A messianic tale about a group of professional mourners—a darkly funny novel of grief, mystery and redemption from the author of The Delivery . Ed is a weeper. A professional weeper. He's a card-carrying member of an eccentric union hired to cry at funerals, wakes, services and burials. It’s an odd job, but his services are sorely needed these days, as the town, the region, the country as a whole has become more or less numb. No one is able to summon a shred of human emotion whatsoever. Not anymore. (What’d be the point? The world’s already gone to hell.) So there’s always work for Ed and his colleagues. But all those cries can wear a man down, and the tears don’t flow quite like they used to, even for a consummate pro like Ed. Then one morning, a stranger comes to town. A scrawny kid with no belongings, no parents, no name, no past. And at precisely the moment of his arrival, people begin to experience something new. Something strange. An onslaught of unbidden feelings, unfamiliar feelings, too many feelings A surrealist story of mourning and messiahs, deserts and droughts, cowboys and junkies, miracles and mass hysteria, the lure of despair and the solace of friendship. Peter Mendelsund’s Weepers is a novel for this age: our age of anesthesia and anger.

The author and the illustrator of THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH--together again! This is the story of a really rotten Ogre who is extraordinarily large, exceedingly ugly, unusually angry, constantly hungry, and absolutely merciless. He terrorizes the entire countryside and all the surrounding towns, wreaking havoc, sowing confusion, and dining happily on the hapless citizens. Nothing can stop him. But then he takes a wrong turn and encounters a kind and friendly young lady who does her best to help him--with a surprising result.

In Union Grove, early spring is a challenging season, known as the "six weeks want," a time when fresh food is scarce and the winter stores are dwindling. The town is struggling in particular this year as the Hudson River trade route to Albany has been halted by the local plantation tycoon Stephen Bullock, who has deemed it too resource-intensive and is now striving for self-sufficiency. Meanwhile, after returning from his travels around what is left of the United States, Daniel Earle is intent on resurrecting a newspaper for the community, and finds an interesting story to cover when representatives of a group of anti-establishment, hyper-liberals known as the Berkshire People's Republic arrive in the town.

After saving the world, diGriz is called on to save the universe. Liberating his two, now teenage, twin' sons from a military boarding school and penitentiary, diGriz sets out to free his wife, who has been arrested by the tax men. But the family is soon fighting an enemy of a different sort, when the humans-only galaxy of the League is invaded by all manner of hideous aliens. The Rat, disguised in the most hideous combination of alien physical features, is sent into the centre of the aliens' stronghold, where he finds himself the object of desire among the aliens. His task is to stop the aliens, who plan to wipe out every human in the universe.