• Home
  • Science Fiction & Fantasy

The Best of Jeffrey Ford

These are Jeffrey Ford's personal selections spanning the decades of his career and representing his many styles—genre hybrids, literary approaches to SF/F/H tropes, forays into the New Weird as one of its early practitioners, realist-auto-biographical/fantastic/ horror mash-ups, and straight-on fantasy stories. Ford is at home across the map of speculative fiction but is tied to, and claims allegiance to, no country.If you are looking for a collection in which every story is a window on a new world, this book is for you. Within these pages, you'll visit with the mythic jinmenkins of Japan (dogs with human heads), the great poet of Amherst, Emily Dickinson, the Beautiful Gelreesh, a monster of sympathy, a young man who suffers from a rare form of synaesthesia, Stoodtladdle, the enormous flea mayor of Exo-skeleton town, and Charon, the boatman of Hell. You will travel to strange locales—a bottled city, under the bottom of the lake, the Hotel Lacrimose, and the...
Views: 466

Vlad

Vlad: The Last Confession is a novel about the real man behind the Bram Stoker myth. It tells of the Prince, the warrior, the lover, the torturer, the survivor and, ultimately, the hero.Dracula. A name of horror, depravity and the darkest sensuality. Yet the real Dracula was just as alluring, just as terrifying, his tale not one of a monster but of a man...and a contradiction. His tale is told by those who knew him best. The only woman he ever loved...and whom he has to sacrifice. His closest comrade... and traitor. And his priest, betraying the secrets of the confessional to reveal the mind of the man history would forever remember as The Impaler. This is the story of the man behind the legend ... as it has never been told before."Trust nothing that you've heard."Winter 1431, a son is born to the Prince of Transylvania.His father christened him "Vlad."His people knew him as "The Dragon's Son." His enemies reviled him...
Views: 466

Soul of the City

Dark magical forces are afoot in the eighth entry of the shared-world fantasy series. An ominous black storm from hell rages down on the city of Ranke. Its streets are full of lethal hail, and its walls are coated with ash. As the new Emperor and his mercenary Tempus wonder what can be done to stop it, a shade manifests before them on behalf of the gods with a decree: Travel to the city of Sanctuary and destroy the globes of the Nisibisi power . . . Meanwhile, Sanctuary is riddled with crime, blood feuds, and warring factions. An army of mercenaries is all that stands between the city and chaos. And the witch once known as Death's Queen, Roxane, lives in a hovel by the river. She no longer holds as much power as she once did, but even she can sense that trouble is on its way . . . Brace yourself for adventure in this shared-world anthology featuring six stories by three of fantasy's best authors: Lynn Abbey, Janet Morris, and C. J. Cherryh.
Views: 466

The Cat

Cats sometimes catch mice and bring them home to show off to their owners. What happens when the cat brings back something... bigger? This short story is part of Ian Rogers' s Every House is Haunted, a short fiction collection that explores the border-places between our world and the dark reaches of the supernatural.ChiZine Publications (CZP) curates the best of the bizarre, bringing you the most excitingly weird, subtle, dark, and disturbing literary fiction. Look for more titles in the ChiZine short stories collection to build your digital library.
Views: 466

The Philosophical Strangler

When Greyboar, a professional strangler, discovers the Supreme Philosophy of Life, he becomes a new man--but how can a villain in good standing pay the bills with his philosophical exploration getting in the way? Then Greyboar's long-lost sister asks him to help persecuted dwarves escape their human oppressors.
Views: 466

Prince of Havoc

Trained to be the Inner Sphere's finest warrior, Prince Victor-Steiner Davion has only known one enemy in battle: the Clans. A year earlier he led a massive counter-strike against the Smoke Jaguar Clan, pursuing them all the way to their homeworld. He then faced all of the Clans in one last battle for supremacy. But for a man of war like Prince Victor, can there ever be peace? When he returns home he finds the Inner Sphere in tatters, with a new order in power...leaving him a hero without a home.
Views: 465

When Elves Die : Episode One

“Every single elf will disappear from the face of the earth.” Princess Carella reads this prophecy in the book of Arcanscape and knows that the Dark Queen will stop at nothing to make it come true. Carella travels with a group of missionaries across the land to offer her gift of healing and recruit other elven tribes to help join the war against the Dark Queen.“Every single elf will disappear from the face of the earth.” Princess Carella reads this prophecy in the book of Arcanscape and knows that the Dark Queen will stop at nothing to make it come true. Carella travels with a group of missionaries across the land to offer her gift of healing and recruit other elven tribes to help join the war against the Dark Queen. When Carella and her missionary group go missing, an old barbarian named Kelroar is hired by the village cleric Ricmorn to find them. But the Dark Queen has her own barbarian in the form of Tholan the Feared. Younger and quicker, Tholan readies to take the mantle from Kelroar as the fiercest fighter in the land. Marshaling her forces of Killtooths, a breed of vampire elves, the Dark Queen begins her siege on Carella's village as the two meet head on in a collision between darkness and the light.
Views: 465

Blameless

Quitting her husband's house and moving back in with her horrible family, Lady Maccon becomes the scandal of the London season. Queen Victoria dismisses her from the Shadow Council, and the only person who can explain anything, Lord Akeldama, unexpectedly leaves town. To top it all off, Alexia is attacked by homicidal mechanical ladybugs, indicating, as only ladybugs can, the fact that all of London's vampires are now very much interested in seeing Alexia quite thoroughly dead. While Lord Maccon elects to get progressively more inebriated and Professor Lyall desperately tries to hold the Woolsey werewolf pack together, Alexia flees England for Italy in search of the mysterious Templars. Only they know enough about the preternatural to explain her increasingly inconvenient condition, but they may be worse than the vampires -- and they're armed with pesto. BLAMELESS is the third book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.
Views: 465

Incarnation: Wandering Stars Volume One

In this riveting prequel to the bestselling Awakened series, Jason Tesar sets in motion a sweeping fantasy epic birthed at the very foundations of mankind, when our prehistoric world collided with supernatural forces, spawning an age of mythological creatures and heroes.Since the ages before time was measured, the angelic races have existed. Unseen by our eyes, they move through creation, shaping our world, sustaining our existence, and battling demonic hordes. But the war is changing; the battle lines are expanding into new frontiers and the next epoch is emerging.Centuries after the first humans were exiled from their home, their descendants have pushed eastward into a prehistoric wilderness. In a land shrouded by mist and superstition, primitive tribes struggle to establish new civilizations, unaware that their world is about to change forever.Weary from unceasing conflict, Sariel—legendary warrior of the Eternal Realm—crosses into the Temporal in search of the only one who can bring him peace. But he is not the first; others have already begun their inhabitation. As the dominance of their kingdom spreads, threatening to engulf all of humanity, Sariel finds himself standing between his own kind and the one he loves and must embrace the life he abandoned in order to secure her freedom.
Views: 465

The Shadows

The Dark Realms are taking cover after an angel onslaught from On High. The Antichrist has been injured and the fourth biblical seal has been broken. Yonnie and Val, a strange combination of a daywalker and an angel hybrid, have joined Damali and Carlos's team. And the two new Council-level vamps, Elizabeth Bathory and Lucrezia Borgia, are still in recovery from their last mission. Seething in the underworld is the Unnamed One, so furious that he's bringing the battle topside, unleashing a full-frontal assault on mankind for the offenses committed by the Neteru team. This time, the Guardian team must address serious human casualties and collateral damage while Nuit rebuilds Blood Music from a mere record label into a media brainwashing empire for the Dark Lord.
Views: 465

The Comeback

A novel about ruling high school, being exiled, and fighting your way back to your rightful throne. Sophie Donnelly is one half of the most popular and powerful couple in school, until new girl Angie Vogel shows up and compromises everything. Angie steals Sophie's starring role in the school play, and, worse, her super-popular boyfriend. Sophie has been quickly dispatched to social Siberia, but not for long--she'll do anything it takes to make a triumphant comeback.
Views: 465

The Valiant

Princess. Captive. Gladiator. Fallon is the daughter of a proud Celtic king, the sister of the legendary warrior Sorcha, and the sworn enemy of Julius Caesar. When Fallon was a child, Caesar’s armies invaded her homeland, and her beloved sister was killed in battle. Now, on the eve of her seventeenth birthday, Fallon is eager to follow in her sister’s footsteps and earn her place in the fearsome Cantii war band. She never gets the chance. Fallon is captured and sold to an elite training school for female gladiators—owned by none other than Julius Caesar. In a cruel twist of fate, the man who destroyed Fallon’s family might be her only hope of survival. Now Fallon must overcome vicious rivalries and deadly fights—in and out of the arena. And perhaps the most dangerous threat of all: her forbidden yet irresistible feelings for Cai, a young Roman soldier.
Views: 465

Redshirts

Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is thrilled all the more to be assigned to the ship’s Xenobiology laboratory. Life couldn’t be better…until Andrew begins to pick up on the fact that: (1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces (2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations (3) at least one low-ranked crew member is, sadly, always killed. Not surprisingly, a great deal of energy below decks is expended on avoiding, at all costs, being assigned to an Away Mission. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.
Views: 465

Blood Shadow: Book of Ariel

Blood Shadow: Book of Ariel is the fifth book of the Blood Shadow vampire series. The group has survived the siege of an ages-old vampire only to be swept up in a revenge plot from an unsuspecting source. The House of Hartwell is in chaos until a newcomer swims to the shores of Beach Haven and attempts to balance the scale of supernatural forces.While in high school, Rosalyn had been excited to go on a date with John. While waiting for him to meet her, she had been assaulted. To protect herself from any reminder of that awful day, she walks away from God, her parents, her daughter and her friends. She creates a world that only involves academics. Eventually, she is forced to move to the real world, with real life problems. She gets a job working for a man, who is infatuated with her. This man lives a life enjoined with crime. When a bad man meets a girl running away from the world things get interesting, interesting enough to turn life itself upside down.
Views: 465

The Ribbajack: And Other Haunting Tales

New York Times bestselling author Brian Jacques brings you six spine-tingling tales! What if revenge were a monster of your own creation, and all you needed to summon it were enough hatred and enough imagination? Which of you would really be the monster? From vengeance monsters to haunted schools to the threat of a modern-day Medusa, New York Times bestselling author Brian Jacques spins six all-new tales of horror and suspense. Read on, but be careful. . . .
Views: 465