A stunning debut!

Ogawa's debut collection of 17 speculative shorts stuns with its delicacy ... Harkening back to the oldest folk and fairy tales and raising pointed questions about how humans value and devalue each other, this is a showstopper. -Publishers Weekly, starred review

Her work is unexpected, often horrific, and always enthralling. Weaving Japanese folklore in with the new, the weird, and science fiction horror elements, Ogawa's body of work is prolific and evergreen. -Thea James, Tor.com

A monster wearing the stolen dress of a deceased mother agrees to help the woman's orphaned son. A girl whose blood can cause hallucinogenic visions makes a daring escape from the merchants who traffic her. In a society where people are prized for their jewel-hued skins-indigo, silver, amber, emerald-one girl endures brutal bruises to shine brightest of all, while another, her eyes sealed inside a featureless helmet, risks death to retrieve colors from the outside world. In the future of that culture, one where androids serve with brimming resentment and artificially altering one's skin color can be a crime, the most ordinary in appearance can prove the best detectives, and the most subtly effective rebels. On a far distant space station, another android encounters a goddess humans forgot.

At pure surface level, these works appear rooted in the fantastical and magical, but as soon as you think you've found your footing and understand where you are, Ogawa warps your perception almost imperceptibly until the world is completely unfamiliar again. -Haralambi Markov, Tor.com

Like Smoke, Like Light, the debut collection of short fiction from Japanese author Yukimi Ogawa, gathers seventeen tales that Locus Magazine has described as constructed in a wild-but still grounded, feeling more like SF than fantasy-fashion. As novelist and poet Francesca Forrest writes in her introduction, Ogawa is a remarkable light in the science fiction and fantasy firmament, who writes unsettling stories that are by turns horrifying and touching. This book give us space and time to think about how we really feel about tricky questions-like what makes a monster and how loving families can be found when one accepts the forms they choose to wear.

Cover art and illustrations by Paula Arwen Owen

Inventive, fantastical, and original; Ogawa transforms mythology, ghost stories, and the tropes of science fiction into fresh, new visions.

-A. C. Wise, Bram Stoker Award-nominated author of The Ghost Sequences

Yukimi Ogawa's first collection reveals her as a superb talent. These unsettling, sometimes harrowing journeys lead always toward grace and strange beauty.

-C. C. Finlay, winner of the World Fantasy Award and author of the Traitor to the Crown series

These luminous stories-playful one minute, tragic the next-feel like the folklore of some alternate reality world. Often, they explore themes of how our identity is linked with our physicality ... how others perceive us, and the ways in which that outside perception affects how we perceive ourselves. Yukimi Ogawa's tales are as enchanting, heartbreaking, and gorgeous as the characters they revolve around.

-Jeffrey Thomas, author of Punktown and The Unnamed Country

2024 Locus Magazine Recommended Reading List, Best Story Collection

Nerve-racking anticipation and dread. -Kirkus Reviews

Will appeal to horror fans seeking something fresh. -Publishers Weekly

Mythical, chilling, and visceral . . . a slow burn readers will crave to simmer in.

-Ai Jiang, Bram Stoker and Nebula award-winning author of Linghun

Slow Burn is a multifaceted, multifarious feast for the horror-hungry.

-Matthew M. Bartlett, author of Gateways to Abomination and Where Night Cowers

By turns gorgeous, horrifying, gruesome, furious, darkly erotic, wickedly funny, and frequently all of those things at once, this extraordinary collection never shies away from pushing the reader's boundaries. Allen masterfully succeeds in being transgressive in all the best and most beautiful ways. I adore this book.

-Sunny Moraine, author of Your Shadow Half Remains

The search for a missing grandson unearths a pit of unholy hunger. A war between flesh-stealing supernatural entities will subject an entire city to devastating mayhem. In a harrowing future world, a slave is charged by his terrifying master with building a creature in its likeness. The voyage of a plague ship won't end at mere death. Parasites are partners and lovers, and the immortal soul is but a single stage in the complex life cycle of a symbiote.

Slow Burn gathers fourteen stories of horror and thirteen macabre poems by two-time World Fantasy Award finalist Mike Allen, author of the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated collections Unseaming and Aftermath of an Industrial Accident. Allen's works are exquisite and vivid, his worlds rich with brilliant detail, says three-time Bram Stoker Award(R) winner Christina Sng in her introduction. The images he paints with words are terrifying and mesmerizing, keeping you enthralled and unable to look away.

These tales and verses, set in worlds of fantasy and sorcery, in twisted, surreal futures, and in hard-boiled modern milieus . . . all find ways to explore the abyssal darkness of the human heart.

With cover art by Lasse Paldanius and illustrations by Paula Arwen Owen

Consuming horror that is not for the squeamish!

-Lee Murray, five-time Bram Stoker Award(R)-winning author of Grotesque: Monster Stories

Slow Burn is a collection of gems.

-Premee Mohamed, author of Beneath the Rising

The year is 2047. An extinction-level asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, and the descendants of ancient Atlantis have returned from the stars in their silver ships to offer humanity help.

But there's a catch.

They can only take a tiny percent of the Earth's population back to the colony planet Atlantis. And in order to be chosen, you must be a teen, you must be bright, talented, and athletic, and you must Qualify.

Sixteen-year-old Gwenevere Lark is determined not only to Qualify but to rescue her entire family.

Because there's a loophole.

If you are good enough to Qualify, you are eligible to compete in the brutal games of the Atlantis Grail, which grants all winners the laurels, high tech luxuries, and full privileges of Atlantis Citizenship. And if you are in the Top Ten, then all your wildest wishes are granted... Such as curing your mother's cancer.

There is only one problem.

Gwen Lark is known as a klutz and a nerd. While she's a hotshot in classics, history, science, and languages, the closest she's come to sports is a backyard pool and a skateboard.

This time she is in over her head, and in for a fight of her life, against impossible odds and world-class competition-including Logan Sangre, the most amazing guy in her school, the one she's been crushing on, and who doesn't seem to know she exists.

Because every other teen on Earth has the same idea.

You Qualify or you die.

With fiction from C.S.E Cooney, Jessica P. Wick, Amanda J. McGee, and Mike Allen, Mythic Delirium's excellent new anthology, A Sinister Quartet, provides further evidence that long-form genre fiction is not just alive and well but thriving.

-Locus, Ian Mond

Mythic Delirium is one of the smaller presses which sustains our field . . . This is lovely and fascinating . . . Really fine work.

-Locus, Rich Horton

Easily one of the best things I've read this year . . . 'The Twice Drowned Saint' alone is worth five times the cost of the collection.

-The Little Red Reviewer

Behind the walls of an invulnerable city ruled by angels, old movies provide balm for the soul and a plan to escape risks grisly retribution. A princess discovers a passage to a nightmarish world of deception and blood-sealed enchantment. A woman who has lost everything meets a man of great wealth and ominous secrets. In a town haunted by tragedy, malevolent supernatural entities converge, and the conflict that ensues unleashes chaos.

A Sinister Quartet gathers original long-form wonders and horrors composed in unusual keys, with a short novel by World Fantasy Award winner C. S. E. Cooney and a new novella from two-time World Fantasy Award finalist Mike Allen joined by debut novellas from rising talents Amanda J. McGee and Jessica P. Wick. All four offer immersions into strange, beautiful and frightening milieus.

A gripping new fantasy novel set in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover universe.

Darkover, a Lost Colony far out on the galactic rim, a world of telepaths, nonhumans, and warlords ... a world about to discover the terrible destructive power of weapons of the mind ...

Traumatized by psychic warfare as a child, a young woman with extraordinary psychic talents negotiates a treacherous path, risking unforeseen dangers to create a haven where she and others can use their skills for good.

In Darkover's dim past, before the tumultuous Ages of Chaos, small kingdoms still vied for power with sword and spear. But with the rise of psychic abilities called laran, unscrupulous leaders turned to half-trained sorcerers for an advantage. One such struggle arose between the realms of Hastur and its ambitious neighbor, Carcosse.

Leora Hastur is still a child when her laran awakens, and the resulting crisis almost claims her life. Her beloved older sister, Neave, and her father's small circle of telepathic workers manage to save her, but nothing can shield her from the horrors of the impending war. Leora's younger sister perishes in the firestorm of laran-fueled destruction when Lord Carcosse and his sorcerer attack their home. Scarred and deeply traumatized, Leora is sent to a faraway Tower for healing. In the process, she grows to womanhood and develops her extraordinary Gifts, wanting nothing more than to live and work among fellow telepaths.

But war is brewing once more ...

To prevent another catastrophe, Lord Hastur brokers an alliance, with marriage to Leora as part of the treaty. Rather than see others suffer as she has, Leora reluctantly agrees. As she and Neave travel to the wedding, one calamity follows another, from a flash flood to an attack by nonhuman catmen ... and capture by ruthless Dry Towns slavers. To save her sister and their fellow captives, Leora must call forth a previously unknown Gift and summon the gods themselves to her cause.

Arilinn is the new, long-awaited adventure in the beloved Darkover series. It's perfect for both devoted fans and those new to the world of the Bloody Sun.

With Earth about to be destroyed by an extinction level asteroid, teenage nerd, geek, and awkward smart girl Gwen Lark, and a few of her friends and loved ones, barely Qualified for rescue onboard one of the thousands of ark-ships headed to the ancient colony planet Atlantis.

Now faced with a year-long journey in space, life in a wondrously alien environment, and many tough life choices, Gwen must decide who or what she will become. Fleet Cadet or Civilian? Friend or lover? Average or extraordinary?

Can she make new friends? Can she trust the old ones, such as Logan Sangre, her sexy high school crush and an Earth special operative?

Time and time again, Gwen's uncanny ability to come up with the best answer in a crisis saves her life and others. And now, her unique Logos voice makes her an extremely valuable commodity to the Atlanteans -- so much so that her enigmatic commanding officer Aeson Kassiopei, who is also the Imperial Prince of Atlantis, has taken an increasingly personal interest in her.

Before the end of the journey, Gwen must convince him that she has what it takes to compete in the deadly Games of the Atlantis Grail.

It's becoming apparent -- the life of her family and all of Earth depends on it.

COMPETE is the second book in The Atlantis Grail series.

Little Sister tells us the story of her brother Laddie, and the whole family is glimpsed through her loving eyes.

A classic uplifting tale of self-discovery for all ages.

A Spicy Alien Honeymoon Travelogue of Atlantis!

Fans of The Atlantis Grail have asked for a spicy story of Gwen and Aeson's honeymoon in all its glorious detail, and here it is....

Amrevet Days is the Atlantean equivalent of a honeymoon, but taken approximately eight months after the wedding. By custom, the newlyweds must escape to a secret location to enjoy each other.

Now that Gwen is the Imperatris, married to the stunningly handsome Imperator of the most powerful nation on Atlantis, they have the entire planet at their disposal.

Come along with the happy couple and experience the joys of physical love on board a luxury flying ship, as they visit the remarkable sites of the planet, explore mysterious ancient landmarks, and learn more about one another. In addition, discover fun revelations and secrets about other favorite characters in The Atlantis Grail universe and what is yet to come.

The Atlantis Grail is a YA series, but this novel stands outside the sequence, due to its 18+ subject matter, and is only suitable for older audiences.

Note: it is strongly recommended that you read Amrevet Days One only after you've read the four books in the original series (Qualify, Compete, Win, Survive), or you'll miss out on all the delicious slow-burn buildup of their relationship!

AMREVET DAYS ONE is the first volume of a spicy alien honeymoon travelogue of Atlantis.

Terran child psychologist Bryn Haslund has her hands full, treating youngsters from war-torn planets. Arthur Nagy, the brutal dictator of the interplanetary Star Alliance, ruthlessly suppresses dissent, launching increasingly devastating military campaigns. Once idyllic worlds are embargoed or bombed into ashes, and Nagy's StarOps secret police lurk everywhere. Bryn has tried to stay out of politics, leaving that to her charismatic statesman father, Ernst, the only one with the stature to stand up to Nagy.

Despite her efforts to remain neutral, Bryn gets caught in the crackdown of a protest-turned-riot and only her status as her father's daughter keeps her out of jail. Ernst makes a speech in which he is expected to condemn the violence but instead, he issues his whole-hearted support for Nagy's policies and then goes missing under mysterious circumstances.

With the Alliance's secret police hot on her heels, Bryn locates her father in the research labs of Alpha. Here she discovers that Nagy's scientists have implanted a mechanical mind-control device in Ernst's brain. In her search to disable the device, she finds the records of a remote, almost-forgotten planet where psychic powers have been developed to an extraordinary degree...Cottman IV, known as Darkover. In the desperate hope that Darkover's powerful natural telepaths can free her father's mind, Bryn and her father arrange transport on a smuggler's ship. Powerful winds knock their shuttle off course when they try to land on Darkover, and send it spinning out of control. Bryn cries out for help...

...and someone answers her telepathic plea.

The shuttle crashes in the rugged, glaciated Hellers mountain range. Here Bryn and her father must contend with new dangers, from ice avalanches to blood-thirsty bandits to gigantic carnivorous birds. Moreover, this new world has a complicated, often contentious history with Terra. When the Terrans rediscovered Darkover after millennia of isolation, the aristocratic Comyn struggled to maintain their unique culture. Using their extraordinary psychic abilities called laran, they forced the Terrans to honor Darkover's independence. The vicious interstellar wars waged by Star Alliance eventually forced the Terrans to withdraw. So far, Darkover's leaders have managed to avoid becoming a battleground for a larger conflict but now Bryn's quest threatens to break that precarious isolation.

To make matters worse, the mind-control device seems to be tightening its hold over Ernst, the Darkovans have their own agenda, and Bryn's newly awakened psychic powers might turn out to be lethal.

Can Bryn convince Darkover's telepaths to help, when they are already deeply suspicious of Terrans and would rather remain hidden? What are these strange new psychic powers she's developing? And can she restore her father's free will and bring down Nagy's despotic rule before the Alliance enforcers catch up with them?

The Laran Gambit is the new, long-awaited adventure in the beloved Darkover series. It's perfect for both devoted fans and those new to the world of the Bloody Sun.

The End is Here, in a Fiery Cosmic Apocalypse

It's one thing to Qualify, Compete, and Win...
The time has come to Survive.

The Games of the Atlantis Grail have come to a ground-shaking halt and Gwen Lark, nerd, geek, and awkward smart girl, survived the remarkable ordeal, for the time being.

But the worst is yet to come

Now, both the colony planet Atlantis and Earth are under a threat of annihilation, and everything is up in the air, including dire and stunning wonders in the Atlantean skies.

Will there be a Wedding? Will there be a future for Gwen Lark, her beloved, and all their families, friends, and loved ones?

Is Gwen's rare and powerful talent, the Logos voice of creation, enough to resolve the greatest mystery of the Kassiopei Imperial Dynasty and its role in the events of deepest antiquity since the dawn of time?

The fate of the entire human species is at stake, and now there can be no respite, not a moment to lose. The final battle is here, and Gwen, and everyone she knows and loves, are in for the greatest fight of their lives.

It is time to survive.

SURVIVE is the fourth and final book in The Atlantis Grail series, now an international cross-genre phenomenon, optioned for film.

The Games are Forever

It's one thing to Qualify and Compete...
Now she must Win.

Gwen Lark, nerd, geek, and awkward smart girl, is among the lucky ones. She's one of several million teenage refugees to escape the extinction-level asteroid barreling towards Earth and reach the ancient colony planet of Atlantis.

But Atlantis is a strange new world with higher gravity and a blazing white sun, where nothing is as expected. The new arrivals from Earth will now belong to the majority class of non-citizens who face a lifetime of hard work and limited rights.

To make matters worse, Gwen's rare and powerful talent, her Logos voice, is viewed as a potential weapon to be exploited by the Imperator, as well as a threat to the Kassiopei Imperial Dynasty and its uncompromising control over the people of Atlantis.

A last-minute heartbreak prior to arrival turns to joy, when Gwen receives a declaration of love from an unexpected source. The Wedding date is set, but before she can be joined with her true love, she is forced to compete in the brutal and deadly Games of the Atlantis Grail to save herself, her family, friends, and everything she cares about. Once again, her intelligence, quick thinking skills, resilience, and creativity are challenged to the breaking point.

The Games are monumental, intricate, lethal . . . and the Games are Forever.

This time Gwen must fight and figure her way through the most difficult and sophisticated contest she has ever faced. Terrifying Ordeals and impossible Challenges, ruthless skilled Competitors, vicious secret assassins, and dubious teammates she must work with but cannot trust, are just the beginning. . . .

Meanwhile, as the Games rage, the fate of two worlds is at stake as a new alien threat looms over Earth and Atlantis.

But Gwen Lark has a secret weapon of her own. It's not her Logos voice and its untapped power to control orichalcum technology and perpetuate change.

It is Gwen herself.

WIN is the third book in The Atlantis Grail series.

The year is 2047. An extinction-level asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, and the descendants of ancient Atlantis have returned from the stars in their silver ships to offer humanity help.

But there's a catch.

They can only take a tiny percent of the Earth's population back to the colony planet Atlantis. And in order to be chosen, you must be a teen, you must be bright, talented, and athletic, and you must Qualify.

Sixteen-year-old Gwenevere Lark is determined not only to Qualify but to rescue her entire family.

Because there's a loophole.

If you are good enough to Qualify, you are eligible to compete in the brutal games of the Atlantis Grail, which grants all winners the laurels, high tech luxuries, and full privileges of Atlantis Citizenship. And if you are in the Top Ten, then all your wildest wishes are granted... Such as curing your mother's cancer.

There is only one problem.

Gwen Lark is known as a klutz and a nerd. While she's a hotshot in classics, history, science, and languages, the closest she's come to sports is a backyard pool and a skateboard.

This time she is in over her head, and in for a fight of her life, against impossible odds and world-class competition-including Logan Sangre, the most amazing guy in her school, the one she's been crushing on, and who doesn't seem to know she exists.

Because every other teen on Earth has the same idea.

You Qualify or you die.

What could have been a typically charming and heartfelt story of personal discovery, loves and relationships by the beloved naturalist author is unfortunately marred by the strongly pronounced racist and anti-immigrant mindset of the heroine and several other characters. It must be pointed out that the racial prejudice portrayed here is typical of its time and must be viewed in a socio-historical context. Nevertheless, it is something the modern reader will find offensive.

Despite the controversial nature of the material, the novel is an interesting, albeit disturbing study, both for students of the period and fans of the author.

This edition includes introductory biographical material on the life and work of beloved Indiana author and naturalist Gene Stratton Porter.

From heartbreaking character studies to exercises in Grand Guignol excess, from scalpel-sharp poetry to sledgehammers of blood-soaked prose, Mike Allen displays not only his own considerable range, but the range of the horror genre as well. Aftermath of an Industrial Accident will surprise and delight you at every turn.-Nathan Ballingrud, author of Wounds

Allen overflows the tank with nightmare fuel in this collection of 23 stories and poems that showcase his ability to find the monstrous in almost any setting . . . the collection dances through hauntings, carnage, body horror, and psychological chills . . . Readers will be impressed by the variety, intensity, and skilled craftsmanship Allen brings to this collection. These horror shorts are sure to linger in the dark corners of readers' minds.-Publishers Weekly, starred review

An incredible read. This collection of horror and dark fantasy poetry and short fiction needs to be on the shelf of any horror reader.
-Cemetery Dance

Allen weds the brute visceral punch of early Clive Barker with the demented whimsy of darker Neil Gaiman.-Craig Laurance Gidney, author of A Spectral Hue

Each tale in Aftermath of an Industrial Accidentpacks a punch that will keep you willingly pinned to the wall.-Christina Sng, author of A Collection of Nightmares

Mike Allen habitually upends Lovecraftian tropes with his own brand of cosmic horror.-Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase

A Korean War veteran must rely on wits, improvised weapons, and words from the dread Necronomicon to escape the lair of a deranged cult. A ghost cannot communicate how she died, no matter how desperately she tries, while an unconventional ghost hunter incurs the venomous wrath of the Queen of Night. Murderous conspiracies reveal themselves in online video clips, a saint blasphemes as a serial killer prays for mercy, and corrupt families in ancient kingdoms trade blood and souls for leverage over foes. Enduring nightmares for a living can lead to a fate worse than burnout. A gruesome invasion from outside space and time tests courage-and corporate loyalty-past all rational limits.

In these twenty-three stories and poems, two-time World Fantasy Award nominee Mike Allen spins twisted narratives, some wound through the fabric of our world, some set in imagined pasts or futures, all plumbing the depths of human darkness. The consistency, here, is simply excellence, writes Bram Stoker Award finalist and Punktown creator Jeffrey Thomas in his introduction. You are holding in your hands an overflowing cornucopia of monstrous goodness.

Allen demonstrates again and again his masterful ability to infuse cosmic, existential terror into the most intimate, and mundane aspects of our lives, while never failing to point out the self-made horror already there: from his introductory piece that credits Poe as a conjurer of inescapable, psychic horror and a muse-sinister for Allen, to the title story that force-marches the reader through rising terror, like a tea kettle screaming, for which there is no escape, no sanctuary, even within your own mind.-R. S. Belcher, author of The Brotherhood of the Wheel

Allen deftly imbues each world visited with its own own special kind of dread.-A .C. Wise, author of Catfish Lullaby

Cover art by Danielle Tunstall