If drinking mercury from a thermometer didn't kill him, maybe spray painting in an unventilated garage would. Or so Nolan's father thought. One inspired yet failed suicide attempt after another, each with a note to his son--with only a hint of accusation.

But as Nolan sits in an empty office building, the last customer service employee for a nearly obsolete video game, those many suicide notes come back to haunt him. As do the levels of the game that no one plays anymore. And now a homicide detective is on the phone.

Maybe his father was right when he wrote that he was teaching Nolan not to give up, that the only way to understand what happened was to make it to the end of the game. But there's no cheatcode that's going to get Nolan through this . . .

Two unreliable narrators, a bunch of suicide letters, and a plot that collapses on itself just like the characters do--Stephen Graham Jones is our contemporary Jorge Luis Borges. --Michael Kimball, author of Big Ray

Like Lethem and Murakami before him, Jones mines his genre fiction past to bring us a work of startling literary merit. Mystery, horror, sci-fi: the ingredients are all in there. --David Goodwillie, author of Kings County

[A] stark exploration of guilt, grief, and fear. . . . And did I mention that it's funny? Unplug your consoles, kids, and play this book. --Zack Wentz, author of The Garbageman and the Prostitute

A group of telepaths navigate the challenges of their power in four linked stories from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of the Star Wars Thrawn trilogy.

Dale Ravenhall is part of a small network of telepaths spread throughout North America. Although they can communicate with each other across hundreds of miles, if they get within twenty miles of each other, the mental pressure is fatal. Their situation requires them to be a cautiously tight-knit community, but when one of them is murdered, things begin to unravel . . .

The gripping world of Dale and his distant friends first appeared in Red Thoughts at Morning in 1981, and continued with Dark Thoughts at Noon and Black Thoughts at Midnight. Now, in Distant Telepaths, Hugo Award-winning author Timothy Zahn brings the saga to a dramatic close with an all-new original story, Bright Thoughts at Dawn.

First in the influential fan-favorite series, Swords and Deviltry collects four fantastical adventure stories from Fritz Leiber, the author who coined the phrase sword and sorcery and helped birth an entire genre.

In Induction, in the realm of Nehwon, fate brings young prince Fafhrd and apprentice magician the Gray Mouser together to mark the beginning of a loyal and lifelong friendship. Consumed by his wicked mother's enchantments, Fafhrd finds freedom by pursuing the love of a beautiful actress in the Nebula and Hugo Award-nominated The Snow Women. Studying sorcery under a great wizard in a land where it is forbidden, Mouse crosses the thin line between white and black magic to avenge a great wrong in The Unholy Grail. And in the Nebula and Hugo Award-winning novella Ill Met in Lankhmar, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser disguise themselves as beggars to infiltrate the Thieves' Guild--only to pay a horrible price for their greed when they come face-to-face with a monstrous evil.

Thousands of years have passed since humankind abandoned the city--first for the countryside, then for the stars, and ultimately for oblivion--leaving their most loyal animal companions alone on Earth. Granted the power of speech centuries earlier by the revered Bruce Webster, the intelligent, pacifist dogs are the last keepers of human history, raising their pups with bedtime stories, passed down through generations, of the lost websters who gave them so much but will never return. With the aid of Jenkins, an ageless service robot, the dogs live in a world of harmony and peace. But they now face serious threats from their own and other dimensions, perhaps the most dangerous of all being the reawakened remnants of a warlike race called Man.

In the Golden Age of Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein, Clifford D. Simak's writing blazed as brightly as anyone's in the science fiction firmament. Winner of the International Fantasy Award, City is a magnificent literary metropolis filled with an astonishing array of interlinked stories and structures--at once dystopian, transcendent, compassionate, and visionary.

In a near future, the air pollution is so bad that everyone wears gas masks. The infant mortality rate is soaring, and birth defects, new diseases, and physical ailments of all kinds abound. The water is undrinkable--unless you're poor and have no choice. Large corporations fighting over profits from gas masks, drinking water, and clean food tower over an ineffectual, corrupt government.

Environmentalist Austin Train is on the run. The trainites, a group of violent environmental activists, want him to lead their movement; the government wants him dead; and the media demands amusement. But Train just wants to survive.

More than a novel of science fiction, The Sheep Look Up is a skillful and frightening political and social commentary that takes its place next to other remarkable works of dystopian literature, such as Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and George Orwell's 1984.

It occurs to me that you folk are no ordinary group, the troll said.

We're on a special mission to eliminate the last of the anti-pun virus. We are a bit unusual.

Astrid Basilisk-Cockatrice is the daughter of anonymous parents who whiled away a dull minute by generating her on a warm compost pile, then went their own deadly ways, never to see her or each other again. She found herself a soul, but her gaze is fatal and her touch is toxic. That's not so strange in the Land of Xanth, where everyone has a unique magical talent, and charms, curses, and enchanted puzzles lie around every corner.

Now, Astrid and her companions are finishing the cleanup of a virus that ravaged the puns of Xanth, and new Quests are already popping up. For instance, Astrid is attempting to fulfill her mission in life, if only she can figure out what that is. And then there's the missing Question from the Good Magician's Book of Answers. Not to mention the small matter of a Demon Wager regarding the impending destruction of Xanth. But it's nothing Astrid and her motley crew of lovely maidens and strapping men can't handle . . . they hope.

Piers Anthony delivers another tale set in the bestselling world of Xanth, filled with magic, surprises, adventure, and a few puns. Here's what the author has to say about his new book:

Five Portraits is a kind of sequel to Board Stiff in that it picks up where the other leaves off, with the same characters. Apart from that, it's one of my favorites within the series. There's something about Astrid Basilisk that appeals to me: a very pretty girl whose very glance is deadly, yet she's a nice person whose selfless effort to save five difficult children from future Xanth is thoroughly worthy. I also like the theme of the power of unlikely friendship. Not just Xanth, but Mundania, too, would be better if there were more such friendships.

Enoch Wallace is not like other humans. Living a secluded life in the backwoods of Wisconsin, he carries a nineteenth-century rifle and never seems to age--a fact that has recently caught the attention of prying government eyes. The truth is, Enoch is the last surviving veteran of the American Civil War and, for close to a century, he has operated a secret way station for aliens passing through on journeys to other stars. But the gifts of knowledge and immortality that his intergalactic guests have bestowed upon him are proving to be a nightmarish burden, for they have opened Enoch's eyes to humanity's impending destruction. Still, one final hope remains for the human race . . . though the cure could ultimately prove more terrible than the disease.

Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel, Way Station is a magnificent example of the fine art of science fiction as practiced by a revered Grand Master. A cautionary tale that is at once ingenious, evocative, and compassionately human, it brilliantly supports the contention of the late, great Robert A. Heinlein that to read science-fiction is to read Simak.

A richly imaginative story of wizards stymied by a power beyond their control, A Face in the Frost combines the thrills of a horror novel with the inventiveness of fairy tale-inspired fantasy.

Prospero, a tall, skinny misfit of a wizard, lives in the South Kingdom--a patchwork of feuding duchies and small manors, all loosely loyal to one figurehead king. Along with his necromancer friend Roger Bacon, who has been on a quest to find a mysterious book, Prospero must flee his home to escape ominous pursuers. Thus begins an adventure that will lead him to a grove where his old rival, Melichus, is falsely rumored to be buried and to a less-than-hospitable inn in the town of Five Dials--and ultimately into a dangerous battle with origins in a magical glass paperweight.

Lin Carter called The Face in the Frost one of the best fantasy novels to appear since The Lord of the Rings . . . Absolutely first class. With a unique blend of humor and darkness, it remains one of the most beloved tales by the Edgar Award-nominated author also known for the long-running Lewis Barnavelt series.

When Lee's wife of fifteen years leaves him on the same night a Martian moon is destroyed, the fields of his farm still need to be irrigated and the cotton planted. The space accident is too far away to concern Lee more than boll weevils and rain forecasts--but then a giant caterpillar is found on his land.

For months, all Lee sees of the caterpillar are the pieces it leaves behind from molting . . . until the night the moon debris makes its way to Earth.

Sterling City is mesmerizing, horrifying, strange, and you can't put it down. It has a kind of stark poetry in the concision and clarity of its prose. Another great example of why you should be reading Stephen Graham Jones. --Jeff VanderMeer, New York Times-bestselling author of Annihilation

In Skin Folk, with works ranging from science fiction to Caribbean folklore, passionate love to chilling horror, Nalo Hopkinson is at her award-winning best, spinning tales like Precious, in which the narrator spews valuable coins and gems from her mouth whenever she attempts to talk or sing. In A Habit of Waste, a self-conscious woman undergoes elective surgery to alter her appearance; days later she's shocked to see her former body climbing onto a public bus. In The Glass Bottle Trick, the young protagonist ignores her intuition regarding her new husband's superstitions--to horrifying consequences.

Hopkinson's unique pacing and vibrant dialogue sets a steady beat for stories that illustrate why she received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Entertaining, challenging, and alluring, Skin Folk is not to be missed.

Praise for Nalo Hopkinson and the World Fantasy Award-winning Skin Folk

Hopkinson's prose is vivid and immediate. --The Washington Post Book World

An important new writer. --The Dallas Morning News

Her descriptions of ordinary people finding themselves in extraordinary circumstances ring true, the result of her strong evocation of place and her ear for dialect. --Publishers Weekly

A marvelous display of Nalo Hopkinson's talents, skills and insights into the human conditions of life, especially of the fantastic realities of the Caribbean . . . Everything is possible in her imagination. --Science Fiction Chronicle

Tarl Cabot has always believed himself to be a citizen of Earth. He has no inkling that his destiny is far greater than the small planet he has inhabited for the first twenty-odd years of his life. One frosty winter night in the New England woods, he finds himself transported to the planet of Gor, also known as Counter Earth, where everything is dramatically different from anything he has ever experienced. It emerges that Tarl is to be trained as a Tarnsman, one of the most honored positions in the rigid, caste-bound Gorean society. He is disciplined by the best teachers and warriors that Gor has to offer . . . but to what end?

Rediscover this brilliantly imagined world where men are masters and women live to serve their every desire.

Tarnsman of Gor is the 1st book in the Gorean Saga, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Published the same year as The Fellowship of the Ring, Poul Anderson's novel The Broken Sword draws on similar Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon sources. In his greed for land and power, Orm the Strong slays the family of a Saxon witch--and for his sins, the Northman must pay with his newborn son. Stolen by elves and replaced by a changeling, Skafloc is raised to manhood unaware of his true heritage and treasured for his ability to handle the iron that the elven dare not touch. Meanwhile, the being who supplanted him as Orm's son grows up angry and embittered by the humanity he has been denied. A pawn in a witch's vengeance, the creature Valgard will never know love, and consumed by rage, he will commit a murderous act of unspeakable vileness.

It is their destiny to finally meet on the field of battle--the man-elf and his dark twin, the monster--when the long-simmering war between elves and trolls finally erupts with a devastating fury. And only the mighty sword Tyrfing, broken by Thor and presented to Skafloc in infancy, can turn the tide in a terrible clashing of faerie folk that will ultimately determine the fate of the old gods.

Along with such notables as Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury, multiple Hugo and Nebula Award winner Poul Anderson is considered one of the masters of speculative fiction.

This edition contains the author's original text.

This Hugo and Nebula Award finalist follows present-day events in which the fears concerning the nuclear annihilation of the world subsided after the Cold War and the fear of chemical warfare spilled over into the empty void it left behind. An amazing breakthrough in genetic engineering made by Vergil Ulam is considered too dangerous for further research, but rather than destroy his work, he injects himself with his creation and walks out of his lab, unaware of just how his actions will change the world. Author Greg Bear's treatment of the traditional tale of scientific hubris is both suspenseful and a compelling portrait of a new intelligence emerging amongst us, irrevocably changing our world.

Escape to far-off planets with ten science fiction stories from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of the Star Wars Thrawn trilogy.

Contains two original stories: The Needs of the Many and Challenge Accepted

Hugo Award-winning author Timothy Zahn presents an original collection of science fiction adventure stories. Some of the works here were previously printed in publications such as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Analog, or in themed collections, but have never appeared together until now . . .

The Shadow Stories

In The Shadows of Evening, a seasoned warrior named Turek has dedicated his life to defending colonists from mysterious and debilitating Shadows on a hostile planet. Zahn elaborates Turek's story with two sequels, and now concludes the saga with the original story, The Needs of the Many.

The Hive Mind Stories

Two Hive Mind starcraft observe Earth from afar and from a superior viewpoint in The Challenge. They believe that self-destructive competition among humans will prevent this so-called fragmented race from achieving the technological level required to reach the stars. In two sequels, Zahn explores what would happen if humans found a different way to the heavens. Now, with the original story Challenge Accepted, he brings the series to a climactic end.

Two more stories round out the collection. In Star Song, humans find a unique way to fuel interstellar travel with music, while a diplomatic aide gets caught up in a plot of greed and destruction in The Art of War.

Together, these ten tales promise action, adventure, humor, and more, all from the masterful mind of one science fiction's greatest authors.

Aboard the spacecraft Leonora Christine, fifty crewmembers, half men and half women, have embarked on a journey of discovery like no other to a planet thirty light-years away. Since their ship is not capable of traveling faster than light, the crew will be subject to the effects of time dilation and relativity. They will age five years on board the ship before reaching their destination, but thirty-three years will pass on Earth. Experienced scientists and researchers, they have come to terms with the time conditions of their space travel.

Until . . . the Leonora Christine passes through an uncharted nebula, which damages the engine, making it impossible to decelerate the ship on the second half of their trip. To survive, the crewmembers have no choice but to bypass their destination and continue to accelerate toward the speed of light. But how will they keep hope alive and maintain order as they hurtle deeper into space with time passing more and more rapidly, and their ultimate fate unknown?

With its combination of mind-blowing hard science and compelling human drama, Tau Zero is the ultimate hard science novel (Mike Resnick).

After their adventures in Swords and Ice Magic, Fafhrd the barbarian and Gray Mouser the thief remain on Rime Isle with their loves, seeking lives of respectability and peace. Fafhrd works to regain his archery skills after losing his left hand to Odin in battle. Meanwhile, the Gray Mouser embarks on a trading expedition aboard the ship Seahawk. But their respite will soon come to an end--for on the world of Nehwon, a brother and sister plot to regain the treasures stolen from them by the pirates of Rime Isle.

Soon Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, alone and together, are plagued by dreams and curses that will force them to confront the vengeful siblings, destructive temptations, sea demons, and ancient obsessions as one of the great works of fantasy in this century comes to its climactic end (Publishers Weekly).

The highly regarded British horror author Ramsey Campbell called Fritz Leiber the greatest living writer of supernatural horror fiction. Drawing many of his own themes from the works of Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft, master manipulator Fritz Leiber is a worldwide legend within the fantasy genre, actually having coined the term sword and sorcery that would describe the subgenre he would more than help create.

While The Lord of the Rings took the world by storm, Leiber's fantastic but thoroughly flawed antiheroes, Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, adventured and stumbled deep within the caves of Inner Earth as well, albeit a different one than Tolkien's. They wondered and wandered to the edges of the Outer Sea, across the Land of Nehwon and throughout every nook and cranny of gothic Lankhmar, Nehwon's grandest and most mystically corrupt city. Lankhmar is Leiber's fully realized, vivid incarnation of urban decay and civilization's corroding effect on the human psyche. Fafhrd and Mouse are not innocents; their world is no land of honor and righteousness. It is a world of human complexities and violent action, of discovery and mystery, of swords and sorcery.

While The Lord of the Rings took the world by storm, Fritz Leiber's fantastic but thoroughly flawed antiheroes, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, adventured and stumbled deep within the caves of Inner Earth as well. They wondered and wandered to the edges of the Outer Sea, across the Land of Nehwon, and throughout every nook and cranny of gothic Lankhmar, Nehwon's grandest and most mystically corrupt city. Lankhmar, is Leiber's fully realized, vivid incarnation of urban decay and civilization's corroding effect on the human psyche. Fafhrd and Mouse are not innocents; their world is no land of honor and righteousness. It is a world of human complexities and violent action, of discovery and mystery, of swords and sorcery.

Swords Against Death, the second volume in the Lankhmar series, finds Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser beginning their real journey. Their hearts altered by the loss of first true love, they embark on a long and winding path of drunken debauchery and womanizing until crossing paths with two cross wizards, Sheelba of the Eyeless Face and Ningauble of the Seven Eyes. A most violent of clashes ensues. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser descend into Thieves House to discover the exacting skill of the united backstabbing Thieves of Lankhmar and their rival guild, the Slayer's Brotherhood, the city's unionized killers. They would wander along the Bleak Shore to a howling tower to show how fear is not the product of murder but the cause. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser must resume their plundering and drunken debauchery until once again darkness had taken the balance for its favor and then a change would come.

These are just a few of the encounters our swindling swordsmen will willingly endure in ridding their hearts of their first true loves. But did they know it would make them indentured swordsman servants to their former foes, the formidable Sheelba and Ningauble?

We are not alone. Humanity's explorations have revealed galaxies inhabited by millions of intelligent species interacting under ancient traditions. Foremost among said traditions is uplift, which requires all spacefaring races to welcome newcomers into Galactic culture by breeding and genetically guiding each client species to full sapience--but at a price. Patron races demand centuries of indentured servitude from each uplifted client. But is upstart humanity a patron or a client?

The Earthship Streaker--crewed by humans and uplifted dolphins and chimpanzees--discovers a derelict armada, perhaps left by the very first patrons, the fabled Progenitors. Suddenly the Five Galaxies teeter on the brink of all-out war as fanatics hunt Streaker for the secret. With a damaged ship and hostile aliens in pursuit, the crew must band together if they hope to survive . . .

This book features a new introduction by the author.

Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards

An extraordinary achievement. --Poul Anderson, award-winning author of Tau Zero

What a wonderful ride . . . Startide Rising is one of the books that I remember most fondly, out of all I have read, and rereading it thirty years later proved just as enjoyable as the first time. I remain amazed at how many different characters and subplots Brin juggles without a misstep, and the way he keeps the tension and suspense high throughout. --Tor.com

This is one of the outstanding SF novels of recent years. --Publishers Weekly

One of maybe twenty science fiction novels that deserve the label classic. --Time

Holger Carlsen is a rational man of science. A Danish engineer working with the Resistance to defeat the Nazis, he is wounded during an engagement with the enemy and awakens in an unfamiliar parallel universe where the forces of Law are locked in eternal combat with the forces of Chaos. Against a medieval backdrop, brave knights must take up arms against magical creatures of myth and faerie, battling dragons, trolls, werewolves, and giants.

Though Holger has no recollection of this world, he discovers he is already well-known throughout the lands, a hero revered as a Champion of Law. He finds weaponry and armor awaiting him--precisely fitted to his form--and a shield with three hearts and three lions emblazoned upon it. As he journeys through a realm filled with wonders in search of the key to his past, Holger will call upon the scientific knowledge of his home dimension, the destinies of both worlds hanging in the balance.

Before Thomas Covenant, Roger Zelazny's Amber, and J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, the great Poul Anderson introduced readers to the Middle World and the legendary hero Ogier the Dane. Inventive and exciting, Three Hearts and Three Lions is a foray into fantasy that employs touches of science fiction from an award-winning master of the speculative.

Swords in the Mist, book three in the Lankhmar series, thrusts our indentured, sword-swinging servants into the question of hate, its power, and its purpose. Times are lean in Lankhmar, illuminating the link between money and love. Luckily, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser don't always believe in love. When Lankhmar gets too gritty, our travelers take to their other, less harsh mistress, the sea. But the sea can play tricks on men, and so can the sea king. He can break a man, or worse yet, curse him. But when he is away, it's all play for the formidable swordsmen and the Triple Goddess . . . and two luscious sea queens. But luck may not always be there, as they discover on the way to see Ningauble, their wizard employer. After a long journey in defense of their control over their own fates, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser find themselves pawns in a life-and-death chess game, all of Lankhmar being the pieces. How many pawns will be left on the board before someone wins?

Before The Lord of the Rings took the world by storm, Leiber's fantastic but thoroughly flawed antiheroes, Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, adventured deep within the caves of Inner Earth, albeit a different one. They wondered and wandered to the edges of the Outer Sea, across the Land of Nehwon and throughout every nook and cranny of gothic Lankhmar, Nehwon's grandest and most mystically corrupt city. Lankhmar is Leiber's fully realized, vivid incarnation of urban decay and civilization's corroding effect on the human psyche.

Drawing on themes from Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft, master manipulator Fritz Leiber is a worldwide legend within the fantasy genre and actually coined the term Sword and Sorcery that describes the subgenre he helped create.