Search Worlds Without End

Table of Contents:

• Roog (1953) - short story by Philip K. Dick
• The Blue Lenses (1959) - novelette by Daphne du Maurier
• Shipshape Home (1952) - short story by Richard Matheson
• Eight O'Clock in the Morning (1963) - short story by Ray Nelson
• The Six Fingers of Time (1960) - novelette by R. A. Lafferty
• Be My Guest (1958) - novella by Damon Knight
• They (1941) - short story by Robert A. Heinlein

When humans set out to explore the universe, they found a number of planets suitable for colonizing. The one thing they didn't find was intelligent life. And so the terraforming of worlds began, with eager immigrant families temporarily housed in space stations till their new home planets were ready. But the technicians made one all-important mistake by introducing the alien Quill to worlds where they did not belong. The Quill were supposed to be destroyed when the crews finished their work, but some survived, multipled, and mutated till they were no longer harmless. They were deadly.

Suddenly mankind was in retreat, leaving colonists stranded in space. In the ensuing chaos many stations failed. For the surviviors, the only hope lay in finding a way to wipe out the Quill. Earth scientist, Dr. Gail Smith, thought one special human, Aaron Pardell, might hold the answer. Found as a baby and raised by a stationer in the "Outsider" settlement that clung to Thromberg Station, Aaron may have survived Quill contact. Still, finding Aaron and winning his help might be the least of Dr. Smith's problems....

DOES THE UNIVERSE BELONG TO MAN OR THE DOLPHINS?

Somewhere, locked in the unexplored and unknown crevices at the bottom of the seaes lay the secret of the Earth's past. Dr. Edward Blake, driven by some uncontrollable force finds he is the only man in the world who knows what fate is hidden there... And in some of the most fantastic experiments of all time horrifyingly realizes that the dolphins could hold man's fate locked in their enigmatic and mysterious minds.

While the rest of the world seeks pleasure in one massive orgy of passion, uncaring what lies in store--Edward Blake finds he alone is the only man who cares, who can save man's future.

Philip Pullman retells the world's best-loved fairy tales on their 200th anniversary!!!

Two centuries ago, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published the first volume of Children's and Household Tales. Now Philip Pullman, one of the most accomplished authors of our time, makes us fall in love all over again with the immortal tales of the Brothers Grimm.

Pullman retells his fifty favorites, from much-loved stories like "Cinderella" and "Rumpelstiltskin," "Rapunzel" and "Hansel and Gretel" to lesser-known treasures like "The Three Snake Leaves," "Godfather Death" and "The Girl with No Hands." At the end of each tale he offers a brief personal commentary, opening a window on the sources of the tales, the various forms they've taken over the centuries and their everlasting appeal.

Suffused with romance and villainy, danger and wit, the Grimms' fairy tales have inspired Pullman's unique creative vision--and his beguiling retellings will draw you back into a world that has long cast a spell on the Western imagination.

In Caitlín R. Kiernan's The Ammonite Violin & Others, one of contemporary dark fantasy's most bewitching and distinctive voices is back with another banquet of the weird and unexpected. In his introduction, Jeff VanderMeer (City of Saints and Madmen, Finch) writes, "Kiernan creates her own light in this remarkable collection, and shines it on dark places. In doing so, she gives us gritty, lyrical, horrible, beautiful truths."

In The Ammonite Violin & Others, the author rises to meet the high expectations she set with such collections as Tales of Pain and Wonder, A is for Alien, and the World Fantasy Award-nominated To Charles Fort, With Love. Within these pages, you'll discover a dazzling suite of stories situated on the borderlands between the unspeakbale and the erotic, the grotesque and the sublime. Here are stories of dream and metamorphosis, strange lands and beings existing beyond the veil of death and beyond this earth. Here is a selkie who's lost her sealskin, a woman with a blackhole in her heart, a fairie girl fallen to the Queen of Decay, the descent of a modern-day Orpheus, and a killer who has fashioned the most exquisite musical instrument from the remains of one of his victims. Here are dreams, nightmares, and worse things yet.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Jeff VanderMeer
• Madonna Littoralis
• Orpheus at Mount Pangeum
• Bridle
• For One Who Has Lost Herself
• Ode to Edvard Munch
• The Cryomancer's Daughter (Murder Ballad No. 3)
• A Child's Guide to the Hollow Hills
• The Ammonite Violin (Murder Ballad No. 4)
• The Lovesong of Lady Ratteanrufer
• Metamorphosis A
• The Sphinx's Kiss
• The Voyuer in the House of Glass
• Metamorphosis B
• Skin Game
• The Hole With a Girl In Its Heart
• Outside the Gates of Eden
• In the Dreamtime of Lady Resurrection
• Anamnesis, or the Sleepless Nights of Léon Spilliaert
• Scene in the Museum (1896)
• The Madam of the Narrow Houses

There's no one Karl Lion loves more than his older brother, Jonathan, who is brave, strong, and handsome - everything Karl believes he is not. Karl never wants to be parted from him. But Karl is sick, and knows he's going to die. To comfort him, Jonathan tells him stories of Nangiyala, the wonderful place he'll be going to when he dies, and where he will wait until Jonathan is ready to join him there. Then the unthinkable happens...

Jonathan is killed in an accident. Heartbroken, Karl longs for the day he'll be reunited with his brother. When the time comes, he finds Nangiyala just as wonderful as he'd imagined. However, Nangiyala is under threat. A cruel tyrant is determined to claim it as his own, and at his command is a terrible beast that is feared throughout the land. Karl must summon all of his courage to help his brother prepare for the battle that lies ahead...

In the degenerate, unliked backwater of Dunwich, Wilbur Whately, a most unusual child, is born. Of unnatural parentage, he grows at an uncanny pace to an unsettling height, but the boy's arrival simply precedes that of a true horror: one of the Old Ones, that forces the people of the town to hole up by night.

The Dunwich Horror and Others contains the following tales:

• H. P. Lovecraft and His Work by August Derleth
• In the Vault
• Pickman's Model
• The Rats in the Walls
• The Outsider
• The Colour out of Space
• The Music of Erich Zann
• The Haunter of the Dark
• The Picture in the House
• The Call of Cthulhu
• The Dunwich Horror
• Cool Air
• The Whisperer in Darkness
• The Terrible Old Man
• The Thing on the Doorstep
• The Shadow Over Innsmouth
• The Shadow Out of Time

Contents:

• Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Outsider - essay by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei
• 3 - Dagon - (1919) - shortstory
• 7 - Polaris - [Dream Cycle] - (1920) - shortstory
• 10 - Celephais - [Dream Cycle] - (1922) - shortstory (variant of Celephaïs)
• 14 - Hypnos - [Dream Cycle] - (1922) - shortstory
• 19 - The Cats of Ulthar - [Dream Cycle] - (1920) - shortstory
• 22 - The Strange High House in the Mist - [Dream Cycle] - (1931) - shortstory
• 28 - The Statement of Randolph Carter - [Randolph Carter] - (1920) - shortstory
• 32 - The Silver Key - [Randolph Carter] - (1929) - shortstory
• 40 - Through the Gates of the Silver Key - [Randolph Carter] - (1934) - novelette and E. Hoffmann Price [as ]
• 63 - The Outsider - [Dream Cycle] - (1926) - shortstory
• 67 - The Music of Erich Zann - (1922) - shortstory
• 73 - The Rats in the Walls - (1924) - novelette
• 86 - Cool Air - (1928) - shortstory
• 92 - He - (1926) - shortstory
• 99 - The Horror at Red Hook - (1927) - novelette
• 113 - The Temple - (1925) - shortstory
• 121 - Arthur Jermyn - (1935) - shortstory (variant of The White Ape 1920)
• 127 - The Picture in the House - (1919) - shortstory
• 132 - The Festival - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1925) - shortstory
• 138 - The Terrible Old Man - (1921) - shortstory
• 140 - The Tomb - (1922) - shortstory
• 147 - The Shunned House - (1928) - novelette
• 164 - In the Vault - (1925) - shortstory
• 170 - Pickman's Model - (1927) - shortstory
• 179 - The Haunter of the Dark - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novelette
• 194 - The Dreams in the Witch-House - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1933) - novelette
• 217 - The Thing on the Doorstep - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1937) - novelette
• 234 - The Nameless City - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1921) - shortstory
• 242 - The Lurking Fear - (1923) - shortstory
• 255 - The Call of Cthulhu - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1928) - novelette
• 274 - The Colour Out of Space - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1927) - novelette
• 292 - The Dunwich Horror - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1929) - novelette
• 319 - The Whisperer in Darkness - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1931) - novella
• 359 - The Shadow Over Innsmouth - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novelette
• 400 - The Shadow Out of Time - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novella
• 442 - At the Mountains of Madness - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novel
• 507 - Supernatural Horror in Literature - [Supernatural Horror in Literature] - (1927) - essay

Normally, when readers seen Brian Lumley's byline on a book--especially one with the amazing jacket art of Bob Eggleton--the names of several colourful fictional characters spring to mind: heroes such as Harry Keogh, the eponymous Necroscope, or perhaps the occult investigator Titus Crow. While these may be the author's best-known heroes; however, they are only two of a large handful, which is why it may come as something of a surprise this time around to discover that the so-called hero of this current trilogy of tales... isn t!

No, for this lesser-known character isn't so much a typical Lumley hero as an innocent bystander who all too often seems to be standing by in the wrong place at the wrong time--a man in collision with various weird horrors who can never state definitely that the things he experiences are real. After all, someone who sees a few too many pink elephants may question almost anything he experiences, right?

So here he is--the neither hero nor anti-hero narrator of these stories--though in The Nonesuch he s at least seen to be brave if not actually heroic. However, when you've done reading this small trilogy, you might like to ask yourself this: pitted against horrors like those in these stories, just how much of a hero would you be?

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay
• The Thin People - (1987) - shortstory
• Stilts - (2003) - shortstory
• The Nonesuch - novella

Within the fantasy-fan and pulp-magazine collecting communities, this group of memoirs by a prolific pulp writer has reached almost legendary stature, although the finished, long-delayed book, proves less impressive than the reputation it rides in on. Price began writing these memoirs in the 1940s, concentrating on such fellow Weird Tales contributors as H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. An early long-distance motorist, Price met many figures associated with the magazine, and so can describe firsthand editor Farnsworth Wright's love of raunchy humor and a drunken sword fight with Otis Adelbert Kline.

About half this book is the finest account of that era ever done. The other half suffers because Price completed the book in the 1970s and fell into repeated polemics, berating fans of that period for adulating Lovecraft and Howard. Arguing that his friend HPL was merely an amateur who couldn't break out of Weird Tales and that Howard wasted his time creating Conan the Barbarian, Price appears obtuse and possibly jealous. (Oddly, Arkham editor Ruber seems to agree with Price, whom he describes as "a prodigious worker, not an idler like Lovecraft, whose narrow focus on weird fiction caused him to burn out after several dozen stories" a statement sure to inflame HPL fans.) In addition, Price, a practicing astrologer, blasts Lovecraft for attacking astrology as nonsense. Questionable judgments aside, Price comes across as a far better writer of nonfiction than of fiction. With an introduction by Jack Williamson, a checklist of Price's fiction, and a section of photos, these memoirs will sell out fast to the ardent pulp readership that's been eagerly awaiting them.

-- Publishers Weekly

Table of Contents:

E. Hoffmann Price: Introduction - essay by Jack Williamson Some Notes on EHP and the Book of the Dead - essay by Peter Ruber

• Prologue (Book of the Dead: Friends of Yesteryear: Fictioneers & Others) - essay
• Farnsworth Wright: 1888 - 1940 - (1944) - essay (variant of Book of the Dead: Farnsworth Wright)
• Otis Adelbert Kline: July 1, 1891 - October 24, 1946 - essay
• Howard Phillips Lovecraft: August 20, 1890 - March 15, 1937 - essay
• Robert Ervin Howard: January 22, 1906 - June 11, 1936 - essay
• Clark Ashton Smith: January 13, 1893 - August 14, 1961 - essay
• W. K. Mashburn, Jr.: August 7, 1900 - February 13, 1968 - essay
• Ralph Milne Farley (Pseud. of Roger Sherman Hoar): April 8, 1887 - October 10, 1963 - essay
• Seabury Grandin Quinn: January 1, 1889 - December 24, 1969 - essay
• Hugh Doak Rankin: July 2, 1878 - January 3, 1956 - essay
• The Varnished Vultures & Spider Bite - essay
• Barsoom Badigian: [1873] - Dec. 18, 1960 - essay
• Harry Olmsted: August 10, 1889 - April 2, 1970 - essay
• Albert Richard Wetjen: August 20, 1900 - March 8, 1948 - essay
• Norbert W. Davis: April 18, 1909 - July 28, 1949 - essay
• Milo Ray Phelps: [-d. 1937] - essay
• William S. Bruner - essay
• Henry Kuttner: April 7, 1915 - February 3, 1958 - essay
• August W. Derleth: February 24, 1908 - July 4, 1971 - essay
• Edmond Hamilton: October 21, 1904 - February 1, 1977 - essay
• Epilogue (Book of the Dead: Friends of Yesteryear: Fictioneers & Others) - essay
• The Lovecraft Controversy - Why? - (1976) - essay
• Five Million Words! In his life as in his writing word for Price is 'colorful' - (1947) - essay by Monte Linsley
• Seabury Quinn: An Appreciation - (1977) - essay
• Mortonius (James Ferdinand Morton) - essay
• A Conversation with E. Hoffmann Price - (1986) - interview of E. Hoffmann Price - interview by Gregorio Montejo
• One Man's View of the Death of the Pulp Era - (1975) - essay
• EHP: A Bibliography - essay by Virgil Utter

Nebula-nominated Novella

From multiple World Fantasy Award winner and Nebula, Bram Stoker, International Horror Guild, Sturgeon, and British Science Fiction Award nominated author Mary Rickert comes a gorgeous and terrifying vision of the Mothers of Voorhisville, who love their babies just as intensely as any mother anywhere. Of course they do! And nothing in this world will change that, even if every single one of those tiny babies was born with an even tinier set of wings.

Anthologized in Paula Guran's The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2015.

Read this story online for free at Tor.com.

Myth is the sea on which the Fantasy story floats. Legend is the wind that drives it. Its place of birth is the Fairy Tale.

Richard Bowes' collection of modern Fairy Tales, their Fantasy offspring, and their legendary ancestors presents eight of his stories including "The Lady of Wands," in which a Fey cop tells her story, that appears here for the first time. Also original to this book is Bowes' afterword, "A Secret History of Small Books," which traces the path of Fairy Tales as a refuge for women, gay/lesbian writers, and LGBT readers from the 17th century on.

The collection also includes "Seven Smiles and Six Frowns" a story of the evolution of a Fairy Tale; "The Cinnamon Cavalier," a Fairy Tale variation a critic has called, "The Gingerbread Man, writ large," and "The Margay's Children" a modern take on a "Beastly Bridegroom" tale; "The Progress of Solstice and Chance," with its complex sexual relations and invented pantheon of gods, the outrageous situation and characters of "The Bear Dresser's Secret," and the "The Lady of Wands," set in a fairy/mortal demi-monde; and two Arthurian tales, "Sir Morgravain Speaks of Night Dragons and Other Things" and "The Queen and the Cambion" in which the eponymous queen, though famous, is not Guinevere.

In the plague-wracked and devil-haunted darkness of Medieval Europe, an elite few enjoy opulent lives while the majority eke out a miserable existence in abject poverty. Hungry creatures stalk the deep woods and desolate mountains, and both sea and sky teem with unspeakable horrors. For those ill-fated masses not born into wealth, life is but a vicious trial to be endured before the end of days.

Hegel and Manfried Grossbart could give a toss.

Being of low birth means little, after all, when the riches of the mighty wait just inside the next crypt. The grave-robbing twins know enough about crusading to realise that if one is to make a living from the dead, what better destination than the fabled tomb-cities of Egypt?

But the Brothers Grossbart are about to discover that all legends have their truths, and worse fates than death await those who would take the red road of villainy ...

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Into the Alternate Universe
• 167 - Contraband from Otherspace

WHAT MYSTERIOUS POWER EMANATED FROM THE BEJEWELED CROWN OF STARS THAT RULERS OF THREE PLANETS FRANTICALLY SOUGHT ITS POSSESSION?

THE PORTALS OF THE UNKNOWN HAD OPENED WIDE, THEN HAD CLOSED, LEAVING A HORROR OF MONSTROUS PROPORTIONS.

The figure's eyes seemed lidless and sheathed with a thin film like a snake. But they were so penetratingly malignant that they pierced deep into the man's brain, mercilessly exploring all that was there -- laying his thought bare like a visual scalpel that mad ehim scream every time it was moved.

It was not human.

Horst Cabal has risen from the dead. Again. Horst, the most affable vampire one is ever likely to meet, is resurrected by an occult conspiracy that wants him as a general in a monstrous army. Their plan: to create a country of horrors, a supernatural homeland. As Horst sees the lengths to which they are prepared to go and the evil they cultivate, he realizes that he cannot fight them alone. What he really needs on his side is a sarcastic, amoral, heavily armed necromancer.

As luck would have it, this exactly describes his brother.

Join the brothers Cabal as they fearlessly lie quietly in bed, fight dreadful monsters from beyond reality, make soup, feel slightly sorry for zombies, banter lightly with secret societies that wish to destroy them, and--in passing--set out to save the world.*

*The author wishes to point out that there are no zebras this time, so don't get your hopes up on that count. There is, however, a werebadger, if that's something that's been missing from your life.

A future society, where women far outnumber men, has abandoned the models of patriarchy and matriarchy and established new gender roles. But Lisbei, a young thinker whose gift is exploring the past, confronts the new establishment in order to force changes of her own.

Jason Starr is a discredited scientist attempting to stop a Communist plot against America. He gets help from his 'mind brother', a man from 50,000 years in the future who has returned to try to change the course of Earth's history.

This is the inaugural volume in the publishing program to collect the stories of Science Fiction Grand Master Jack Williamson.

The nine stories in this volume (three of which are full-length novels!) are drawn from classic pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories, Science Wonder Stories, Air Wonder Stories, and Astounding Stories of Super-Science.

Supplementing these stories are rare editorials and letters to the editors of Amazing Stories, Science Wonder Stories, and Astounding Stories. Also included is a lengthy foreword by fellow Grand Master Hal Clement with an afterword by Jack Williamson.

Table of Contents:

• "Jack Williamson, Speculator" by Hal Clement
• "Scientifiction, Searchlight of Science" (Amazing Stories Quarterly,
• "The Metal Man" (Amazing Stories, Dec '28)
• The Girl from Mars (with Miles J. Breuer) (SF Series, #1, 1929)
• "The Alien Intelligence" (Science Wonder Stories, Jul, Aug '29)
• "The Second Shell" (Air Wonder Stories, Nov '29)
• "The Green Girl" (Amazing Stories, Mar, Apr '30)
• "The Cosmic Express" (Amazing Stories, Nov '30)
• "The Birth of a New Republic" (with Miles J. Breuer) (Amazing Stories Quarterly, Win '30)
• "The Prince of Space" (Amazing Stories, Jan '31)
• "The Meteor Girl" (Astounding Stories of Super-Science, Mar '31)
• "Afterword" by Jack Williamson

In addition to being a prolific and innovative poet in his own right, Clark Ashton Smith was a noted translator of French and Spanish poetry. Teaching himself French in the mid-1920s, Smith undertook the ambitious program of translating the entirety of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil) into English.

Over the next several years he succeeded in translating all but six of the 157 poems that comprised the definitive (1868) edition of Les Fleurs du mal. Smith would begin with a relatively literal prose translation and would later render it into verse; in the end, Smith versified about a third of the poems, the rest remaining in prose.

His mentor George Sterling testified to the remarkable spiritual affinity between Smith and Baudelaire, rendering him the perfect translator of this difficult poet. Smith also translated other noteworthy French poets-Paul Verlaine, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Musset, and Théophile Gautier, among others-as well as such obscure poets as Marie Dauguet and Tristan Klingsor. In the 1940s Smith taught himself Spanish, making splendid verse translations of such poets as Amado Nervo, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, and and Jorge Isaacs. The great majority of the poems included in this volume are unpublished.

The current edition presents, for the first time, Smith's complete translations in French and Spanish, also printing the French and Spanish texts on facing pages. All texts are annotated by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz.

As a cassandra sangue, or blood prophet, Meg Corbyn can see the future when her skin is cut--a gift that feels more like a curse. Meg's Controller keeps her enslaved so he can have full access to her visions. But when she escapes, the only safe place Meg can hide is at the Lakeside Courtyard--a business district operated by the Others.

Shape-shifter Simon Wolfgard is reluctant to hire the stranger who inquires about the Human Liaison job. First, he senses she's keeping a secret, and second, she doesn't smell like human prey. Yet a stronger instinct propels him to give Meg the job. And when he learns the truth about Meg and that she's wanted by the government, he'll have to decide if she's worth the fight between humans and the Others that will surely follow.

After winning the trust of the terra indigene residing in the Lakeside Courtyard, Meg Corbyn has had trouble figuring out what it means to live among them. As a human, Meg should be barely tolerated prey, but her abilities as a cassandra sangue make her something more.

The appearance of two addictive drugs has sparked violence between the humans and the Others, resulting in the murder of both species in nearby cities. So when Meg has a dream about blood and black feathers in the snow, Simon Wolfgard--Lakeside's shape-shifting leader--wonders if their blood prophet dreamed of a past attack or a future threat.

As the urge to speak prophecies strikes Meg more frequently, trouble finds its way inside the Courtyard. Now, the Others and the handful of humans residing there must work together to stop the man bent on reclaiming their blood prophet--and stop the danger that threatens to destroy them all.

The Others freed the cassandra sangue to protect the blood prophets from exploitation, not realizing their actions would have dire consequences. Now the fragile seers are in greater danger than ever before--both from their own weaknesses and from those who seek to control their divinations for wicked purposes. In desperate need of answers, Simon Wolfgard, a shape-shifter leader among the Others, has no choice but to enlist blood prophet Meg Corbyn's help, regardless of the risks she faces by aiding him.

Meg is still deep in the throes of her addiction to the euphoria she feels when she cuts and speaks prophecy. She knows each slice of her blade tempts death. But Others and humans alike need answers, and her visions may be Simon's only hope of ending the conflict.

For the shadows of war are deepening across the Atlantik, and the prejudice of a fanatic faction is threatening to bring the battle right to Meg and Simon's doorstep...

For centuries, the Others and humans have lived side by side in uneasy peace. But when humankind oversteps its bounds, the Others will have to decide how much humanity they're willing to tolerate--both within themselves and within their community...

Since the Others allied themselves with the cassandra sangue, the fragile yet powerful human blood prophets who were being exploited by their own kind, the delicate dynamic between humans and Others changed. Some, like Simon Wolfgard, wolf shifter and leader of the Lakeside Courtyard, and blood prophet Meg Corbyn, see the new, closer companionship as beneficial--both personally and practically.

But not everyone is convinced. A group of radical humans is seeking to usurp land through a series of violent attacks on the Others. What they don't realize is that there are older and more dangerous forces than shifters and vampires protecting the land that belongs to the Others--and those forces are willing to do whatever is necessary to protect what is theirs...

After a human uprising was brutally put down by the Elders--a primitive and lethal form of the Others--the few cities left under human control are far-flung. And the people within them now know to fear the no-man's-land beyond their borders--and the darkness...

As some communities struggle to rebuild, Lakeside Courtyard has emerged relatively unscathed, though Simon Wolfgard, its wolf shifter leader, and blood prophet Meg Corbyn must work with the human pack to maintain the fragile peace. But all their efforts are threatened when Lieutenant Montgomery's shady brother arrives, looking for a free ride and easy pickings.

With the humans on guard against one of their own, tensions rise, drawing the attention of the Elders, who are curious about the effect such an insignificant predator can have on a pack. But Meg knows the dangers, for she has seen in the cards how it will all end--with her standing beside a grave...

Human laws do not apply in the territory controlled by the Others--vampires, shape-shifters, and even deadlier paranormal beings. And this is a fact that humans should never, ever forget....

After her divorce, Vicki DeVine took over a rustic resort near Lake Silence, in a human town that is not human controlled. Towns such as Vicki's don't have any distance from the Others, the dominant predators who rule most of the land and all of the water throughout the world. And when a place has no boundaries, you never really know what is out there watching you.

Vicki was hoping to find a new career and a new life. But when her lodger, Aggie Crowe--one of the shape-shifting Others--discovers a murdered man, Vicki finds trouble instead. The detectives want to pin the death on her, despite the evidence that nothing human could have killed the victim. As Vicki and her friends search for answers, ancient forces are roused by the disturbance in their domain. They have rules that must not be broken--and all the destructive powers of nature at their command.

There are ghost towns in the world--places where the humans were annihilated in retaliation for the slaughter of the shape-shifting Others.

One of those places is Bennett, a town at the northern end of the Elder Hills--a town surrounded by the wild country. Now efforts are being made to resettle Bennett as a community where humans and Others live and work together. A young female police officer has been hired as the deputy to a Wolfgard sheriff. A deadly type of Other wants to run a human-style saloon. And a couple with four foster children--one of whom is a blood prophet--hope to find acceptance.

But as they reopen the stores and the professional offices and start to make lives for themselves, the town of Bennett attracts the attention of other humans looking for profit. And the arrival of the outlaw Blackstone Clan will either unite Others and humans... or bury them all.

Deep in the territory controlled by the Others--shape-shifters, vampires, and even deadlier paranormal beings--Vicki DeVine has made a new life for herself running The Jumble, a rustic resort. When she decides to host a gathering of friends and guests for Trickster Night, at first everything is going well between the humans and the Others.

But then someone arrives dressed as Crowbones, the Crowgard bogeyman. When the impostor is killed along with a shape-shifting Crow, and the deaths are clearly connected, everyone fears that the real Crowbones may have come to The Jumble--and that could mean serious trouble.

To "encourage" humans to help them find some answers, the Elders and Elementals close all the roads, locking in suspects and victims alike. Now Vicki, human police chief Grimshaw, vampire lawyer Ilya Sanguinati, and the rest of their friends have to figure out who is manipulating events designed to pit humans against Others--and who may have put Vicki DeVine in the crosshairs of a powerful hunter.

Castaways on a barren island in the South Seas, Karl and Pieter Kip are rescued by the brig James Cook. After helping to quell an onboard mutiny, however, they suddenly find themselves accused and convicted of the captain's murder. In this story, one of his last Voyages Extraordinaires, Verne interweaves an exciting exploration of the South Pacific with a tale of judicial error reminiscent of the infamous Dreyfus Affair. This Wesleyan edition brings together the first English translation with one of the first detailed critical analyses of the novel, and features all the illustrations from the original 1902 publication.