For the first time in print, Spencer's radio plays "Amazing Struggles, Astonishing Failures, and Disappointing Success", together with the follow-up four-part audio drama "Cult Stories", tell the tales of disillusioned science fiction writers over the course of the mid-20th century. AMAZING STRUGGLES! In the Golden Age of science fiction, a group of aspiring young authors, the Fabulists, is ready to wow the world with tales of interplanetary heroism and technological supremacy. ASTONISHING FAILURES! Unfortunately, their dreams of fame and fortune are consistently dashed by the dastardly rejections of the compulsively conservative and out-of-touch editor of Tremendous Stories of Super Science. DISAPPOINTING SUCCESS (PARTS I & II)! While some of the Fabulists see middling success as teachers and television writers, another becomes a science fiction mega-star whose writing (and the author's own pathology) spawns a cult religion with wild ideas that may be a bit less bogus than his short stories. CULT STORIES! And like an artistic pandemic, some forms of science fiction can get very ugly. Only extreme measures will save us. "Virtually every line is written to amuse and amaze, yet it’s bang on accurate in its overall account of the actuality of the decade. A lot of thought went into noting the humour inherent in the activities and pretensions of First Fandom." - Amazing Stories "A delightfully cracked and deeply savvy romp through the history of science fiction, and perforce our world, all told through two quartets of scripts for radio plays! You’ll meet real people, thinly veiled characters, and even fully dressed folk you never heard of in this mind’s ear theater that could have appeared in Mad Magazine. What, me worry? No, but I’d love to hear these scripts enacted in a podcast." - Paul Levinson, author of It’s Real Life, award-winning alternate history radio play

dark horse /ˈdärk ˈˌhôrs/ noun 1. a candidate or competitor about whom little is known but who unexpectedly wins or succeeds. "a dark-horse candidate" Join us for a monthly tour of writers who give as good as they get. From hard science-fiction to stark, melancholic apocalypses; from Lovecraftian horror to zombies and horror comedy; from whimsical interludes to tales of unlikely compassion--whatever it is, if it's weird, it's here. So grab a seat before the starting gun fires, pour yourself a glass of strange wine, and get ready for the running of the dark horses. In this issue: TAP TAP TAP Elsa Loftis ALL THE SINGULARITY GIRLS Glenn Dungan THE BATTLE FOR ASHGROVE ROAD Hugh A.D. Spencer DESPERATE TO REVIVE Mark J. Schultis X-RAY RIDER (PART TWO) Wayne Kyle Spitzer DR. SORBY’S AMAZING AQUATIC MENAGERIE Olivier Faivre FORTY MILES OF BAD ROAD Rick M. Clausen JUNE BUG SEASON Sarah Wilson Gregory NOAH FROM MARS Lawrence Dagstine THE WILD HUNT David Newkirk

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Reilly pokes more holes in Trump's claims than there are sand traps on all of his courses combined. It is by turns amusing and alarming."-- The New Yorker "Golf is the spine of this shocking, wildly humorous book, but humanity is its flesh and spirit." -- Chicago Sun-Times "Every one of Trump's most disgusting qualities surfaces in golf." -- The Ringer An outrageous indictment of Donald Trump's appalling behavior when it comes to golf -- on and off the green -- and what it reveals about his character. Donald Trump loves golf. He loves to play it, buy it, build it, and operate it. He owns 14 courses around the world and runs another five, all of which he insists are the best on the planet. He also claims he's a 3 handicap, almost never loses, and has won an astonishing 18 club championships. How much of all that is true? Almost none of it, acclaimed sportswriter Rick Reilly reveals in this unsparing look at Trump in the world of golf. Based on Reilly's own experiences with Trump as well as interviews with over 100 golf pros, amateurs, developers, and caddies, Commander in Cheat is a startling and at times hilarious indictment of Trump and his golf game. You'll learn how Trump cheats (sometimes with the help of his caddies and Secret Service agents), lies about his scores (the "Trump Bump"), tells whoppers about the rank of his courses and their worth (declaring that every one of them is worth $50 million), and tramples the etiquette of the game (driving on greens doesn't help). Trump doesn't brag so much, though, about the golf contractors he stiffs, the course neighbors he intimidates, or the way his golf decisions wind up infecting his political ones. For Trump, it's always about winning. To do it, he uses the tricks he picked up from the hustlers at the public course where he learned the game as a college kid, and then polished as one of the most bombastic businessmen of our time. As Reilly writes, "Golf is like bicycle shorts. It reveals a lot about a man." Commander in Cheat "paints a side-splitting portrait of a congenital cheater" (Esquire), revealing all kinds of unsightly truths Trump has been hiding.

Set in the future when "firemen" burn books forbidden by the totalitarian "brave new world" regime.

From the podcast host of The Witch Wave and practicing witch Pam Grossman—who Vulture has dubbed the “Terry Gross of witches”—comes an exploration of the world’s fascination with witches, why they have intrigued us for centuries and why they’re more relevant now than ever. When you think of a witch, what do you picture? Pointy black hat, maybe a broomstick. But witches in various guises have been with us for millennia. In Waking the Witch, Pam Grossman explores the impact of the world’s most magical icon. From the idea of the femme fatale in league with the devil to the bewitching pop culture archetypes in Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Harry Potter; from the spooky ladies in fairy tales to the rise of contemporary witchcraft, witches reflect the power and potential of women. Part cultural analysis, part memoir, Waking the Witch traces the author’s own journey on the path to witchcraft, and how this has helped her find self-empowerment and purpose. It celebrates witches past, present, and future, and reveals the critical role they have played—and will continue to play—in the world as we know it. “Deftly illuminating the past while beckoning us towards the future, Waking the Witch has all the makings of a feminist classic. Wise, relatable, and real, Pam Grossman is the witch we need for our times” (Ami McKay, author of The Witches of New York).

The winners of the Nobel Prize show how economics, when done right, can help us solve the thorniest social and political problems of our day. Figuring out how to deal with today's critical economic problems is perhaps the great challenge of our time. Much greater than space travel or perhaps even the next revolutionary medical breakthrough, what is at stake is the whole idea of the good life as we have known it. Immigration and inequality, globalization and technological disruption, slowing growth and accelerating climate change--these are sources of great anxiety across the world, from New Delhi and Dakar to Paris and Washington, DC. The resources to address these challenges are there--what we lack are ideas that will help us jump the wall of disagreement and distrust that divides us. If we succeed, history will remember our era with gratitude; if we fail, the potential losses are incalculable. In this revolutionary book, renowned MIT economists Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo take on this challenge, building on cutting-edge research in economics explained with lucidity and grace. Original, provocative, and urgent, Good Economics for Hard Times makes a persuasive case for an intelligent interventionism and a society built on compassion and respect. It is an extraordinary achievement, one that shines a light to help us appreciate and understand our precariously balanced world.

"In this debut collection of body-horror fairy tales and mid-apocalyptic Catholic cyberpunk, memory and myth, loss and age ... are the tools of storyteller Jarboe, a talent in the field of queer fabulism. Bodily autonomy and transformation, the importance of negative emotions, unhealthy relationships, and bad situations [inform the] staggering and urgent question of how [to] build and nurture meaning, love, and safety in a larger world/society that might not be 'fixable'"--Publisher marketing.

Overeducated, unemployed, recently dumped, and depressed, the 38-year-old nameless narrator is a familiar American character, except she's Finnish. It is the 1980s, her married Russian lover has recently left her, and the narrator compulsively writes in her journal as she tries to put her life back together. Obsessed with omens, astrology, dreams, fortune-tellers, and other objects of the paranormal, the narrator is both funny and morose.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. In boyhood, Louis Zamperini was an incorrigible delinquent. As a teenager, he channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics. But when World War II began, the athlete became an airman, embarking on a journey that led to a doomed flight on a May afternoon in 1943. When his Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean, against all odds, Zamperini survived, adrift on a foundering life raft. Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will. Appearing in paperback for the first time—with twenty arresting new photos and an extensive Q&A with the author—Unbroken is an unforgettable testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit, brought vividly to life by Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand. Hailed as the top nonfiction book of the year by Time magazine • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography and the Indies Choice Adult Nonfiction Book of the Year award “Extraordinarily moving . . . a powerfully drawn survival epic.”—The Wall Street Journal “[A] one-in-a-billion story . . . designed to wrench from self-respecting critics all the blurby adjectives we normally try to avoid: It is amazing, unforgettable, gripping, harrowing, chilling, and inspiring.”—New York “Staggering . . . mesmerizing . . . Hillenbrand’s writing is so ferociously cinematic, the events she describes so incredible, you don’t dare take your eyes off the page.”—People “A meticulous, soaring and beautifully written account of an extraordinary life.”—The Washington Post “Ambitious and powerful . . . a startling narrative and an inspirational book.”—The New York Times Book Review “Magnificent . . . incredible . . . [Hillenbrand] has crafted another masterful blend of sports, history and overcoming terrific odds; this is biography taken to the nth degree, a chronicle of a remarkable life lived through extraordinary times.”—The Dallas Morning News “An astonishing testament to the superhuman power of tenacity.”—Entertainment Weekly “A tale of triumph and redemption . . . astonishingly detailed.”—O: The Oprah Magazine “[A] masterfully told true story . . . nothing less than a marvel.”—Washingtonian “[Hillenbrand tells this] story with cool elegance but at a thrilling sprinter’s pace.”—Time “Hillenbrand [is] one of our best writers of narrative history. You don’t have to be a sports fan or a war-history buff to devour this book—you just have to love great storytelling.”—Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks