Reworked Omnibus of stories from Rachel Lawson's The Magicians series, such as this Dark Fantasy-Gothic short story; The Locket And The Thief What if you lost the last physical thing that reminds you of a lost beloved child through theft, and it happens to be found upon the body of the now dead thief, and it is now in the hands of the police would you if you had access to would you take it back? Is stealing back your own stolen thing, really theft or is it? This is the situation where this coroner, Blake, finds himself in. On a lonely quiet misty night after midnight in Melbourne, anything can happen and it did. At that hour, only the reckless and unprincipled wander around. On such a night as this, a straggler from a theatre was wandering in the cool calming night remembering a lost daughter who he'd lost many years ago on a night like this. This day, to be exact, 28 years earlier. She was murdered with her husband as they walked the street he was in. He came as he always did this night to lay a rose for them. He did so unbothered, for all the times he had come. Before that night. He pulled out an old locket and looked at it sadly and opened it, looking at the pictures inside it. They were his daughter and her husband. The father pulled a red rose from his inside coat pocket and lay the rose on the wet road. As the father knelt laying the rose there was a noise nearby on the road like a splash in the puddle, he looked up and saw a man with a gun trained on him.

Imagine a world without humans, where smart clothes equipped with apparel intelligence fight for supremacy. When a brave pair of smart-briefs sets out on a quest to cure his people's madness, he ends up in the middle of an all-out wardrobe war instead. Outnumbered by outfits fashioned for mayhem, with the future of smart garments everywhere hanging by a thread, do the smart-briefs stand a chance of cutting off the power-mad Hive Twine before it sews up a dark future for all clothing-kind? Don't miss this surprising story by award-winning writer Robert Jeschonek, a master of unique and unexpected science fiction that really packs a punch. Contents Short story plus novel preview

Reworked Omnibus of stories from Rachel Lawson's The Magicians series, such as this Dark Fantasy-Gothic short story; The Locket And The Thief What if you lost the last physical thing that reminds you of a lost beloved child through theft, and it happens to be found upon the body of the now dead thief, and it is now in the hands of the police would you if you had access to would you take it back? Is stealing back your own stolen thing, really theft or is it? This is the situation where this coroner, Blake, finds himself in. On a lonely quiet misty night after midnight in Melbourne, anything can happen and it did. At that hour, only the reckless and unprincipled wander around. On such a night as this, a straggler from a theatre was wandering in the cool calming night remembering a lost daughter who he'd lost many years ago on a night like this. This day, to be exact, 28 years earlier. She was murdered with her husband as they walked the street he was in. He came as he always did this night to lay a rose for them. He did so unbothered, for all the times he had come. Before that night. He pulled out an old locket and looked at it sadly and opened it, looking at the pictures inside it. They were his daughter and her husband. The father pulled a red rose from his inside coat pocket and lay the rose on the wet road. As the father knelt laying the rose there was a noise nearby on the road like a splash in the puddle, he looked up and saw a man with a gun trained on him.

When her best friends start fighting, Nancy must find a special locket to save the day! Nancy's best friends, Bess and George, may never speak to each other again. It all started because Bess wanted to jump rope. She asked George to hold on to her beautiful heart-shaped locket. George put it in her book bag to keep it safe. But when she went to give it back, the locket was gone! It's a mess of a mystery, but if Nancy Drew can find out where the locket went, she just might be able to get George and Bess to make up!

In addition to a brand-new story by Michael Avon Oeming (Rapture, Powers), this volume sees Jimmy Palmiotti (Jonah Hex) and Mark Texeira (Ghost Rider) introduce readers to the daughters of Midora, Ron Marz (Green Lantern) and Bart Sears (The Helm) visit the Island of No Return, and Tim Truman (King Conan: The Scarlet Citadel) and Marian Churchland (Elephantmen) provide a breathtaking yarn of their own! A must-buy for any Conan fan! Collects Conan and the Daughters of Midora, Conan: Island of No Return #1–#2, and stories from MySpace Dark Horse Presents #11 and USA Today.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the widely acclaimed, bestselling author of American War—a beautifully written, unrelentingly dramatic, and profoundly moving novel that looks at the global refugee crisis through the eyes of a child. "Told from the point of view of two children, on the ground and at sea, the story so astutely unpacks the us-versus-them dynamics of our divided world that it deserves to be an instant classic." —The New York Times Book Review More bodies have washed up on the shores of a small island. Another overfilled, ill-equipped, dilapidated ship has sunk under the weight of its too many passengers: Syrians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, all of them desperate to escape untenable lives back in their homelands. But miraculously, someone has survived the passage: nine-year-old Amir, a Syrian boy who is soon rescued by Vänna. Vänna is a teenage girl, who, despite being native to the island, experiences her own sense of homelessness in a place and among people she has come to disdain. And though Vänna and Amir are complete strangers, though they don’t speak a common language, Vänna is determined to do whatever it takes to save the boy. In alternating chapters, we learn about Amir’s life and how he came to be on the boat, and we follow him and the girl as they make their way toward safety. What Strange Paradise is the story of two children finding their way through a hostile world. But it is also a story of empathy and indifference, of hope and despair—and about the way each of those things can blind us to reality.