​If you got a mysterious box that said, Do Not Open, would you open it? If your fingers revolted and wanted a different job, would you agree? If you came from a race of giants, or thought about becoming Death’s lover, or couldn’t get rid of a lover no matter how hard you tried, what would you do? These stories contain unusual problems, like finding your world growing dark after eating a piece of cake—and maybe wanting more cake. It’s not hard to find yourself one step outside the normal, as these characters do. The trick is to make it work.

The book opens with the annual spring dispatch, by the Seattle-based Filipino union, of thousands of Filipino workers to the Alaska salmon canneries. We meet characters who reappear throughout the stories: Vince, the tough but charming union foreman and "big shot" father to Buddy, our American-born narrator; Chris, the battle-scarred union president targeted by McCarthyism; Rico, the spirited young king of the neighborhood who will fall victim to Vietnam; Stephanie, the beautiful mestiza who marrie up; and many others who age and change in ironic counterpint to persistent themes of loyalty, fierce ethnic pride, and a willingness to struggle against hostile forces in society. There are wry twists of humor and surprising turns of plot; a long-lost love is renewed; a long-hidden family secret is revealed. We encounter the inevitable aging and passing of the Manong generation, but we sense as well the arrival of its vision. Babies are born. The migrant fisheries worker gets a nine-to-five job, and his children go to college. The conclusion builds to a quiet power that is essentially elegiac; an era closes, but the voices of the older generation are shouldered by the younger, to keep the history to retell the stories, and to pay homage.

"Brutally beautiful — not like anything else you'll read this year, or any other." - Cassandra Clare, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Clockwork Angel Kit and Fancy Cordelle are sisters of the best kind: best friends, best confidantes, and best accomplices. The daughters of the infamous Bonesaw Killer, Kit and Fancy are used to feeling like outsiders, and that’s just the way they like it. But in Portero, where the weird and wild run rampant, the Cordelle sisters are hardly the oddest or most dangerous creatures around. It’s no surprise when Kit and Fancy start to give in to their deepest desire—the desire to kill. What starts as a fascination with slicing open and stitching up quickly spirals into a gratifying murder spree. Of course, the sisters aren’t killing just anyone, only the people who truly deserve it. But the girls have learned from the mistakes of their father, and know that a shred of evidence could get them caught. So when Fancy stumbles upon a mysterious and invisible doorway to another world, she opens a door to endless possibilities….

Chemistry and Other Stories, A Picador Paperback Original From the pre-eminent chronicler of this forgotten territory, stories that range over one hundred years in the troubled, violent emergence of the New South. In Ron Rash's stories, spanning the entire twentieth century in Appalachia, rural communities struggle with the arrival of a new era. Three old men stalk the shadow of a giant fish no one else believes is there. A man takes up scuba diving in the town reservoir to fight off a killing depression. A grieving mother leads a surveyor into the woods to name once and for all the county where her son was murdered by thieves. In the Appalachia of Ron Rash's stories, the collision of the old and new south, of antique and modern, resonate with the depth and power of ancient myths.

Creatures of all kinds go to the Barista to find love, including the devilishly sexy incubus known as Dante. Dante wants to find his soul mate- someone that won't scream when they see his horns, his tail, and his...other thing. Thousands of years of seduction and power, and he still can't fill the hole in his heart. When the Barista sets Dante up with a human named Peter, he realizes that he's never wanted anyone else more. Peter is resistant though, especially when it comes to the L word. Dante has his work cut out for him if he's going to finally get his own little slice of hell. This novella has the following: Hot MONSTER Scenes Special package.... Fated Mates Love BDSM Sword Crossing And more;) The Creature Cafe Series follows the Barista and who he matchmakes. Each book will have a different monster finding their true love, tons of spicy scenes, and special *ahem* appendages. Follow Clio Evans on Instagram, Facebook, or Tiktok to stay up to date on monster related shenanigans.

Quantum Hughes' life is stuck on repeat. While trapped in The LOOP, he struggles to free himself from a glitch that forces him to re-live the same day over and over.

A collection of fourteen stories, Nelycinda & other stories, presents a woman's perspective of society thriving on trade and business. Lyrical and poignant, these stories take us to a world infested with the aroma of spices. The world was always opaque and something about the nearness of the sea made it more so. Susa began her day with the smallness of things, sea sand, which appeared as dull as the day, and the colours in the translucent shells, each catching the first light of the morning. How curious that the sand and salt and the ambitions of the sea creatures could create these colours. She walked to the seaside, wishing that the fisher people were about, but they had dived for pearls earlier than was usual that morning because of the impending storm. A great silence filled the ocean that brought to her the occasional screech of birds wheeling, and the whorls of the sea shells which produced their own sounds. Prison was a place which enclosed one and brought the world much closer by what one could imagine. It was where silence was the only companion, where the routines of the day allowed one to build a small world based entirely on ones thoughts. It was the shelter of the moment to work with the grandeur of the unseen. Imprisoned by the minutes, and allowed to fly when the tasks were completed. She looked at the beach, for the inlets were full of birds and moss and climbing purple flowers, and that was where she would go. To the river that, in its sureness of the life of the people, would bring her conversations and the calm of everyday tasks.

Picasso's Cat and Other Stories showcases the broad talents of one of science fiction's more versatile writers. This collection contains 15 tales of humor, hard science, cyberpunk, near-future SF, and space opera--including the three-story "Stealing the Sun" series that first appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact. The collection is introduced by multi-award-winning author Mike Resnick, and each story is accompanied by short commentary by the author. Whether you're new to Ron Collins's work or already an established fan, Picasso's Cat and Other Stories provides, for the first time ever, the very best of his science fiction in one complete volume. ------------------------ What will happen when ... - A military man is given an order that will destroy an entire species of intelligent life? - Three members of a close-knit software company develop a technology worth billions? - A hit man gets caught in a war between his boss and the dead don of a rival family? - A corporate web developer takes on a rogue virus with a personality? - A group of space-faring chickenmen land in a farmer's corn patch?

Three stories of a world shared by resurrected humans from all times and places—plus ten more tales by the Hugo Award–winning author of the World of Tiers series. On author Philip José Farmer’s Riverworld, humans from every era and culture have been simultaneously resurrected. Ancient Hebrews, medieval warriors, Spanish Inquisitors, and modern Americans intermingle in this strange new environment, but many still cling to old prejudices. Tom Mix, a silent-film star originally from early-twentieth-century Earth, is journeying among the vast population along the millions of miles of the River, in search of familiar faces from his own time. He’s been traveling the River for five years and believes people are starting to change. But when he’s entangled in a brutal clash between states, he discovers that some are slow to let go of the ideas that ruled them on Earth. This volume includes the novelette “Riverworld,” along with two additional Riverworld tales and ten other short stories, all strange, clever, and profound. Farmer’s explorations of the wonderful and bizarre—from a portrayal of Jesus and Satan as cowpokes to a reimagining of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan in the style of William Burroughs—plunge the reader into “one of the most imaginative worlds in science fiction” (Booklist). This ebook includes“Riverworld,” “J. C. on the Dude Ranch,” “The Volcano,” “The Henry Miller Dawn Patrol,” “The Problem of Sore Bridge—Among Others,” “Brass and Gold (or Horse and Zeppelin in Beverly Hills),” “The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod,” “The Voice of the Sonar in My Vermiform Appendix,” “Monolog,” “The Leaser of Two Evils,” “The Phantom of the Sewers,” “Up the Bright River,” “Crossing the Dark River,” and Philip JosFarmer’s article on the making of Riverworld, “The Source of the River.”