“One of the great . . . American short-story writers” exposes the darkness of the human heart in these speculative tales of terror and tragedy (George R. R. Martin). A five-year-old boy never ages, living as an immortal in a past that no longer exists while the world encroaches upon his innocence, in the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning “Jeffty Is Five.” An alien attack leaves Earth on the brink of Armageddon, as humans find themselves unable to resist the sexual allure of their invaders in “How’s the Night Life on Cissalda?” In the Nebula Award–nominated “Shatterday” (subsequently adapted into the pilot episode of the second Twilight Zone series), a man fights for his life against a relentless enemy who knows his darkest secrets—his own doppelganger. In these and other thought-provoking stories, legendary author Harlan Ellison dissects the primal fears and inherent frailties common to all people and gives voice to the thoughts and feelings human beings bury deep within their souls. Unflinching and unapologetic, Ellison depicts men and women in all their ugliness and beauty, and humanity in all its fury and glory. Stories include “Introduction: Mortal Dreads,” “Jeffty Is Five,” “How’s the Night Life on Cissalda?,” “Flop Sweat,” “Would You Do it For a Penny?” (written in collaboration with Haskell Barkin), “The Man Who Was Heavily Into Revenge,” “Shoppe Keeper,” “All the Lies That Are My Life,” “Django,” “Count the Clock That Tells the Time,” “In the Fourth Year of the War,” “Alive and Well on a Friendless Voyage,” “All the Birds Come Home to Roost,” “Opium,” “The Other Eye of Polyphemus,” “The Executioner of the Malformed Children,” and “Shatterday.”

Explore two beloved Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings—Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms—in this thrilling crossover novel by the author of Darkwalker on Moonshae Emilo Haversack is unusually worried for a kender—though he can't for the life of him remember what his problem is. Still, he's been wandering across Ansalon for quite some time, trying to remember what's wrong. All he can recall is the name of a very evil, very dead wizard: Fistandantilus. Joined by a young kendermaid, a human lad, and a devout, if somewhat naive priest, Emilo is drawn into a mysterious quest. As he draws closer to the secret of his past, he and his friends find themselves caught in an increasingly sinister web of intrigue. As the conclusion of the adventure approaches, the companions learn that their purpose is one that could catapult them from Krynn—and forever change the destiny of the world they leave behind. Fistandantilus Reborn is the second novel in the Lost Gods series and the second novel in the Dragonlance: Lost Legends series.

This is a book about excellence, more particularly about the conditions under which excellence is possible in our kind of society; but it is also—inevitably—a book about equality, about the kinds of equality that can and must be honored, and the kinds that cannot be forced. Such a book must raise some questions which Americans have shown little inclination to discuss rationally. What are the characteristic difficulties a democracy encounters in pursuing excellence? Is there a way out of these difficulties? How equal do we want to be? How equal can we be? What do we mean when we say, “Let the best man win”? Can an equalitarian society tolerate winners? Are we overproducing highly educated people? How much talent can the society absorb? Does society owe a living to talent? Does talent invariably have a chance to exhibit itself in our society? Does every young American have a “right” to a college education? Are we headed toward domination by an intellectual elite? Is it possible for a people to achieve excellence if they don’t believe in anything? Have the American people lost their sense of purpose and the drive which would make it possible for them to achieve excellence?

Being-in-time to the music from the ground up is a work in phenomenology, where this term is broadly defined, comprehending Plato, Heidegger, Hegel, and Marx. The most direct referent is Hegel, together with the theoretical revolution that he initiated with Phenomenology of Mind. This text’s more general purpose is to set the tone for a 21st communism based upon the idea of dancing with death, assuming full responsibility for one’s mortality, and abandoning the self to love as the meaning of existence. This dance is choreographed through my conversations with the above mentioned writers. In conversing with them I aim to displace (if not usurp) them from the throne of honour which is nothing more than the authority borrowed from me. By this I do not intend to deny completely their ‘other to me’ character. However, they exist or even ‘figure’ for me, both in the sense of of ‘count,’ having importance, as those that I read, and by which I read myself. They have borrowed my authority, namely, my own potential to be an author. So ‘reading them is to re-assume that borrowed authority. The life of the reader, to paraphrase Barthes, begins with the death of the author.

A planet with a forbidden history; A man without a name or memory; The two collide in a titanic struggle. Magic battles science in this gripping tale of an exoplanet colony’s struggle for survival. On Sundering, the man called Grey must unravel the planet’s deepest secrets to find his own real name and the truth about himself. His search for his past threatens the balance of power, and awakens ancient forces. Grey’s unshakeable belief in science and rationality is challenged as he discovers that magic is also real—and that beings of folklore hold the entire planet in thrall. The more Grey discovers, the more the lines blur—is he victim or hero? Will civilization survive the truths he uncovers? Grey’s deeply introspective and philosophical quest slow-burns its way to a stunning conflagration of forces as lies, half-truths, plots, and deceptions are laid bare. This thriller will keep you turning pages and make you question your deepest beliefs.

A collection of twenty thought-provoking essays from “one of the most brilliant, innovative, and eloquent writers on earth” (Publishers Weekly). Harlan Ellison—master essayist, gadfly, literary myth figure, and viewer of dark portent—has been, for the greater part of his life, a burr under the saddle of complacency. In this collection, his former assistant and confidante, Marty Clark, has culled from hundreds of rare and un-reprinted works to select twenty wide-ranging essays—nonfiction writings ranging from travelogue to media criticism, literary exploration to personal musing—that demonstrate why the monstre sacre of imaginative literature won the prestigious Silver Pen award from PEN International for his journalistic forays.

An adrenaline-charged tale of unrelenting suspense that sparks with raw and savage energy... The newspapers scream out headlines that spark terror across the city. Ten murders on the New York City subway. Ten grisly crimes that defy all reason -- no pattern, no m.o., no leads for police to pursue. The press dubs the fiend the "Subway Psycho"; the NYPD desperately seeks their quarry before the city erupts in mass hysteria. But they won't find what they're looking for. Because they all think that the killer is human. Only a few know the true story -- a story the papers will never print. It is a tale of abject terror and death written in grit and steel... and blood. The tale of a man who vanished into the bowels of the urban earth one night, taken by a creature of unholy evil, then left as a babe abandoned on the doorstep of Hell. Now he is back, driven by twin demons of rage and retribution. He is unstoppable. And we are all his prey... unless a ragtag band of misfit souls will dare to descend into a world of manmade darkness, where the real and unreal alike dwell in endless shadow. A place where humanity has been left behind, and the horrifying truth will dawn as a madman's chilling vendetta comes to light... Filled with gripping drama and harrowing doomsday dread, The Light at the End is the book that ushered in a bold new view of humankind's most ancient and ruthless evil; a mesmerizing novel from two acknowledged masters of spellbinding suspense.