Having re-affirmed Solaris’ proud reputation for producing high quality science fiction anthologies in the first volume, Solaris Rising 2 is the next collection in this exciting series. Featuring stories by Allan Steele, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Kim Lakin-Smith, Paul Cornell, Eugie Foster, Nick Harkaway, Nancy Kress, Kay Kenyon, James Lovegrove, Robert Reed, Mercurio D. Rivera, Norman Spinrad, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Liz Williams, Vandana Singh, Martin Sketchley and more. These stories are guaranteed to surprise, thrill and delight, and maintain our mission to demonstrate why science fiction remains the most exiting, varied and inspiring of all fiction genres. In Solaris Rising we showed both the quality and variety that modern SF can produce. In Solaris Rising 2, we’re taking that much, much further.

The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction Solaris Rising 2 showcases the finest new science fiction from both celebrated authors and the most exciting of emerging writers. Following in the footsteps of the critically-acclaimed first volume, editor Ian Whates has once again gathered together a plethora of thrilling and daring talent. Within you will find unexplored frontiers as well as many of the central themes of the genre - alien worlds, time travel, artificial intelligence - made entirely new in the telling. The authors here prove once again why SF continues to be the most innovative, satisfying, and downright exciting genre of all. Featuring new writing by Allen Steele // Paul Cornell // Nancy Kress // James Lovegrove // Adrian Tchaikovsky // Neil Williamson // Nick Harkaway // Kay Kenyon // Kristine Kathryn Rusch // Mercurio D. Rivera // Eugie Foster // Vandana Singh // Kim Lakin-Smith // Robert Reed // Martin Sketchley // Norman Spinrad // Liz Williams // Martin McGrath // Mike Allen

Solaris Rising is the first in an exciting new series of anthologies that are set to reaffirm Solaris’s proud reputation for producing high quality science fiction. Featuring all original short stories from many best-selling authors such as Peter F. Hamilton, Alastair Reynolds, Stephen Baxter, Paul di Filippo, Adam Roberts, Lavie Tidhar, Ian Watson, Ken MacLeod, Mike Resnick, Tricia Sullivan, Eric Brown, Steve Rasnic Tem along with other top name authors; stories guaranteed to surprise, thrill and delight, demonstrating why science fiction remains the most innovative, satisfying, and downright exciting genre of all.

Solaris Rising 1.5 continues the exciting new series of SF anthologies from Solaris and editor Ian Whates, with an exclusive ebook! An anthology of nine short stories from some of the most exciting names in science fiction today. From both sides of the Atlantic – and further afield – these nine great writers offer you everything from a mystery about the nature of the universe to an inexplicable transmission to everyone on Earth, and from engineered giant spiders to Venetian palaces in space. So settle in, and enjoy yet more proof of the extraordinary breadth and depth of contemporary SF. Featuring Adam Roberts, Aliette de Bodard, Gareth L. Powell, Mike Resnick, Sarah Lotz, Phillip Vine, Tanith Lee, Paul Cornell, Paul di Filippo.

Inside the Seattle Preservation Dome, it?s always the Fifth of October, the city caught in an endless time loop. Outside, the world lies in apocalyptic ruin. ?Reformed? graffiti artist Ian Palmer is the only one who knows the truth, and he is desperate to wake up the rest of the city before the alien Curator of the living museum erases Ian?s identity forever. Small-town teenager Kylie is one of the few survivors to escape both the initial shock wave and the poison rains that followed. Now she must make her way across the blasted lands, pursued by a mad priest and menaced by skin-and-bone things that might once have been human. Her destination is the Preservation, and her mission is to destroy it. But once inside, she meets Ian, and together they discover that the Preservation?s reality is even stranger than it appears.

In the new millennium, what secrets lay beyond the far reaches of the universe? What mysteries belie the truths we once held to be self evident? The world of science fiction has long been a porthole into the realities of tomorrow, blurring the line between life and art. Now, in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection the very best SF authors explore ideas of a new world in the year's best short stories. This venerable collection brings together award winning authors and masters of the field such as Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Damien Broderick, Elizabeth Bear, Paul McAuley and John Barnes. And with an extensive recommended reading guide and a summation of the year in science fiction, this annual compilation has become the definitive must-read anthology for all science fiction fans and readers interested in breaking into the genre.

In the new millennium, what secrets lay beyond the far reaches of the universe? What mysteries belie the truths we once held to be self evident? The world of science fiction has long been a porthole into the realities of tomorrow, blurring the line between life and art. Now, in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection the very best SF authors explore ideas of a new world through their short stories. This venerable collection brings together award winning authors and masters of the field such as Robert Reed, Alastair Reynolds, Damien Broderick, Elizabeth Bear, Paul McAuley and John Barnes. And with an extensive recommended reading guide and a summation of the year in science fiction, this annual compilation has become the definitive must-read anthology for all science fiction fans and readers interested in breaking into the genre. The multiple Locus Award-winning annual compilation of the year's best science fiction stories

“Arctic Sky” tells of a young climate activist who discovers her own courage in the frozen depths of a Russian prison. “Palimpsest” is set on a bionic (living)space station that launches explorers into the farthest reaches of Time and Space. In “The Room on the Roof” an ancient culture meets modern mysteries with unexpected results. Our non-fiction title piece, “Utopias of the Third Kind,” is a first look at actual utopias that are responding to our looming dystopian nightmare. “Hunger” is a short story that finds both understanding and forgiveness for humankind’s original sin. Our Outspoken Interview and a bibliography round out this new collection.

“Mike Allen will infect your subconscious with hallucinatory and alarming delight. This book is a must-read for fans of weird fiction and dark fantasy.” —Helen Marshall, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Gifts for the One who Comes After The Spider Tapestries, Mike Allen’s sophomore short story collection, takes a wrecking ball to genre boundaries, showcasing seven stories that mix transhuman noir, Lovecraftian horror, and surrealistic sorcery in an exploration of the further reaches of the Weird. Readers who savored the disorienting strangeness in Allen’s debut collection Unseaming, a Shirley Jackson Award finalist and Amazon.com horror fiction bestseller, will find The Spider Tapestries begins where Unseaming left off. As Nicole Kornher-Stace, author of Archivist Wasp, explains in her introduction, “Allen outdoes himself even further, borrowing and synthesizing across genres with gleeful abandon....This results in stories like ‘Twa Sisters,’ with an atmosphere and setting as if Heironymous Bosch had been brought in as a consultant on Blade Runner. Or ‘Sleepless, Burning Life,’ which, with simultaneous nods to steampunk and metaphysics, explores and upends the familiar trope of Mortal Chosen by the Gods.” More praise for The Spider Tapestries “Elegant language and surrealistic themes defy genre and moral expectations in the weird and transgressive stories found in this collection... Allen’s pairing of individualistic suffering and cosmic hugeness evokes a lyrical friction between dread and wonder.” ­— Publishers Weekly “The seven stories in this slim collection range from dark fantasy to sf to horror—sometimes all within one tale. There are enough spiders here to make an arachnophobe go into hysterics, but they are not the only ones spinning webs ... Allen weaves intriguing connections among his tales, applying dizzying, sensual images.” ­— Library Journal “The aptly named Spider Tapestries forms a stunning picture that is equal parts darkness and light . . . a whirlwind tour through worlds of decadent fantasy, noir-touched future-weird, and elegant horror. Mike Allen offers up intricate mythologies that feel real and lived in, rich-detailed stories for readers to immerse themselves in, and from which they will emerge changed. The stories feel epic in scope, from an assassin climbing through the clockwork gears of the world to rescue a goddess in a cage, to an AI moving through bodies and networks to gather up and reassemble the pieces of his lost love. Allen takes readers on a journey through years and worlds, all in the space of a few pages.” —A.C. Wise, author of The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron Saves the World Again “There was a time before the marketplace sliced our wild fantastic literature into bite sized chunks, a time when visions could be astounding, amazing, and weird all at once, a time when Clark Ashton Smith could mainline a Thousand and One Nights into million-colored suns. Now comes Mike Allen, shredding raw that scar-woven shroud between then, now, and infinity, releasing hallucinatory torrents of jewel-encrusted erotic transhumanism with the intensity of a quasar and stripping bare the secret wheels and cogs of the universe beside those lovers who would destroy them.” —Scott Nicolay, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Do You Like to Look at Monsters? “Mike Allen, among the most dynamic of contemporary fantasists, habitually upends Lovecraftian tropes with his own brand of cosmic horror.” —Laird Barron, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of X’s for Eyes

SHARKPUNK: an anthology of killer shark stories. Sharks – the ultimate predators, masters of their watery domain, a world that is entirely alien and inhospitable to man. So many aspects of the shark are associated with humankind’s most primal fears. The tell-tale dorsal fin slicing through the water, the dead eyed-stare, the gaping jaws full to unforgiving teeth, the remorseless drive to kill and feed… Inspired by such classic pulp movies as Jaws and Deep Blue Sea – as well as such ludicrous delights as Sharknado and Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus – the stories contained within are rip-roaring page-turners and slow-build chillers that celebrate all things savage, pulp and selachian. Covering the whole range of speculative fiction genres, from horror and Steampunk, through to SF and WTF, these are stories with bite! Come on in. The water’s fine…