Books Tagged With format - short stories

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Summary: In the dark heart of our imagination, and the haunted corners our past there are places we fear to tread. As much as we might try to outrun them, as much as we might try to deny their truths, we are owned by their shape, molded by their claws. The story of our being, they form a Sacrum Umbra, a sacred shadow of improbable origin- our own dark heart.

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Summary: Climate change is no longer a vague future threat. Forests are burning, currents are shifting, and massive storms dump staggering amounts of water in less than 24 hours Sometimes it’s hard to look ahead and see a hopeful future. We asked sci-fi writers to send us stories about ways to save the world from climate change.  From the myriad of stories we received, we chose the twenty most amazing (and hopefully prescient) tales. Dive in and find out how we might mitigate climate change via solar mirrors, carbon capture, genetic manipulation, and acts of change both large and small. The future’s not going to fix itself.

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Summary: A wildlife rescuer finds a very strange baby in the forest, a child stolen from another world.

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Summary: A collection of tales filled with monsters, be they human or beast, ranging in setting from dystopia to pitch black noir and even general silliness. From the ludicrous to the frighteningly plausible; from deep space to after the end of the world. There are clumsy werewolves and bloody revenge, monster sleep overs and a dieting fad sure to kill your appetite. Whether looking into the past or the future, you're sure to find that stuff gets really weird.

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Summary: Spells & Stardust is Scott's first anthology - eight sci fi and fantasy shorts that run the gamut from regeneration to redemption. The Bear at the Bar: A gay fish out of water tale with a pinch of magic. Tight: What happens when your lover disappears in midair? Morgan: The year when everything changed. Re-Life: What if you were reborn in a strange new future? A New Year: They met every eleven years. And each time, Hank's life changed. Repetition: What if you wanted to go back in the closet? Gargoyle: Sometimes you get what you deserve. Sometimes it happens on All Hallows Eve. Avalon: A few bright moments in the sun, stolen from outside time. Most of these stories have been previously published in various anthologies and journals. This is the first time they have all been collected in one place.

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Summary: These three tales tell the story of Tharassas before the Tharassas Cycle, including the origin of the hencha queens, the ce’faine, and the colonization of the Highlands, essential companions for the four novels that make up the cycle: The Fallen Angel Charlie Fah, Cha’Fah to most of the world, has never fit in with the other citizens of Gully Town, thanks to his darker skin that sets him apart. But one day, an Angel arrives on a supply run from Earth, and what happens next sets Charlie on a new path that will turn his life upside down. The Last Run Sera is the last runner from Earth, bringing badly needed supplies to the Tharassas Colony across a twenty-five year gulf between the planets. Jas works on a hencha farm to make ends meet, harvesting berries from the semi-sentient plants. Neither one that knows their lives—and worlds—are about to change forever. The Emp Test Jey awakens to find himself in the care of a handsome stranger—a cheff from one of the mountain tribes. Afraid for his life, Jey has no choice but to let the man take care of him and his broken leg. Avain is on his Aud'ling—the coming-of-age test that requires him to spend a couple months away from his own people. The two of them will have to come to an understanding if they're going to help one another. The Last Run and The Emp Test have been published before in previous stand-alone editions, but The Fallen Angel is a new story written exclusively for this collection.

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Summary: Discover ten planets, joined through music-based magic and an immense sentient crystal. This anthology contains ten stories from the popular Dissolutionverse universe! Journey with a new majus as he investigates the Pixie homeworld and tries to avert a war. Learn how to change the Symphony during a search for a majus' lost brother. Find a new relationship on an island at war! Travel with merchants in an old war train transporting suspicious cargo. Fly with the first majus in space! Discover the food and culture of the ten species. Uncover what lurks in the basement of the House of Potential. Investigate magic, mystery and murder when a miscreant attacks the secret Society of Two Houses! Confront other-dimensional entities alongside an ancient being. Climb to the top of a miles-high wall with a crew riding a giant steampunk beetle! If you like space opera, fast-paced adventure, music-based magic, and complex, diverse characters, then you’ll love this collection of stories from William C. Tracy’s Dissolutionverse. Pick up Tales of the Dissolutionverse to discover the music today! There’s more adventure in The Dissolution Cycle (Epic Space Opera, LGBT): Book 1: The Seeds of Dissolution Book 2: Facets of the Nether Book 3: Fall of the Imperium Book 4: Tales of the Dissolutionverse

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Summary: Tangents & Tachyons is Scott's second anthology - six sci fi and sci-fantasy shorts that run the gamut from time travel to hopepunk and retro spec fic: Eventide: Tanner Black awakes to find himself in his own study, staring out the window at the end of the Universe. But who brought him there, and why? Chinatown: Deryn lives in an old San Francisco department store with his girlfriend Gracie, and scrapes by with his talent as a dreamcaster for the Chinese overlords. But what if a dream could change the world? Across the Transom: What if someone or something took over your body on an urgent mission to save your world? Pareidolia: Simon's not like other college kids. His mind can rearrange random patterns to reveal the images lurking inside. But where did his strange gift come from? And what if there are others like him out there too? Lamplighter: Fen has a crush on his friend Lewin, who's in a competing guild. But when the world goes dark, only a little illumination can save it. And only Fen, Lewin and their friend Alissa can light the spark. A Liminal Sky short. Prolepsis: Sean is the closeted twenty-five-year-old editor of an 80's sci-fi 'zine called Prolepsis. When an unabashedly queer story arrives from a mysterious writer, it blows open Sean's closet door, and offers him the chance to change the world - and the future. Plus two flash fiction stories – The System and The Frog Prince, never before published. This is the first time all of these stories have all been collected in one place.

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Summary: In celebration of our tenth anniversary, Turtleduck Press has selected the best of our short fiction from the last six years for your reading pleasure. Each author has two stories included, one voted as their best by the members of TDP, and the one they consider their best work personally.   Stories included in this collection: Changeling, Erin Zarro Baking Lessons, KD Sarge The Haunting of Heatherbrae Station, Siri Paulson 1-800-HAUNTME, Kit Campbell Warped, Erin Zarro Crazy Boy, KD Sarge Still Waters, Siri Paulson Deserts and Domes, Kit Campbell   Thank you for supporting us these last ten years, and we hope to bring you many more stories in the future.

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Summary: The Brimstone. Demon owned and—mostly—demon operated. Shax, an exiled prince of Hell, has gathered only the best misfits for his motley crew. You've been with us from the rescue of a runaway angel in a psychedelic nightmare jungle to the house that Poe built. Now share some in-between moments with the Brimstone crew – flash fiction snippets plucked from various spots in each personal timeline, from Shax and Verin's youth in Hell to after the events of Beside a Black Tarn. The Brimstone Journals, Collection Two also includes an exclusive short story, never published as part of the blog series. Leopold meets his formidable grandmama, much to his father's dismay.

Word Count: Click here to reveal10,000 (Click here to hide)

Summary: The job seemed simple enough: collect the package and deliver it to Europa within two days' time, no questions asked. If only the client hadn't lied about there being no catch... A tale from the Jovian Empire.

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Summary: Jey awakens to find himself in the care of a handsome stranger - a cheff from one of the mouuntain tribes, enemies of his own people. Afraid for his life, Jey has no choice but to let the man take care of him and his broken leg. Avain is on his Aud'ling - his coming-of-age test that requires him to spend a couple months alone, away from his own people. When he finds the steader trapped under his aur with a broken leg, he knows he has to help. But not being allowed to speak during his test makes things... difficult. The two of them will have to come to an understanding if they're not going to kill one another. And Avain has a secret to share with Jey, one that that will change his life forever.

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Summary: “Your Path is muddy, Kelnaht, but don’t think avoiding the puddles will make it easier to travel.” Kelnaht, a cloud elf, is a truth seeker caught between love and faith when a murder committed ten days before Solstice reveals an illicit affair between two tree elves he desires more than he can admit. Kelnaht’s former lover Ianys once betrayed him, and the shunned forester Taruif is not allowed to talk to anyone but the guide, their spiritual pathfinder. When Taruif turns out to be the only witness to the crime, Kelnaht must suppress his forbidden feelings or face the ire of the elders. Ianys is terrified the tribe will blame Taruif for the crime, and despite their painful history, Kelnaht tries to keep his impulsive ex-lover from sacrificing his freedom for an impossible love. If Taruif and Ianys’ affair becomes known, Ianys will lose his daughter. Kelnaht finds himself yearning to claim both Taruif and Ianys at the coming Solstice and turns to the guide, who gives him only cryptic advice. It is up to Kelnaht to prove Taruif’s innocence and find a path free of puddles and mud for all three of them. This is the single ebook release of the first Act of A Triad in Three Acts

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Summary: The Great Forest and Other Love Stories  is a collection of short stories, with various settings, including an alien planet, an imaginary country, and places in Virginia, and the end of the world. These gay love stories explore the growth of relationships, and the negotiations of various complications and challenges.

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Summary: While Sacrum Umbra showed us the darkness of our own shadow, and In Ventre Tuo the guts of our inner monster, The Lesser Apocrypha is still another beast altogether. Meant to gather together the stranger stories, it contains some of the more surreal and ephemeral stories, the ones that just are without much rhyme or reason. Stories like an odd moment in the park, the strange child who won't stop haunting you, an alien invasion that gets very personal, an AI born of a lolcat, monsters in the woods, and a spell gone terribly wrong.

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Summary: Welcome to the Museum of the Omniverse where you can safely experience actual events from every possible part of time and space. The museum is having some technical difficulties, however. Space time rifts have been opening throughout the museum and everyone has disappeared except for Mirandum, an exhibit curator. When a small group of visitors appears, Mirandum gives them a tour of the museum’s Dragon Exhibit while searching for clues to the museum’s ultimate fate. This full cast cinematic audio experience features an original musical soundtrack by Nashville recording artist Jeff Moon and an immersive soundscape, which brings stories by Timothy Zahn, David Lee Summers, Carol Hightshoe, Patrick Thomas, and Jeremiah Lynch to life.

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Summary: WILL YOU BE ONE OF THE INVITED? A forbidden midnight market is coming to town. The Night Bazaar isn't new. In fact, it's as old as civilization. Its first recorded appearance was in Sana'a, around 700 B.C.E. with secretive merchants from the East who presented covered stalls of exotic goods and arcane services. Various mentions appear in obscure and controversial works from around the world. The only common element is that the market opens at midnight, closes before sunrise, and may appear for up to a week in the same city . . . Paris, 1796 . . . London, 1888 . . . Berlin, 1936 . . . San Francisco, 1906 . . . but never in the same venue each night. And never again in the same city. There's just one catch: In order to find it, you must be Invited. Tonight, The Night Bazaar opens in a parking garage somewhere in Manhattan. A whole subterranean city full of antique costumes, alchemical treatments, magical dentistry, palmistry, Tarot, tea leaf-reading, and water-, glass-, and crystal-gazing, oddities and objets d’art, medical curiosities and surgical instruments. Other lost arts and body alterations are offered in certain alcoves. Through the narrow aisles throng jongleurs, freaks, charlatans, mountebanks, faeries, prostitutes, and acrobats. The scents of opium, perfume, tobacco, greasepaint, incense, plastic explosive, alcohol, and sex permeate the air. But each object or service comes with a gift, a curse, or a haunting. (This is the summary of volume one. However, The Night Bazaar anthologies need not be read in any particular order; they are all designed to stand alone as well.) The Bazaar sells that which cannot be had elsewhere. Everything you’ve read about but thought had passed away, or perhaps never existed. How wrong you were! Your guide is Madame Vera, a tall, thin woman of uncertain age, ethnicity, and trustworthiness. The stories within are your invitation to join us. It seems you have already spotted something you desire . . . but don’t head off that way, not just yet. You have all night . . . but not a moment more.

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Summary: Welcome, Gentle Stranger. The Night Bazaar is open to you, once more. But this mysterious midnight gathering isn’t the usual marketplace. It’s a vendor's faire not constrained by geography or time. One week it appears in present-day New York, the next in . . . well, let’s say 14th century Venice, shall we? For this time, Madame Vera and the other peripatetic denizens of The Night Bazaar return to the Bazaar’s roots. Its origin story and inaugural appearance, as the exotic marketplace pitches its colorful tents in La Serenissima, the city of a hundred canals, host to fancy glassworks, masked revelries, and singing gondoliers. And – you guessed it. Unfortunately, in 1348, to the Black Death. The market's aisles are still crowded with vendors of the rare and unusual, exotic dancers, assorted faeries, jongleurs, acrobats, mountebanks, courtesans, and purveyors of curious objets d’art. Booths feature medical oddities and strange instruments of all sorts. Tents offer passersby unusual, uncanny services. But this time, the Plague threatens the complacent citizens of Venice. Who will survive, and at what cost? The Bazaar always sells that which cannot be had elsewhere, at any price. Everything you’ve read about, but thought had passed away, or perhaps never existed. How wrong you were! For Madame Vera and her staff can take you anywhere, and anytime. You need only be Invited . . . and now you have been. (Volumes of The Night Bazaar can be read in any order; each anthology is designed to stand alone as well. Time is relative, after all!)

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"Once upon a time" is a phrase that immediately conjures images of enchantment. Royal balls, magical creatures, love at first sight... We are taken to a fantasy world where anything is possible. The Queen of Clocks and Other Steampunk Tales brings together the magic of fairytale and the allure of cogs and gears. Within these pages, find dancing automatons, industrial age fairies, a mermaid with wind-up legs, heroes of the steam age, and more. Drawing from classic tales of the Brothers Grimm, Carlo Collodi, Charles Perrault, Hans Christian Andersen, and Homer, these original interpretations are sure to delight fans of steampunk and fairytales alike.