Outstanding Science Fiction Fantasy & Horror
Explore a curated list of outstanding science fiction, fantasy, and horror books. Discover top-tier reads in speculative fiction for every fan of the extraordinary.
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The Taking
by Dean Ray Koontz
Molly and Niel Sloan and their neighbors in a small California mountain town encounter a threat that transforms their peaceful streets into a ghostly labyrinth happening around them.
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Night Witch
by Jack Priest
Alone in bed Carolina plays with her locket, a gift from her dad. She doesnt know he stole it from an evil woman in Trinidad. She hears a noise outside her window, looks up and sees red eyes staring in at her.Something horrible is outside.The Night Witch is a soucouyant, Southern Caribbean cousin to the vampire and werewolf. She is a never aging shape shifter born of a mixture of Voodoo and European folklore. She lives forever because she wears a locket that contains a magic potion.Her locket has been stolen and she wants it back.
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Night Visions 11
by Kim Newman
For nearly two decades, the Night Visions anthologies have provided a forum for some of the finest dark fantasists of the modern era, including Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker, Dan Simmons, and many, many more. In 2003, Subterranean Press will proudly publish the eleventh installment of this landmark series.Edited and introduced by World Fantasy Award winner Bill Sheehan, Night Visions 11 will feature novellas by Tim Lebbon (Face, As the Sun Goes Down), Kim Newman (Anno Dracula, The Quorum), and Lucius Shepard (The Jaguar Hunter, Life During Wartime). Together, these three gifted -- and very different -- writers have won almost every major award the fields of horror, fantasy, and science fiction have to offer, and their combined presence is a virtual guarantee of quality. Night Visions 11 is sure to be one of the most memorable, entertaining, and talked about anthologies of the coming year. Don't let it pass you by.
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The Dark
by Ellen Datlow
Datlow, referred to by some as the Mistress of Horror, has gathered ghost stories by 15 masters of the macabre in this deliciously frightening anthology of original terror.
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Wolves of the Calla
by Stephen King
Here is the fifth installment, "one of the strongest entries yet in what will surely be a master storyteller's magnum opus" (Locus).
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The Dark Tower VI
by Stephen King
While Jake, Father Callahan, and Oy struggle to free Susannah Dean, whose body is possessed by a demon-mother named Mia, Roland and Eddie find themselves swept by magic to East Stoneham, Maine, in the summer of 1977, where they encounter a terrifying and dangerous world.
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The X President
by Philip Edward Baruth
In the year 2055 America is entangled in a devastating world war, and as the threat of homeland invasion grows stronger, Sal Hayden, official biographer of a former president, attempts to influence the future by changing the past.
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Air
by Geoff Ryman
What happens when the whole world goes online . . . through the air? A brilliant literary SF novel by the author of 253.
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Dragon's Kin
by Anne McCaffrey
Beginning with the classic "Dragonriders of Pern, Anne McCaffrey has created a complex, endlessly fascinating world uniting humans and great telepathic dragons. Millions of devoted readers have soared on the glittering wings of Anne's imagination, following book by book the evolution of one of science fiction's most beloved and honored series. Now, for the first time, Anne has invited another writer to join her in the skies of Pern, a writer with an intimate knowledge of Pern and its history: her son, Todd. DRAGON'S KIN Young Kindan has no expectations other than joining his father in the mines of Camp Natalon, a coal mining settlement struggling to turn a profit far from the great Holds where the presence of dragons and their riders means safety and civilization. Mining is fraught with danger. Fortunately, the camp has a watch-wher, a creature distantly related to dragons and uniquely suited to specialized work in the dark, cold mineshafts. Kindan's father is the watch-wher's handler, and his son sometimes helps him out. But even that important job promises no opportunity outside the mine. Then disaster strikes. In one terrible instant, Kindan loses his family and the camp loses its watch-wher. Fathers are replaced by sons in the mine-except for Kindan, who is taken in by the camp's new Harper. Grieving, Kindan finds a measure of solace in a burgeoning musical talent . . . and in a new friendship with Nuella, a mysterious girl no one seems to know exists. It is Nuella who assists Kindan when he is selected to hatch and train a new watch-wher, a job that forces him to give up his dream of becoming a Harper; and it is Nuella who helps him give new meaning to his life. Meanwhile, sparked by the tragedy, long-simmering tensions are dividing the camp. Far below the surface, a group of resentful miners hides a deadly secret. As warring factions threaten to explode, Nuella and Kindan begin to discover unknown talents in the misunderstood watch-wher-talents that could very well save an entire Hold. During their time teaching the watch-wher, the two learn some things themselves: that even a seemingly impossible dream is never completely out of reach . . . and that light can be found even in darkness.
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The Destroyer Goddess
by Laura Resnick
An epic saga of such grand scale it must be told in two books Laura Resnick, author of In Legend Born, has created a novel so epic in power and scope that it could only be told in two parts. In The White Dragon, part one of In Fire Forged, the island nation of Sileria had finally been freed from the tyranny of foreign Valdani rule by Josarian, the rebel leader who became the Firebringer foretold in prophecy. But Josarian was slain by the White Dragon, a creation of Kiloran, the most ruthless of the powerful mages called waterlords, who terrorize those who depend on their mercy for the water that all life must have. Now that mercy is denied. As the waterlords begin a reign more terrible than that of the Valdani, Tansen, Josarian's second-in-command, joins forces with Mirabar, a Guardian who is feared and admired for her fire magic, and Zarien, a mysterious sea-born boy. Mirabar and her bitter enemy, Torena Elelar, the faithless wife of a Valdani aristocrat, contend with prophecies both vague and daunting, each destined to serve the destroyer goddess in her own way as they try to discover the meaning of Mirabar's visions. The fragile alliances forged by Tansen between the peasant shallaheen and the Guardian resistance begin to crumble as he tries desperately to save Sileria. Zarien, however, is determined to bring Tansen to the sea goddess Sharifar to be her consort. But no goddess is as easy to placate as mortals may think . . . . And Kiloran will stop at nothing to trap Tansen and crush the resistance in order to maintain his tyrannical reign. As the power struggle among Sileria's warring factions intensifies to a fevered pitch, the tremors of Mount Darshon increase, threatening to engulf them all in molten death. Kiloran and Tansen prepare for a final confrontation that will change Sileria forever. But no one may triumph unless the destroyer goddess wills it . . . . With masterful storytelling, Laura Resnick brings this great epic tale to a conclusion that readers will find riveting and enthralling.
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A Yuletide Universe
by Brian M. Thomsen
The contributors to this Christmas anthology include well-known writers with strong fan followings such as Bram Stoker and Hugo Award-winning author of "American Gods" Neil Gaiman, Hugo Award winner Connie Willis, Anne McCaffrey, Harlan Ellison, Clive Barker, and many others.
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Lost Boy, Lost Girl
by Peter Straub
From the bestselling author of "Black House" and "Mr. X" springs a groundbreaking story of the persistence of evil, told with tantalizing ambiguity and structural audacity.
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In the Night Room
by Peter Straub
Willy Patrick finds her life intersecting with that of a stranger, Timothy Underhill, when she experiences an eerie event involving the death of her daughter and Timothy receives communications from dead people he had known in his youth.
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Lazarus Rising
by David Sherman
The popular Starfist series, featuring Marines in the far future, makes its hardcover debut with this story of a war against aliens on the planet Kingdom.
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Fudoki
by Kij Johnson
"And who set her on a new kami road, where Kagaya-hime will have to choose a way to find what happiness she can."--BOOK JACKET.
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In the Presence of Mine Enemies
by Harry Turtledove
In a novel of alternative history, Germany has won World War II, and in the twenty-first century rules most of Europe and North America, but beneath an Aryan facade, Jews survive within the Nazi regime, hoping not to be detected.
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Mirror Mirror
by Gregory Maguire
A lyrical work of stunning creative vision, Mirror Mirror is set in Renaissance Italy, where Gregory Maguire draws a connection between the poison apple in the original Snow White story and the Borgia family's well-known appetite for poisoning its foes. In Mirror Mirror Snow White is called Bianca de Nevada. She is born on a farm in Tuscany in 1495, and when she is seven, her father is ordered by the duplicitous Cesare Borgia to go on a quest to reclaim the relic of the original Tree of Knowledge, a branch bearing three living apples that are thousands of years old. Bianca is left in the care of her father's farm staff and the beautiful—and madly vain—Lucrecia Borgia, Cesare's sister. But Lucrecia becomes jealous of her lecherous brother's interest in the growing child and plots a dire fate for Bianca in the woods below the farm. There Bianca finds herself in the home of seven dwarves—the creators of the magic mirror—who await the return of their brother, the eighth dwarf, long gone on a quest of his own. In the evocative style of Maguire's earlier novels, Mirror Mirror is a fresh, compelling take on a beloved classic tale.
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The Salt Roads
by Nalo Hopkinson
When three Caribbean slave women gather one night to bury a stillborn baby, their collected mournings braid into a powerful calling, and a deity is born. So begins the epic jouney of a spirit who defies the limitations of time and place to inhabit the minds of living women throughout history.
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Sunshine
by Robin McKinley
"Sunshine" is what everyone calls her. She works long hours in her family's coffeehouse, making her famous "Cinnamon Rolls as Big as Your Head," Bitter Chocolate Death, Caramel Cataclysm, and other sugar-shock specials that keep the customers coming. She's happy in her bakery--which her stepfather built specially for her--but sometimes she feels that she should have life outside the coffeehouse. One evening she drives out to the lake to get away from her family, to be alone. There hasn't been any trouble at the lake for years. But there is trouble that night for Sunshine. She is abducted by a gang of vampires who shackle her to the wall of an abandoned mansion, within easy reach of a figure stirring in the moonlight. Sunshine knows that he is a vampire and that she is to be his dinner. Yet when dawn breaks he has not attempted to harm her. And now he needs her help to survive the day...
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The Night Country
by Stewart O'Nan
A tragic car accident that kills three teens while leaving one hospitalized with brain damage and another suffering with guilt yields more pain one year later when the spirits of the three dead kids return to torment the survivors.
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Any Man So Daring
by Sarah A. Hoyt
Acclaimed playwright William Shakespeare ventures back into the forest realm of the Elven king Quicksilver to rescue his son, only to discover that Quicksilver is not the culprit and that he must confront an inhuman and powerful demon to save not only his son but also the realm of magic, in the final volume of the Shakespeare fantasy trilogy.
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Ghost Story
by Peter Straub
Horror. Early novel about four men who inadvertently cause the death of a young woman in the 1920s.