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To those outside it, Pilsen is a vast barrio on the south side of Chicago. To Alexai Galaviz-Budziszewski, it is a world of violence and decay and beauty, of nuance and pure chance. It is a place where the smell of cooking frijoles is washed away by that of dead fish in the river, where vendettas are a daily routine, and where a fourteen-year-old immigrant might hold the ability bring people back from the dead.

Simultaneously tough and tender, these stories mark the debut of a writer poised to represent his city's literature for decades to come.

At the start of another pitiless winter, the wolves have come for the children of Keelut. Three children have been taken from this isolated Alaskan village, including the six-year-old boy of Medora and Vernon Slone.

Stumbled by grief and seeking consolation, Medora contacts nature writer and wolf expert Russell Core. Sixty years old, ailing in both body and spirit, and estranged from his daughter and wife, Core arrives in Keelut to investigate the killings. Immersing himself in this settlement at the end of the world, he discovers the horrifying darkness at the heart of Medora Slone and learns of an unholy truth harbored by this village.

When Vernon Slone returns from a desert war to discover his son dead and his wife missing, he begins a methodical pursuit across this frozen landscape. Aided by his boyhood companion, the taciturn and deadly Cheeon, and pursued by the stalwart detective Donald Marium, Slone is without mercy, cutting a bloody swath through the wilderness of his homeland. As Russell Core attempts to rescue Medora from her husband’s vengeance, he comes face to face with an unspeakable secret at the furthermost reaches of American soil—a secret about the unkillable bonds of family, and the untamed animal in the soul of every human being.

An Alaskan , an epic woven of both blood and myth, recalls the hyperborean climate and tribalism of Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone and the primeval violence of James Dickey’s .

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING PIERCE BROSNAN—IN THEATERS AUGUST 27!

The president learned long ago that the CIA could not be trusted. And so he created his own group of deadly efficient men to gather independent intelligence: a watchdog organization to keep the CIA in check. R Section was born.

Until he heard those four simple words, Devereaux thought he’d left his days in R Section behind. He was no longer The November Man, an American field officer in the vice-grip of duty and danger—and the most brilliant agent R Section had ever produced. When he receives the cryptic message from Hanley, his former handler, Devereaux has no idea he’s about to be reactivated into a mission to save both his life and R Section itself. He’s not aware that a beautiful KGB agent has been ordered to stalk and kill him—or that Hanley is now in a government-subsidized asylum for people with too many secrets. And he doesn’t know that zero hour ticks closer for an operation to catch a master spy… with Devereaux the designated pawn.

What The November Man doesn’t know can kill him.

War is everywhere. Not only among the firefights, in the sweat dripping from heavy armor and the clenching grip on your weapon, but also wedging itself deep into families, infiltrating our love letters, hovering in the air above our heads. It’s in our dreams and our text messages. At times it roars with adrenaline, while at others it slips in silently so it can sit beside you until you forget it’s there.

Join Joe Haldeman, Linda Nagata, Karin Lowachee, Ken Liu, Jay Posey, and more as they take you on a tour of the battlefields, from those hurtling through space in spaceships and winding along trails deep in the jungle with bullets whizzing overhead, to the ones hiding behind calm smiles, waiting patiently to reveal itself in those quiet moments when we feel safest. brings us 23 stories of the impacts of war, showcasing the systems, combat, armor, and aftermath without condemnation or glorification.

Instead, reveals the truth.

War is what we are.

Robots. Androids. Artificial Intelligence. Scientists predict that the “singularity”—the moment when mankind designs the first greater-than-human intelligence—is nearly within our grasp. Believe it or not, truly sentient machines may be a reality within as little as 20 years.

Will these “post-human” intelligences be our friends? Our servants? Our rivals? What will we learn from them? What will they learn from us? Will we allow them to lead their own lives? Will they have basic human rights? Will we?

Science and society will be forced to address these questions sooner than you think. But science fiction is addressing these questions today. In THE ROBOT CHRONICLES, thirteen of today’s top sci-fi writers explore the approaching collision of humanity and technology.

Winner of FC2’s American Book Review/Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize.

A monogrammed cube appears in your town. Your landlord cheats you out of first place in the annual Christmas decorating contest. You need to learn how to love and care for your mate — a paring knife. These situations and more reveal the wondrous play and surreal humor that make up the stories in Amelia Gray’s stunning collection of stories:

Acerbic wit and luminous prose mark these shorts, while sickness and death lurk amidst the humor. Characters find their footing in these bizarre scenarios and manage to fall into redemption and rebirth. invites you into its hallways, then beguiles, bewitches, and reveals a writer who has discovered a manner of storytelling all her own.

David’s wife is dead. At least, he thinks she’s dead. But he can’t figure out what killed her or why she had to die, and his efforts to sort out what’s happened have been interrupted by his discovery of a series of elaborate and escalating threats hidden in strange places around his home — one buried in the sugar bag, another carved into the side of his television. These disturbing threats may be the best clues to his wife’s death:

CURL UP ON MY LAP. LET ME BRUSH YOUR HAIR WITH MY FINGERS. I AM SINGING YOU A LULLABY. I AM TESTING FOR STRUCTURAL WEAKNESS IN YOUR SKULL.

Detective Chico is also on the case, and is intent on asking David questions he doesn’t know the answers to and introducing him to people who don’t appear to have David’s or his wife’s best interests in mind. With no one to trust, David is forced to rely on his own memories and faculties — but they too are proving unreliable.

In , Amelia Gray builds a world that is bizarre yet familiar, violent yet tender. It is an electrifying story of love and loss that grabs you on the first page and never loosens its grip.