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For more than twenty years, Paul Jessup has been dreaming of people and places that shouldn't exist. From an infection that allows lost children to see beyond the pale in The Silence That Binds or the way the universe bends and gives birth when stars explode in Open Your Eyes or the tragic consequences of imbuing the inanimate with an all-too-human need to be loved in Glass House, his writing explodes with a surreal energy.In his latest collection, The Skinless Man Counts to Five and Other Tales of the Macabre, there are ghosts and butterflies, serial killers and dying stars, mermaids and monsters. You will find death cults, sewer elves, the apocalypse of youthful fervor, card games that require blood sacrifices, and self-immolation as an expression of devotion. Paul Jessup's fiction eviscerates, shatters, and slurps the marrow from the bones of the world.

As the wheel turns and the line of lanterns extends to eternity, Underland Arcana continues to celebrate the four aspects of the eternal spark: the numinous, the esoteric, the supernatural, and the weird. These are the stories we tell in the twilight. These are the ways we greet the dawn. These are the lies we tell about the monsters in our hearts. These are the ways we ward against the chill touch of despair. Cup, shield, sword, and stick: these continue to be our tools. This is the iconography of the Arcana. Here is the third deck, filled with thirty stories celebrating the diversity of our experiences, with contributions from Fayaway & Hermester Barrington, Warren Benedetto, David Bradley, Matthew Cheney, Daniel Dagris, Phillip E. Dixon, Sarina Dorie, Daniel David Froid, H. L. Fullerton, J. V. Gachs, Ingrid Garcia, Elad Haber, J. Anthony Hartley, Christopher Hawkins, A. P. Howell, Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito, K. Wallace King, John Klima, Michelle Knudsen, Erik Kollmer, Reggie Kwok, Jon Lasser, Gerri Leen, Mark Mills, Kiya Nicoll, J. O. Oakes, Roni Stinger, Jason Washer, Eric Witchey, and Jennifer Worrell.

Some argue existence is an exercise in futility. They claim there are no winners in life. Ultimately, we are insignificant in the face of vast cosmic intelligences that were old when the Universe began.The best minds gibber at the incomprehensibility of it all. Other minds lose themselves in strange geometries because they can't comprehend any alternative.Whatever. The rest of us have to get up in the morning, feed the cat, and go to work.The Cozy Cosmic contains 33 stories of the horrors hidden within the micro-aggressions, the horrors trapped beneath the floorboards, and the horrors waiting patiently on the windowsill. This is the horror that forgets to turn off the light at night. This is the horror of waiting for the tea to boil, knowing full well who you just buried-for the second time-in the yard less than a hour ago. This is the horror of knowing where the dark wool comes from, but you wear the sweater anyway because it was a gift-an expression of love-and, well, being alone is worse than the horror of the unknowable, isn't it?The full table of contents for The Cozy Cosmic is as follows:John Shirley ~ "Death, in Two"Tais Teng ~ "On Hearing the First Shoggoth in Spring"Tyler Battaglia ~ "What the Sea Provides"Ellis Bray ~ "My Grandmother's Sacristy"E. E. Marshall ~ "Right and Bright"Devan Barlow ~ "Dinner, Overlooking the Sea"Scotty Milder ~ "A Little God in Their Hands"Maxwell I. Gold ~ "The Great Cosmic Itch"Remy Nakamura ~ "Wet Dreams in R'lyeh"Andrew S. Fuller ~ "A Perfectly Fine Hobby"Kiera Lesley ~ "Obsolescent"Kurt Newton ~ "A Mournful Melancholia of Things Forever Lost"J. B. Kish ~ "Lo-Fi Chocolate Cake"Rajiv Moté ~ "Carrisa and Kevin Gaze into the Abyss"Daniel David Froid ~ "In Another Distant Land, in a Luminescent Land"Kate Ristau ~ "Shine"Erik Grove ~ "Fuzzy Fuzzy Kitty Kitties"William J. Connell ~ "Poe's Guys Respond to Their Significant Others"Paul Jessup ~ "The Museum of Endless Summer"Ngo Binh Anh Khoa ~ "Through Life and Death, Forevermore"Jonathan Wood ~ "Javapocalypse"L. E. Daniels ~ "Final Cycle"Ken Hueler ~ "The Unknowable Ones"Tania Chen ~ "A Study of Metamorphosis Calamity"Eric Shanower ~ "The Purple Emperor"Kevin Wetmore ~ "A Child's Christmas in Innsmouth"Megan Lee Beals ~ "Splinterbone"Corinne Hughes ~ "The Sheep Rancher's Husband"Shanna Germain ~ "A Napkin Upon Your Glass"Simone Cooper ~ "Gnocchi"Jessie Kwak ~ "Blood and Glitter"Cody T Luff ~ "Den Mother"R. Ostermeier ~ "The Dark Young"

Rhia is a Courier, a transient messenger who freely travels the land without calling any town or port home. The job suits her, for in a land ruled by the Temple, it is difficult to find your own way, especially when you have a Talent. Rhia's is water, and when she arrives in distant Cerretour to deliver a message, she finds a village wracked with suffering. The well is dry. It hasn't rained. The only person who can save these villagers is missing. At night, a strange creature prowls the prairie. The villagers have a name for it: greyhowler.Rhia knows it by a different name: the lusus mendace, the predator of lies. It is a monster created by Temple Priests to scare the initiates and acolytes. It knows deceit. It knows fear. It hunts those who harbor lies in their hearts.Is it hunting her? Is it hunting someone in the village? Is it nothing more than a myth, a tale meant to scare children? All Rhia knows for certain is she may be the only person who can save these people. But doing so means accepting what she swore she would never be . . .""Like all the best monster stories, Greyhowler also explores the monsters inside of us"-Tim Pratt, author of Prison of Sleep

Meet the family Glass. They just bought the home of their dreams, and are about to embark on a new stage in their life.Meet Lucas Glass, their father. He's obsessed with the Sunshine Family-a psychedelic rock band from another era that famously devolved into a suicide cult. This is their house, complete with a family crypt. Meet Dana Glass, their mother and Lucas's wife. She is fascinated with the house, in a way that is far more passionate-more intimate-than she's ever been, even with her husband. Meet Rae and Lily, the daughters of the family Glass. When Rae makes friends with the Sisters of Sorrow, dark mothers who exist within the walls of the house, she starts a very dangerous game. Lily was buried alive as part of one of her father's documentaries, and while she was near death, she was touched by a ghostly presence.Meet the Glass House, once the Gemini House, and before that the Coffin House, constructed out of repurposed coffin wood and ancient occult magic. It has its own ancient sentience, and loves Dana Glass with all its wooden heart. From Paul Jessup, best-selling video game designer and award-winning short fiction writer, comes a haunted house novel that opens a door into a world filled with blood and madness.

A feud between two rival families is about to create international warfare. Desperate to reclaim territory that was once part of their ancestral lands, the Astafo family plots against their distant cousin, Pedir Seda, and his mysterious favor with the prime minister.Pivotal to this conflict is a secret tucked away on Seda's lands-The Holy Sanguinary Academy for the Lame and the Orphaned. Hundreds of children and adolescents, many of whom are unwanted bastards sent to the orphanage by their noble fathers, earn their keep at the clandestine academy by cultivating delicate crops commissioned by the Eastreign Consortium for Inquisition Mechanics.The Consortium needs these crops for a new reagent that will tip the balance of power in their favor. The Salvation Church, under the guise of the orphanage, is helping create the reagent by commissioning the help of the powerful cartel known as The Shroud.These conspiracies bring an unlikely band of heroes together as the secrets of political corruption, profiteering, and warfare light the spark to turn a family feud into the greatest war ever seen.Part western, part Victoriana, Bloodmetal spans dusty frontiers and marble ballrooms, slinging swords, corsets, and gun barrels in a new, modern fantasy.

The year is 2112 and on an environmentally ravaged Earth, there are habitat cities under the sea. Marrow Nightingale is a PI in Electric Blue Moon, one of the oldest of these cities, and when her adoptive brother Rocket Nightingale is murdered, there are more than a few people who would like to see her sent to the burning surface for the crime. Marrow must become her own client and catch a killer before she's sunk--or surfaced.

Craig Laurance Gidney is a magician. His stories are dazzling and transformative. His illusions shame reality for its fragility. He dares you to take a card-any card-and gives you back your watch, your wallet, your sanity.The stories in The Nectar of Nightmares weave and remix myths, legends, and identities. Ranging from retold folktales to diverse settings like the Harlem Renaissance and the contemporary drag ball scene to phantasmagoric secondary worlds, this is a horror collection for those who have descended so far into the deep, there''s nothing left to fear.There is. Craig Laurance Gidney has been nominated for the Lambda Literary Award on multiple occasions. The Nectar of Nightmares is his latest collection of weird and wondrous stories. 

The eighteenth Tarot card is the Moon, and those who raise their arms to her know she offers Mercy and Severity in equal measure. This is the great river at night, where wolves howl and all doors are open. All futures are possible, and every truth is elusive. This is the source and passion of Eighteen: Stories of Mischief & Mayhem. These twenty-four stories from voices—old and new—celebrate the inevitability of fate, the horror of prophecy, and the shivering delight of not knowing what comes next.Cross over the threshold with us, and explore the strange, the weird, and the fantastic. Do not fear what lies ahead. It is the same as what came before. The only difference is you. This is Eighteen, and nothing will be the same.Eighteen contains stories from Forrest Aguirre, Darin Bradley, Christopher East, Scott Edelman, Nicole Feldringer, Ben Gamblin, Ingrid Garcia, A. P. Howell, Emma Johnson-Rivard, E. E. King, Jessie Kwak, Shannon Lawrence, Gerri Leen, Mark Mills, Christi Nogle, Tammie Painter, Josh Rountree, Erica Sage, Lorraine Schein, J. Dee Stanley, Richard Thomas, John Waterfall, Wendy N. Wagner, and Todd Zack. It is edited by Mark Teppo

Before email,before the world wide web,before hackers,Before sexting,before always-on GPS,before titanium implants,before Alexa, Cortana, and Siri,before the computer in your pocket was more powerful than the one that sent astronauts to the moon,there was cyberpunk.And science fiction was never the same.Cyberpunk writers-serious, smart, and courageous in the face of change-exposed the naiveté of a society rushing headlong into technological unknowns. Technology could not save us, they argued, and it might in fact ruin us.Now, thirty years after The Movement party-crashed the scene, the cyberpunk reality has largely come to be.The future they imagined is here.With an introduction by Victoria Blake and stories by: William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Jonathan Lethem, Kim Stanley Robinson, David Marusek, Benjamin Parzybok, Cat Rambo, Paul Tremblay, Pat Cadigan, Gwyneth Jones, Mark Teppo, Greg Bear, Lewis Shiner, Rudy Rucker, James Patrick Kelly, John Shirley, Daniel H. Wilson, Paul Di Filippo, and Cory Doctorow.Welcome to your cyberpunk world.

Jamie has escaped from the Pilo Family Circus, but he doesn't remember any of the gruesome details of what he had seen-or done-while under the terrible influence of the clown face paint. His life is normal again. Yet his family and friends don't trust him. The police are still wondering about the night they found him, dressed in a clown outfit with blood on his shoes. And the mother of his missing friend keeps calling and whispering: "Murderer." But there are those who do remember what happened. The circus has a new boss, and he's seeking out past performers and enslaving new cast members. Jamie finds himself drawn back into the dark world of the diabolic big top. But this time, the clown paint has no effect on him. His evil twin-JJ-is dead and buried. Jamie believes there is no way to bring back that twisted side of himself. That is, until the body is found and reanimated...

Over the last decade, Darin Bradley has been dissecting the future-from the prophetic Book that heralded the arrival of Salvage Country in Noise to the impending repossession of our education in Chimpanzee to the harrowing world of voyeuristic terrorism in Noise. Now, with Light Both Foreign and Domestic, he presents a collection of stories that reveal the persistent light of the human spirit, no matter the harrowing darkness that presses down on us.- "Light Both Foreign and Domestic"- "Hotels and Other Forms of Collapse"- "Two"- "The Basement, Borges"- "Slipstring"- "'Seng, Running"- "Fairyland"- "They Would Only be Roads"- "The Dust and the Red"- "oo"- "The Heresy Box"- "Sweet Water"- "Syntagm"- "Stormchasing"- "How Nothing Happens"- "Sleepwalker"Several stories are exclusive to this collection.

Before being sewn-together, Heraclix was dead-merely a pile of mismatched pieces, collected from the corpses of many troubled men. And Pomp was immortal-at least, so she thought. That was before her impossible near-murder at the hands of the necromancer, Heraclix's creator. But when playing God, even the smallest error is a gargantuan weakness. When the necromancer makes his, Heraclix and Pomp begin their epic flight.As they travel from Vienna to Prague to Istanbul and, even, to Hell itself, they struggle to understand who and what they are: who was Heraclix before his death and rebirth? What is mortality, and why does it suddenly concern Pomp? As they journey through an unruly eighteenth century, they discover that the necromancer they thought dead might not be quite so after all. In fact, he may have sealed his immortality at the expense of everyone alive . . .Heraclix and Pomp is a richly textured and decadent read, filled with Baroque ideology and Byzantine political intrigue. Fans of fantasy and historical fiction alike will revel in Aguirre's layered prose and vivid characterizations. Heraclix and Pomp brings the surreal and the macabre to one of history's most violent eras.

Everything you are about to read is true. Mostly.After US Postmaster Theodore Roosevelt showed the Nazis who was boss in 1942, the Postal Bureau--part of the Department of Transportation--ushered in an era of scientific marvels: simulcast via satellite, sub-orbital transnational flights, dazzle pistols, and electromagnetic driverless cars. However, long-simmering feuds between the Shamans of Commerce and the Wizards of Technology were not forgotten, and it isn't until the age of Sputnik and the Space Race that the secret organizations buried deep within the US Weather Service and Census Bureau make their move against the Department of Transportation. To regain control of the Administration, they'll need to rely on older--more esoteric--technologies: astrology, blood rituals, and strange creatures long thought extinct.It's up to G-man Fred Mackey of the Electromagnetic Bureau, Domestic Interference Engineering Section, to figure out how to science America back on track. With the assistance of the enigmatic Assistant Secretary for Innovation and the world's leading specialist in rocket science and all-around occultnik, Mackey tackles the byzantine bureaucracy of a vast government conspiracy that extends from deep space to deep beneath the earth.Welcome to 1970. This is the history you were never taught . . .

The thirteenth Tarot card is Death, and he is a symbol not of the end, but of transformation and rebirth. This is the genesis and root of Thirteen: Stories of Transformation. The twenty-eight authors of this collection are voices-new and old-who are not afraid to explore what comes next. Whether it be a life after death, a life without love, a life filled with hunger, or the life shared by a ghost. These are stories of the weird, the mythic, the fantastic, the futuristic, the supernatural, and the horrific. The ghosts of the past have been eaten by the children of the future: this endless cycle of birth, death, and renewal is the magic of thirteen. Do not fear change. Embrace it. Let Thirteen be the handbook for the new you.

In the classic noir tradition of "Have Gun, Will Travel," Rachel Pollack—one of the world's foremost authorities on the Tarot—gives us the tale of Jack Shade, an occult shaman for hire. Jack Shade has a secret, and this hidden part of his past sends him on a journey through time and space and a great number of metaphysical doorways. From the cosy poker table in the eleventh floor apartment of the Hotel de Reve Noire to the ethereal Forest of Souls to the faded houses along the Gold River, Jack flows in and out of this world. Even when his own duplicate hires him to kill himself, Jack is mercury in motion. Jack the Nimble. Jack the Quick.The Fissure King: A Novel in Fire Stories collects the four existing Jack Shades novellas and shows us Jack's final trick—one last story that finally reveals Jack's true nature.Only Rachel Pollack, one of the world's greatest authorities of tarot and an award-winning novelist and comic book writer, could dream of someone as mischievous and mythopoeic as Jack Shade. The King is dead. Long live the King.