Shana wakes up one morning to discover her little sister in the grip of a strange malady. She appears to be sleepwalking. She cannot talk and cannot be woken up. And she is heading with inexorable determination to a destination that only she knows. But Shana and her sister are not alone. Soon, they are joined by a flock of sleepwalkers from across America, on the same mysterious journey. And like Shana, there are other "shepherds" who follow the flock to protect their friends and family on the long dark road ahead.

Though perhaps most famous as a novelist, Philip K. Dick wrote more than 100 short stories over the course of his career, each as mind-bending and genre-defining as his longer works. Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams collects 10 of the best. In "Autofac," Dick shows us one of the earliest examples (and warnings) in science fiction of self-replicating machines. "Exhibit Piece" and "The Commuter" feature Dick exploring one of his favorite themes: the shifting nature of reality and whether it is even possible to perceive the world as it truly exists.

Ships are sinking for no apparent reason, carrying hundreds to a dark underwater grave. Strange fireballs race through the sky above the deepest trenches of the oceans. Something is about to show itself, something terrible and alien, a force capable of causing global catastrophe.

Lynn Raven may be the boss master of WarMonger 2050 with her online persona of "Larry the Snake", but when the CEO of Tsunami Entertainment personally asks her, as a favor, to beta test a new augmented-reality game, she has to face her greatest fear: going outside and dealing with, ugh, people.

Deep within the Congo, a team of scientists prepares for the greatest event in the history of humanity, making first contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial species. Only the jungle is no place for doubts. Could first contact be our last?

The year 12,090 AD. It is a dark time for the world. Humanity is just crawling out from under 300 years of domination by the race of vampires known as the Nobility. The war against the vampires has taken its toll; cities lie in ruin, the countryside is fragmented into small villages and fiefdoms that still struggle against nightly raids by the fallen vampires - and the remnants of their genetically manufactured demons and werewolves.

Possibly it's not to save a pair of drowning girls, not go 'viral' on social media and certainly not to let the local police take your passport, trapping you on a small 'party' island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. But Steve isn't the average guy, he's ex-military, ex-enforcer and ex-human. He's a one man nanite fuelled nightmare for those that cross the line, and he's decided that its time to clean up his act. He's going to make up for the things he's done, and save 'the little guys'.

Geary believed in the Alliance. Even when he uncovered overwhelming evidence that the highest echelons of the government and fleet command were involved in secret programs and prison camps, he believed it was worth saving. He believed his duty was to see that justice was served even though some factions feared that revealing the truth would cause the Alliance to crumble. But after narrowly surviving two assassination attempts when he brings evidence of the misdeeds to the capital star system, Geary realizes that some want to get rid of him.

Noah Harris and Ashley Flynn are field agents for a powerful organization tasked with protecting humanity from the misuse of game-changing technology. But when they discover hidden portals that link Earth to numerous planets, they are thrust into a maze of deception and intrigue they can't begin to understand....one that not only has them battling for their very lives, but that will decide the fate of worlds. Because, inexplicably, each of the planets contain human civilizations, and the rulers of our nearest portal neighbor have come up with a brilliant, twisted plan to conquer ours.

When you’re out in the black wilds of space you might encounter warring pirate factions, rogue planets, or even find yourself on the wrong side of the Royal Union, the ruling government of the Triumph galaxy. Unfortunately for Halstaan Cross, it's all three.

In Underland, hope has nearly been extinguished. All things living and undead exist under the dominion of the Dark Lords, whose power is all but unlimited and whose evil is all but eternal. Sorcerer Valdemar Verney is not one of them. The last of his line, Valdemar has devoted himself to locating his grandfather’s realm, a legendary place called Earth, where there is air and vibrant life. His latest attempt to uncover the way to Earth is thwarted, however, when the cunning Dark Lord Och captures him—not to imprison him, but to nurture Valdemar’s talents for his own ends.

Hot on the heels of Gardner Dozois's acclaimed anthology The Book of Swords comes this companion volume devoted to magic. How could it be otherwise? For every Frodo, there is a Gandalf... and a Saruman. For every Dorothy, a Glinda... and a Wicked Witch of the West. What would Harry Potter be without Albus Dumbledore... and Severus Snape? Figures of wisdom and power, possessing arcane, often forbidden knowledge, wizards and sorcerers are shaped - or misshaped - by the potent magic they seek to wield.

Simon can only watch, helpless, as his family is killed and his friends captured by enemy Travelers—men and women who can summon mystical powers from otherworldly Territories. To top it off, another young man from Simon's village discovers that he's a savior prophesied to destroy evil and save the realm. Prophecy has nothing to say about Simon. He has no special powers, no magical weapons, and no guarantee that he'll survive. But he sets off anyway, alone, to gain the power he needs to oppose the Travelers and topple their ruthless Overlord.

On Blue's Waters is the start of a new work by Gene Wolfe which takes place in the years after Wolfe's four-volume Book of the Long Sun. Horn, the narrator of the earlier work, now tells his own story. Though life is hard on the newly settled planet of Blue, Horn and his family have made a decent life for themselves. But Horn is the only one who can locate the great leader Silk and convince him to return to Blue and lead them all to prosperity. So Horn sets sail in a small boat, on a long and difficult quest across the planet Blue in search of the now legendary Patera Silk.

Charlie7 is the progenitor of a mechanical race he built from the ashes of a dead world—Earth. He is a robot of leisure and idle political meddling—a retirement well-earned. Or he was, until a human girl named Eve was dropped in his lap. Geneticists have restored Earth’s biome and begun repopulation. But primate cloning is in its infancy; human cloning is banned. Far from a failed genetics experiment, Eve is brilliant, curious, and heartbreakingly naïve about her species’ history. But Eve’s creator wants her back and has a gruesome fate planned for her.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.

Tomorrow, the funk descends on Manhattan, a noxious cloud that separates the island from the rest of the world and mutates the population. Some generations on, the surviving population exists amid the rubble of modernity, wearing our cast-off clothing, worshipping celebrities as dim gods, and using emojis in place of written language. The Island exists in a state of uneasy peace, with each neighborhood an independent fiefdom, protecting itself with scrap metal spears and Molotov cocktails.

Chuck Ramsey is a traveling con man fronting as a comedian. After a gig on Earth, he picks Mordecai The Brown, a hitchhiking wizard on the run from his own kind. Chuck's ship, the Radio City, is a Winnebego of the stars, serving as both home and transport as he schemes and scams across the galaxy with his family. The pair form an unlikely bond, and "Mort" becomes a part of that family. The Ramseys, wizard in tow, embark on a journey of criminal hijinks, magical mayhem, and evasion of consequences for both.

On Blue's Waters is the start of a new work by Gene Wolfe which takes place in the years after Wolfe's four-volume Book of the Long Sun. Horn, the narrator of the earlier work, now tells his own story. Though life is hard on the newly settled planet of Blue, Horn and his family have made a decent life for themselves. But Horn is the only one who can locate the great leader Silk and convince him to return to Blue and lead them all to prosperity. So Horn sets sail in a small boat, on a long and difficult quest across the planet Blue in search of the now legendary Patera Silk.

For generations, we colonized worlds, and the human race spread throughout the galaxy. One discovery could end it all. They called the ship Lady Vengence, and her Captain, Gavin Andal, was young, a bit arrogant, and the perfect fit for a bunch of misfits more interested in shore leave than work. Nobody was interested in being a hero. Sometimes there's no choice.

Civil War tore across the Union Empire, leaving countless dead in its wake. It was a war started by one man once beloved by the Empire. His betrayal still lingers in the memory of those who lived through it. Decades later, his son, Felix Drake, is a Warden tasked with both protecting the ruling members of the Union Empire and its Council and bringing those powerful and influential people to justice should they break the law.

The Voraxian king has come again—and this time, he's come for me. I've got no desire to be claimed by the alien king. Blue skin, seven feet, and strapped with muscle, I've seen what his kind does to humans. And I don't care that he watches me with hunger.

Neither cosmic philosopher Lars Soren, hotshot pilot Bianca Petrescu, nor the high priestess Jessica McHugh—Lady Death herself—can say quite where in the galaxy they are. But after an experiment gone horribly wrong, one thing is clear: Asphodel Station isn’t in orbit around Jupiter any longer. Worse, the monsters that live out here—ancient eldritch beings thought only to exist in stories and nightmares—have now been alerted to Earth’s existence.

Life in SoCal in 2195 is controlled by a corporatocracy. Elsa scavenges twenty-first-century trash, living on the edge of starvation in this ruthless world through her grit and instincts. When she unearths a metal tube containing maps to six Doomsday seed bunkers and a silver key, she dreams of renewable sources of food and a life based on more than subsistence, but GreenCorps will stop at nothing to acquire her find. Accused of theft and beaten half to death, she escapes with a handsome train hopper. They seek the long-lost bunkers, hoping to break GreenCorps' monopoly on food.

Sergeant Harry Kabutt has seen better days. He's been shot down, blown up, and tossed to the wayside by the corporations, left to rot in a ratty apartment in gang territory. His own limbs? Shredded, cut away, and left to rot on a mountainside. The replacement mods? Likely to fall apart or leave him to die of sepsis. No longer an operator of the feared APS mecha, Kabutt has hit rock bottom. But he's on foot, he's armed, and he's in serious pain…now it's time to take that pain and spread it around the mega-city of Artem. See who flinches first.

A landmark short story collection that put the more character-based New Wave science fiction on the map, Dangerous Visions won several prestigious awards and was nominated for many others. This now-classic anthology includes thirty-three stories by thirty-two award-winning authors, over half of whom have won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards.

Hacker Kita Yamasaki would do anything to escape the post-apocalyptic landscape that was the result of the Forever Winter. But for a normal person, the only options are the war-hungry nation-state of Ex Cathedra or the isolationist United California. Fortunately, Kita is anything but normal. When she finds a faded brochure for the BC Oasis—an underground greenhouse capable of sheltering a quarter million people—she jumps at the opportunity, even going so far as to steal a fission battery the oasis requires to operate at full capacity.

When former soldier Everett Cole signed on to help colony planets prepare for joining the Federation, his employers were disconcertingly vague about their identity and his duties. Yet, the pay was good, and it got him off Earth and on the way to a fresh start. More reservations arose when, 11 light-years from Earth, he met his partner, Edgar Millen, an enigmatic man with a penchant for violent solutions and a fetish for the mythology and language of the American Wild West.

Jon Ryan has some unfinished business. Since he caused the universe to reboot, well, he can't seem to find his wife of two billion years. That's one great big oops. He also can't find the massive time ship Aramthella and her human crew. Double oops. And then there's the matter of not knowing whey why there are several copies of key people in the new reality he must navigate. Triple oops. He actually knows one whole heck of a lot less about his current situation than seems healthy. But he's Jon Ryan, former fighter pilot turned android warrior for humankind.

Korri Fontenot left family behind on Earth a century ago to fight in a war that broke her body and her mind. Now, her great-granddaughter, Jackie, has followed in her footsteps. First as a Marine and then as a mercenary outlaw, Jackie has made the mistake of breaking into a secret corporate lab and stealing an ancient alien artifact. Dark forces want the artifact back.

Chase had it all planned out. Do a little time in one of the emperor's jails, say a four-year stretch, for getting rid of some trash that no one would miss, and when he got out, the path to leadership would be wide open. Unfortunately, his bastard of a father, the same one who left his mother to die in poverty and him to run wild on the streets, took an interest. Seeing him sitting on the bench when his case went to court was a shock. But not as big a shock as being sentenced to ten years in the Imperial Navy.