In the midst of a raging blizzard, lightning struck on the night Laura Shane was born. And a mysterious blond-haired stranger showed up just in time to save her from dying. Years later, in the wake of another storm, Laura will be saved again. For someone is watching over her. Is he the guardian angel he seems? The devil in disguise? Or the master of a haunting destiny beyond all time and space?

In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry-blonde classmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop physically - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all.

Since his wife died, Ralph Roberts has been having trouble sleeping. Each night he wakes up a bit earlier until he's barely sleeping at all. During his late-night walks, he observes some strange things going on in Derry, Maine. He sees colored ribbons streaming from people's heads, two strange little men wandering around town after dark, and more. He begins to suspect that these visions are something more than hallucinations brought on by lack of sleep.

Caught behind the lines of Hitler's Final Solution, Saul Laski is one of the multitudes destined to die in the notorious Chelmno extermination camp. Until he rises to meet his fate and finds himself face to face with an evil far older, and far greater, than the Nazis themselves. Compelled by the encounter to survive at all costs, so begins a journey that for Saul will span decades and cross continents, plunging into the darkest corners of 20th century history to reveal a secret society of beings who may often exist behind the world's most horrible and violent events.

If you’re a fan of fiction that is more than just black and white, this latest story collection from number-one New York Times best-selling author George R. R. Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois is filled with subtle shades of gray. Twenty-one all-original stories, by an all-star list of contributors, will delight and astonish you in equal measure with their cunning twists and dazzling reversals. And George R. R. Martin himself offers a brand-new A Game of Thrones tale chronicling one of the biggest rogues in the entire history of Ice and Fire.

A writer in California. A doctor in Boston. A motel owner and his employee in Nevada. A priest in Chicago. A robber in New York. A little girl in Las Vegas. They’re a handful of people from across the country, living through eerie variations of the same nightmare.

For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past - and get away with murder. Peter Straub's classic best seller is a work of "superb horror" ( Washington Post Book World) that, like any good ghost story, stands the test of time - and conjures our darkest fears and nightmares.

It's a fear more paralyzing than falling. More terrifying than absolute darkness. More horrifying than anything you can imagine. It's the one fear you cannot escape, no matter where you run...no matter where you hide. It's the fear of yourself. It's real. It can happen to you. And facing it can be deadly.

Frank Pollard awakens in an alley, knowing nothing but his name - and that he is in great danger. Having taken refuge in a motel, he wakes again only to find his hands covered in blood. As far as he knows, he's no killer. But whose blood is this, and how did it get there?

In the aftermath of WWII, an alien virus struck the Earth, endowing a handful of survivors with extraordinary powers. Originally published in 1987, the newly expanded saga contains additional original stories by eminent writers.

This set includes Crash Dive, What Comes Around, and White Death, three Alex Hawke novellas never available before on audio. In Crash Dive, Alex Hawke is on a highly covert mission to enter another nation’s airspace undetected and find a way to avert a global war. In What Comes Around, two CIA officers are found dead. Hawke discovers that the victims are connected through one man: Spider Payne, a rogue intelligence officer. In White Death, M16 suspects a bizarre conspiracy when two bankers are found dead, and vast sums are plundered from the Queen of England’s accounts.

In the dystopian 22nd century, Lauren Ramirez is an Assassin 13, the best at her profession. Betrayed by her employer, the president of the United States, on an off-planet op, she escapes when her spacecraft hurtles through time and crash-lands in 1927 Prohibition Hollywood, with its silent film stars and bootlegging gangsters. She finds herself an alien in an alien land.

Carl "Granny" Granville is a young writer who is given the chance to ghostwrite a political thriller. The inside source will be known only as Gideon, his real identity never revealed. Then the murders begin - first his editor, then the gorgeous neighbor with whom he's been having an affair. The mysterious go-between has disappeared. And his publisher has never heard of Gideon or Granny. Suddenly Carl Granville is a man alone, on the run, and wanted for murder.

As World War II rages, Francine Lawrence and her small daughter, Ruth, wait in the fading splendor of Raffles Hotel in Singapore for Francine's British husband. But when he is delayed, Francine, half-Chinese and unwelcome there, is forced to begin a terrifying journey. Seeking to escape a world exploding in nightmare, Francine ultimately makes a gut-wrenching decision: to entrust Ruth to strangers in order to save the child's life. But when the war ends, all traces of Ruth have vanished; years of searching bring only heartbreak.

The best stories pull readers in and keep them turning the pages, eager to discover more—to find the answer to the question: "And then what happened?" The true hallmark of great literature is great imagination, and as Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio prove with this outstanding collection, when it comes to great fiction, all genres are equal.