Search Worlds Without End

This short story orginally appeared in Wired, January 2017. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection (2018), edited by Gardner Dozois.

Read this story for free at Wired Magazine.

This story originally appeared in Conjunctions 52: Betwixt the Between: Impossible Realities (2009), edited by Brian Evenson and Bradford Morrow, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, May 2016. The story is included in the collection Errantry: Strange Stories (2012).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Marion Shaw has been raised in the slums, where want and deprivation are all she know. Despite longing to leave the city and its miseries, she has no real hope of escape until the day she spots a peculiar listing in the newspaper seeking a bloodmaid.

Though she knows little about the far north--where wealthy nobles live in luxury and drink the blood of those in their service--Marion applies to the position. In a matter of days, she finds herself the newest bloodmaid at the notorious House of Hunger. There, Marion is swept into a world of dark debauchery. At the center of it all is Countess Lisavet.

The countess, who presides over this hedonistic court, is loved and feared in equal measure. She takes a special interest in Marion. Lisavet is magnetic, and Marion is eager to please her new mistress. But when she discovers that the ancient walls of the House of Hunger hide even older secrets, Marion is thrust into a vicious game of cat and mouse. She'll need to learn the rules of her new home--and fast--or its halls will soon become her grave.

This book addresses Suzanne Collins's work from a number of literary and cultural perspectives in an effort to better understand both its significance and its appeal. It takes an interdisciplinary approach to the Hunger Games trilogy, drawing from literary studies, psychology, gender studies, media studies, philosophy, and cultural studies. An analytical rather than evaluative work, it dispenses with extended theoretical discussions, academic jargon, and even footnotes. Assuming that readers are familiar with the entire trilogy, the book also avoids plot summary and character analysis, instead focusing on the significance of the story and its characters. It includes a biographical essay, glossaries, questions for further study, and an extensive bibliography.

Evil is invisible, and it is everywhere.

That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the isolated travelers to the brink of madness. Though they dream of what awaits them in the West, long-buried secrets begin to emerge, and dissent among them escalates to the point of murder and chaos. They cannot seem to escape tragedy...or the feelings that someone--or something--is stalking them. Whether it's a curse from the beautiful Tamsen Donner (who some think might be a witch), their ill-advised choice of route through uncharted terrain, or just plain bad luck, the ninety men, women, and children of the Donner Party are heading into one of one of the deadliest and most disastrous Western adventures in American history.

As members of the group begin to disappear, the survivors start to wonder if there really is something disturbing, and hungry, waiting for them in the mountains...and whether the evil that has unfolded around them may have in fact been growing within them all along.

Effortlessly combining the supernatural and the historical, The Hunger is an eerie, thrilling look at the volatility of human nature, pushed to its breaking point.

Hunters found his body naked in the snow.

The body is that of Ben Wylie, the second-richest man in America, and it is found in a remote patch of northern Canada. Far away, in New York, the son of the Wylie family's housekeepers tries to figure out how and why Ben died. The answer lies in the tortured history of the Wylie family, who built up their massive fortune over three generations. All of the Wylie men struggle with a secret: they are werewolves. The threads of their destinies, both financial and supernatural, lead twistingly but inevitably to the naked body in the snow and a final, terrible revelation.

A group of friends, a pair of lovers, and the tussle between love, addiction, and what comes next. Otto, a former addict, grateful and indebted to his lover Trevor, is faced with temptation and the threat of disaster, but he's fighting it. Fighting it in a future where matter can be reprogrammed and anything could happen, good or bad.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

When The Hunger and Other Stories (1957) appeared, it heralded the arrival of Charles Beaumont (1929-1967) as an important and highly original new voice in American fiction.

Although he is best known today for his scripts for television and film, including several classic episodes of The Twilight Zone, Beaumont is being rediscovered as a master of weird tales, and this, his first published collection, contains some of his best. Ranging in tone from the chilling Gothic horror of "Miss Gentilbelle," where an insane mother dresses her son up as a girl and slaughters his pets, to deliciously dark humor in tales like "Open House" and "The Infernal Bouillabaisse," where murderers' plans go disastrously awry, these seventeen stories demonstrate Beaumont's remarkable talent and versatility.

This new edition of The Hunger and Other Stories, the first in more than fifty years, includes a new introduction by Dr. Bernice M. Murphy, who argues for reevaluation of Beaumont alongside the other greats of the genre, including Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, and Richard Matheson.

Contents:

• A Point of Honor - (1955) - short story
• Black Country - (1954) - short story
• Fair Lady - (1957) - short story
• Free Dirt - (1955) - short story
• Last Night in the Rain - (1956) - short story
• Miss Gentilbelle - (1957) - short story
• Nursery Rhyme - (1957) - short story
• Open House - (1957) - short story
• Tears of the Madonna - (1957) - short story
• The Crooked Man - (1955) - short story
• The Customers - (1957) - short story
• The Dark Music - (1956) - short story
• The Hunger - (1955) - short story
• The Infernal Bouillabaisse - (1957) - short story
• The Murderers - (1955) - short story
• The Train - (1957) - short story
• The Vanishing American - (1955) - short story

Hugo and World Fantasy Award-nominated Short Story

Anger is an energy. A young girl, a slave in the South, is presented with a moment where she can grasp for freedom, for change, for life. She grabs it with both hands, fiercely and intensely, and the spirit world is shaken.

This story was originally published on Tor.com, July 24, 2019.

Read this story for free at Tor.com.

A professor recounts his time travels, one of which was to a world where vampires raised humans for blood. When he revisited that world several centuries later the vampires had advanced to making blood synthetically, respectful of human rights.

Food critic Dorothy Daniels loves what she does. Discerning, meticulous, and very, very smart, Dorothy's clear mastery of the culinary arts make it likely that she could, on any given night, whip up a more inspired dish than any one of the chefs she writes about.

Dorothy loves sex as much as she loves food, and while she has struggled to find a long-term partner that can keep up with her, she makes the best of her single life, frequently traveling from Manhattan to Italy for a taste of both. But there is something within Dorothy that's different from everyone else, and having suppressed it long enough, she starts to embrace what makes Dorothy uniquely, terrifyingly herself.

Recounting her life from a seemingly idyllic farm-to-table childhood, the heights of her career, to the moment she plunges an ice pick into a man's neck on Fire Island, Dorothy Daniels show us what happens when a woman finally embraces her superiority.

A satire of early foodieism, a critique of how gender is defined, and a showcase of virtuoso storytelling, Chelsea G. Summers' A Certain Hunger introduces us to the food world's most charming psychopath and an exciting new voice in fiction.

Maude is the daughter of witches. She spent her childhood running wild with her best friend, Odette, weaving stories of girls who slayed dragons and saved princes. Then Maude grew up and lost her magic--and her best friend.

These days, magic is toothless, reduced to glamour patches and psychic energy drinks found in supermarkets and shopping malls. Odette has always hungered for forbidden, dangerous magic, and two weeks ago she went searching for it. Now she's missing, and everyone says she's dead. Everyone except Maude.

Storytelling has always been Maude's gift, so she knows all about girls who get lost in the woods. She's sure she can find Odette inside the ruins of Sicklehurst, an abandoned power plant built over an ancient magical forest--a place nobody else seems to remember is there. The danger is, no one knows what remains inside Sicklehurst, either. And every good story is sure to have a monster.

This collection of fresh essays on Suzanne Collins's epic trilogy spans multiple disciplines. The contributors probe the trilogy's meaning using theories grounded in historicism, feminism, humanism, queer theory, as well as cultural, political, and media studies. The essayists demonstrate diverse perspectives regarding Collins's novels but their works have three elements in common: an appreciation of the trilogy as literature, a belief in its permanent value, and a need to share both appreciation and belief with fellow readers.

The 21 essays that follow the context-setting introduction are grouped into four parts:

• Part I "History, Politics, Economics, and Culture,"
• Part II "Ethics, Aesthetics, and Identity,"
• Part III "Resistance, Surveillance, and Simulacra," and
• Part IV "Thematic Parallels and Literary Traditions."

A core bibliography of dystopian and postapocalyptic works is included, with emphasis on the young adult category--itself an increasingly crucial part of postmodern culture.

The Man Who Lived Forever

His first thousand years were the easiest.

The Mars Monopoly

Find your fortune in the sky - by permission of the Mars monopoly.

Sadima lives in a world where magic has been banned, leaving poor villagers prey to fakes and charlatans. A "magician" stole her family's few valuables and left Sadima's mother to die on the day Sadima was born. But vestiges of magic are hidden in old rhymes and hearth tales and in people like Sadima, who conceals her silent communication with animals for fear of rejection and ridicule. When rumors of her gift reach Somiss, a young nobleman obsessed with restoring magic, he sends Franklin, his lifelong servant, to find her. Sadima's joy at sharing her secret becomes love for the man she shares it with. But Franklin's irrevocable bond to the brilliant and dangerous Somiss traps her, too, and she faces a heartbreaking decision.

Centuries later magic has been restored, but it is available only to the wealthy and is strictly controlled by wizards within a sequestered academy of magic. Hahp, the expendable second son of a rich merchant, is forced into the academy and finds himself paired with Gerrard, a peasant boy inexplicably admitted with nine sons of privilege and wealth. Only one of the ten students will graduate -- and the first academic requirement is survival.

Dr. Michael Drake, a great medical researcher, chose to disappear into the jungles of the world called Bushveld, but now the Human-settled Galaxy needs him to combat a new plague. Journalist-adventurer Robert Markham has determined to locate Drake and bring him back to civilization. But Markham is not after Drake for the same reason as the millions who may die. He is interested in his own reputation as a great explorer - and in the money he will make from selling his story.

As the only vampire child ever born, some believed Elisa Sullivan had all the luck. But the magic that helped bring her into the world left her with a dark secret. Shifter Connor Keene, the only son of North American Central Pack Apex Gabriel Keene, is the only one she trusts with it. But she's a vampire and the daughter of a Master and a Sentinel, and he's prince of the Pack and its future king.

When the assassination of a diplomat brings old feuds to the fore again, Elisa and Connor must choose between love and family, between honor and obligation, before Chicago disappears forever.

Drake is a Killer vampire.

Unlike the Guardians of the Night, Drake feeds on human blood, choosing victims who deserve to die. But still he works with the Guardians to protect those humans who yet have some good in them.

When Gabriel, the leader of the Baltimore Guardians, mysteriously disappears, Drake finds himself in charge of a small band of inexperienced fledgling vampires. When a delegation of European Killers arrives in Baltimore looking for Gabriel, Drake must call on all the savagery of his sordid past to keep the Guardians in line--and to protect them from the ruthless Killers.

Forced to confront a past he has tried so hard to outrun, Drake risks losing his humanity. His only hope is Faith, the French Seigneur's concubine, who desperately needs his help to rescue her human sister from the Seigneur's clutches. Then someone begins killing the members of the European vampire delegation, and Drake is the only suspect. Will Drake be saved by love, or will he become a Killer without a conscience?

The strange planet known as Tanegawa's World is owned by TransRifts Inc, the company with the absolute monopoly on interstellar travel. Hob landed there ten years ago, a penniless orphan left behind by a rift ship. She was taken in by Nick Ravani and quickly became a member of his mercenary biker troop, the Ghost Wolves.

Ten years later, she discovers the body of Nick's brother out in the dunes. Worse, his daughter is missing, taken by shady beings called the Weathermen. But there are greater mysteries to be discovered--both about Hob and the strange planet she calls home.

Eternal youth is a wonderful thing for the few who have it, but for Miriam Blaylock, it is a curse -- an existence marred by death and sorrow. Because for the everlasting Miriam, everyone she loves withers and dies. Now, haunted by signs of her adoring husband's imminent demise, Miriam sets out in serach of a new partner, one who can quench her thirst for love and withstand the test of time. She finds it in the beautiful Sarah Roberts, a brilliant young scientist who may hold the secret to immortality. But one thing stands between the intoxicating Miriam Blaylock and the object of her desire: Dr. Tom Haver... and he's about to realize that love and death to hand in hand.

The Number One New York Times bestselling author returns to the world of the Hunger with the long-awaited sequel to the cult classic. Whitley Strieber's vampire classic, the Hunger reinvented the genre and created a truly eternal heroine in Miriam Blaylock. Now, after two decades of mountin ganticipation, the Last Vampire finally steps back into Miriam's shadow and weaves a tale of stunning invention and mounting suspense. Miriam Blaylock's insatiable hunger has never ceased. Her incomparable beauty has made her a legend among the Keepers. She knows the secret of civilisation, and the mysteries of life. In the hollow sould of her mother she has witnessed the agony of undeath. For centuries she has gained the wisdom of God and the wit of the Devil. For centuries she has felt safe. Until now. For Miriam Blaylock, immortality is a thing of the past. He watches, Interpol agent Paul Ward knows of them. The undead. He has battled them, cleansed entire continents of their exquisite poison. He possesses their sacred Book of Names. He knows their weaknesses... and fears his own: Miriam Blaylock. Elusive and toxic, she has escaped his complex network of hunters for years. Seductive and cunning, she has become his obsession. And now each has set a trap for the other. Now, predator is about to become prey. Killer is about to become lover. As good and evil are rendered indistinguishable, the endgame begins. The Last Vampire will take readers as deep into the dark as a nightmare.

An ancient vampire, beautiful beyond words, a vulnerable young man drawn to her by a power beyond his understanding, two desperate parents searching across the world for the son they love -- these are the riveting, unexpected elements of Whitley Strieber's extraordinary new novel.

Lilith, the ages-old mother of the dying race of vampires, has been forced to come out of her cave deep in the Egyptian desert in search of food -- human blood. But she knows nothing about the modern world. She can't drive a car, rent a room, turn on a TV. She struggles to New York, penniless, vulnerable, and starving, protected only by her beauty and her power to capture men with desire... especially certain very special men.

The instant she sees young Ian Ward, she knows that he is part vampire himself. She knows that Ian, if he ever tastes human blood, will belong to her forever. And she needs him desperately, to help her survive and live in this harsh new world of jets and credit cards and guns. She sets out on a campaign of seduction -- as sensuous as it is terrifying -- to touch human blood to Ian's lips, which will then become for him a drug a thousand times more addictive than heroin.

Ian's father, Paul Ward, part vampire turned expert and obsessive hunter of vampires, knows that if the blood transforms Ian, Paul will have to kill his own son. The titanic conflict between father and son and seductress, hunter and hunted and huntress, comes to its surprise conclusion in the secret chambers beneath the great pyramids, where the hidden truths of all human history are stored.

From its beginning in the dark back alleys of Cairo to its totally unexpected ending, Lilith's Dream draws the reader down seductive new paths of discovery, into places where no novel has ever before. With Lilith's Dream Whitley Strieber has created a vampire so original and a story so new that he has virtually invented a new genre.

Lik-Rifa, the dragon god of legend, has been freed from her eternal prison. Now she plots a new age of blood and conquest.

As Orka continues the hunt for her missing son, the Bloodsworn sweep south in a desperate race to save one of their own--and Varg takes the first steps on the path of vengeance.

Elvar has sworn to fulfil her blood oath and rescue a prisoner from the clutches of Lik-Rifa and her dragonborn followers, but first she must persuade the Battle-Grim to follow her.

Yet even the might of the Bloodsworn and Battle-Grim cannot stand alone against a dragon god.

Their hope lies within the mad writings of a chained god. A book of forbidden magic with the power to raise the wolf god Ulfrir from the dead... and bring about a battle that will shake the foundations of the earth.

In the waning days of World War II, with Allied victory all but certain, desperate Nazi diabolists search for a demonic superweapon to turn the tide. A secluded castle somewhere in the south of Germany serves as a laboratory for experiments conducted upon human prisoners, experiments as vile as they are deadly.

Across the English Channel, tucked into the sleepy Cumbrian countryside, lies the Library, the repository of occult knowledge for the Société des Éclairées, an international organization of diabolists. There, best friends Jane Blackwood and Miriam Cantor, tutored by the Société's Librarian--and Jane's mother--Nancy, prepare to undergo the Test that will determine their future as diabolists.

When Miriam learns her missing parents are suspected of betraying the Société to the Nazis, she embarks on a quest to clear their names, a quest involving dangerous diabolic practices that will demand more of her than she can imagine. Meanwhile Jane, struggling with dark obsessions of her own, embraces a forbidden use of the Art that could put everyone she loves in danger.

As their friendship buckles under the stress of too many secrets, Jane and Miriam will come face to face with unexpected truths that change everything they know about the war, the world, and most of all themselves. After all, some choices cannot be unmade--and a sacrifice made with the most noble intention might end up creating a monster.

Ambition will fuel him.

Competition will drive him.

But power has its price.

It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.

The odds are against him. He's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined -- every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute... and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.

Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated.

As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place.

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she's made it out of the bloody arena alive, she's still not safe.

The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what's worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss's family, not her friends, not the people of District 12.

Powerful and haunting, this thrilling final installment of Suzanne Collins's groundbreaking The Hunger Games trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year.

Julie Grigio drives with her parents through the crumbling wastelands of America - a nightmarish family road trip in search of a new home.

A few hundred miles away, Nora Greene finds herself the reluctant, terrified guardian of her younger brother when her parents abandon them in the not-quite-empty ruins of Seattle.

In the darkness of a forest, a dead man in a red tie opens his eyes. With no memory of who or what he is, he must unravel the grim mystery of his existence - right after he learns how to think, how to walk, and how to satisfy the monster howling in his belly...

Two warped families and a lonely monster. Unknown to any of them, their paths are set to cross in a startling encounter that will change the course of their lives - or deaths - forever.