Some years ago, the Great Delacorte, a famed stage magician, came down with a stroke that left him in a vegetative state, able to move only his eyes. The entire action of the novel is witnessed through these eyes as Delacorte sits in the Magic Room of his country estate, a room custom-tailored to display stage illusions. Delacorte's son, Max, has taken his name and place as an illusionist in every effort to replace his father. Max is supported by his wife Cassandra and her amazingly identical lookalike younger brother Brian. But for the past year, Cassandra has been poisoning Max's food with arsenic and a sleeping pill. She wants the act all for herself--but Max has his own ideas, and his revenge is the big dish that Matheson sets before us in this dazzler that offers top-flight fun!

For readers of George Saunders, Kelly Link, and Karen Russell, This Census Taker is the poignant and uncanny new novella from award-winning and bestselling author China Miéville. After witnessing a profoundly traumatic event, a boy is left alone in a remote house on a hilltop with his increasingly deranged parent. When a stranger knocks on his door, the boy senses that his days of isolation are over—but by what authority does this man keep the meticulous records he carries? Is he the boy’s friend? His enemy? Or something altogether other?

In this haunting, entrancing novel, Michel Faber introduces us to Isserley, a female driver who cruises the Scottish Highlands picking up hitchhikers. Scarred and awkward, yet strangely erotic and threatening, she listens to her hitchhikers as they open up to her, revealing clues about who might miss them if they should disappear. A grotesque and comical allegory, Under the Skin takes us on a heart-thumping ride through dangerous territory — our own moral instincts and the boundaries of compassion — to present a surreal representation of contemporary society run amok.

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Dean Koontz's The City. There are no rules in the dark, no place to feel safe, no escape from the shadows. But to save the day, you must...Seize the Night. At no time does Moonlight Bay look more beautiful than at night. Yet it is precisely then that the secluded little town reveals its menace. Now children are disappearing. From their homes. From the streets. And there's nothing their families can do about it. Because in Moonlight Bay, the police work their hardest to conceal crimes and silence victims. No matter what happens in the night, their job is to ensure that nothing disturbs the peace and quiet of Moonlight Bay.... Christopher Snow isn't afraid of the dark. Forced to live in the shadows because of a rare genetic disorder, he knows the night world better than anyone. He believes the lost children are still alive and that their disappearance is connected to the town's most carefully kept, most ominous secret—a secret only he can uncover, a secret that will force him to confront an adversary at one with the most dangerous darkness of all. The darkness inside the human heart.

Newly promoted Major Amy Porter of the Commonwealth of Nations is the senior ranking Portal Navigator onboard the CNSEV Tormalinas. Portal Navigators, always women, are known for their high intelligence, high emotional control, high imagination, and most of all for being able to survive in the deepest darkest holes of space without losing their minds.The Commonwealth of Nations Stellar Exploration Vessel 119, CNSEV Tormalinas is a ready-for-anything galactic xenoarchaeological exploration vessel. Exploring the deepest, darkest corners of the galaxy for treasure has its risks and rewards, profits and losses.After spending years searching for valuable archaeological artifacts, the crew of the Tormalinas, a galactic space exploration vessel, on its way home to Earth Prime, decides to take one last detour to a remote and unique star system with a planet broken apart by extreme gravitational forces. There, among the broken pieces of that planet, they explore ancient alien ruins, finding something never seen before or documented in their archives. Vessel Commander Colonel Ian Keeghan and his Executive Officer Major Amy Porter finally order the crew to relax and enjoy themselves before they load up for their return home. However, like any operation or adventure, the most dangerous point in the journey is that last leg home.Chaos ensues when they encounter a never-been-seen-before xenobiological contaminant, an aggressive and highly volatile alien lifeform. Now the Tormalinas and its crew must race across space and time to save themselves. They have a small chance, but only a small chance. Tensions flare as the officers and crew face life and death decisions, knowing they may not all make it back home alive.

The world as Hadge knows it seems to unravel around him, as the mystery of a strange book is thrust upon him along with what it really means to him, and the survival of Elysium.HADAGERY!The book of Elysium has been opened, and darkness will unfold, bleeding upon the land like a plague.WORLD CAST IN DARKNESS. Elysium is the remnants of a dying world, dimmed by evil, and the ignorance of mankind.SURVIVORS ARE BEING ISOLATED AND DEVOURED.Those that have survived the turmoil have devolved into scavengers, even as their bodies have adjusted to the cold dark climate, and dangers around every corner.WHERE HOPE FALLS.Is in the hands of an ordinary hairy little man named the Hadge. He is the only one who can seal the evil book of Elysium, and save the world. Throughout his journey he learns that he is a divine being, born upon every world with life, as a safeguard to guide each world from evil. He is the only hope.HADGE’S DARK JOURNEY.Startling events are set into motion during a trip to Ennead Mountains, as his friend Uwee quickly vanishes, and giant glowing spiders appear. Hadge and Uwee barely escape the mountain alive, however he comes to the conclusion that a book had beset Elysium into this age of darkness. A mysterious whispering book he discovers he cannot read, and is determined to find someone to reveal its secrets. Hadge journeys through the mountain where the deadly scyphus live, beyond the giant mountain troll that saves his life, and into the lost woods where his life is turned upside down. He at last identifies the voices from the book, as they read from the pages, telling Hadge he's a divine being, and that sealing the book would be Elysium's only hope for a future. Disturbingly to seal the book he has to journey straight into hordes of demons, and into the bowels of Hell, where he will be related a terrible fact, "Oh shit kid. You're not even real."

When Alison first read the chain letter signed "Your Caretaker," she thought it was some terrible sick joke. Someone, somewhere knew about that awful night when she and six other friends committed an unthinkable crime in the desolate California desert. And now that person was determined to make them pay for it. One by one, the chain letter was coming to each of them ... demanding dangerous, impossible deeds... threatening violence if the demands were not met. No one out of the seven wanted to believe that this nightmare was really happening to them. Until the accidents started happening -- and the dying...

A Novel. A canny mix of sci-fi paranoia and criminal mayhem.

A mysterious toymaker who lives as a recluse in an old mansion, surrounded by the magical beings he has created... A sickly wife locked away in a hidden room... An enigma involving strange lights that shine out from the small island on which an old, disused lighthouse stands... A shadowy creature that hides deep in the woods... These are the elements of a mystery will bind 14-year-old Irene to Ismael during one magical summer spent in Blue Bay when her mother takes a job as a housekeeper for the enigmatic toymaker, Lazarus Jann. A novel of mystery, intrigue and romance from the author of THE PRINCE OF MIST and THE SHADOW OF THE WIND.

"Meeting Evil "tells an adrenaline-pumped, genuinely frightening tale of malevolence that swerves swiftly and irrevocably to a catastrophic climax. John Felton meets evil late one Monday morning when the doorbell rings. Standing on the front porch is a stranger. He wears expensive running shoes and a baseball cap and calls himself Richie. He tells John his car has stalled and asks for help. An altercation at the gas station leads to a shocking crime as violence begets violence. At the end of this harrowing day, John returns home to find Richie ensconced in his living room, chatting up his wife. The evil has somehow seeped into his life. Thus begins the transformation of an unremarkable husband and father of two into a desperate man willing to go to any length to protect his family from the darkness that threatens them. This is an extraordinary masterpiece and a chilling portrait of mounting menace played out against an everyday world of domestic routine, personified in a protagonist of basic decency grappling with both the immediate and existential meaning of true evil. Now a major motion picture starring Samuel L. Jackson and Luke Wilson.

I know it's ridiculous. Lights can't whisper. But I swear I heard a voice calling to me. It sounded like static to begin with, but then it came into focus, a single word repeated over and over. Softly, slyly, seductively, insistently. "Come. . . " The Disciples are being manipulated by beings older than time. Only Kernel Fleck knows that something is wrong. But he is in the grip of a creature who cares nothing for the fate of humanity. Voices are calling to him from the darkness and he's powerless to resist. Kernel has already been to hell and back. Now he's about to go further.

He was her mirror image. Now the mirror has cracked.Celeste and her twin brother, Noble, are as close as can be — until a tragic accident takes Noble's life. It's a loss that pushes their mother, a woman obsessed with New Age superstitions, over the edge....Desperate to keep her son "alive," Celeste's mother forces her to cut her hair, wear boys' clothes, and take on Noble's identity. Celeste has virtually disappeared — until a handsome boy moves in next door, and Celeste will risk her mother's wrath to let herself come back to life.

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her "our little genius." Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh. Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad. The Girl with All the Gifts is a sensational thriller, perfect for fans of Stephen King, Justin Cronin, and Neil Gaiman.

A young woman laughs it off when she's informed the room she's staying in for the night is haunted, because ghosts don't exist.Or do they?Every evening Joshua, a manager at FishBurgers, walks home alone. One night, he comes across Mariella, an unusual young woman sitting on a bench. He's thrown for a loop when she tells him where she's from, but he doesn't mind. He doesn't mind the fact that she has blue hair either, in fact it makes her all that much more interesting. The people around Joshua feel that he's a bit odd and know very little about him. Each comes to their own snap judgments about him. Sometimes love can be a little quirky, sometimes it can be a lot quirky.Blue Haired Alien Girlfriend is a stand-alone short story.