Grandma gives a sweater she knitted, Dad receives a necktie he doesn’t really like, the kids get toys that make a variety of noises, most of them loud, all of them annoying.

What do writers give for the holiday season? They give the gift of stories that take the reader away to fantastical times or places, tales that can be blood-curdling or heart-warming, adventures that capture the heart of the season.

Fantastic Holiday Stories by Kevin J. Anderson • Kristine Kathryn Rusch • Rebecca Moesta • David Farland • Larry Correia • Nina Kiriki Hoffman • Dean Wesley Smith • Debra Gray De Noux & O’Neil De Noux • 
Jerry Oltion • Kathy Oltion • Kent Patterson • Ray Vukcevich • Kim Antieau.

’Tis the Season—for 14 more magical, macabre and merry tales to make your Holidays … Fantastic!

Gingerbread houses, caroling carolers, brightly trimmed trees, big family dinners, pristine snowfalls … the familiar pleasures of the season.

But what better pleasure is there than a good holiday story? So open this winter solstice sampler and indulge in funny festive fantasies, nightmares before Christmas, and stunning space-age celebrations … these stories will warms hearts and minds like a blazing Yule log.

Fantastic Holiday Stories by

Kevin J. Anderson, Mercedes Lackey, Mike Resnick, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Jonathan Maberry, Eric James Stone, Nina Kiriki Hoffman., Quincy J Allen, Ken Scholes, Sam Knight, David Boop, Heather Graham, Brad R. Torgersen, Patricia Briggs

Four science fiction tales from the mind of Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author. Includes: "Landscapes," "Fondest of Memories," "Controlled Experiments," and "Human, Martian—One, Two, Three."

Four science fiction tales from the mind of Kevin J. Anderson, each with a short introduction by the author. Includes: "Collaborators" (written with Rebecca Moesta), "Good Old Days," "Job Qualifications," and "Prisoner of War."

Alternitech sends prospectors into alternate but similar timelines where tiny differences yield significant changes: a world where the Beatles never broke up, or where Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t gunned down after the Kennedy assassination, where an accidental medical breakthrough offers the cure to a certain disease, where a struggling author really did write the great American novel, or where a freak accident reveals the existence of a serial killer. Alternitech finds those differences—and profits from them.

Six adrenalin junkies who call themselves the Daredevils Club hold the fate of the world in their hands. In an ancient undersea cavern, one of them, oil man Frik Van Alman, discovers a set of stones that are unlike anything else on Earth. Fitted together, the stones form an object that promises limitless free energy for the world.

After a terrified scientist scatters the pieces, the club members race to retrieve them. Each knows that whoever reassembles the unique device will have unlimited power at his or her fingertips. Can anyone be trusted?

In a thrilling adventure that stretches from deep beneath the Caribbean to the penthouses of Las Vegas, friend battles friend for control of the Artifact.

Nebula Award Nominee. The crew of Moonbase Columbus make an amazing discovery on the far side of the Moon—a massive alien structure is erecting itself, built up atom by atom by living machines, microscopically small, intelligent, and unstoppable, consuming everything they touch. The mysterious structure begins to expand and take shape, and its creators begin to multiply.

Is this the first strike in an alien invasion from the stars? Or has human nanotechnology experimentation gone awry, triggering an unexpected infestation? As riots rage across a panicked Earth, scientists scramble to learn the truth before humanity’s home is engulfed by the voracious machines.

It’s just supposed to be an educational field trip to the Challenger Learning Center, but JJ Wren and her friends find themselves transported into the future, to a time when the human race is besieged by deadly alien invaders. The evil Kylarn have shifted the orbits of three asteroids, sending them on a collision course with Earth!

The Avatar XPRIZE is designed to drive the exponential innovations needed to make General Purpose Avatars an everyday reality. The development of “avatar” technology—the fusion of human awareness consciousness with remote robotic bodies—offers breathtaking advances in medicine, culture, work, transportation, education and imagination.

The transformational potential of avatars is endless—and who better to illustrate the possibilities than some of the most insightful science fiction writers working in the field today?

Imagine a group of remote spectators traveling along remotely during a rigorous mountain climbing expedition. Or a severely injured athlete able to play his favorite sport vicariously through another body. Or a comatose woman using an avatar to interact with her family and the outside world, even though her body is failing. Or a skilled operative using an avatar on a dangerous search and rescue operation. Or medical specialists using avatar bodies to enter hot zones that no vulnerable human can breach.

These fourteen tales by premier science fiction authors explore the wondrous possibilities of avatar technology—and they still only scratch the surface. Read these stories and let your own imagination roam!

Falsely accused of murder on the colony world of Atlas, Troy Boren trusts the young Truthsayer Kalliana … until, impossibly, she convicts him. Kalliana doesn't realize her power is fading, but soon the evidence becomes impossible to ignore. The Truthsayer drug, Veritas, has been diluted and someone in the colony is selling smuggled telepathy. Justice isn't blind—it's been blinded!

THE FANTASTIC HISTORY OF A DARK GENIUS

The life story of Jules Verne’s enigmatic dark hero from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island.

He built the Nautilus sub-marine, which terrorized the sea in his war against all war.

He discovered a passage to the center of the Earth.

He explored Africa in a balloon.

He fought pirates on the high seas . . .

And he was a friend of Jules Verne.

In this epic fantastic history, André Nemo experiences incredible adventures, which Verne then incorporates into his classic novels. Learn the truth of these extraordinary journeys, which is even more incredible than fiction.

They were prisoners, exiles, pawns of a corrupt government. Now they are Dr. Rachel Dycek's adin, surgically transformed beings who can survive new lives on the surface of Mars. But they are still exiles, unable ever again to breathe Earth's air. And they are still pawns.

For the adin exist to terraform Mars for human colonists, not for themselves. Creating a new Earth, they will destroy their world, killed by their own success. Desperate, adin leader Boris Tiban launches a suicide campaign to sabotage the Mars Project, knowing his people will perish in a glorious, doomed campaign of mayhem—unless embattled, bitter Rachel Dycek can find a miracle to save both the Mars Project and the race she created.

For more than two centuries, the land of Albion has been ruled by the supposedly benevolent Watchmaker, who imposes precision on every aspect of life. Young Owen Hardy from the village of Barrel Arbor dreams of seeing the big city and the breathtaking Clockwork Angels that dispense wisdom to the people, maybe even catching a glimpse of the Watchmaker himself.

He watches the steamliners drift by, powered by alchemical energy, as they head towards Crown City—never dreaming that he is already caught between the grandiose forces of order and chaos, between the Watchmaker and his nemesis, the Anarchist. Owen’s journeys begin at a fabulous carnival with clockwork wonders beyond his imagination and take him aboard airships, far into the Redrock Desert to seek lost cities, through storms at sea to encounters with pirates … and give him a chance at love.

With illustrations by noted album artist Hugh Syme and complete with album lyrics, Clockwork Angels: The Novel is a remarkable, innovative story unlike any other.

Clockwork Angels is a steampunk fantasy adventure—and an innovative multimedia feast!

Based on a story and lyrics by legendary drummer Neil Peart, Clockwork Angels became the worldwide bestselling concept album by Rush and was developed into a New York Times bestselling and award-winning novel by Kevin J. Anderson.

Anderson and Peart, working with comics artist Nick Robles, brought the epic tale to a visual canvas, a six-issue graphic novel published by BOOM! Studios. Clockwork Angels: The Comic Scripts pulls aside the creative curtain, showing the original scripts, panel by panel, interactions between author and artist, as well as all the secret “Easter eggs”

The final volume in the New York Times–best-selling, award-winning steampunk trilogy by Kevin J. Anderson and legendary Rush drummer Neil Peart

In Clockwork Angels and Clockwork Lives, readers met the optimistic young hero Owen Hardy, as well as the more reluctant adventurer Marinda Peake, in an amazing world of airships and alchemy, fantastic carnivals and lost cities. Now Owen Hardy, retired and content in his quiet, perfect life with the beautiful Francesca, is pulled into one last adventure with his eager grandson Alain. This final mission for the Watchmaker will take them up to the frozen lands of Ultima Thule and the ends of the Earth. Marinda Peake must undertake a mission of her own, not only to compile the true life story of the mysterious Watchmaker, but also to stop a deadly new group of anarchists.

The Clockwork trilogy is based on the story and lyrics from the last album of musical titans Rush, with Anderson and Peart expanding the world, stories, and characters. The two developed the final novel in the trilogy in the last years of Peart’s life, and more than a year after his passing, Anderson returned to that unfinished project, with the full support of Peart’s wife, bringing Owen and Marinda’s stories to a satisfying and stirring conclusion.

In Clockwork Angels, #1 bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson and legendary Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart created a fabulous, adventurous steampunk world in a novel to accompany the smash Rush concept album of the same name. It was a world of airships and alchemy, clockwork carnivals, pirates, lost cities, a rigid Watchmaker who controlled every aspect of life, and his nemesis, the ruthless and violent Anarchist who wanted to destroy it all.

Anderson and Peart have returned to their colourful creation to explore the places and the characters that still have a hold on their imagination. Marinda Peake is a woman with a quiet, perfect life in a small village; she long ago gave up on her dreams and ambitions to take care of her ailing father, an alchemist and an inventor. When he dies, he gives Marinda a mysterious inheritance: a blank book that she must fill with other people’s stories — and ultimately her own.

Clockwork Lives is a steampunk Canterbury Tales, and much more, as Marinda strives to change her life from a mere “sentence or two” to a true epic.

A damaged cyborg soldier and an enemy alien fighter turn their backs on the war and try to escape. But the human and alien governments can't tolerate the two deserters working together, so they join forces to hunt them down.

Ever since the Big Uneasy, Dan Chambeaux worked as a human private investigator in the Unnatural Quarter. Even being murdered doesn't keep a good detective down, and zombie Dan Shamble is back from the dead and back on the case!

And what strange cases they are. Shamble is faced with mummies suing their museums, living-undead political tensions, defending a mixed race couple (he's a vampire, she's a werewolf) from housing discrimination, a serial scalper targeting werwolves, and a standard lost dog case with a hellhound. And above all, he's got to figure out a very personal question: who killed him?

Shamble must team up with his ghost girlfriend Sheyenne, a bleeding-heart human lawyer named Robin Deyer, and his BHF (Best Human Friend) Officer Toby McGoohan to seek justice for the denizens of the Unnatural Quarter. In these four volumes—Death Warmed Over, Unnatural Acts, Working Stiff, and Hair Raising—Dan Shamble puts the P.I. back into R.I.P.

Ever since the Big Uneasy, Dan Chambeaux worked as a human private investigator in the Unnatural Quarter. Even being murdered doesn't keep a good detective down, and zombie Dan Shamble is back from the dead and back on the case!

And what an odd assortment of cases they are. Shamble is faced with the amphibious villain Ah'Chulhu, discrimination against a Medusa in a beauty pageant, and a flock of murderous feral chickens.

Shamble teams up with his spectral girlfriend Sheyenne, a human lawyer with a soft spot for monsters named Robin Deyer, and his BHF (Best Human Friend) Officer Toby McGoohan to seek justice for the denizens of the Unnatural Quarter. In these three volumes—Slimy Underbelly, Tastes Like Chicken, and Services Rendered—Dan Shamble puts the P.I. back into R.I.P.

A hilarious horror rocker from New York Times bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson and Grammy winner Janis Ian. Greatest hits—back from the dead! A famous one-hit-wonder rock star might think his career is over (being dead, for starters), but a group of obsessive fans has other ideas.

An apprentice swordsman, Locke has ridden the narrow trail to the City of the Sorcerers to see with his own eyes the Ward Walls that hold back the Realms of Chaos. It is Locke’s dream to become a Chaos Rider, and he seeks his destiny beyond the Wall. And it is Locke’s hope that somewhere in the Wildness, where time and change rage out of control, his lost father still survives.

But more than mere survival is at stake. For on the other side of the Wall awaits a Darkness beyond all ken—a burgeoning evil that will test the steel of one young hero … and the entire bold and foolish race called Humanity.

In Chaos, a new power arises, an evil more ancient and more awesome than Fialchar himself, the one who broke the Seal of Reality and let the Wildness spill over the world.

Locke became a Chaos Rider to find his lost father, and now Locke must become the very hero that he himself has been seeking. The only hope of defeating this new Darkness is with an unlikely alliance of Empire and Chaos forces, led by an untried swordsman from beyond time.

Praise for An Enemy Reborn

“Stackpole spins tales which grab you by the heart, throat, and imagination.”
—Dennis L. McKiernan, author of The Dragonstone

1763: The Crown Colonies of Mystria are in turmoil, trapped between warring empires and facing insurrection from natives and colonists alike...

Captain Owen Strake, a wounded and battle-weary Redcoat of the Queen's Own Wurms, has come to this untamed land. At the Queen's command, Owen's mission is to survey this vast, uncharted territory, performing reconnaissance of rival Tharyngians and the savage Twilight People of the wilderness.

Prince Vladimir is a Norillian noble, nephew to the Queen. Though he has little real political power, he struggles to ensure the colonists' interests are represented back in Norisle. The one thing he does have is a wurm... one of the few existing dragons from a clutch of eggs discovered in the old world, hundreds of years ago.

As Mystria swirls into chaos, Owen becomes prisoner of a Tharyngian necromancer. Meanwhile, Vlad is to be married off to an old world princess, an alliance supposed to help supply money and mercenaries to put down the various insurrections. But, nobody suspects that Vlad's wurm is about to undergo a change that will impact the world's delicate political balance...

From New York Times-bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole (Rogue Squadron, I, Jedi) comes At the Queen's Command, the first book of The Crown Colonies, a new fantasy series re-imagining the events of the American Revolutionary War.

NS201112 December 2011 Night Shade Books

The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith

by Clark Ashton Smith

Of Limited Loyalty

by Michael Stackpole

1767: In the three years since defeating the Tharyngians at Anvil Lake, the Crown Colonies of Mystria have prospered. Colonists, whether hunting for new land or the Promised Land of prophecy, have pushed beyond the bounds of charters granted by the Queen of Norisle. Some of these new communities have even had the temerity to tell the Crown they are no longer subject to its authorities. To survey the full extent of the western expansion, the Crown has sent Colonel Ian Rathfield on an expedition, accompanied by Nathaniel Woods, Owen Strake, and Kamiskwa, into the Mystrian interior.

They discover a land full of isolated and unique communities, each shaped in accord with the ideals of the founders. Conflicts abound among them, and old enemies show up at the least useful moments. Worse yet, lurking out there is a menace which the Twilight People only know from folklore as the Noragah; and westward penetration stumbles into their lands and awakens them.

Alerted to this threat by his men, Prince Vlad petitions the Crown to send troops and supplies to destroy this new and terrifying enemy. The Crown refuses, citing massive debts from the last war. They dismiss Vlad's claims as fantasy, and impose a series of taxes on Mystrian trade to finance their own recovery.

Faced with fighting an inhuman foe in a land seething with resentment against the Crown, Vlad must unite the Colonies in a common cause, or preside over their complete destruction.