Ray Bradbury meets The Martian in this chilling page-turning tale of Mars' first colony, fallen to madness after all contact with Earth ceased, perfect for fans of Jeff VanderMeer. Anabelle Crisp is fourteen when the Silence arrives, severing all communication between Earth and her new home on Mars. One evening, while she and her father are closing the diner they run in the colony of New Galveston, they are robbed at gunpoint. Among the stolen items is a recording of her mother's voice, taped on the eve of a trip back to Earth, just before the Silence descended. Driven by righteous fury and desperation to lift her father's broken spirits, Anabelle sets out to confront the thieves and bring back the sole vestige of her mother. Accompanied by her loyal robotic companion, Watson; an outcast spaceship pilot named Joe Reilly; and the hardened outlaw Sally Milkwood, Anabelle must first pass through Dig Town, a derelict mining community where a mineral called the Strange has warped the residents in frightening ways, and then brave the Martian desert. As she nears the shadowy Peabody Crater--the epicenter of bizarre goings-on in the colonies--Mars is revealed as a vast haunted house, infested with ghosts, alive with malignant intent-and New Galveston, once a safe haven, nothing more than a guttering candle in a dark world.

Nathan Ballingrud's Shirley Jackson Award winning debut collection is a shattering and luminous experience not to be missed by those who love to explore the darker parts of the human psyche. Monsters, real and imagined, external and internal, are the subject. They are us and we are them and Ballingrud's intense focus makes these stories incredibly intense and irresistible. These are love stories. And also monster stories. Sometimes these are monsters in their traditional guises, sometimes they wear the faces of parents, lovers, or ourselves. The often working-class people in these stories are driven to extremes by love. Sometimes, they are ruined; sometimes redeemed. All are faced with the loneliest corners of themselves and strive to find an escape. Nathan Ballingrud was born in Massachusetts but has spent most of his life in the South. He worked as a bartender in New Orleans and New York City and a cook on offshore oil rigs. His story "The Monsters of Heaven" won the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his daughter.