Mermaids. Pirates. Flying ships. Creatures from the deep. Magic beyond your wildest dreams. The sea is a dangerous and wonderful realm. It calls to many, promising riches, adventure, or freedom. But just as there are beautiful and remarkable treasures to be found upon and below the waves, do not underestimate the dangers hidden within its depths. So polish your cutlass and prepare your spells for what awaits. Embark upon a journey across leagues of unimaginable adventure. Ride the waves to mystery and magic. Featuring 28 stories and 42 illustrations, including tales by New York Times best-seller Elaine Cunningham, Paul S. Kemp, Patrick Thomas, and James M. Ward with an all-new story featuring Halcyon Blithe.

Help celebrate an iconic indie bookstore! For thirty years, Between Books has provided the Eastern Seaboard of the United States with the absolute best in alternate entertainment-speculative fiction, comics, anime, and gaming. While other stores have disappeared, this shelter from the tides of bitter reality has remained, enduring by providing the finest in every genre, by stacking every shelf, every nook, cranny and tiny space in between with the strange, the beautiful and the terrifying. Now they have brought together many of the authors who have entertained the visitors to their hallowed walls in a collection so splendiferously diverse, it defies conventional description. John Passarella brings us a new Wendy Ward story in which a curse meets its match. A scientist opens her personal Pandora's Box in a tale by Maria V. Snyder. Gregory Frost finds an Old One in the noir. A roving nightmare auditions a new cast member in a chilling tale by Jonathan Maberry. Catherynne M. Valente paints a hauntingly beautiful picture of Hell. Pleasure and longing collide in a story by CJ Henderson. Memory, loss, and comfort coalesce in a story by Jonathan Carroll. All these and more await you in The Stories in Between. Greg Schauer established Between Books in 1979. It resides at 2703 Philadelphia Pike in Claymont, DE.

The clash of steel. The scent of blood. The heat of fire from heaven. The cries of the dying and of the dead. Brave warriors and devotees to the gods follow the paths their faiths have put before them, and when religious fervor meets skill of arms and magic, kings will fall, armies will collide, and men and women will perish for their beliefs. Blood & Devotion contains nine illustrated short stories and novellas of epic fantasy, including tales by Jay Lake, James Maxey, William Jones, and Gerard Houarner, with a foreword by David B. Coe.

Fantastical Visions IV features the magical art of Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, and a selection of stories that travels across the sub-genres of fantasy. Young men and women struggle to find their places in worlds harsh and beautiful. Lives are changed as people grapple with relationships and the consequences of their decisions. Greed and cunning are sometimes punished, and sometimes rewarded. Sometimes it is better to give than to receive, and sometimes a gift can be a curse. Eighteen works of modern myth explore the many facets of the human condition, taking the reader on an emotional journey through fantastic landscapes.

Evil emperors. Powerful curses. Crazed were-gibbons? Some heroes need to polish their derring-do, while some villains require the know-how of advice columnists to be truly evil. Some magicians should never be left alone with their spells, and some gods aren't really all they're cracked up to be. It's a veritable chorus line of worthless warriors, simpleton sorcerers, and hapless henchmen. The life of an adventurer isn't all piles of treasure and damsels in distress, but there are sights to see, quests to complete, and jokes around every corner. So grab your giant axe, vorpal sword, or mystical grimoire-if you are of a mind-and prepare to meet your destiny with a smile on your face. Includes stories by Lawrence C. Connolly, Murray J. D. Leeder, Jim C. Hines, and K. D. Wentworth.

Magic surrounds us. It is the stuff of creation. The Enlightenment did not kill it with science, nor did the Industrial Revolution extinguish its usefulness with mechanation. And whether mankind is aware of it or not, this timeless power continues to have a hand in the fate of mortals. There exists in this world, things that logic and reason cannot explain, and there are beings that have never been captured or catalogued. Elves may feel cramped in the big city, but they can get by. As the wild lands disappear, werewolves may have to be a bit more careful, but they still find time to hunt. And devils and demons still prey upon the souls of the wicked and the unwary. Come, explore this world of mystery, wonder, danger, and horror. You may find it to be not unlike the world in which you live. Modern Magic contains twenty-six short stories of fantasy and horror and thirty-five photo-illustrations.

Fantastical Visions III contains fourteen illustrated tales of fantasy and wonder. From heroic to tragic, light to dark, fanciful to painfully real, these stories explore the many facets of the genre. An aging wizardess learns more than she expected as she hunts down the last dragon in "The Signing Dragon," while a woman gets more than she expected from a mysterious plant in "Always Greener on the Other Side." A demoness who has seen the error of her ways must still pay the price in "Blood of the Blade," and a boy's coping mechanism comes to chilling life in "Paper Shadows." A surgeon takes on a disease of mythic proportions in "Affliction," while an elven thief takes on the forces of darkness in "Thick as Thieves." A dwarf fights for his place in the world and seeks revenge in "No One Marks My Passage," and a crusader travels to home and wife with the help of a mysterious spirit in "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair." A young knight must brave an ogre's cave in order to save his love in "Red Silk, Silver Dagger," while two sisters work their magic together in order to survive being stranded in a forbidden forest in "The Mordred Hour." An exiled musician finds himself friendless and far from home in "The Pear Thief," and an inmate in an Australian sanitarium finds the gifts of his elven blood to be useful to help a friend in "Happy Birthday, Pinko." An unappreciated scientist takes theatrical inspiration too far in "Cuts and Folds," while a businessman complicates his love life with the purchase of a mysterious book in "Calico."