100 Best Anthology Books of All Time

Mercy Thompson’s world just got a whole lot bigger…

A collection of all-new and previously published short stories featuring Mercy Thompson and the characters she calls friends…

Includes the new stories…
“Silver”... “Roses in Winter”... “Redemption”... “Hollow”

…and reader favorites
“Fairy Gifts”
“Gray”
“Alpha and Omega”
“Seeing Eye”
“The Star of David”
“In Red, with Pearls”

It really can be an endless summer - if you're immortal. Though a vampire would be ill-advised to take a cruise to Bermuda, the possibilities for getting away from it all - and maybe snacking on some unsuspecting tourist - are many...

Sookie Stackhouse and her vampire friend Pam take a weekend getaway to Mississippi in #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris's "Two Blondes." And when they end up in a shady gentleman's club, to escape in one piece they need to do something that wasn't on their itinerary - something involving a stage, a pole, and very little clothing.

New York Times bestselling author Katie MacAlister's "The Perils of Effrijim" follow a demon whose vacation in Paris is disrupted when he's banished to another plane, thus kicking off a crazy dimension-hopping road trip across Europe.

Protecting an heiress from supernatural hit men isn't Cat and Bones's idea of a relaxing vacation in New York Times bestselling author Jeaniene Frost's "One for the Money," but it could get worse. And it does - when Cat's mother shows up.

With ten more original tales, editors Harris and Kelner bring together a stellar collection of tour guides who offer vacations frightening, funny, and touching - for the fanged, the furry, the demonic, and the grotesque.

The Japanese have always closely associated the sword and the spirit, but it was in the 1600s during the Tokugawa shogunate when the techniques of swordsmanship became forever associated with the spirit of Zen. The Unfettered Mind is a book of advice on swordsmanship and the cultivation of right mind and intention, written by the 17th-century Zen master Takuan Soho (1573-1645). Takuan was a gardener, calligrapher, poet, author, adviser to samurai and shoguns, and a pivotal figure in Zen painting. He was also known for his brilliance and acerbic wit. The succinct and pointed essays in this book were written to the samurai Yagyu Munenori, who was a great swordsman and rival to the legendary Miyamoto Musashi.

In these writings Soho is concerned primarily with understanding and refining the mind—both generally and when faced with conflict. Soho illuminates the difference between the right mind and the confused mind, the nature of right-mindedness, and what makes life precious. First published in 1988, this book is considered a true classic that influenced the direction that the art of Japanese swordsmanship has taken since.

In this thrilling collection of original stories, some of today’s hottest paranormal authors delight, thrill, and captivate readers with otherworldly tales of magic and mischief. In Jim Butcher’s ”Curses”, Harry Dresden investigates how to lift a curse laid by the Fair Folk on the Chicago Cubs. In Patricia Briggs’ “Fairy Gifts,”, a vampire is called home by magic to save the Fae who freed him from a dark curse. In Melissa Marr’s “Guns for the Dead”, the newly dead Frankie Lee seeks a job in the afterlife on the wrong side of the law. In Holly Black’s “Noble Rot”, a dying rock star discovers that the young woman who brings him food every day has some strange appetites of her own.

Featuring original stories from 20 authors, this dark, captivating, fabulous, and fantastical collection is not to be missed!

"Riding the Bullet," published here on paper for the first time, is the story of Alan Parker, who's hitchhiking to see his dying mother but takes the wrong ride, farther than he ever intended. In "Lunch at the Gotham Café," a sparring couple's contentious lunch turns very, very bloody when the maître d' gets out of sorts. "1408," the audio story in print for the first time, is about a successful writer whose specialty is "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Graveyards" or "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses," and though Room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel doesn't kill him, he won't be writing about ghosts anymore. And in "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French," terror is déjà vu at 16,000 feet.

Whether writing about encounters with the dead, the near dead, or about the mundane dreads of life, from quitting smoking to yard sales, Stephen King is at the top of his form in the fourteen dark tales assembled in Everything's Eventual. Intense, eerie, and instantly compelling, they announce the stunningly fertile imagination of perhaps the greatest storyteller of our time.

The collection has some minor but frustrating flaws. There are no contributor biographies, which is bad enough when the author is a giant; but it's especially sad for contributors who have become unjustly obscure. Each story's original publication date is in small print at the bottom of the first page. And neither this fine print nor the copyright page identifies the magazines in which the stories first appeared.

Prefaced by editor Robert Silverberg's introduction, which describes SFWA and details the selection process, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964 is a wonderful book for the budding SF fan. Experienced SF readers should compare the table of contents to their library before making a purchase decision. Fans who contemplate giving this book to non-SF readers should bear in mind that, while several of the collected stories can measure up to classic mainstream literary stories, the less literarily-acceptable stories are weighted toward the front of the collection; adult mainstream-literature fans may not get very far into The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume One, 1929-1964. --Cynthia Ward

· Introduction · Robert Silverberg · in
· A Martian Odyssey [Tweel] · Stanley G. Weinbaum · nv Wonder Stories Jul ’34
· Twilight [as by Don A. Stuart; Dying Earth] · John W. Campbell, Jr. · ss Astounding Nov ’34
· Helen O’Loy · Lester del Rey · ss Astounding Dec ’38
· The Roads Must Roll · Robert A. Heinlein · nv Astounding Jun ’40
· Microcosmic God · Theodore Sturgeon · nv Astounding Apr ’41
· Nightfall · Isaac Asimov · nv Astounding Sep ’41
· The Weapon Shop [Isher] · A. E. van Vogt · nv Astounding Dec ’42
· Mimsy Were the Borogoves · Lewis Padgett · nv Astounding Feb ’43
· Huddling Place [City (Websters)] · Clifford D. Simak · ss Astounding Jul ’44
· Arena · Fredric Brown · nv Astounding Jun ’44
· First Contact · Murray Leinster · nv Astounding May ’45
· That Only a Mother · Judith Merril · ss Astounding Jun ’48
· Scanners Live in Vain · Cordwainer Smith · nv Fantasy Book #6 ’50
· Mars Is Heaven! · Ray Bradbury · ss Planet Stories Fll ’48
· The Little Black Bag · C. M. Kornbluth · nv Astounding Jul ’50
· Born of Man and Woman · Richard Matheson · vi F&SF Sum ’50
· Coming Attraction · Fritz Leiber · ss Galaxy Nov ’50
· The Quest for Saint Aquin · Anthony Boucher · ss New Tales of Space and Time, ed. Raymond J. Healy, Holt, 1951; F&SF Jan ’59
· Surface Tension [Lavon] · James Blish · nv Galaxy Aug ’52
· The Nine Billion Names of God · Arthur C. Clarke · ss Star Science Fiction Stories #1, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1953
· It’s a Good Life · Jerome Bixby · ss Star Science Fiction Stories #2, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1953
· The Cold Equations · Tom Godwin · nv Astounding Aug ’54
· Fondly Fahrenheit · Alfred Bester · nv F&SF Aug ’54
· The Country of the Kind · Damon Knight · ss F&SF Feb ’56
· Flowers for Algernon · Daniel Keyes · nv F&SF Apr ’59
· A Rose for Ecclesiastes · Roger Zelazny · nv F&SF Nov ’63