Showing results by author "Seanan McGuire" in All Categories

This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should. When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she's found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well.

Regan loves, and is loved, though her school-friend situation has become complicated, of late. When she suddenly finds herself thrust through a doorway that asks her to "Be Sure" before swallowing her whole, Regan must learn to live in a world filled with centaurs, kelpies, and other magical equines - a world that expects its human visitors to step up and be heroes. But after embracing her time with the herd, Regan discovers that not all forms of heroism are equal, and not all quests are as they seem....

It’s been almost a year since October "Toby" Daye averted a war, gave up a county, and suffered personal losses that have left her wishing for a good day’s sleep. She’s tried to focus on her responsibilities - training Quentin, upholding her position as Sylvester’s knight, and paying the bills - but she can’t help feeling like her world is crumbling around her, and her increasingly reckless behavior is beginning to worry even her staunchest supporters. To make matters worse, Toby’s just been asked to find another missing child…only this time it’s the changeling daughter of her fellow knight....

Famine. Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the end of the world. In science fiction the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm.

October “Toby” Daye is finally doing all right. She’s settling into her new role as the Countess of Goldengreen; she’s actually dating again; she’s even agreed to take on Quentin as her official squire. Life is looking up all around - and that inevitably means it’s time for things to take a turn for the worse. Someone has kidnapped the sons of Duchess Dianda Lorden, regent of the Undersea Duchy of Saltmist. To prevent a war between land and sea, Toby must not only find the missing boys, but also prove that the Queen of the Mists was not behind their abduction.

When Alex Price agreed to go to Ohio to oversee a basilisk breeding program and assist in the recovery of his psychic cousin, he didn't expect people to start dropping dead. But bodies are cropping up at the zoo where he works, and his girlfriend--Shelby Tanner, an Australian zoologist with a fondness for big cats--is starting to get suspicious. Worse yet, the bodies have all been turned partially to stone...

Things are starting to look up for October "Toby" Daye. She's training her squire, doing her job, and has finally allowed herself to grow closer to the local King of Cats. It seems like her life may finally be settling down…at least until dead changelings start appearing in the alleys of San Francisco, killed by an overdose of goblin fruit.

Melanie has a destiny, though it isn’t the one everyone assumes it to be. She’s delicate; she’s fragile; she’s dying. Now, truly, is the winter of her soul. Harry doesn’t want to believe in destiny, because that means accepting the loss of the one person who gives his life meaning, who brings summer to his world.

Thomas Malone thought he'd seen it all during his 25 years in the Birmingham homicide division. But then they found the body of a woman suspended above the opening of the mineshaft known as the Vertical, blood dripping into the chasm below. At the bottom of that shaft, two clues - a typed manuscript and a business card, blank but for a name on the front and a single sentence on the back.

All across the world, people look up at the moon and dream of gods. Gods of knowledge and wisdom, gods of tides and longevity. Over time, some of these moon gods incarnated into the human world alongside the other manifest natural concepts. Their job is to cross the sky above the Impossible City—the heart of all creation—to keep it connected to reality. And someone is killing them. There are so many of them that it's easy for a few disappearances to slip through the cracks. But they aren't limitless.

For most people, the story of their lives is just that: the accumulation of time, encounters, and actions into a cohesive whole. But for an unfortunate few, that day-to-day existence is affected - perhaps infected is a better word - by memetic incursion: where fairy tale narratives become reality, often with disastrous results.

"How dare you? I never asked for you to hunt me down!" No, Velma Martinez hadn't. But when you had once been Velveteen, child super-heroine and one of The Junior Super Patriots, West Coast Division, you were never going to be free, even if your only power was to bring toys to life. The Marketing Department would be sure of that.

It’s been 50 years since the crossroads caused the disappearance of Thomas Price, and his wife, Alice, has been trying to find him and bring him home ever since, despite the increasing probability that he’s no longer alive for her to find. Now that the crossroads have been destroyed, she’s redoubling her efforts. It’s time to bring him home, dead or alive. Preferably alive, of course, but she’s tired, and at this point, she’s not that picky.

Behind the Mask is a multi-author collection with stories by award-winning authors Kelly Link, Cat Rambo, Carrie Vaughn, Seanan McGuire, Lavie Tidhar, Sarah Pinsker, Keith Rosson, Kate Marshall, Chris Large, and others. It is partially a prose nod to the comic world - the bombast, the larger-than-life, the save-the-worlds and the calls-to-adventure. But it’s also a spotlight on the more intimate side of the genre. The hopes and dreams of our cape-clad heroes. The regrets and longings of our cowled villains. That poignant, solitary view of the world that can be experienced only from behind the mask.

The struggle against not-so-charming storybook narratives isn't the only complicating factor in Henrietta "Henry" Marchen's life. As part of the ATI Management Bureau team protecting the world from fairy tales gone awry, she's juggling her unwanted new status as a Snow White, dealing with a potentially dangerous Pied Piper, and wrangling a most troublesome wicked stepsister - along with a budding relationship with Jeff, her teammate.

He was the last great hero of his generation. Velma Martinez - Velveteen - had never intended to be a great hero, but she was out of choices. "Hello, Jolly Roger." "Hello, bunny-eared girl who's taken over my ship. Have you come to collect the bounty on my head?" "I've come because Dame Fortuna told me how to find you, and we need your help." Velveteen crossed her arms. "The Super Patriots are corrupt, and I think Marketing is evil, and they have my best friend, and we want her back."

Lightspeed was founded on the core idea that all science fiction is real science fiction and that science fiction is vast. It is inclusive. Science fiction is about people, and queer people, no matter how they identify, are a big part of that. They always have been. They're just sometimes harder to see. So, in the interests of visibility, Queers Destroy Science Fiction! shows just how wide the spectrum of sexuality and gender identity can really be.

When her sister Patty died, Jenna blamed herself. When Jenna died, she blamed herself for that, too. Unfortunately Jenna died too soon. Living or dead, every soul is promised a certain amount of time, and when Jenna passed she found a heavy debt of time in her record. Unwilling to simply steal that time from the living, Jenna earns every day she leeches with volunteer work at a suicide prevention hotline.

Step right up to see the oddities and marvels of The Blackstone Family Circus and Travelling Wonder Show! Gasp at pit wasps the size of a man's forearm. Beware the pumpkin-headed corn stalker, lest it plant its roots in you! Annie Pearl is the keeper of oddities, the mistress of monsters. Her unique collection of creatures is one of the circus' star attractions, drawing wide-eyed crowds at every small frontier town they visit. But Annie is also a woman running from her past...and the mother of a mute young daughter, Adeline, whom she will do anything to protect.

Working for the last traveling carnival in Cascadia is sweaty, back-breaking work - and Ansley loves it. She's fiercely loyal to her charge, Billie - a giant genework Indricothere. But now the only life Ansley has ever known is in danger - and the threat is coming from within. This story was first published in METAtropolis: Green Space, the third entry in Audible's original series.