· 2024
Welcome to the second year's-worth of stories from the online magazine ZNB Presents published by the small press Zombies Need Brains. In these pages, you will find original science fiction and fantasy stories of awe and wonder, darkness and light, ranging through all of the subgenres, including urban fantasy, alternate history, space opera, future fairy tales, and more. They come from the most talented authors in the field today—new voices as well as trusted and familiar names. Join us as we explore visions of the past, present, and future, as we encounter strange new creatures, both in our own backyard, in the depths of space, and our own imagination. Here you will: —Search for a cryptid in the mean streets of the city that tricks you into walking into its mouth —Scavenge in a world where AI has passed the singularity —Relive the scents of a recently lost world at a near-future carnival —Fleece the rich in a South African suborbirail —Hunt vampires in the crypts beneath the Kremlin with a saint by your side —Bargain with the sentient plants in a precarious alliance on a colonized world —Uncover the alternate assassin of Abraham Lincoln —Concoct potions as an apprentice with just a touch too much flare —Become an AI struggling to complete its mission after crashlanding on an alien world And so much more! Twenty-four stories written by Daniel Roman, Ty Lazar, L.P. Melling, Nathan W. Toronto, Caias Ward, Jonathan Robbins Leon, Marie Vibbert, Rob Cornell, Mike Jack Stoumbos, J.L. George, Brian Hugenbruch, Andrew Gudgel, Alicia Cay, Elektra Hammond, Derrick Boden, Alma Alexander, Melinda Brasher, Louis Evans, Niall Spain, Brian Crenshaw, S.C. Butler, Sam Robb, Liam Hogan, and Christine Lucas, each with its own illustration by artists Kat D'Andrea, Ariel Guzman, or Greg Uchrin. Welcome to the multifaceted worlds of ZNB Presents . Find us on Patreon at: http://www.patreon.com/zombiesneedbrains
· 2019
Book your ticket now for a trip to the future, the past, and the timeslips in between. Through the eloquent prose and imaginings of eighteen tellers of tales, we are pleased to present to you a collection of stories-on-a-train that will transport you to tantalizing worlds that you simply cannot imagine. Perhaps no other anthology in-living-memory encapsulates such wholehearted, ill fated, poignant, and even hallucinogenic stories with such grace and balance as those contained in this volume. These stories span the genres of literary fiction, steampunk, space opera, futurism, tragedy, magical realism, slipstream, horror, comedy, urban fantasy and more. In all, a sizzling collection, curated by Neil Enock (who is a train aficionado, podcaster, screenwriter and filmmaker), presenting high-voltage, off-the-rail entertainments that are feature rich with characters who are: schemers, dreamers, adventurers, lovers, detectives, rogues, and more; and whose human weaknesses always seem to get the better of them. Showcased in this single collection are eighteen trail blazers tasked to escort you on your inimitable journey: Jason Lane, David Worsick, Liam Hogan, Christine Hanolsy, Gavin Bradley, Michael Johnstone, Dwain Campbell, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, Peter Hargraves, Melodie Leclerc, Rachel Leidenfrost , Nick Svolos, Maurice Forrester, Kendall Eifler, Samuel Marzioli, Neil Enock, Laurie Stewart, Kim Solem. The stories offered will delight you with such surprising humor and stinging tragedy, you will be compelled to read them all in one sitting. DO NOT DELAY. DO NOT BE LEFT BEHIND. THIS TRAIN LEAVES PROMPTLY ON TIME. *Note: These stories are also suitable to read while waiting for a train.
· 2023
Here Comes the Sun! Rising temperatures, melting glaciers, violent storms, and excessive heat. The future seems bleak...but there are signs of hope. In Solar Flare , we ask you to step into a world where we have managed to mitigate or even reverse the disastrous effects of climate change and our own destruction of our world. Race down the depleted waterway of the Mississippi in a solar-, wind-, and water-powered boat. Sail through the skies in a floating hydroponic dirigible. Skim along a solar-powered road in order to expose a corporation's secret. Hover weightless in space in a last-ditch effort to repair an umbrella-like solar collector. Or cower in a shelter as fire rages outside...only to emerge and discover the rebirth such fire can bring. Experience all of this and more in these seventeen solarpunk stories brought to you by today's hottest authors, including David Keener, Anthony W. Eichenlaub, Sarena Ulibarri, Jason Palmatier, Lauren C. Teffeau, S.C. Butler, Devan Barlow, Chaz Brenchley, Liam Hogan, Nicole Givens Kurtz, Christopher R. Muscato, Rhondi Salsitz, Ember Randall, Gail Z. Martin & Larry N. Martin, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, Kristine Smith, and Anthony Lowe. Time to turn the tide and dream of a better future.
· 2018
Fiction has a special role in the way we relate to each other. Fiction can take us outside of our own experience and give us a small hint of what it's like to be someone else. Speculative fiction - including steampunk - has always been a metaphorical mirror to our own society, allowing us to see ourselves and our behaviors from the outside in ways that we otherwise couldn't. It's not magic. It's the interworking of dozens of finely machined gears. It's the craftswoman adjusting the tension on a spring so it doesn't break. It's the stoker making sure the furnace fires stay burning. It's the conductor collecting tickets, the passengers watching the landscape roll by, the excited child standing next to the engineer who gets to pull the cord and hear the train's steam whistle. It might not be magic, but it's still amazing. Especially with a project like Steampunk Universe, making an anthology of steampunk stories that feature diverse characters who are disabled or aneurotypical. Join editor Sarah Hans, our cover artist James Ng, and contributors Ken Liu, Jody Lynn Nye, Maurice Broaddus, Malon Edwards, Emily Cataneo, Pip Ballantine and nine others today.
· 2021
"A collection of thirty-one light horror tales sure sure to tickle your bones"--
· 2018
Now in a single collection by editor Katrina Archer, get all of the short climate fiction published by Little Blue Marble in 2017. M. Darusha Wehm shows us our blue marble as viewed from Mars. Anatoly Belilovsky meditates on family and love in a drowned future Ireland. Alex Shvartsman controls the weather. Robert Dawson evokes the nostalgia of a child for gas-powered cars. Holly Schofield's highlights wildlife in distress with an allegory of clowns. Liam Hogan takes the slacker's doctrine to its logical extreme. Matt Colborn's toaster fixes the planet. William Delman gives us quiet persistence in the face of disaster. And Ariel Bolton investigates the plight of refugees from the North Pole. Get inspired to change our climate for the better with stories from these distinctive voices of speculative fiction.
· 2019
An anthology of speculative climate fiction and poetry by authors from around the world. Icebergs in the desert. The oceans of Europa. The depths of love and myth. Evolved future humans. The last stand of redwoods. Frakking freedom fighters. Be inspired to become the change with these works of ingenuity and hope.
· 2023
· 2017
Liam Hogan's collection of eerie, darkly unsettling and frequently funny, fantasy stories.'Deliciously Twisted'In the realms of fantasy, it is foolish to upset the wee folk. Downright dangerous to incur the curse of a witch.And above all, it is perilous to ignore a warning.Happy Ending Not Guaranteed contains 27 stories of dark fantasy, from chess-playing automatons to smooth-talking Celtic faeries; from the Longitude Act of 1714 to the End of the World (in fractal form). Bad Kings, bad demons, and bad days abound.There is humour even in darkness. You just have to look harder for it.
Twelve grisly new tales of fur and fury in this brand new anthology of werewolf stories from Wyldblood Press. Liam Hogan's The Mortsafe, full of gothic darkness, Holly Rae Garcia's Werewolf's Lament (because werewolves have feelings too), Chris Muscato's Howling on the Moon. Werewolves in space - and right in the place where it all happens for them. Full moon all the time - kill or cure, right? Then M.T Johnson's Ivanwolf tells a very human story of some decidedly inhuman happenings.Holly Barratt's Rabbit Ears in the Laundry helps us face up to some of the more troublesome consequences of living with a werewolf, but the mood swiftly darkens with the tense suspense of Eric Nash's unsettling Rewilding. Laura Garrity's The Lodger explores what happens when the new guy in the spare bedroom suddenly has more fur than a landlady has a right to expect, followed by a tale of doomed love - The Wolf is Always at Your Door by E.J Sidle, and C. H. Knyght's To Prey which (spoiler) is nothing to do with going to church. Then a pause with the quirky Walking Dog by David J Rank before settling into a fine lupine love story - Adam Stemple's Werewolf Eulogy. Then full circle with the Big L - like the opener the Mortsafe, this is a story of how to tame the curse, but with a very different outcome.