From the award-winning author of Alien Morning, nine science fiction/fantasy stories of everyday people grappling extraordinary circumstances. Witness seemingly ordinary people as they confront their fears and embrace their challenges on a near-future Earth or an alternate-history past or even on a far distant alien world . . . - A single dad of a daughter with Down-syndrome considers what his life and career might have been as a parent and a pro football player in some alternate reality. - A young girl on an isolated Florida island discovers that her quirky grandparents are even stranger than she thought. - A high-school basketball player confronts the ghosts of her past. - A young woman struggles to make peace with the horrors of her forgotten childhood. - An elderly woman slides into dementia even as she finds some essential truths that were lost in the hazy mists of her memory. - A baseball player becomes a spy during an alternate-history version of World War II, where he plays a pivotal role in stopping the Nazi war machine. A powerful and poignant collection of memorable stories from an award-winning storyteller, Rambunctious: Nine Tales of Determination is charming, action-packed, frightening, and thoughtful by turn. Praise for Rambunctious “A major collection from what it's high past time to admit is one of our major writers. Wilber writes with literate flair, compassion, and a deep understanding of human psychology. Highly recommended!” —Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award–winning author of The Oppenheimer Alternative “Wilber draws you in through his compassion for his characters and his keen eye for the familiar, and then he slips you sideways into places startlingly new, beautiful, and true. You finish these stories entertained, to be sure, but moved as well, and with your perspective forever widened.” —Gregory Norman Bossert, World Fantasy Award–winning author “Wilber’s voice [has] a kind of authority and compassion that have helped him carve out a niche identifiably his own.” —Locus

"Rick Wilber has written the best "first contact" story I've seen in decades: deeply human, eerily alien, and altogether an exciting, moving and thought-provoking novel." -- Ben Bova The fate of two civilizations depends on one troubled family in Rick Wilber's science-fiction adventure Alien Morning. Peter Holman is a freelance sweeper. The year 2030 sees a new era in social media with sweepcasting, a multisensory interface that can convey every thought, touch, smell, sight, and sound, immersing the audience in another person's experience. By fate, chance, or some darker design, Peter is perfectly positioned to be the one human to document the arrival of the aliens, the S'hudonni. The S'hudonni offer advanced science in exchange for various trade goods from Earth. But nothing is as simple as it seems. Peter finds himself falling for, Heather Newsome a scientist chosen by the S'hudonni to act as their liaison. Engaged to his brilliant marine biologist brother, Tom, Heather is not what she seems. But Peter has bigger problems. While he and his brother fight over long-standing family troubles, another issue looms: a secret war among the aliens, who are neither as benevolent nor as unified as they first seemed. Peter slowly learns secrets he was never meant to know, about the S'hudonni, and about his own family. Realizing that he has been used, he can only try to turn his situation around, to save what he can of his life and of the future of Earth. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

"An original, engaging, wonderfully complex alien world. Very highly recommended." —Julie E. Czerneda, author of the Web Shifter's Library series Set on a near-future Earth and on the alien homeworld of S'hudon, Rick Wilber's Alien Day explores murderous sibling rivalries, old-school mercantile colonialism, ambition, greed, and the saving strength that can emerge from reluctant heroes called to do the right thing despite the odds. Will Peter Holman rescue his sister Kait, or will she be the one to rescue him? Will Chloe Cary revive her acting career with the help of the princeling Treble, or will the insurgents take both their lives? Will Whistle or Twoclicks wind up in charge of Earth, and how will the Mother, who runs all of S'hudon, choose between them? And the most important question of all: who are the Old Ones that left all that technology behind for the S'hudonni . . . and what if they come back? "His Intricate and ingenious storytelling will pull you in, and then the humanity and vulnerability of his characters will break your heart." — Alan Smale, Sidewise award-winning author of the Clash of Eagles trilogy At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

This “toothy follow-up to Datlow’s first-rate Blood Is Not Enough” offers “admirably inventive variations on vampirism” (Kirkus Reviews). Featuring stories by Jonathan Carroll, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and Robert Silverberg, A Whisper of Blood is a “consistently engrossing anthology” from award-winning editor Ellen Datlow (Publishers Weekly). Continuing to expand the boundaries of the concept of vampirism—as she did in her first collection, Blood Is Not Enough—Datlow has assembled eighteen fascinating stories that range from tales of literal vampires to what she calls “metaphorical bloodsuckers,” who can drain another’s life force without ever sinking their teeth into necks. In “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” by Suzy McKee Charnas, an elderly Jewish woman who’s taken her own life has second thoughts and makes a deal to become a vampire to stay immortal, the only condition being she has to drink blood by request only. An amnesiac operative tries to sort out if a secret government agency is trying to help him regain his memory or is wiping it clean in Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Kafkaesque “Do I Dare to Eat a Peach?” And in Jonathan Carroll’s “The Moose Church,” a tourist in Sardinia is literally scarred by asking questions of death in his dreams . . . A Whisper of Blood includes contributions by Suzy McKee Charnas, Karl Edward Wagner, Robert Silverberg, Kathe Koja, Elizabeth Massie, Barry N. Malzberg, Rick Wilber, Jonathan Carroll, Thomas Ligotti, Melissa Mia Hall, David J. Schow, Jack Womack, Melinda M. Snodgrass, Thomas Tessier, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, K. W. Jeter, Pat Cadigan, and Robert Holdstock and Garry Kilworth.

Cold . . . cold is all Melissa O'Malley feels, growing up in the frigid expanses of rural Minnesota. The one thing keeping her warm is the obeah talent she has inherited from her island mother, who mysteriously left when Melissa was only five. Bright, beautiful, athletic, and extremely talented, Melissa is raised by her father, Melchior, and discovers her obeah when her father brings home a deer carcass. Upon touching the deer, Melissa, in a moment of electric clarity, experiences the deer's final moments before death. Melissa's childhood has been happy. She excels in basketball as a teen, earning a chance to play basketball at the University of Minnesota. She also falls in love with Danny Finnegan, son of her dad’s friend, a local police detective. She and Danny dream of life together after she finishes college and he completes a stint in the Navy. Everything seems perfect until the news of Danny's combat death shocks the town. At Danny's funeral a last touch from Melissa shows her and Detective Finnegan Danny’s final moments before his death. With nothing more holding her back, Melissa is drawn to the south, to college in Florida, where she’ll follow her bliss. Florida is everything Melissa dreams of—a warm, tropical home that slowly thaws the ice around her soul. She continues playing basketball and meets handsome, charming Bo Palmer. After graduation, Melissa becomes PR director of the Palmers’ resort on the beautiful island of Saint Kitts. But local newsman Stanley Edwards tells her of dark secrets that threaten the resort. Stanley’s father disappeared many years ago, and shortly thereafter the Palmers’ resort became a success. Both Stanley and his mother, Miriam, an obeah woman who recognizes Melissa's talent, fear for Melissa even as they think she could help uncover the truth behind their tragedy. As Melissa settles into her new home, she is drawn back north by her father’s news that someone is brutally killing women and their daughters in Minnesota. Detective Dan Finnegan and her father are stumped, and Dan knows Melissa's talent might unlock the key to the crimes. Torn by conflicting feelings—for Bo, for Stanley, and for her home in Minnesota, Melissa wants to help. But when she learns to trust her own instincts, will she survive her discovery of the horrible truth behind the deaths that shadow the past and threaten her future? This taut thriller goes to extremes, and its sizzling narrative excitement never lets up.

Alternate histories. Alternate realities. It's said that every choice creates multiple timelines, each one exploring what could have happened if a different decision had been made. Most of these alternate histories stem from different outcomes to a pivotal battle, or to an assassination attempt, or to the ending or escalation of a war. All violent, all bloody, all brutal. But what about those choices made during peacetime, when there was no monumental, ongoing conflict? After all, everyone knows how significant the flutter of a butterfly's wings can be, how far-reaching its effects can be felt. In these pages you will find fifteen new branches of history written by some of today's greatest science fiction and fantasy writers, including Elektra Hammond, Dale Cozort, Harry Turtledove, C.W. Briar, Rick Wilber, Juliet E. McKenna, Michael Robertson, Kat Otis, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Brian Hugenbruch, Stephen Leigh, Elizabeth Kite, Ian R. MacLeod, Mike Barretta, and Kari Sperring, all stemming from a peaceful divergence in our past. Join them as they wander down familiar paths...and then swerve down roads not taken.

The Cutting Edge of Modern Short Fiction A three-time Hugo Award nominated magazine, this issue of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine offers up twenty fantastic stories by some of the best writers working in modern short fiction. No genre limitations, no topic limitations, just great stories. Attitude, feel, and high-quality fiction equals Pulphouse. “This is definitely a strong start. All the stories have a lot of life to them, and are worthwhile reading.” —Tangent Online on Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Issue #1 Includes: “The Soul Mate Junkie and the Beating Heart” by David H. Hendrickson “Ecstatically Ever After” by Jerry and Kathy Oltion “The Bridge” by Robin Brande “Lower than Black” by O’Neil De Noux “One Sun, No Waiting” by Annie Reed “Lifetime Value” by B.A. Paul “Roadkill” by Brenda Carre “Living Free” by Dory Crowe “Ice in D Minor” by Anthea Sharp “Harry the Ghost Pirate” by Robert J. McCarter “The Cactus, the Coyote, and the Lost Planet Joyride” by J. Steven York “Lucky Charm” by Alexandria Blaelock “Romeo Peterbilt and Isuzu Juliet” by Kent Patterson “Mounting the Monkeys” by Rick Wilber “Amelia Pillar’s Etiquette for the Space Traveler” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch “Predict THIS” by Michael D. Britton “Family History” by R.W. Wallace “Time in Death” by C.A. Rowland “Where Everything Goes” by Rob Vagle “The Men without Heads Join a Health Club” by Robert Jeschonek

Short novels may well be the perfect length for science fiction. They are movie length tales that resonate with moxie while exploring characters, new worlds, and ideas. The stories in this unabridged collection are the best-of-the best short science fiction novels published in 2010 by current and emerging masters of this form. “Return to Titan,” by Stephen Baxter, is set in his Xeelee sequence. Michael Poole and his father search one of Saturn’s moons for sentient life that would interfere with their plans to build a gateway to the stars. In this year’s Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winner for best short fiction, “The Sultan of the Clouds,” by Geoffrey A. Landis, a terraforming expert is inexplicably invited to Venus by the child who owns most of the planet’s habitable floating cities. “Seven Cities of Gold,” by David Moles, tells the story of a Japanese relief worker charged with tracking down the renegade Christian leader responsible for detonating a nuclear device in an Islam-occupied North American city. In “Jackie’s-Boy,” by Steven Popkes, an orphaned child befriends an uplifted elephant from the abandoned St. Louis Zoo as they trek south across a sparsely populated North America to find sanctuary. “A History of Terraforming,” by Robert Reed, involves a young boy’s ambition to take up his father’s work of terraforming Mars and then much of the solar system and discovers that much more than planets have been altered. In “Troika,” by Alastair Reynolds, the lone survivor of a mission that explored a massive alien object attempts to reveal what he discovered despite the wishes of the Second Soviet Union. Set in the author’s S’hdonni universe, “Several Items of Interest,” by Rick Wilber, the Earth ruling aliens ask a human collaborator to help quell a human insurrection led by the collaborator’s brother.

A 1940s baseball team finds itself in Ancient Rome in this action-filled romp by two award-winning writers—also includes two bonus stories. In this alternate-history adventure, a 1940s barnstorming baseball team, led by retired baseball player and spy Moe Berg, is transported from rural Illinois to Ancient Rome, just after the death of Emperor Septimius Severus. The Romans—who actually played a game called “small ball”—put the captured team to work teaching baseball to the gladiators for a major Colosseum event . . . that turns into an over-the-top life or death finale. Baseball hijinks, a wild ride through Rome in a careening team bus, a hint of romance, and some viciously good hitting and fielding—but amid all this adventure, will the Wandering Warriors make it home? Will the widowed empress escape the fate her evil son has in mind for her? Will the rattletrap team bus find its way through time and space (and Roman roads) back to Illinois? And what will happen when Chicago White Sox owner Grace Comiskey shows up?