John Chu

Seanan McGuire

Lightspeed Magazine

Chaz Brenchley

Even in science fiction, supposedly the genre of limitless possibility, where everyone is invited to the adventure, heterosexual, heteroromantic, and cisgendered are considered the default, to the extent that everything else is "deviation", and must be eyed with suspicion. This issue contains 10 original science fiction short stories (selected by guest editor Seanan McGuire), including new stories by award-winning queer authors Amal El-Mohtar, and John Chu; 4 classic short story reprints and a novella reprint (selected by guest reprint editor Steve Berman); approx. 10,000 words of original flash fiction (selected by guest flash fiction editor Sigrid Ellis); 7 nonfiction articles (selected by guest nonfiction editor Mark Oshiro); approx. 30 personal essays about the experience reading and writing science fiction as a queer person (selected by managing editor Wendy N. Wagner); original artwork (selected by and featuring a cover by guest art director Elizabeth Leggett); and more!

Lightspeed Magazine, June 2015 (Queers Destroy Science Fiction Special Issue)

Set in the Kingdom of Outremer, TOWER OF THE KING'S DAUGHTER draws upon rich veins of history, religion and politics, bringing a powerful and imaginative new voice to fantasy fiction. Forty years on from the establishment of the Outremer, trouble is stirring. The religious, determined to root out heresies within the kingdom, have made a base in their stronghold of Roq de Rancon, protected by the Knight Ransomers. And in this remote and secretive place, a tale of love, duty and betrayal will unfold: for Marron, a young man newly sworn to the Ransomers; for Julianne, daughter of the King's Shadow, en route to her wedding in Elessi; and for Elisande, her young and mysterious companion. All have a part to play in the coming upheaval, for their lives are intricately involved with the fate of the kingdom . . .

Tower of the King's Daughter

The Kingdom of Outremer was raised on sands steeped in the blood of war, and to war it is returning. The Sharai tribes, bitter and divided in defeat, have regrouped in their stronghold at Rhabat. They await the coming of the Ghost Walker, long-promised deliverer of their people. The Ghost Walker has indeed returned, but not to the Sharai. Marron is a former Ransomer from Outremer who does not yet fully understand what he has become. His companions know more about the power he now wields, and insist that his destiny lies with theirs in Rhabat. But their motives are far from united. Rudel seeks to prevent the coming war and save his mysterious homeland of Surayon; his daughter Elisande is pursuing a djinni's cryptic prophecies, as is Julianne, daughter of the King's Shadow. And Jemel, of the Sharai but now sworn tribeless, has his own reasons for bringing the Ghost Walker home to his people. One thing is certain: whoever controls the Ghost Walker controls the future of Outremer. But Marron has a will of his own . . .

Feast of the King's Shadow

John Seymour

Sean O'Brien

Julia Darling

Chrissie Glazebrook

Margaret Wilkinson

Kevin Cadwallender

Linda France

The Book of Newcastle

Marron, a young knight in training to become a Knight of Ransomer, and Julianne, the daughter of the King's Shadow, embark on a perilous journey to Roq de Rancon, the stronghold of the Order of the Knights Ransomer, where they are drawn into a dangerous conflict that will forge Outremer's destiny. Original.

The Devil in the Dust

The average adult male is approximately 60% water. Blood tastes salty as more than two thirds of the sodium circulating throughout your body is carried in arteries and veins. Which means that your heart is like a miniature ocean within your chest. Chaz Brenchley has not only been awarded the British Fantasy Society's August Derleth Award but knows all too well the storms and dangers of the heart: the lofty desires, the grieving nadirs, the tempest of love. In Bitter Watters, his first short story collection devoted to gay readers, Brenchley offers men fantastical instances to effleurer, to break for taller timber, to drown in emotions. And while not every tale in this breathtaking collection involves the sea, tears and bloodshed still need to be navigated.

Bitter Waters

The Kingdom of Outremer was forged from the hot blood and cold steel of battle, but a fragile peace has come at last. Still, the threat of war stalks its borders and heresy lurks within, the poison seeping from its own renegade state of Surayon. Julianne, already wife to a lord of Outremer, has married the kingdom's greatest enemy, Hasan -- war-leader of the mighty Sharai tribes. Kidnapped on her wedding night, she is held captive in an abandoned castle, the lure for a trap whose intended prey is far from clear. As Julianne's friends rush to her rescue, Hasan follows them with his whole army in pursuit. An army of the poor is also marching to an uncertain end, following a preacher with a blessed relic and a gift for miracles. And as the righteous rise to cleanse Outremer, all paths converge on the vanished state of Surayon -- whose borders can only be breached by treachery and blood. Hand of the King's Evil is the dramatic conclusion to a spellbinding fantasy epic.

Hand of the King's Evil

A Tor.com Original

The Station of the Twelfth

Dead of Light

Julie E. Czerneda

Steve Miller

Jack Campbell

Gini Koch

Sharon Lee

Alex Bledsoe

Jacey Bedford

Andrija Popovic

Gerald Brandt

Kristine Smith

D.B. Jackson

Griffin Ayaz Tyree

Kit Harding

Mark D. Jacobsen

Jana Paniccia

R.Z. Held

A ship lost with all hands on icy Titan. A dying woman’s soul linked with the fate of an interstellar vessel. A wrecked ferry possessed by the ruin-demon who grounded her. A haunted space cruiser of legend again terrorizing those who travel among the stars. A pirate-ravaged frigate concealing magical secrets that can doom the wicked, or redeem the worthy. An inexplicably empty cruiser arriving at a space station amid the panic of a system-wide pandemic. There is an allure to the ghost ship, the once-proud voyaging craft now abandoned to the void of space or the depths of the sea. In Derelict, speculative fiction authors Kristine Smith, D.B. Jackson, Griffin Ayaz Tyree, Andrija Popovic, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, Gerald Brandt, Kit Harding, Gini Koch, Jacey Bedford, Mark D. Jacobsen, Jana Paniccia, Alex Bledsoe, Chaz Brenchley, R.Z. Held, Jack Campbell, and Julie E. Czerneda offer their tales of the lost vessel. So climb aboard if you dare, and prepare for a reading adventure that will unnerve and inspire and transport you beyond distant horizons.

Derelict

Howard Andrew Jones

Paige L. Christie

Esther Friesner

R.S. Belcher

A.L. Tompkins

Jason Palmatier

Derrick Boden

Andy Duncan

Gabriela Santiago

Diana A. Hart

Mike Jack Stoumbos

Mia Moss

Join us for a feast! Step into a roadside diner run by witches. Attend a banquet with aliens who are as crass as they are brutal. Eat oysters on the half shell with a pair of conjurers, or scratch out a meal with warring pilots marooned on a desolate planet. Pity the ghost who must cook her way to freedom, and mourn with the warrior who seeks a final delicacy for his lost love. Search the far reaches of space for sustenance or descend into a hellscape of culinary horrors. In this volume, food is the star! Fantasy and science fiction authors Paige L. Christie, Diana A. Hart, A.L. Tompkins, Esther Friesner, Derrick Boden, Andy Duncan, Chaz Brenchley, Howard Andrew Jones, Mike Jack Stoumbos, R.S. Belcher, Mia Moss, Gini Koch, D.B. Jackson, Jason Palmatier, and Gabriela Santiago have prepared a GALACTIC STEW that will entice and tantalize, nourish the imagination, and sate the most ravenous of literary appetites. But beware! These dishes are not what they seem...

Galactic Stew

In the city of Maras-Sund, where magic has been outlawed, children are being born with raw magical talents, including Issel, a young water-seller from the poorest part of the city, who could hold the key to rescuing his people from the conquerors who have oppressed the people. Reprint.

Bridge of Dreams

Frank Cottrell Boyce

Ramsey Campbell

Hanif Kureishi

Paul Cornell

Jeremy Dyson

Nicholas Royle

Paul Magrs

Conrad Williams

Robert Shearman

Christine Poulson

Maria Roberts

Emma Unsworth

Mathew Holness

Lavinia Murray

Where does fear lurk in 21st century life? In a technological age hard-wired to keep information flowing and the unknown at bay, what irrationalities still linger for horror writers to tap into? This anthology - the first in a new series from Comma - offers 15 very different responses to the question. From ancient curses kept alive in internet chat-rooms to malevolent children's TV characters acquiring lives of their own, Phobic shines a torch into the unlit areas of the modern subconscious and suggests the more we know, the more we realise how worried we really should be.

Modern Horror Stories

Phobic

After the Knights Ransomer and the desert-dwelling Sharai are attacked by the djinni, the shapeshifting 'ifrit, and the ghul on the borders of Surayon, the survivors band together to march into the palace on the Mount of Ascariel to confront the King, in this epic conclusion to the Outremer series. Original.

The End of All Roads

For more than thirty years, Chaz Brenchley has been one of Great Britain's most distinguished--and uncategorizable--writers of speculative fiction. His award-winning short stories move with deceptive ease from one genre to another, offering an astonishingly varied array of sheer narrative pleasures. While much of his work may be unfamiliar to American readers, the appearance of this generous, career-spanning volume should do much to change all that. The Best of Chaz Brenchley contains more than thirty stories from the author's vast fictional archive, and each one of them is a polished, unexpected gem. Together, they encompass an impressive range of themes, subjects and settings, including: a drinking establishment frequented by the pilots who navigate the intricacies of n-space; a hazardous--and haunted--stretch of rocks off the British coastline known as the Silences; a post-World War I Europe still awash in grief and an abiding sense of loss; a terminal known as the Tower of Souls, from which earthbound humans can take flight; British colonialism both in 19th century Cairo and on Mars; and much, much more. The stories gathered here are consistently readable, thoroughly imagined and written in a voice that is distinctive and instantly recognizable. But they never lose sight of the universal human concerns that lie at their center: guilt, loneliness, unfulfilled longings, and the inevitable threat of encroaching mortality. This magisterial collection offers all these things in generous measure, and the result is a book that readers have needed for a very long time, whether they know it or not. The Best of Chaz Brenchley is something truly special. Open it up at any point and find out for yourself.

The Best of Chaz Brenchley

Everything in All the Wrong Order

Jonathan wakes up in hospital and is told he has been involved in a car crash. He doesn't remember the last three months, and the doctors say he's only been there three days. He also doesn't remember the woman by his bedside who says she is his wife, but she has the pictures that seem to prove it.

Dispossession

A haunting tale of terror from a master of the genre. - When she is offered an undercover assignment by newspaper editor (and her former lover) Tony Fledgwood, professional party girl Grace Harley jumps at the chance to disappear from London and escape the scandal that threatens to engulf her. Her mission at the great house formerly known as D’Esperance is find out what goes on within this so-called commune and what happened to the journalist originally sent to investigate, who has disappeared without trace. But it’s not long before Grace experiences a series of strange and increasingly menacing incidents . . .

House of Bells

At twenty-four, Steph Anderson has been two years a widow, her husband, Tom, the second victim of a brutal serial murderer. Now involvement with the Sherpas, a self-help organisation for the bereaved, is beginning to bring Steph back into the world. Contact with Alice Armstrong, a frail elderly woman whose twin brother recently died a violent death, gives her renewed life and purpose: a renewal symbolised by Steph's taking over the garden at Alice's remote country cottage. Meanwhile Laurie Powell too is rebuilding his life, after a disastrous affair in London has left him bitter and emotionally damaged. His company sends him to a new job in Newcastle, where he finds love again in an unexpected quarter. But the killer strikes once more, with terrible consequences for both Steph and Laurie....

The Garden

Chaz Brenchley

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