Seven stories written by some of the best writers of modern fiction including Garry Kilworth, Ron Damien Malfi, Michael Boatman, and Michael Hemmingson reach to the edge of human endurance and push all the harder.

William T. Vollmann is one of our greatest living writers. Masterworks such as You Bright and Risen Angels, The Royal Family, and Rising Up and Rising Downhis latest work, a stunning 3,300-page tour-de-forcehave launched him into the literary stratosphere. He stands today as one of America's leading contenders for a future Nobel Prize in literature. Here is his long-awaited "best-of" collection, intended both as an introduction for the curious reader, and as a necessary addition to the existing fan's collection. With excerpts from all of Vollmann's novels (including several not yet...

The Urban Bizarre brings together tales of the city from the best new science fiction writers, pornographers, and zinesters -- stories too weird, too dark, and just plain too bizarre to be published elsewhere. Edited by the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author Nick Mamatas, The Urban Bizarre guarantees you'll never look at a cab driver or street corner in quite the same way again.

The Urban Bizarre brings together tales of the city from the best new science fiction writers, pornographers, and zinesters -- stories too weird, too dark, and just plain too bizarre to be published elsewhere. Edited by the Bram Stoker Award-nominated author Nick Mamatas, The Urban Bizarre guarantees you'll never look at a cab driver or street corner in quite the same way again.

The Rose of Heaven is a tale of the abuse of and desire for power, and the many ways we human beings inflict violence on our fellow creatures. The year is 1910. In a devout Catholic community in California, a young girl, Rosina, exhibits a tendency for miracles--the ability to heal and bring the dead back to life. Some worship and adore her. Others fear and wish to kill her. And others, like a priest sent by the Vatican and a few opportunistic government operatives, harbor dreadful designs on her phenomenal powers. . . The witness to these extraordinary events during the years that...

The Rose of Heaven is a tale of the abuse of and desire for power, and the many ways we human beings inflict violence on our fellow creatures. The year is 1910. In a devout Catholic community in California, a young girl, Rosina, exhibits a tendency for miracles--the ability to heal and bring the dead back to life. Some worship and adore her. Others fear and wish to kill her. And others, like a priest sent by the Vatican and a few opportunistic government operatives, harbor dreadful designs on her phenomenal powers. . . The witness to these extraordinary events during the years that...

TALES OF LITERARY EROTICA

Comes now this fascinating and enticing new collection of transgressive smut by Michael Hemmingson, author of such Blue Moon Books classics as The Comfort of Women, The Dress, House of Dreams, Amateurs, The Rooms, and 66 Chapters About 33 Women. Hemmingson gently, sometimes aggressively, explores the sensual nature of trains, cars, art exhibits, and foreign countries. The women in these stories are strong, independent, and lurid -- working as strippers, writers, actresses, grad students, and filmmakers. In "The Installation," a desperate young lass puts an ad in...

What if Santa Claus had given up on mankind and his most famous reindeer turned into a homicidal alcoholic?

This alternate history is narrated by William Stonecutter, a young man orphaned as an infant who never grew beyond 3.5 feet tall. The world has gone to hell in a handbasket and William intends to do something about it. He and a weary fellowship of carnival outcasts embark on a quest to the North Pole. They make a desperate plea to Santa: rid the world of evil so it can once again be clean and safe for democracy.

Michael Hemmingson's fantasy of the absurd and the weird calls to...

William T Vollmann is a writer of enormous novels that are stuffed with entire worlds of creation and destruction. This title presents a study that traces his career with chapters devoted to each of his novels, as well as his short stories and major nonfiction.

"I've been sitting at the counter of this bar for almost an hour, now on my third drink, when I notice one of the women, in a group of women, saunter in and sit in a booth. There are five of them, all in their mid-twenties to early thirties. I don't want to seem too conspicuous. I try to verify my suspicion from the mirror at the bar. There are too many bottles in the way. I turn around and look. Yes, it's her -- my ex-wife. She sees me looking, no expression on her face, quickly goes back to her four friends -- smiling and laughing, as if I don't exist."

Say you're a private eye and,...