This year we honor Leap Year, that phenomenon that comes around every four years allowing us to regain lost time. We dedicate this year's LocoThology to the Leap. Join a hitch-hiking vampire, space traveling religious alien, and a brain jumping philosopher on this rollercoaster ride through fantasy, space, and time. Whether jumping from the mouth of a dragon or leaping across dimensions to an alternate earth, this year's anthology has something for everyone. Now put down the cards and quit gambling with the card shark wildlife, climb on board, and settle in for a great read.

While looking for a missing queen, it's good to have a sharp sword, fast horse and a hateful spirit. Everyone in the world anticipates Abi's hanging, spitting, flaming and things far worse. After all, she has murdered the King's brother. It is in the midst of this trouble that the Goddess whispers the absurdity, "Compassion is best," and even stranger words: "Listen to others," even if they are only a maid, a landless lady in waiting and a hungry wolf. These utterances leave Abi dizzy, moments after learning the Baron holds her mother in the deepest and most foul pit. No, heads are meant to...

Pirates, Pirates, Everywhere Pirates. Not your everyday Hook and Peter Pan. This year's LocoThology pays homage to that ever mysterious, swashbuckling, sometimes hero, yet more often villain, the Pirate. Follow the adventure and explore piracy in its varied form. Chase away soul stealing pirates, find a stolen pirate map, and prove that girls really can be pirates too. Fight against manuscript piracy with the help of a vampire, and live or die with the regrets of a lifetime of corporate raiding. Then, attend an unhappy birthday party before retiring to fight aliens and pirates in space.

Convincing those in power to believe that Abi is a queen seems daunting. Then again, Abi has grown a good deal since leaving her father's cabin as a naive peasant seeking no more than the next day's comfort. Mostly she has learned that the Goddess provides and has her own way of doing things, often not timely. The details of royal recognition hardly matter. No, there is a noble marriage to arrange, a fiance's parents to coerce and an enormous Farstand army to stop from decimating her reluctant allies. We shall start with a kidnapping and get bloody in a hurry."

I'm absolutely certain my mom's Marilyn Monroe. Why else would there be two pictures of her on my cave wall? My brothers keep saying, "Oh, no, no, no," but the lying jerks steal my food and kick me off the cliff every day, so there's no listening to that? I really need Mom to teach me how to be a lady and how to be more appealing to my boyfriend, Andy Warhol. He made her pictures and is living with her in Pittsburgh, humans say. My ethics teacher, Jack Kevorkian, and pack goat, Joseph Kennedy, think otherwise, but what do they know; they're human and not the Princess of Hell. Along the way,...