Ghosts, precognition, suicide and the afterlife are all themes to be found in these thrilling stories by some of the greatest Victorian women writers from both Britain and the USA. Horace Walpole may have started the Gothic-fiction movement, but it was three women who popularized it –Clara Reeve, Mary Shelley and Anne Radcliffe. Victorian women proved they had a talent for creating dark, sensational and horrifying tales of the supernatural, and this anthology showcases some of the best and most representative work by female writers of the time, including Emily Brontë, Mary Braddon, George Eliot and Edith Nesbit, as well as Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Riddell, Louisa Baldwin, Mary Penn, Violet Quirk and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Editor Mike Ashley provides valuable insight into the authors' lives and contextualizes each story –every one of which still has the ability to shock and frighten –and shows how Victorian women perfected and developed the Gothic genre.

A hundred years after the death of Jules Verne, the founding father of science fiction, The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures celebrates his amazing vision. A host of top science fiction authors pay homage to Verne's genius with a series of breathtaking stories using as a springboard his iconic ideas and characters. Collected in this anthology of Extraordinary Voyages are stories of intrigue and adventure set in the four corners of the globe, and even within it. Stories set in the past, present and future -- tales that will delight with the same sense of wonder conjured by Jules Verne in such novels as Around the World in Eighty Days, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea..

A Retrospective Collection of Classic Occult and Supernatural Detective Stories by Some of the Field's Greatest and Best-Known Weird Fiction Authors Since the gaslit nights at the end of the nineteenth century, the occult detective has been a beloved and recurring archetype. Mixing the best aspects of the detective tale and weird or supernatural fiction, and capitalizing in part on the massive popularity of Sherlock Holmes, these stories portrayed men and women pitted against surreal and horrifying foes, usually with little to defend them but their own savvy, experience, and know-how. From William Hope Hodgson's Thomas Carnacki, to Seabury Quinn's fearless Frenchman Jules de Grandin, to Jessica Salmonson's Penelope Pettiweather, the occult detective has taken a variety of forms, investigated a wide array of supernatural and otherworldly cases, and entertained generations of readers. This new collection compiles thirty-one all-time classic occult detective stories as...

A superb collection of stories of magic and adventure from the golden age of Arthurian legend by bestselling writers. Enter into the darker realms of the age of the Knights of the Round Table, when magic held sway and Merlin vied with Arthurs heroic new world. Included are: Jane Yolen on Merlins youth and coming of age; Marion Zimmer Bradley on Nimuė, Merlins lover and doom; Charles de Lint on Merlins influence through the centuries; Darrell Schweitzer on the legends of Merlins birth; plus stories by Tanith Lee, Peter Tremayne, Phyllis Ann Karr, Jennifer Roberson, and many others. There is also a detailed introduction by Mike Ashley on the mystery and magic of Merlin and his world.

Amazon.com ReviewPenzler Pick, February 2001: The very thing that first hooked me on mysteries long ago is the element most on display in this fat and satisfying volume: amazement. Not whodunit or why, but how. And that really means wow, as in, "Wow, I can't believe what I just read!" Such cases were originally the province of Edgar Allan Poe's Inspector Dupin, whose unraveling of such sensational "impossible" crimes as "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" gave the reading public of an earlier era its appetite for gasp-inducing solutions. Just a few decades later the mystery genre had progressed to a more rational approach, with which Arthur Conan Doyle equipped Sherlock Holmes, though the crimes demanding our greatest sleuth's attention were highly fanciful more often than not. Snakes in airshafts menacing gentlewomen! Clubs restricted to redheaded fellows! Wow!Next appeared the exceedingly baroque whimsies of John Dickson Carr, who eventually grew to feel the strain of being regarded as the Houdini of mystery literature. But before he saw his powers of invention begin to flag, Carr, who also wrote as Carter Dickson, had defined the subgenre of locked-room crime for all time, producing over 50 novels and dozens of short stories featuring some startling variations on the theme. The Hollow Man, published in the U.S. as The Three Coffins, is considered by experts to be this author's greatest achievement. It offers in the course of the story a seminal lecture about the locked-room crime.In this bargain tome, Carr is represented by "The Silver Curtain," in which a man standing alone in a cul-de-sac is fatally stabbed in the back. From a less well-known writer, Clayton Rawson (a real-life magician as well as an authorial one), comes a tale written in response to a challenge by Carr, his friend and rival: make a man vanish from a phone booth. (He succeeds, of course.) Also on hand are four clever contemporary tricksters: Peter Lovesey, H.R.F. Keating, Lawrence Block, and Edward D. Hoch. There's almost too much entertainment value in these 29 tales assembled by veteran editor and mystery scholar Mike Ashley. "I've endeavored to bring together a collection of stories," he says, "that seem utterly baffling and where the solution is equally amazing." That's OK. Ration them, and you'll only savor them more. --Otto PenzlerProduct DescriptionA new collection of baffling crime tales to challenge the armchair detective. With twenty-nine tales of impossible crime, this new anthology from veteran mystery editor Mike Ashley follows in the tradition of his top-selling The Mammoth Book of Historical Detectives and The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures. It includes perplexing tales, many of them in print for the first time, by such masters of mystification as Michael Collins, H. R. F. Keating, Peter Lovesey, Kate Ellis, Susanna Gregory, Bill Pronzini, and Lawrence Block.

The Mammoth Book of NEW JULES VERNE ADVENTURESCOPYRIGHT AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTSINTRODUCTION: Return to the Centre of the EarthA DRAMA ON THE RAILWAY by Stephen BaxterJEHAN THUN’S QUEST by Brian StablefordSIX WEEKS IN A BALLOON by Eric BrownLONDRES AU XXIE SIÈCLE by James LovegroveGIANT DWARFS by Ian WatsonCLIFF RHODES AND THE MOST IMPORTANT JOURNEY by Peter CrowtherTHE TRUE STORY OF BARBICANE’S VOYAGE by Laurent GenefortCOLUMBIAD by Stephen BaxterTABLEAUX by F. Gwynplaine MaclntyreTHE SECRET OF THE NAUTILUS by Michael MalloryDOCTOR BULL’S INTERVENTION by Keith BrookeTHE VERY FIRST AFFAIR by Johan HeliotEIGHTY LETTERS, PLUS ONE by Kevin J. Anderson & Sarah A. HoytTHE ADVENTURERS’ LEAGUE by Justina RobsonHECTOR SERVADAC, FILS by Adam RobertsTHE MYSTERIOUS IOWANS by Paul Di FilippoOLD LIGHT by Tim LebbonTHE SELENE GARDENING SOCIETY by Molly BrownA MATTER OF MATHEMATICS by Tony BallantyneTHE SECRET OF THE SAHARA by Richard A. LupoffTHE GOLDEN QUEST by Sharan NewmanTHE TRUE STORY OF WILHELM STORITZ by Michel PagelTHE SHOAL by Liz Williams

THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF ROMAN WHODUNNITSContentsCopyright and AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Long Reach of Rome by Steven SaylorNever Forget by Tom HoltA Gladiator Dies Only Once by Steven SaylorThe Hostage to Fortune by Michael JecksDe Crimine by Miriam Allen deFordThe Will by John Maddox RobertsHoney Moon by Marilyn ToddDamnum Fatale by Philip BoastHeads You Lose by Simon ScarrowGreat Caesar's Ghost by Michael KurlandThe Cleopatra Game by Jane FinnisBread and Circuses by Caroline LawrenceThe Missing Centurion by AnonymousSome Unpublished Correspondence of the Younger Pliny by Darrell SchweitzerA Golden Opportunity by Jean DavidsonCaveat Emptor by Rosemary RoweSunshine and Shadow by R. H. StewartThe Case of His Own Abduction by Wallace NicholsThe Malice of the Anicii by Gillian BradshawThe Finger of Aphrodite by Mary Reed and Eric MayerThe Lost Eagle by Peter Tremayne

Twenty-three spellbinding tales of sorcery, wizardry and witchcraft, of the ceaseless battle between good and evil. From dark lords and epic clashes between the forces of good and evil to a child's struggle to control magical powers for the first time this wonderfully varied collection comprises stories by the most outstanding writers of fantasy: A. C. Benson, James Bibby, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Louise Cooper, Ralph Adams Cram, Peter Crowther, Esther M. Friesner, Tom Holt, Doug Hornig, Diana Wynne Jones, Michael Kurland, Tim Lebbon, Ursula K. Le Guin, Richard A. Lupoff, Michael Moorcock, John Morressy, Tim Pratt, David Sandner, Lawrence Schimel and Mike Resnick, Darrell Schweitzer, Clark Ashton Smith, Steve Rasnic Tem and Robert Weinberg.

In extreme fantasy anything can happen . In Mike Ashley's breathtaking new anthology the only rules are those the writer makes -- these are stories to liberate both the writers' and readers' imagination. They will take you to hell and back (literally -- two of the stories involve hell in ways never explored before).For too long fantasy fiction has become synonymous with vast heroic-fantasy adventures in imitation of The Lord of the Rings , but the genre has always been far greater than dwarves and elves. Today many writers are rediscovering the wider world of fantasy and creating bold new ideas or magically reworking older arts.Ashley selects 25 stories by the likes of Orson Scott Card, Paul Di Filippo, A. A. Attanasio, Michael Swanwick, Christopher Priest and Peter Crowther, arranged in ascending order of 'extremeness'.The anthology opens with a story that takes us beyond Middle Earth in 'Senator Bilbo' by Andy Duncan -- showing what happens whe...

The most complete guide ever to the real Arthurian world and the legends that surround it He defeated the Saxons so decisively at the Battle of Badon that he held the Saxon invasion of Britain at bay for at least a generation. He has inspired more stories, books and films than any other historical or legendary figure. But who was the real King Arthur? Here is the most comprehensive guide to the real Arthurian world and the legends that surround and often obscure it. Sifting fact from fancy, Mike Ashley reveals the originals not only of King Arthur but also of Merlin. Guinevere, Lancelot and the knights of the Round Table - as well as all the major Arthurian sites. He traces each of the legends as they developed and brilliantly shows how they were later used to inspire major works of art, poetry, fiction and film. There is clear evidence that. The Arthurian legends arose from the exploits of not just one man, but at least three originating in Wales, Scotland and Brittany The...

‘As they watched, the crack in the egg widened; an ugly, round, scarlet head with tiny, beady eyes and a tiny slit of a mouth poked out. The head twisted on its short neck, and the eyes glittered up at them with a hard ferocity.’
The field of classic science fiction is populated with bizarre and fearsome creatures, be they lifeforms from other worlds, corrupted beasts from our own planet or entities from unimaginable dimensions.
Collected within is a diverse host of these otherworldly beings, from savage prehistoric revenants to nightmare predators encountered in the dark of space; from alien visitors on trial under US law to unfamiliar species under the knife in an intergalactic hospital; and from warlike Martians to the peaceful creatures for whom Man might be the monstrous invader...

Bursting with the same magic that has brought a whole new following to fantasy, this anthology combines the excitement of the Harry Potter phenomenon with the appeal of Lord of the Rings, the ingenuity of the Discworld series and the adventure of the Conan stories. It features a range of light and dark fantasies -- from quests, games and monsters, to wizards, witches, dark spells and even darker secrets -- all obsessed with the use of magic in this world or the next.Mike Ashley's masterly selection includes such precursors of the Potter series as 'The Sleuth-Worm' by Edith Nesbit, 'The Wall around the World' by Theodore Cogswell, 'Ged's Apprenticeship' by Ursula K. Le Guin and others that deal with the discovery of magic or apprenticeship into magic by ordinary folk. With plenty of specially commissioned new stories, it all adds up to a spellbinding bumper volume in which contributors include: Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, John Morressy, Theodore Sturgeon, John Jakes,...

The art of writing great science fiction is that it challenges the imagination, pushing it to extreme limits and in this anthology, selecting some of the best modern science fiction from the last fifty years, twenty leading authors of the genre ask the question 'What if...?' and then give their own very personal views of the changes and surprises which may befall humanity in the centuries to come. In Ulla, Ulla Eric Brown recounts the first manned Martian expedition and discovers that H. G. Wells may have been right after all. In The Infinite Assassin Greg Egan polices the dimensions, seeking those who are taking over their alternate selves. Geoffrey A. Landis takes us into the depths of a black hole in Approaching Perimelasma. Is the ultimate Utopia heaven or hell? Robert Sheckley finds out in the classic A Ticket to Tranai. These and other stories by James White, Eric Frank Russell, Robert Reed, H. Beam Piper and H. Chandler Elliot make this one of the most entertaining and thought-provoking science fiction anthologies in lightyears."

A new and truly awesome collection of comic fantasy masterpieces!It isn't often you find a posse of Greek goddesses putting down insurrection among unruly classical mortals, stranded aliens escaping earth in a church converted into a rocket, or a light-fingered time-traveller attempting to steal the universe - but here they all are, in another selection of bizarre comic fantasies.

contentsIntroduction: Dickensian Crimes, Mike Ashley The Marshalsea Handicap, Gillian Linscott The Three-legged Cat of Great Clatterden, Mary Reed and Eric Mayer Murder in Murray’s Court, David Stuart Davies The Leaping Lover, Kage Baker The End of Little Nell, Robert Barnard Encounter in the Dark, F. Gwynplaine Maclntyre The Lord No Zoo, Deirdre Counihan The Bartered Child, Charles Todd The Little Christian, Rebecca Tope The Fiery Devil, Peter Tremayne The Divine Nature, Kate Ellis I Encounter an Old Friend and a New Mystery, Derek Wilson Awaiting the Dawn, Marilyn Todd The Letter, Joan Lock Not Cricket, Judith Cutler Tom Wasp and the Swell Mob, Amy Myers Miss Havisham’s Revenge, Alanna Knight The Prints of the Beast, Michael Pearce The Mystery of Canute Villa, Martin Edwards Watchful Unto Death, Hilary BonnerThe Tidal, Michael Ryan The Thorn of Anxiety, Edward MarstonReviews"'Miss Havisham's Revenge' by Alanna Knight, in which we discover the part Estella Havisham played in the fate of Bentley Drummle'Murder in Murray's Court' by David Stuart Davies, in which Oliver Twist has to help the Artful Dodger who has been accused of murder 'The Thorn of Anxiety' by Keith Miles, in which the mystery of Edwin Drood is at last solved 'The Divine Nature' by Kate Ellis, in which David Copperfield finds himself investigating the disappearance of Edward Murdstone 'The Letter' by Joan Lock, in which the skills of Inspector Bucket are once again put to the test in solving a crime that apparently never happened.Charles Dickens created some of the most memorable characters in English literature and was also a larger-than-life individual himself, a champion of the underdog. The anthology presents a mix of specially commissioned new stories and lesser known reprints, by writers such as Hilary Bonner, Anne Perry, Charles Todd, Kate Ellis, Alanna Knight, Martin Edwards and Gillian Linscott. Many of the stories feature one or more of Dickens's characters, as a sleuth or as the victim of crime. Others are set in Dickens's real life with him investigating a crime or people closely associated with him, such as Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell or Hablot Browne — including during his tours of America. Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger meet up again in later years to solve an age-old crime. Just what became of the convict that frightened young Pip in Great Expectations? Was he really guilty, or framed? Inspector Bucket from Bleak House finds himself up against the greatest criminal mind of his day.

Product DescriptionIn Chicago and New York, in sleazy speakeasies and on Easy Street, to the strains of jazz and the beat of the Charleston, the twenties roared. The horrors of the Great War behind it, the decade went mad with abandon—and mad over the movies, radio, telephones, and the motorcar. But beneath the froth and the folly, the razzle and dazzle, lay a darker world, a hard and often violent world, for the twenties belonged as much to the gangster as they did to the flapper. The stories in this vastly entertaining collection of whodunnits crafted by talents like Amy Myers, Robert Randisi, Jon L. Breen, Edward D. Hoch, Marilyn Todd, and Mike Stotter reflect the allures—and the deadly dangers—of both those worlds.

Mike Ashley is back with an all-new edition of one of the bestselling Mammoth Books ever, from the funniest writers in the field, including Neil Gaiman, Tom Holt, and Terry Jones. The thirty- five off-the-wall comic fantasies featured in Ashley's new collection are a mix of specially written stories and hard-to-find gems: a computer salesman in fairyland, a vampire football match, a psychotic Father Christmas, and a wizard allergic to magic. Ashley expertly turns fantasy and horror fiction on its head and magic into mayhem. This is huge fun for all comic fantasy fans.

Mystery and murder from the Sands of Time; This anthology covers two periods in history - the time of 'Ancient Egypt' which stretches from the First Dynasty in 4000 BC to the time of the Roman Empire, and the time of the Discoveries, which covers the Napoleonic and Victorian periods of excavation. The anthology will be a collection of new stories and rare reprints, including contributions from Lynda Robinson, featuring Lord Meren, Lauren Haney and a Lieutenant Bak mystery, plus stories from Gillian Linscott, Kate Ellis, Marilyn Todd, Paul Doherty, Suzanne Franke, Amy Myers, Michael Pearce, Elizabeth Peters and many more. So from the famed Cleopatra to Howard Carter and the Curse of the Pharaohs, here are 25 stories to enthral and enchant devotees of the genre.

Steampunk fiction, science fiction, Mike Ashley, fantastic fiction

The seventeenth century was a time ripe with murder, anarchy, war, and political and religious intrigue, of which the Gunpowder Plot is only one example. This unputdownable new anthology from Mike Ashley presents 25 whodunits set in those turbulent times—also the age of the Witchfinder General, ‘revenge’ tragedies, and the colonization of America. Stories of murder and mayhem centre on the true role of Guy Fawkes, the English Civil War and the fate of Charles I, plus the lost colony of Roanoke and the tale of Pocahontas. The Mammoth Book of Jacobean Whodunits is a fastpaced anthology about a thrilling time in British history.INTRODUCTION: GUNPOWDER, TREASON AND PLOT Mike AshleyTHE KING’S FIRST ACHIEVEMENT Fiona BuckleyTHE DUKE OF YORK P. F. ChisholmTHE TOWER’S MAN Michael Jecks A DISOBEDIENT DAUGHTER Jean Davidson MURDER UNAUTHORIZED Amy Myers ICE SAILOR Laird Long SATAN IN THE STAR CHAMBER Peter Tremayne GREEN TARTS Deryn Lake “O, POISONOUS WEED!” F. Gwynplaine Maclntyre A DEAD MAN’S WISH John T. Aquino PERFECT ALIBI Philip BoastTHE RESTLESS DEAD Martin Edwards A TASTE FOR DUCKING Marilyn Todd DEATH KNOWS NO COMPROMISE Derek Wilson A HOUSE DIVIDED Judith Cutler TWO SIDES Mike Stotter THE PALATABLE TRUTH Carol Anne Davis THE COMEDY THAT BECAME A TRAGEDY F. Frankfort Moore THE DUMB BELL Kate Ellis THE CURIOUS CONTENTS OF A COFFIN Susanna Gregory THE DUTCHMAN AND THE MADAGASCAR PIRATES Maan Meyers TOM OF TEN THOUSAND Edward Marston THE PHILADELPHIA SLAUGHTERMAN Ian Morson TO WALK ON THORNY PATHS Paul Finch

Many of the leading writers of crime fiction are women - Agatha Christie, Ruth Rendell et al - but it still comes as a surprise to many that the first full-length detective novel was by one Metta Fuller whose The Dead Letter, under the alias Seeley Regester, appeared as far back as 1866, predating Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone by two years. In fact. women writers were instrumental in developing the new genre of detective fiction. This anthology selects stories from the late Victorian and Edwardian era including one of the Violet Strange stories by Anna Katharine Green, known as the "mother of the detective novel'; one of the Loveday Brooke stories by Catherine Pirkis, featuring an early private woman detective and a story by the Australian writer Mary Fortune who had written over 500 detective novels by the time Edward VII came to the throne. . . An absorbing collection belonging on the bookshelf of any serious crime fan.

This dazzling new collection of off-the-wall fantasies features stories from the minds of the funniest writers in the field, including Esther Friesner, Neil Gaiman, Tom Holt, Paul di Filippo, Adam Roberts and Molly Brown. Here are 35 stories guaranteed to reassure us that the next-door world will be just as mad as this one. It includes a mix of brand-new stories and rare finds or forgotten gems, with a wide range of tales to suit every taste in humour. From the missionary plunged into the bizarre initiation rituals of a lost tribe to the bloke who thought magic would help his love life, from a wizard allergic to magic who sneezes his way into chaos to a man who finds his shoes have taken over control of his life, The Mammoth Book of Comic Fantasy unfalteringly turns fantasy and horror fiction on its head and makes magic into mayhem. A welcome new shot of comic genius in the sphere of fantasy fiction.

A new collection of magic and mayhem from fantasy's funniest, wackiest writers, including Harlan Ellison, Esther Friesner, Neil Gailman, Craig Shaw Gardner, Harry Harrison, Tom Hold and Julia Mandala.

Many readers are attracted to science fiction for that singular moment when a story expands your imagination, enabling you to see something in a new light. Not all SF works this way! This volume collects the very best of it that does, with 25 of the finest examples of mind-expanding and awe-inspiring science fiction.The storylines range from a discovery on the Moon that opens up vistas across all time to a moment in which distances across the Earth suddenly increase and people vanish. These are tales to take you from the other side of now to the very end of time–from today's top-name contributors including Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds, Robert Silverberg, Gregory Benford and Robert Reed.

Foreword by Richard Lancelyn GreenAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Life and Adventures of Sherlock HolmesPart I: The Early Years The Bothersome Business of the Dutch Nativity - Derek Wilson The Affray at the Kildare Street Club - Peter TremaynePart II: The 1880s The Case of the Incumbent Invalid - Claire Griffen The Adventure of Vittoria, the Circus Belle - Edward D. Hoch The Darlington Substitution Scandal - David Stuart Davies The Adventure of the Suspect Servant - Barbara Roden The Adventure of the Amateur Mendicant Society - John Gregory Betancourt The Adventure of the Silver Buckle - Denis 0. Smith The Case of the Sporting Squire - Guy N. Smith The Vanishing of the Atkinsons - Eric Brown The Adventure of the Fallen Star - Simon ClarkPart III: The 1890s The Adventure of the Dorset Street Lodger - Michael Moorcock The Mystery of the Addleton Curse - Barrie Roberts The Adventure of the Parisian Gentleman - Robert Weinberg & Lois H. Gresh The Adventure of the Inertial Adjustor - Stephen Baxter The Adventure of the Touch of God - Peter Crowther The Adventure of the Persecuted Painter - Basil Copper The Adventure of the Suffering Ruler - H. R. F. Keating The Repulsive Story of the Red Leech - David Langford The Adventure of the Grace Chalice - Roger Johnson The Case of the Faithful Retainer - Amy MyersPart IV: The Final Years The Case of the Suicidal Lawyer - Martin Edwards The Legacy of Rachel Howells - Michael Doyle The Adventure of the Bulgarian Diplomat - Zakaria Erzinçlioglu The Enigma of the Warwickshire Vortex - F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre The Case of the Last Battle - L. B. GreenwoodAppendix I: A Complete Chronology of Sherlock Holmes CasesAppendix II: The Tales of Sherlock Holmes Part 1: The Original Canon Part 2: The Apocryphal TalesThe Contributors

In the golden days of Ancient Greece and Rome, amidst the splendid art and architecture, the philosophy and politics - there was always a full measure of intrigue, mystery and murder.In this new collection twenty-two writers take up their pens to give an enthralling picture of classical crime. Favourite historical detectives such as Gordianus the Finder, Decius Metellus, and Sister Fidelma rub shoulders with eminent temporary sleuths such as Socrates and that honourable man Brutus, whilst other great names - Augustus, Archimedes, and even the spoilt and beautiful goddess of love, Aphrodite herself - also become enmeshed in terrible and ingenious crimes.Contributors include:Keith HellerEdward D. HochPhyllis Ann KarrTheodore MathiesonAmy MyersWallace NicholsAnthony PriceSteven SaylorDarrell SchweitzerBrian StablefordKeith Taylorand many more