The Fantastic Other is a carefully assembled collection of essays on the increasingly significant question of alterity in modern fantasy, the ways in which the understanding and construction of the Other shapes both our art and our imagination. The collection takes a unique perspective, seeing alterity not merely as a social issue but as a biological one. Our fifteen essays cover the problems posed by the Other, which, after all, go well beyond the bounds of any single critical perspective. With this in mind, we have selected studies to show how insights from deconstruction, Marxism, feminism, and Freudian, Jungian and evolutionary psychology help us understand an issue so central to the act of reading.

Introduction by Bruce Coville "For the bathroom, for the bedroom, for the bus to work, for that chair in the department store where bored spouses sit while their wives or husbands try on new clothes... this is a perfect way to entertain yourself during idle moments in a way that won't rot your mind. Read this and have fun." -Allen Steele Want something to read while you sit down for just a few minutes on the bus or in a waiting room? Here's just the thing: Forty authors, forty stories, mostly under 2,000 words, mostly reprints. Grouped according to their themes: fairy tales, torments, zombies, vampires, monsters, and more. Just remember: one sitting, one read! Others are waiting! But be sure you're alone... Really alone! Featuring stories by: E.C. Ambrose, Colleen Anderson, Kevin David Anderson, Diane Arrelle, Stewart C. Baker, T.L. Barrett, James Blakey, Bruce Boston, Michael Bracken, Tiffany Michelle Brown, Elliot Capon, Jeff C. Carter, Gregg Chamberlain, Brenda Clough, Ian Creasey, Randee Dawn, Steve Dillon, Stephanie Ellis, Kevin M. Folliard, Eric J. Guignard, Liam Hogan, Emma Johnson-Rivard, Daniel M. Kimmel, Chris Kuriata, Geoffrey A. Landis, Sharon Lee, Gordon Linzner, Nicola Lombardi, Linda Silverman McMullen, Gregory Nicoll, Brian Rappatta, Gary L. Robbs, Chuck Rothman, Steve Rasnic Tem, Mark Towse, Mary A. Turzillo, Douglas A. Van Belle, Marie Vibbert, Dawn Vogel, Marcia Wilson

Reveals the diversity crisis in children's and young adult media as not only a lack of representation, but a lack of imagination Stories provide portals into other worlds, both real and imagined. The promise of escape draws people from all backgrounds to speculative fiction, but when people of color seek passageways into the fantastic, the doors are often barred. This problem lies not only with children’s publishing, but also with the television and film executives tasked with adapting these stories into a visual world. When characters of color do appear, they are often marginalized or subjected to violence, reinforcing for audiences that not all lives matter. The Dark Fantastic is an engaging and provocative exploration of race in popular youth and young adult speculative fiction. Grounded in her experiences as YA novelist, fanfiction writer, and scholar of education, Thomas considers four black girl protagonists from some of the most popular stories of the early 21st century: Bonnie Bennett from the CW’s The Vampire Diaries, Rue from Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games, Gwen from the BBC’s Merlin, and Angelina Johnson from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. Analyzing their narratives and audience reactions to them reveals how these characters mirror the violence against black and brown people in our own world. In response, Thomas uncovers and builds upon a tradition of fantasy and radical imagination in Black feminism and Afrofuturism to reveal new possibilities. Through fanfiction and other modes of counter-storytelling, young people of color have reinvisioned fantastic worlds that reflect their own experiences, their own lives. As Thomas powerfully asserts, “we dark girls deserve more, because we are more.”

A stellar host of writers explore the cornerstone of fiction writing: character The Book of Other People is about character. Twenty-five or so outstanding writers have been asked by Zadie Smith to make up a fictional character. By any measure, creating character is at the heart of the fictional enterprise, and this book concentrates on writers who share a talent for making something recognizably human out of words (and, in the case of the graphic novelists, pictures). But the purpose of the book is variety: straight "realism"-if such a thing exists-is not the point. There are as many ways to create character as there are writers, and this anthology features a rich assortment of exceptional examples. The writers featured in The Book of Other People include: Aleksandar Hemon Nick Hornby Hari Kunzru Toby Litt David Mitchell George Saunders Colm Tóibín Chris Ware, and more Read Zadie Smith’s newest novel, Swing Time.

Metamorphosis is a dynamic principle of creation, vital to natural processes of generation and evolution, growth and decay, yet it also threatens personal identity if human beings are subject to a continual process of bodily transformation. Shape-shifting also belongs in the landscape of magic, witchcraft, and wonder, and enlivens classical mythology, early modern fairy tales and uncanny fictions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This collection of essays, given as the Clarendon Lectures in English 2001, takes four dominant processes of metamorphosis: Mutating, Hatching, Splitting, and Doubling, and explores their metaphorical power in the evication of human personality. Marina Warner traces this story against a background of historical encounters with different cultures, especially with the Caribbean. Beginning with Ovid's great poem, The Metamorphoses, as the founding text of the metamorphic tradition, she takes us on a journey of exploration, into the fantastic art of Hieronymous Bosch, the legends of the Taino people, the life cycle of the butterfly, the myth of Leda and the Swan, the genealogy of the Zombie, the pantomime of Aladdin, the haunting of doppelgangers, the coming of photography, and the late fiction of Lewis Carroll.

Prepare to be transported to the edge of the world in Bradley Sides' affecting and haunting debut collection of magical realism short stories, Those Fantastic Lives and Other Strange Stories. In Sides' tender, brilliantly-imagined collection, a young boy dreams of being a psychic like his grandmother, a desperate man turns to paper for a miracle, a swarm of fireflies attempts the impossible, scarecrows and ghosts collide, a mother and child navigate a forest plagued by light-craving monsters, a boy's talking dolls aid him in conquering a burning world, and a father and mother deal with the sudden emergence of wings on their son's back. Brimming with our deepest fears and desires, Sides' dazzling stories examine the complexities of masculinity, home, transformation, and loss. Bradley Sides is an exciting new voice in fiction, and Those Fantastic Lives, which glows with the light of hope and possibility amidst dark uncertainties, will ignite imaginations.

Best science fiction novel, Writer's Digest Self-Published e-Book Award 2019. Long-listed for the BSFA Science Fiction Novel Award 2019. It takes a certain type of person to save the world, and Kong is not that person. Which is about to become a serious problem. Kong has been working as a Trans-Temporal Copyright Protection officer since he was fifteen years old, jumping through time to arrest people threatening the status quo. And he's good at his job, the best. He's pretty certain he'll spend the rest of his life working cases, leastways until a bullet gets him or the time pressure finally crushes him. Or he might just medicate himself to death; that's always an option. The problem is, Kong doesn't believe in it anymore, whatever 'it' is. See enough of the past and you realise people keep making the same mistakes, again and again. It's not really so surprising he's lost hope. Then something happens that changes the course of Kong's life forever: his murder. As Kong unravels the mystery of his death, he discovers a plot that threatens not only the world but everything he understands to be true. Now Kong must decide if he can play the hero and save humanity. And he needs to decide quickly because, for once, time is running out... And he needs to decide quickly because, for once, time is running out... "FD Lee effortlessly blends the DNA of time travel and cyberpunk to create a twisty and original beast of a thriller." - Andrew Wallace, 2019 Clarke Award judge. "A potent blend of traditional concepts with a twist and modern delivery" - Ian Whates, NewCon Press and author of the Amazon UK #1 best-seller 'Pelquin's Comet' Bestselling author F. D. Lee brings you a fast-paced, modern time travel mystery set in a future that appears perfect and a past that killed the world. If you like Altered Carbon or Slaughter House Five, you'll love this. Get your copy today!