Kitsune. Werewolves. Crane wives. Selkies. Every culture has stories of such strange creatures—animals turning into humans, humans shapeshifting into animals. Sometimes seductive, sometimes bloodthirsty, but always unpredictable like nature itself, these beings are manifestations of our secret hearts, our desire to belong to both worlds: one tame and civilized, the other unfettered and full of wild impulse.Here are stories that will make you wish you could howl at the moon until your heart bursts with longing or feel yourself shedding your human body as easily as a snake sheds its skin. Be-were the night… it might not kill you, but it will certainly steal you away!

One of Elizabeth Hand’s most critically acclaimed novels, Black Light reveals a vision of ancient cults, gods, and fetishes—and a world where everyone loves an apocalyptic partyLit Moylan lives what she thinks is an ordinary life. Sure, her town has a few eccentric theater types, but that’s all. That is until her Warholian godfather, Axel Kern, moves into the big house on the hill. He throws infamously depraved parties, full of drinks, drugs, and sex. But they also have a much more sinister purpose. At one of these parties, Lit touches a statue, and learns she has much more of a role to play in this world than she ever thought possible.Ornate and decadent, Black Light visits an irresistible world of ancient gods and secret societies as enthralling as it is dangerous.This ebook features an illustrated biography of Elizabeth Hand including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.The privileged daughter of famous television actors, Charlotte, “Lit,” Moylan is ready to enjoy one last wild fling before college and adulthood. In fact, the whole idyllic hamlet of Kamensic, New York, is ready to party, for legendary avant-garde film director—and Lit’s godfather—Alex Kern is coming back to reopen his fabulous mansion, Bolerium. But it won’t be just any party. It’ll be the event of all time.The whole town is invited, young and old, famous and obscure. But other, more disturbing guests are arriving, too—seen at the edges of the forest, at the margins of the night. Kern’s connections extend far beyond Hollywood, beyond even the modern age… and in Bolerium’s echoing halls a fearsome confrontation is gathering, between ancient powers of the darkness and those sworn to stop them at any cost, no matter what—or who—the sacrifice… even an innocent girl.Amazon.com ReviewAlthough Charlotte Moylan thinks she lives a rather ordinary and oftentimes dull life, the reality is far different. Her father is best known as the famous TV personality Uncle Cosmo, and her mother is a 20-year veteran of the daytime drama Perilous Lives. They live in the New York community of Kamensic, an artistic enclave where the church is rarely used for religious ceremonies and where death is an “occupational hazard” for the young. The town is also home to Bolerium, a dark manor of indeterminate origin where the enigmatic and somewhat sinister film director Axel Kern lives when he’s not making movies.Axel is Charlotte’s godfather, but he’s one guardian who may not be looking out for her best interests. Aside from making questionable films, Axel is also in cahoots with the old gods, and is interested in bringing a couple of them along with him to Kamensic. This puts the town—and Charlotte—at the center of an age-old struggle between two Illuminati-style groups, the more-or-less benign Benandanti (seen in Hand’s Tiptree Award-winning Waking the Moon) and their rivals, the Malandanti witches. As has become Hand’s modus operandi, she tells this story with a luxurious prose that’s at once beautiful and also somehow intellectually decadent. Although the book may be a bit slow-paced for some, those who enjoy a smart novel that’s rich in style and substance won’t want to miss it.—Craig E. EnglerFrom Publishers WeeklyHand does for upstate New York what Stephen King has done for rural Maine in this well-written but decidedly creepy dark fantasy about a Bohemian bedroom community and artists’ colony located about an hour from Manhattan by train. Seventeen-year-old Charlotte “Lit” Moylan, the daughter of two successful but second-rate TV actors, has never thought much about the oddities of her home town of KamensicAthe strangely decorated Congregational Church, for example, or the community’s unusual Halloween tradition, or the high number of suicides among the area’s younger citizens. Although she looks forward to going away to college next year, she’s basically content with her life. Then Kamensic’s most notorious citizen returns to his roots. Alex Kern, the successful avant-garde film director, brings with him a reputation for scandalous, extravagant and decadent parties, replete with perverse sexuality and heavy drug use. His mazelike mansion, Bolerium, sits on the hill overlooking Kamensic like some dangerous predatory beast. Eventually Lit and, indeed, everyone in town receives an invitation to a party, a gala event that, Hand hints, may be nothing less than a prelude to the Apocalypse. Something of a latter-day Aubrey Beardsley in prose, Hand has a talent for portraying forbidding millennial settings brimming with perverse antiheroes, suffering innocents and sadistic demigods. This book, although not quite the equal of her last two novels, Waking the Moon and Glimmering, should strongly appeal to aficionados of sophisticated horror.Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Praise for Elizabeth Hand:“Fiercely frightening yet hauntingly beautiful.”—Tess Gerritsen, author of The Silent Girl“A sinful pleasure.”—Katherine Dunn, author of Geek LoveNo one is innocent, no one unexamined in award-winner Elizabeth Hand’s new collection. From the summer isles to the mysterious people next door all the way to the odd guy one cubicle over, Hand teases apart the dark strangenesses of everyday life to show us the impossibilities, broken dreams, and improbable dreams that surely can never come true.Elizabeth Hand’s novels include Shirley Jackson Award–winner Generation Loss, Mortal Love, and Available Dark.

It’s 1999 and the world is falling apart at the seams. The sky is afire, the oceans are rising—and mankind is to blame. While the spoils of the 20th Century dwindle, Jack Finnegan lives on the fringes in his decaying mansion, struggling to keep his life afloat and his loved ones safe while battling that most modern of diseases—AIDS.As the New Millennium approaches, Jack’s former lover, a famous photographer reveling in the world’s decay, gifts him with a mysterious elixir called Fusax, a medicine rumored to cure the incurable AIDS. But soon, the “side effects” of Fusax become more apparent, and Jack gets mixed up with a bizarre entourage of rock stars, Japanese scientists, corporate executives, AIDS victims, and religious terrorists. While these larger players compete to control mankind’s fate in the 21st Century, Jack is forced to choose his own role in the World’s End, and how to live with it.Originally published in 1997, Glimmering is a visionary mix of fantasy and science fiction about a world in which humanity struggles to cope with the ever-approaching “End of the End.”

It’s 1999 and the world is falling apart at the seams. The sky is afire, the oceans are rising—and mankind is to blame. While the spoils of the 20th Century dwindle, Jack Finnegan lives on the fringes in his decaying mansion, struggling to keep his life afloat and his loved ones safe while battling that most modern of diseases—AIDS.As the New Millennium approaches, Jack’s former lover, a famous photographer reveling in the world’s decay, gifts him with a mysterious elixir called Fusax, a medicine rumored to cure the incurable AIDS. But soon, the “side effects” of Fusax become more apparent, and Jack gets mixed up with a bizarre entourage of rock stars, Japanese scientists, corporate executives, AIDS victims, and religious terrorists. While these larger players compete to control mankind’s fate in the 21st Century, Jack is forced to choose his own role in the World’s End, and how to live with it.Originally published in 1997, Glimmering is a visionary mix of fantasy and science fiction about a world in which humanity struggles to cope with the ever-approaching “End of the End.”

Today, in order to honor the magnificent career of Jack Vance, one unparalleled in achievement and impact, GEORGE R.R. MARTIN and GARDNER DOZOIS, with the full cooperation of Jack Vance, his family, and his agents, suggest a Jack Vance tribute anthology called Songs of the Dying Earth, to encourage the best of today's fantasy writers to return to the unique and evocative milieu of The Dying Earth, from which they and so many others have drawn so much inspiration, to create their own brand-new adventures in the world of Jack Vance s greatest novel.Half a century ago, Jack Vance created the world of the Dying Earth, and fantasy has never been the same. Now, for the first time ever, Jack has agreed to open this bizarre and darkly beautiful world to other fantasists, to play in as their very own. To say that other fantasy writers are excited by this prospect is a gross understatement; one has told us that he'd crawl through broken glass for the chance to write for the anthology, another that he'd gladly give up his right arm for the privilege that's the kind of regard in which Jack Vance and The Dying Earth are held by generations of his peers.

From legendary editor Ellen Datlow, Tails of Wonder collects the best of the last thirty years of science fiction and fantasy stories about cats from an all-star list of contributors.

The reign of men has ended in this gripping thriller from Elizabeth Hand, and the fate of the world is on the lineSweeney Cassidy is the a typical college freshman at the University of the Archangels and St. John the Divine in Washington, DC. She drinks. She parties. And she certainly doesn’t suspect that underneath its picturesque Gothic façade, the University is a haven for the Benandanti, a cult devoted to suppressing the powerful and destructive Moon Goddess. But everything is about to change as Sweeney learns that her two new best friends are the Goddess’s Chosen Ones.Rich and engrossing, Waking the Moon is a seductive post-feminist thriller that delves into an ancient feud, where the real and magical collide, and one woman is forced to make a decision that will change the world.Review“A potent socio-erotic ghost story for our looming Millennium.”— William Gibson, author of Neuromancer and Virtual Light"An extraordinary work—An ambitious, erotically charged thriller."— Clive Barker, author of Everville“Ms. Hand is a superior stylist.”— The New York Times Book Review“Superior. An author worth watching, not to mention recommending.”— Booklist“The tropic lushness of Hand’s descriptions are only one reward awaiting her reader.”— The Cleveland Plain Dealer

When the young members of a British acid-folk band are compelled by their manager to record their unique music, they hole up at Wylding Hall, an ancient country house with dark secrets. There they create the album that will make their reputation, but at a terrifying cost: Julian Blake, the group’s lead singer, disappears within the mansion and is never seen or heard from again.Now, years later, the surviving musicians, along with their friends and lovers — including a psychic, a photographer, and the band’s manager — meet with a young documentary filmmaker to tell their own versions of what happened that summer. But whose story is true? And what really happened to Julian Blake?

Sent back in time from the year 2035 to 1990 to prevent the apocalypse that destroyed most of the earth, James Cole lands in a psychiatric ward under the care of Dr. Kathryn Railly, who begins to believe his wild story. Movie tie-in.