Catherynne M Valente

Twelve-year-old September's ordinary life in Omaha turns to adventure when a Green Wind takes her to Fairyland to retrieve a talisman the new and fickle Marquess wants from the enchanted woods.

"Mankind will not get to fight for its destiny. They must sing. A century ago, the Sentience Wars tore the galaxy apart and nearly ended the entire concept of intelligent space-faring life. In the aftermath, a curious tradition was invented by the remnants of civilization. Something to cheer up everyone who was left. Something to celebrate having escaped total annihilation by the skin of one's teeth, if indeed one has skin. Or teeth. Something to...

"Inside a small Yorkshire parsonage, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne Bront©± have invented a game called Glass Town, where their toy soldiers fight Napoleon and no one dies. This make-believe land helps the four escape from a harsh reality: Charlotte and Emily are being sent away to a dangerous boarding school, a school they might not return from. But on this Beastliest Day, the day Anne and Branwell walk their sisters to the train station,...

After returning to Fairyland, September discovers that her stolen shadow has become the Hollow Queen, the new ruler of Fairyland-Below, who's stealing the magic and shadows from Fairyland folk and refusing to give them back.

Severin Unck's father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate past in which talking movies are still a daring innovation, due to the patent-hoarding Edison family. Rebelling against her father's films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars. For this is not our solar system, but one drawn...

"Sophia was made for him, her perfect husband. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect; their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect; everything is perfect. It's just that he's away so much--so often. He works so hard. She misses him, and he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband, and everything is perfect. But sometimes Sophia wonders about things--strange things, dark things--the look on her husband's...

"The Quarian ark Keelah Si'yah sails toward the Andromeda galaxy, carrying 20,000 colonists from sundry races including the drell, the elcor, and the batarians. Thirty years from their destination, a routine check reveals drell lying dead in their pods, and a deadly pathogen on board. Soon, the disease is jumping species, and it quickly becomes clear that this is no accident. It's murder, and the perpetrator is still on board. The ship's systems rapidly...