From the publisher of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies comes a new tale of romance, heartbreak, and tentacled mayhem.
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters expands the original text of the beloved Jane Austen novel with all-new scenes of giant lobsters, rampaging octopi, two-headed sea serpents, and other biological monstrosities. As our story opens, the Dashwood sisters are evicted from their childhood home and sent to live on a mysterious island full of savage creatures and dark secrets. While sensible Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars, her romantic sister Marianne is courted by both the handsome Willoughby and the hideous man-monster Colonel Brandon. Can the Dashwood sisters triumph over meddlesome matriarchs and unscrupulous rogues to find true love? Or will they fall prey to the tentacles that are forever snapping at their heels? This masterful portrait of Regency England blends Jane Austen’s biting social commentary with ultraviolent depictions of sea monsters biting. It’s survival of the fittest—and only the swiftest swimmers will find true love!

當經典文學《理性與感性》與海怪相遇，會產生什麼令人著迷的故事？
《理性與感性》主要敘述愛蓮娜和瑪麗安．達希伍德兩姊妹的故事。這對姊妹感情深厚，但個性截然不同，一個理性內斂，一個感性勇敢。
當同樣的人物換到不一樣的場景，這次達希伍德姊妹面對的，不僅是父親過世後，陷入困境的生活，還有蘊藏在海裡的重重危機！
面對神祕島嶼上大龍蝦、八爪章魚、兩頭蛇等兇殘海怪的求愛，達希伍德姊妹該如何是好？威諾比先生這次不是從壞天氣解救腳受傷的瑪麗安，而是有更艱鉅的任務──從大章魚爪下救美。究竟兩姐妹能否突破重圍，覓得真愛呢？
答案只有一絲線索：「適者生存，只有游泳高手才能找到真愛！」
本書特色
轟動全球，佳評如潮的「惡搞珍．奧斯汀系列」繁體中文版上市！
二○○九年最具話題性的小說，《時代雜誌》評為二○○九年最惡搞的點子
《紐約時報雜誌》則大聲讚譽為二○○九年的最佳創意
全球書迷引頸期盼，同聲推薦！
甫上市一個月英國書店銷售突破250,000冊
當經典文學名著變成驚險刺激的奇幻小說，會產生什麼化學效應？
二○○九年四月，英國Quirk出版社在珍．奧斯汀的經典名著裡加入各種異想天開的惡搞元素，成功打造出連珍．奧斯汀書迷都讚譽有加的「惡搞珍．奧斯汀系列」。
本系列在短短幾天之內登上英國亞馬遜網站「最有影響力書籍榜」榜首，成為讀者競相購買的書籍。正式出版前，網路上已熱烈討論，出版後更受到各大媒體矚目，長踞紐約時報暢銷排行榜與英國Globe and Mail暢銷排行榜，版權至今已售十餘國，電影版權亦在洽談中。
《今日美國》(USA Today) 生活版亦針對本書進行特別報導，美國最大書商之一Barnes & Noble更將本書列為「本週精選」(pick of the week)。上市不到三個月，即獲2010年美國「艾力克斯獎」提名。(此獎由美國圖書館協會頒發，精選年度十本對十二至十八歲青少年有獨特吸引力之書籍)
書中保留六成原著，巧妙地融入四成令人難以想像的惡搞元素──海怪！究竟《理性與感性》裡的達希伍德姊妹，會與八竿子打不著邊的海怪激盪出什麼樣的火花？

Three offbeat stories of crime and conundrum, set in the present moment, from The New York Times best-selling, Edgar Award-winning author of Underground Airlines and The Last Policeman.
Inside Jobs: Tales from a Time of Quarantine includes:
The Crimson Parrot
It's not easy masterminding the crime of the century when your whole gang is working from home. A high-stakes tale of larceny, deception, and teleconferencing.
The Cape House
As the world shifts around them, two estranged brothers end up in their childhood home. But it's the memories they unearth that will change them forever.
Stop Motion
With endless time on her hands, an apartment-bound young woman gets to all the hobbies she's neglected—martial arts, playing the sax, photography...and solving a murder?
©2020 Ben H. Winters (P)2020 Audible Originals, LLC

A young black man calling himself Victor has struck a bargain with federal law enforcement, working as a bounty hunter for the US Marshall Service in exchange for his freedom. He's got plenty of work. In this version of America, slavery continues in four states called "the Hard Four." On the trail of a runaway known as Jackdaw, Victor arrives in Indianapolis knowing that something isn't right--with the case file, with his work, and with the country itself.
As he works to infiltrate the local cell of a abolitionist movement called the Underground Airlines, tracking Jackdaw through the back rooms of churches, empty parking garages, hotels, and medical offices, Victor believes he's hot on the trail. But his strange, increasingly uncanny pursuit is complicated by a boss who won't reveal the extraordinary stakes of Jackdaw's case, as well as by a heartbreaking young woman and her child--who may be Victor's salvation.
Victor believes himself to be a good man doing bad work, unwilling to give up the freedom he has worked so hard to earn. But in pursuing Jackdaw, Victor discovers secrets at the core of the country's arrangement with the Hard Four, secrets the government will preserve at any cost.
Underground Airlines is a ground-breaking novel, a wickedly imaginative thriller, and a story of an America that is more like our own than we'd like to believe.

Lazlo Ratesic is 54, a 19-year veteran of the Speculative Service, from a family of law enforcement and in a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all else. This is how Laz must, by law, introduce himself, lest he fail to disclose his true purpose or nature, and by doing so, be guilty of a lie.

Laz is a resident of The Golden State, a nation resembling California, where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life, and governance, increasingly impossible. There, surrounded by the high walls of compulsory truth-telling, knowingly contradicting the truth--the Objectively So--is the greatest possible crime. Stopping those crimes, punishing them, is Laz's job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths--to "speculate" on what might have happened in the commission of a crime.

But the Golden State is far less a paradise than its name might suggest. To monitor, verify, and enforce the Objectively So requires a veritable panopticon of surveillance, recording, and record-keeping. And when those in control of the truth twist it for nefarious means, the Speculators may be the only ones with the power to fight back.

Famine. Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the End of the World. In science fiction, the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm.

But before any catastrophe, there are people who see it coming. During, there are heroes who fight against it. And after, there are the survivors who persevere and try to rebuild.

THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH tells their stories.

Edited by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams and bestselling author Hugh Howey, THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH is a series of three anthologies of apocalyptic fiction. THE END IS NIGH focuses on life before the apocalypse. THE END IS NOW turns its attention to life during the apocalypse. And THE END HAS COME focuses on life after the apocalypse.

THE END HAS COME features all-new, never-before-published works by Hugh Howey, Seanan McGuire, Ken Liu, Carrie Vaughn, Mira Grant, Jamie Ford, Tananarive Due, Jonathan Maberry, Robin Wasserman, Nancy Kress, Charlie Jane Anders, Elizabeth Bear, Ben H. Winters, Scott Sigler, and many others.

THE END IS NIGH is about the match.

THE END IS NOW is about the conflagration.

THE END HAS COME is about what will rise from the ashes.



CONTENTS


01 - Carrie Vaughn, Bannerless
02 - Megan Arkenberg, Like All Beautiful Places
03 - Will McIntosh, Dancing With a Stranger in the Land of Nod
04 - Scott Sigler, The Seventh Day of Deer Camp
05 - Sarah Langan, Prototype
06 - Chris Avellone, Acts of Creation
07 - Seanan McGuire, Resistance
08 - Leife Shallcross, Wandering Star
09 - Ben H. Winters, Heaven Come Down
10 - David Wellington, Agent Neutralized
11 - Annie Bellet, Goodnight Earth
12 - Tananarive Due, Carriers
13 - Robin Wasserman, In the Valley of the Shadow of the Promised Land
14 - Jamie Ford, The Uncertainty Machine
15 - Elizabeth Bear, Margin of Survival
16 - Jonathan Maberry, Jingo and the Hammerman
17 - Charlie Jane Anders, The Last Movie Ever Made
18 - Jake Kerr, The Gray Sunrise
19 - Ken Liu, The Gods Have Not Died in Vain
20 - Hugh Howey, In the Woods
21 - Nancy Kress, Blessings

Famine. Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the End of the World. In science fiction, the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm.

But before any catastrophe, there are people who see it coming. During, there are heroes who fight against it. And after, there are the survivors who persevere and try to rebuild.

THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH will tell their stories.

Edited by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams and bestselling author Hugh Howey, The Apocalypse Triptych is a series of three anthologies of apocalyptic fiction. THE END IS NIGH focuses on life before the apocalypse. THE END IS NOW turns its attention to life during the apocalypse. And THE END HAS COME explores life after the apocalypse.

THE END IS NIGH is about the match. THE END HAS COME is about what will rise from the ashes. THE END IS NOW is about the conflagration.

• • • •

table of contents:
INTRODUCTION by John Joseph Adams
HERD IMMUNITY by Tananarive Due
THE SIXTH DAY OF DEER CAMP by Scott Sigler
GOODNIGHT STARS by Annie Bellet
ROCK MANNING CAN’T HEAR YOU by Charlie Jane Anders
FRUITING BODIES by Seanan McGuire
BLACK MONDAY by Sarah Langan
ANGELS OF THE APOCALYPSE by Nancy Kress
AGENT ISOLATED by David Wellington
THE GODS WILL NOT BE SLAIN by Ken Liu
YOU’VE NEVER SEEN EVERYTHING by Elizabeth Bear
BRING THEM DOWN by Ben H. Winters
TWILIGHT OF THE MUSIC MACHINES by Megan Arkenberg
SUNSET HOLLOW by Jonathan Maberry
PENANCE by Jake Kerr
AVTOMAT by Daniel H. Wilson
DANCING WITH BATGIRL IN THE LAND OF NOD by Will McIntosh
BY THE HAIR OF THE MOON by Jamie Ford
TO WRESTLE NOT AGAINST FLESH AND BLOOD by Desirina Boskovich
IN THE MOUNTAIN by Hugh Howey
DEAR JOHN by Robin Wasserman

Famine. Death. War. Pestilence. These are the harbingers of the biblical apocalypse, of the End of the World. In science fiction, the end is triggered by less figurative means: nuclear holocaust, biological warfare/pandemic, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm.

But before any catastrophe, there are people who see it coming. During, there are heroes who fight against it. And after, there are the survivors who persevere and try to rebuild. THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH will tell their stories.

Edited by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams and bestselling author Hugh Howey, THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH is a series of three anthologies of apocalyptic fiction. THE END IS NIGH focuses on life before the apocalypse. THE END IS NOW turns its attention to life during the apocalypse. And THE END HAS COME focuses on life after the apocalypse.

THE END IS NIGH features all-new, never-before-published works by Hugh Howey, Paolo Bacigalupi, Jamie Ford, Seanan McGuire, Tananarive Due, Jonathan Maberry, Robin Wasserman, Nancy Kress, Charlie Jane Anders, Ken Liu, and many others.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Issue 127, December 2020

FROM THE EDITOR
– “Editorial: December 2020” by John Joseph Adams

SCIENCE FICTION
– “Your Mind Is the Superfund Site” by Andrew Dana Hudson and C.Y. Ballard
– “The Executioner” by Jennifer Marie Brissett
– “PARTY TIME!” by Ben H. Winters
– “The Woman Who Destroyed Us” by S.L. Huang

FANTASY
– “Ah Been Buked” by Maurice Broaddus
– “The Salt Warrior” by Kali Wallace
– “An Account of the Land of Witches” by Sofia Samatar
– “Ann-of-Rags” by P H Lee

EXCERPTS
– “The Blade Between” by Sam J. Miller

NONFICTION
– “Book Reviews: December 2020” by Arley Sorg
– “Media Review: December 2020” by Carrie Vaughn
– “Interview: E. Lily Yu” by Christian A. Coleman

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS
– “Author Spotlight: Andrew Dana Hudson and C.Y. Ballard” by Laurel Amberdine
– “Author Spotlight: Kali Wallace” by Jude Griffin
– “Author Spotlight: Ben H. Winters” by Laurel Amberdine
– “Author Spotlight: P H Lee” by Setsu Uzumé

MISCELLANY
– “Coming Attractions” by The Editors
– “Stay Connected” by The Editors
– “Subscriptions and Ebooks” by The Editors
– “Support Us on Patreon, or How to Become a Dragonrider or Space Wizard” by The Editors
– “About the Lightspeed Team” by The Editors
– “Also Edited by John Joseph Adams” by The Editors

© 2020 Lightspeed Magazine
Cover by Grandeduc / Adobe Stock Image
lightspeedmagazine.com

From award-winning, New York Times bestselling novelist Ben H. Winters comes a mind-bending novel set in a world governed by absolute truth, where lies are as dangerous as murder.

In a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all else, Laszlo Ratesic is a nineteen-year veteran of the Speculative Service. He lives in the Golden State, a nation standing where California once did, a place where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life and governance impossible.

In the Golden State, knowingly contradicting the truth is the greatest crime–and stopping those crimes is Laz’s job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths, to “speculate” on what might have happened.

But the Golden State is less a paradise than its name might suggest. To monitor, verify, and enforce the truth requires a veritable panopticon of surveillance and recording. And when those in control of the facts twist them for nefarious means, the Speculators are the only ones with the power to fight back.

There are just 77 days to go before a deadly asteroid collides with Earth, and Detective Hank Palace is out of a job. With the Concord police force operating under the auspices of the U.S. Justice Department, Hank's days of solving crimes are over...until a woman from his past begs for help finding her missing husband.
 
Brett Cavatone disappeared without a trace – an easy feat in a world with no phones, no cars, and no way to tell whether someone’s gone “bucket list” or just gone . With society falling to shambles, Hank pieces together what few clues he can, on a search that leads him from a college-campus-turned-anarchist-encampment to a crumbling coastal landscape where anti-immigrant militia fend off “impact zone” refugees.
 
The second novel in the critically acclaimed Last Policeman trilogy, Countdown City presents a fascinating mystery set on brink of an apocalypse – and once again, Hank Palace confronts questions way beyond "whodunit." What do we as human beings owe to one another? And what does it mean to be civilized when civilization is collapsing all around you?

“A genre-defying blend of crime writing and science fiction.”—Alexandra Alter, The New York Times


The explosive final installment in the Edgar® Award winning Last Policeman series. 

With the doomsday asteroid looming, Detective Hank Palace has found sanctuary in the woods of New England, secure in a well-stocked safe house with other onetime members of the Concord police force. But with time ticking away before the asteroid makes landfall, Hank’s safety is only relative, and his only relative—his sister Nico—isn’t safe. Soon, it’s clear that there’s more than one earth-shattering revelation on the horizon, and it’s up to Hank to solve the puzzle before time runs out...for everyone.