It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the 10th annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to out charm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute. The odds are against him. He’s been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low.

What was once the Western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic"s wealthiest districts, 15-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic"s highest military circles. Born into the slums, 15-year-old Day is the country"s most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem. From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths - until the day June"s brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect.

People start dropping dead around Charlie, giant ravens perch on his building, and it seems that everywhere he goes, a dark presence whispers to him from under the streets. Strange names start appearing on his nightstand notepad, and before he knows it, those people end up dead, too. Yup, it seems that Charlie Asher has been recruited for a new job, an unpleasant but utterly necessary one: Death.

In a prosperous yet gruesomely violent near future, superhero vigilantes battle thugs whose heads are full of supervillain fantasies. The peace is kept by a team of smooth, well-dressed negotiators called The Men in Fancy Suits. Meanwhile a young girl is caught in the middle and thinks the whole thing is ridiculous. Zoey, a recent college graduate with a worthless degree, makes a reluctant trip into the city after hearing that her estranged con artist father died in a mysterious yet spectacular way.

Can humanity Survive what it never saw coming? On October 15 at 2:15 a.ms Earth vanished. A scattered few woke alone in a world with no rules, other than survival at any cost. A journalist wanders the wretched reality of an empty New York, searching for his wife and son. A serial killer must hunt in a land where prey is now an endangered species. A mother shields her young daughter from danger through every terror-filled breath.

The living dead are more alive than ever! Zombies have become more than an iconic monster for the 21st century: They are now a phenomenon constantly revealing as much about ourselves - and our fascination with death, resurrection, and survival - as our love for the supernatural or post-apocalyptic speculation. Our most imaginative literary minds have been devoured by these incredible creatures and produced exciting, insightful, and unflinching new works of zombie fiction.

They"ll chase you. They"ll rip you open. They"ll feed on you.... When the sickness came, every parent, policeman, politician - every adult - fell ill. The lucky ones died. The others are crazed, confused and hungry. Only children under 14 remain whole, and they"re fighting to survive. Now there are rumours of a safe place to hide. And so a gang of children begin their quest across London, where all through the city - down alleyways, in deserted houses, underground - the grown-ups lie in wait. But can they make it there alive?

Dick, AKA Devil Dog"s world changes drastically when the EMP takes out the power grid. The loss of electricity brings out the darker side of human nature across the city. A homeless Marine veteran living in the abandoned tunnels beneath Chicago, he"s far better prepared than most people. Good folk have survived, but they are often outnumbered and outgunned. Only the tunnels provide the safety he needs.

The tattooed plus sign on Finnegan"s hand marks him as a Positive. At any time the zombie virus could explode in his body, turning him from a rational human into a ravenous monster. His only chance of a normal life is to survive the last two years of the potential incubation period. If he reaches his 21st birthday without an incident, he"ll be cleared.

Those who would seek a new world order have unleashed the most devastating virus onto mankind, and even they do not know the secrets hidden in their weapon. Follow along as Harry, a CDC scientist, races to figure out what exactly the virus is and how to stop it. It will be up to him and a group of marines led by Major Sanders to stop the zombie fallout before it ravages an unsuspecting world.

LIMBUS, INC. is a shadowy employment agency that operates at the edge of the normal world. LIMBUS"s employees are just as suspicious and ephemeral as the motives of the company, if indeed it could be called a company in the ordinary sense of the word. In this shared-world anthology, five heavy hitters from the dark worlds of horror, fantasy, and sci-fi pool their warped takes on the shadow organization that offers employment of the most unusual kind to those on the fringes of society.

Marla Mason is the chief sorcerer of Felport, a woman who"s tangled with gods and monsters and come out on top (if a bit damaged in the process). Bone Shop tells the story of Marla"s evolution from runaway to sorcerer"s apprentice to mercenary magician and beyond. Fans of the urban fantasy series from Bantam Spectra that began with Blood Engines will find surprising secrets revealed about Marla"s past, and new listeners can get to know the character from the very beginning.

Modern gods and goddesses, remote, revered - and like the pantheon of heroes and heroines of ancient myth - possessing great power tempered with flaws. Now, find within this anthology great tales by gifted and award-winning authors who move superheroes from the four-color panels of comic books to the fantastic pages of fiction, stories that will remind anyone who ever wanted to wear a cape or don a cowl of the extraordinary powers of the imagination!

A beautiful, ambitious angel stands on a mountaintop, surveying the world and its little inhabitants below. He smiles because soon, the last of humanity who survived the great flood will meet its end, too. And he should know. He"s going to play a big part in it. Our angel usually doesn"t get to do fieldwork, and if he does well, he"s certain he"ll get a big promotion.

A phone call to his sister leads Flex Sheridan into a nightmare and a quest to save his family from a new, horrifying epidemic that"s turning humans into zombies. As he makes his way from Georgia to Gainesville, Florida and back, he picks up old and new friends and survivors. Flex reconnects with perhaps the strongest woman he"s ever known, Gem Cardoza, his former girlfriend.

The living dead are more alive than ever! Zombies have become more than an iconic monster for the 21st century: They are now a phenomenon constantly revealing as much about ourselves - and our fascination with death, resurrection, and survival - as our love for the supernatural or post-apocalyptic speculation. Our most imaginative literary minds have been devoured by these incredible creatures and produced exciting, insightful, and unflinching new works of zombie fiction.

Marla Mason is the chief sorcerer of Felport, a woman who"s tangled with gods and monsters and come out on top (if a bit damaged in the process). Bone Shop tells the story of Marla"s evolution from runaway to sorcerer"s apprentice to mercenary magician and beyond. Fans of the urban fantasy series from Bantam Spectra that began with Blood Engines will find surprising secrets revealed about Marla"s past, and new listeners can get to know the character from the very beginning.

Modern gods and goddesses, remote, revered - and like the pantheon of heroes and heroines of ancient myth - possessing great power tempered with flaws. Now, find within this anthology great tales by gifted and award-winning authors who move superheroes from the four-color panels of comic books to the fantastic pages of fiction, stories that will remind anyone who ever wanted to wear a cape or don a cowl of the extraordinary powers of the imagination!

MacKayla Lane"s life is good. She has great friends, a decent job, and a car that breaks down only every other week or so. In other words, she"s your perfectly ordinary 21st-century woman. Or so she thinks...until something extraordinary happens.

If you"ve never read a Repairman Jack novel, this is the place to begin. It"s 1990. A twenty-one-year-old named Jack has dropped out of college, leaving his old life behind to build a new one in New York City. Manhattan"s rough edges are jagged enough to shred any unwary newcomer, but perhaps not one who is determined to stay off the grid, at any cost, in the busiest metropolis on earth. And to do so, he"ll have to take jobs of a less than legal nature.

Mary Alice Brannigan doesn’t believe in the supernatural. Nor does she expect to find that Dreamland, the decaying amusement park she’s been hired to restore, is a prison for the five Untouchables, the most powerful demons in the history of the world. Plus, there’s a guy she’s falling hard for, and there’s something about him that’s not quite right.

It begins as a statistical oddity: a spike in children born with acute speech delays. Physically normal in every way, these children never speak and do not respond to speech; they don"t learn to read, don"t learn to write. As the number of cases grows to an epidemic level, theories spread. Maybe it"s related to a popular antidepressant; maybe it"s environmental. Or maybe these children have special skills all their own.

Five days after Owen Zastava Pitt pushed his insufferable boss out of a 14th story window, he woke up in the hospital with a scarred face, an unbelievable memory, and a job offer. It turns out that monsters are real. All the things from myth, legend, and B-movies are out there, waiting in the shadows. Some of them are evil, and some are just hungry. Monster Hunter International is the premier eradication company in the business. And now Owen is their newest recruit.

Kim Lam is an ordinary college student until a freak scientific accident (what else?) transforms Kim and three housemates into Sparks - and drafts them into the never-ending war between the Light and Dark. They struggle to master their new abilities - and (of course) to design cool costumes and come up with great hero-names. Turns out that "accident" was just the first salvo in a Mad Genius"s latest diabolical scheme. Now it"s up to four newbie heroes to save the day, before they even have a chance to figure out what their team"s name should be!

There are angels, and they are not beneficent or loving. But they do watch over us. They watch our lives unfold, analyzing us for repeating patterns and redundancies. When they find them, the angels simplify those patterns and remove the redundancies, and the problem that is "you" gets solved.

What’s the point in solving murders if we’re all going to die soon, anyway? Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.

They call it Company Town - a city-size oil rig off the coast of the Canadian Maritimes, now owned by one very wealthy, powerful, byzantine family: Lynch Ltd. Hwa is of the few people in her community (which constitutes the whole rig) to forgo bioengineered enhancements. As such, she"s the last truly organic person left on the rig - making her doubly an outsider as well as a neglected daughter and bodyguard extraordinaire.

With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.

In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona, and California skirmish for dwindling shares of the Colorado River. Into the fray steps Angel Velasquez, detective, leg breaker, assassin, and spy. A Las Vegas water knife, Angel "cuts" water for his boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her lush, luxurious arcology developments can bloom in the desert, so the rich can stay wet while the poor get nothing but dust.

This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides - or are chosen.