Fantastic Stories Presents

Fantastic Stories of the Imagination was newly revived by Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominated editor Warren Lapine as a webzine in 2014. Fantastic Stories brings you the very best in science fiction and fantasy with a blend of original fiction, reprints, and criticism of the field. Each month a new issue is posted free on the web for all to read at www.fantasticstoriesoftheimagination.com back issues may also be purchased either as e-books or print editions. Collected here are all of the original stories that ran in 2014. "New Beaches" by Daniel Hatch: Power, corruption, and danger rise with the tides. "Invisible Friends" by Steven Sawicki: He's just an all American boy with a dog that loves to drive his car, some talking monkeys, and a few damned aliens. "Invisible Friends Too (Or, I Have No Bananas and Ice Must Cream): by Steven Sawiki: Monkeys, aliens, and Elvis . . . oh my. "Rope Burns" by Kelly McCullough: He had a secret to keep, but then don't we all? "Night of Apophis" by Brenda Kalt: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. "Chocolateland" by Shariann Lewitt: When they wanted to eat, to really enjoy a good pig out, they could go to Chocolateland

“Wonderful." —Michiko Kakutani, New York Times Celebrating the 20th anniversary of storytelling phenomenon The Moth, 45 unforgettable true stories about risk, courage, and facing the unknown, drawn from the best ever told on their stages Carefully selected by the creative minds at The Moth, and adapted to the page to preserve the raw energy of live storytelling, All These Wonders features voices both familiar and new. Alongside Meg Wolitzer, John Turturro, and Tig Notaro, readers will encounter: an astronomer gazing at the surface of Pluto for the first time, an Afghan refugee learning how much her father sacrificed to save their family, a hip-hop star coming to terms with being a “one-hit wonder,” a young female spy risking everything as part of Churchill’s “secret army” during World War II, and more. High-school student and neuroscientist alike, the storytellers share their ventures into uncharted territory—and how their lives were changed indelibly by what they discovered there. With passion, and humor, they encourage us all to be more open, vulnerable, and alive.

Fantastic Universe started publishing in 1953 and continued until March 1960. It was one of the better magazines to launch during the boom in science fiction magazines publishing. It published many important stories by some of the fields best known writers. This is our third Fantastic universe Superpack.

Pejoratively referred to as "idols" in the Hebrew Bible and in western tradition, the cult image occupied a central place in the cultures of the ancient Near East. In Mesopotamia, a ritual (mis pi) was used to "give birth" to the god represented by the cult image. In this volume, three separate essays examine the topic within different ancient Near Eastern cultures, and a fourth provides a modern analogy as counterpoint.

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.”

The first collection from celebrated storytelling phenomenon The Moth presents fifty spellbinding, soul-bearing stories selected from their extensive archive. With tales from writer Malcolm Gladwell's wedding toast gone horribly awry; legendary rapper Darryl "DMC" McDaniels' obsession with a Sarah McLachlan song; poker champion Annie Duke's two million-dollar hand; and A. E. Hotchner's death-defying stint in a bullring . . . with his friend Ernest Hemingway. Read about the panic of former Clinton Press Secretary Joe Lockhart when he misses Air Force One after a hard night of drinking in Moscow, and Dr. George Lombardi's fight to save Mother Teresa's life. Inspired by friends telling stories on a porch, The Moth was born in small-town Georgia, garnered a cult following in New York City, and then rose to national acclaim with the wildly popular podcast and Peabody Award-winning weekly public radio show The Moth Radio Hour. A beloved read for Moth enthusiasts and all who savor well-told, hilarious, and heartbreaking stories.

Many years after the United States initiated a military response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, the nation continues to prosecute what it considers an armed conflict against transnational terrorist groups. Understanding how the law of armed conflict applies to and regulates military operations executed within the scope of this armed conflict against transnational non-state terrorist groups is as important today as it was in September 2001. In The War on Terror and the Laws of War seven legal scholars, each with experience as military officers, focus on how to strike an effective balance between the necessity of using armed violence to subdue a threat to the nation with the humanitarian interest of mitigating the suffering inevitably associated with that use. Each chapter addresses a specific operational issue, including the national right of self-defense, military targeting and the use of drones, detention, interrogation, trial by military commission of captured terrorist operatives, and the impact of battlefield perspectives on counter-terror military operations, while illustrating how the law of armed conflict influences resolution of that issue. This Second Edition carries on the critical mission of continuing the ongoing dialogue about the law from an unabashedly military perspective, bringing practical wisdom to the contentious topic of applying international law to the battlefield.

Three dragons. One woman. A reverse harem fantasy that will leave you breathless and begging for more... Dareena Sellis is a nobody. The orphaned daughter of a no-name farmer, she toils away as a serving girl at Hallowdale Inn, her only marriage prospects either shipping off to war, or pawing at her skirts with their grubby, gnarled hands. But fate takes a strange turn the day a dragon huntress comes to town. Suddenly, Dareena is swept off to Dragon's Keep, trading in her raggedy dresses for silken gowns, her closet-sized room for feather pillows and spacious gardens, and her miserable suitor for three very handsome, veryvirile dragon princes. For Dareena is not a nobody. She is the Dragon's Gift--the one woman chosen by the gods every century to bear children for the future king of Dragonfell. Despite her pre-ordained path, Dareena's fate is far from certain. The crown has not given birth to more than one son in nearly a thousand years, and the line of succession is far from clear. Neither of the princes are willing to cede Dareena to the other, and yet she must choose. For the enemy is knocking on Dragonfell's door, and Dareena's decision could either mean the kingdom's salvation... ...or annihilation.