Combining the pastoral relationships of Winnie the Pooh, the quest fantasy of The Wizard of Oz, the action of The Hobbit, and the self-conscious awareness of its fictional elements of Stranger than Fiction, Bill Willingham’s first young adult novel is a fantasy tour-de-force.
Down the Mysterly River features Max the Wolf, a Boy Scout that awakens to find himself lost in an analogue of the Pacific Northwest full of talking animals, fearsome Blue Cutters, and strange creation magics. Max, an amateur detective, is determined to root out the source of the strange world in which he finds himself. Accompanied by the warrior badger Banderbrock, the monstrous (in looks and charm) cat McTavish, and the happy-go-lucky ex-sheriff black bear Walden, Max embarks on a quest to find the Wizard Swift’s sanctuary. Along the way, he must fight to survive the pursuit of the evil Blue Cutters, who remake heroes into a prosaic image, the odd deliverer of worlds The Eggman, a raging river, and Max’s own desire to solve the mystery.
Vernor Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels and novellas A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), A Deepness in the Sky (1999), Rainbows End (2006), Fast Times at Fairmont High (2002) and The Cookie Monster (2004), as well as for his 1984 novel The Peace War and his 1993 essay “The Coming Technological Singularity,” in which he argues that the creation of superhuman artificial intelligence will mark the point at which “the human era will be ended,” such that no current models of reality are sufficient to predict beyond it.
E. E. Knight was born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin and grew up near the Twin Cities in Minnesota. He graduated from Northern Illinois University with a double major in History and Political Science, had a number of jobs that had nothing to do with history or political science, and now resides in Chicago. He is the author of the post-apocalyptic Vampire Earth series, the epic fantasy Age of Fire series, and is currently at work on a story that is a “combination of an old Cecil B. DeMille bible epic and Flash Gordon.”
This is a true story, the names have been changed to protect the innocent, and I’ve taken a little poetic license with the dialogue, but the tale is accurate.
Some stories challenge the reader to their very core. They come from a place both strange and familiar, setting the reader back on their heels, causing them to reassess what they thought they knew. Sometimes these stories are true, like Anne Frank’s Diary, other times they are fiction like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle or Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The new work of fiction from author Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death, is member of the latter, a work that challenges notions and inspires change.
Born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, Carrie Ryan is a graduate of Williams College and Duke University School of Law. A former litigator, she now writes full time and is the author of The Forest of Hands and Teeth and The Dead-Tossed Waves. Carrie lives with her writer/lawyer fiancé, two fat cats and one large puppy in Charlotte, North Carolina. They are not at all prepared for the zombie apocalypse. Visit her online at 
Though Anne Rice is perhaps the best known writer of vampires, around about the same time that Interview with the Vampire was published another notable author had written a piece of vampire fiction. It didn’t get as much press at the time, but his name is now synonymous with epic fantasy: George R. R. Martin. Often called “the American Tolkien” for his epic A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, Martin wrote several novels in a wide variety of genres before settling in to write his masterpiece.
It seems like the first lines of books always get the most press. From Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, "“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains,” to The Lord of the Rings: "When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton," there is a special significance to the first lines of novels.
I enjoy music. I like listening to it in the car, I like listening to it while writing or working. I’m sure that music affects you in some way and at some time. Music has an undeniable power over humans. 
In Terribly Twisted Tales, editors 
