As Fernie and Gustav battle the Shadow Eater, who seeks The Nightmare Vault for his master, the evil Lord Obsidian, Fernie learns about Gustav's mysterious past and just what happened to his missing parents.

Fernie What, an adventurous young horror fan, moves into the house across the street from the dark mansion of a mysterious boy whose residence is haunted by evil shadows.

EMIL SANDBURG. Serial killer. His victims were all Catarkhans, specimens of a closed-off sentient race incapable of sensing the great atrocities he committed against them. Prosecuting him by their laws is going to be a problem. Enter ANDREA CORT. Misanthrope. Genius. Controversial figure. Aware even as she takes the case that other alien forces intend to use her past against her, and against humanity. Unaware that its implications will change the course of her life... Presenting the first Andrea Cort adventure, the story that led to the Philip K. Dick Award-Winning novel, Emissaries From the Dead! Other Andrea Cort stories available from JABberwocky: With Unclean Hands The Coward’s Option (and Tasha’s Fail Safe)

Who are Minnie and Earl? In the earliest days of constructing the first permanent colony on the moon, they are the single secret shared by the everyone working on the project: two friendly old people, who somehow beat the astronauts to the lunar surface and are perfectly happy with hosting the kids to nightly dinners, but remain close-mouthed about who they are and how they got there. But they are not the strangest thing to be found on the moon. Three entries from Adam-Troy Castro's Nebula-nominated series feature some of the adventures stemming from this extremely weird period in the history of lunar colonization. Get ready to find out about the explanation that doesn't matter. About the first gunfight in the history of lunar colonization. About the strangely familiar couple doing pratfalls out in the lunar wastes, where only one deeply confused team engineer can see them. And about just what Wyatt Earp has to do with all this. Don't be afraid. You can always drop on and Minnie and Earl for advice. This collection includes: "Sunday Night Yams At Minnie and Earl's", a 2002 Analytical Laboratory Winner for Best Novella and 2003 Nebula Nominee for Novella "Gunfight on Farside", 3rd Place for 2010 Analytical Laboratory Award for Best Novella "The Gorilla In A Tutu Principle or, Pecan Pie at Minnie and Earl's", a 2020 Analog Analytical Laboratory Award Winner for Best Novella

“As great as I’d hoped...Andrea Cort and her universe have terrific scope for future development.” —i09 The place is One One One, a gigantic enclosed space station constructed by the AIsource, a mysterious software collective that may be the most advanced, most powerful creatures in the known universe. They have seeded the world with creatures of their own devising, and invited a delegation of human beings to observe. But now the little research community has been rocked by murder...and it appears that the AIsource may be playing a deeper game. Enter Andrea Cort. Prosecutor. War Criminal. Misanthrope. Genius. She has been sent to get to the bottom of these heinous crimes. But she is facing enemies both human and more than human...and the solution to the mystery just might change her very relationship to the world she knows... Praise for Emissaries from the Dead “A brilliantly executed novel, fully successful as both science fiction and murder mystery. Indeed, it evidences a writer at the peak of his career, and it shows none of the flaws one expects from first novels... Emissaries from the Dead is one of the best science fiction novels of the year so far, and it can be recommended especially to fans of science fiction mysteries.” —SciFi Weekly “A uniquely absorbing read. It envelops you in a truly exotic and alien environment, and gives you a heroine to root for... It offers mystery, action, a few good jolts, and a bit of the old redemption sans mawkishness. All of the ingredients for a story sure to knock ’em dead.” —SF Reviews “Adam-Troy Castro’s Emissaries from the Dead is SF at its best: Silence of the Lambs as Larry Niven might have written it. A clever, thought-provoking page-turner. Bravo!” —Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Rollback “Adam-Troy Castro has given us the ultimate high-wire thriller.” —Jack McDevitt

ANDREA CORT. War criminal. Genius. Outcast. Heroine. Sent to the home-world of the Zinn, a once-powerful race now on the long path to extinction, she’s expected to sign the approval for a simple prisoner transfer -- but why are the Zinn so eager to take custody of an unremarkable human murderer? What brutal crime is being planned against an innocent? What hidden agenda threatens to topple the balance of power? This Nebula-Award nominated novella is the earliest adventure of Andrea Cort, heroine of the Philip K.Dick Award winning novel, Emissaries From The Dead. Other Andrea Cort stories available from JABberwocky: The Coward’s Option (and Tasha’s Fail Safe) Unseen Demons

Two stories from the early years of Andrea Cort, later the heroine of the Philip K. Dick Award-winning novel, Emissaries from the Dead. “The Coward’s Option”: On the hostile home-world of the Caith, Andrea Cort has been assigned the case of a murderer who’s been condemned to a horrible death. All legal options have been exhausted, but the Caith offer a rarely-used alternative to execution, one that purports to ensure that the accused will never break the law again. Alas, it’s not so much another chance at life, but deliverance into a hell far worse than mere death... “Tasha’s Fail-Safe”: Once, she and Andrea Cort hated each other. Now, the victim of a savage assassination attempt by a traitor to the Confederacy, she lies in an unresponsive state, the identity of her assailant locked inside her head. Can Andrea penetrate a vital secret she never even knew existed? Other Andrea Cort stories available from JABberwocky: With Unclean Hands Unseen Demons