From the author of The Wilds, which Publishers Weekly called “a brilliant combination of emotion and grime, wit and horror,” comes a debut novel that is part dystopian satire, part Southern Gothic tall tale: a disturbing yet hilarious romp through a surreal New South where newfangled medical technologies change the structure of the human brain and genetically modified feral animals ravage the blighted landscape. Down on his luck and still pining for his ex-wife, South Carolina taxidermist Romie Futch spends his evenings drunkenly surfing the Internet before passing out on his couch. In a last-ditch attempt to pay his mortgage, he replies to an ad and becomes a research subject in an experiment conducted by the Center for Cybernetic Neuroscience in Atlanta, Georgia. After “scientists” download hifalutin humanities disciplines into their brains, Romie and his fellow guinea pigs start debating the works of Foucault and hashing out the intricacies of postmodern subjectivity. The enhanced taxidermist, who once aspired to be an artist, returns to his hometown ready to revolutionize his work and revive his failed marriage. As Romie tracks down specimens for his elaborate animatronic taxidermy dioramas, he develops an Ahab-caliber obsession with bagging “Hogzilla,” a thousand-pound feral hog that has been terrorizing Hampton County. Cruising hog-hunting websites, he learns that this lab-spawned monster possesses peculiar traits. Pulled into an absurd and murky underworld of biotech operatives, FDA agents, and environmental activists, Romie becomes entangled in the enigma of Hogzilla’s origins. Exploring the interplay between nature and culture, biology and technology, reality and art, The New and Improved Romie Futch probes the mysteries of memory and consciousness, offering a darkly comic yet heartfelt take on the contemporary human predicament.

"At an obscure South Carolina nursing home, a lost world reemerges as a disabled elderly woman undergoes newfangled brain-restoration procedures and begins to explore her environment with the assistance of strap-on robot legs. At a deluxe medical spa on a nameless Caribbean island, a middle-aged woman hopes to revitalize her fading youth with grotesque rejuvenating therapies that combine cutting-edge medical technologies with holistic approaches and the pseudo-religious dogma of Zen-infused self-help. And in a rinky-dink mill town, an adolescent girl is unexpectedly inspired by the ravings and miraculous levitation of her fundamentalist friend's weird grandmother. These are only a few of the scenarios readers encounter in Julia Elliott's debut collection, The Wilds. In these genre-bending stories, teetering between the ridiculous and the sublime, Elliott's language-driven fiction uses outlandish tropes to capture poignant moments in her humble characters' lives. Without abandoning the tenets of classic storytelling, Elliott revels in lush lyricism, dark humor, and experimental play. "--

“A bizarre and darkly funny world . . . There are fables, horror stories, absurd stories, and more serious stories about love.” —Ramona Ausubel, The New York Times Book Review A woman creeps through the ductwork of a quiet home. A medical procedure reveals an object of worship. A carnivorous reptile divides and cauterizes a town. Amelia Gray’s curio cabinet expands in Gutshot, where isolation and coupling are pushed to their dark and outrageous edges. These singular stories live and breathe on their own, pulsating with energy and humanness and a glorious sense of humor. Hers are stories that you will read and reread—raw gems that burrow into your brain, reminders of just how strange and beautiful our world is. These collected stories come to us like a vivisected body, the whole that is all the more elegant and breathtaking for exploring its most grotesque and intimate lightless viscera. “Exhilarating and violently creative, these stories are an assault on expectation. Gutshot is a rare, new original, and Amelia Gray is her own startling genre. This is a book to be experienced, to be taught and obsessed over, to live as a prized weapon on your bookshelf.” —Alissa Nutting, author of Tampa “Gutshot is a wild journey through the singular imagination of Amelia Gray, one of the most ambitious and relentlessly inventive writers of our time. The worlds Gray conjures are gorgeous and gruesome and devastating and stone-cold hilarious—but more than anything, these stories are as fearless and original as they come.” —Laura van den Berg, author of State of Paradise “Viscerally wicked.” —Natalie Beach, O, The Oprah Magazine

NOW A LOCUS AWARD FINALIST! “A classic space opera...a universe we’ve never seen before.” —Delilah S. Dawson, New York Times bestselling author From Hugo Award finalist Max Gladstone comes a smart, swashbuckling, wildly imaginative adventure; the saga of a rag-tag team of brilliant misfits, dangerous renegades, and enhanced outlaws in a war-torn future. A wildly successful innovator to rival Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, Vivian Liao is prone to radical thinking, quick decision-making, and reckless action. On the eve of her greatest achievement, she tries to outrun people who are trying to steal her success. In the chilly darkness of a Boston server farm, Viv sets her ultimate plan into motion. A terrifying instant later, Vivian Liao is catapulted through space and time to a far future where she confronts a destiny stranger and more deadly than she could ever imagine. The end of time is ruled by an ancient, powerful Empress who blesses or blasts entire planets with a single thought. Rebellion is literally impossible to consider--until Vivian Liao arrives. Trapped between the Pride—a ravening horde of sentient machines—and a fanatical sect of warrior monks who call themselves the Mirrorfaith, Viv must rally a strange group of allies to confront the Empress and find a way back to the world and life she left behind. A magnificent work of vivid imagination and universe-spanning action, Empress of Forever is a feminist Guardians of the Galaxy crossed with Star Wars and spiced with the sensibility and spirit of Iain M. Banks and William Gibson. “Empress of Forever is tense and vast, complex and twisty, a space opera epic that’s a lot faster on the draw than Star Wars or Star Trek ever dreamed of being. But at its core, it’s an epic about the value of empathy and the importance of compassion. It’s amazingly good.”—Locus “With Empress of Forever, Max Gladstone’s remarkable talent is operating at full stretch, demonstrating the strength, power, and originality at his command. This unique and propulsive novel yields a deep, cellular-level enchantment filled at every turn with curiosity and delight.”—Peter Straub “Empress of Forever is a story that will make you weep with wonder. The whole book is filled with the kind of snark that I love and an endless majesty of stars. It broke me to pieces and then stitched me back together with golden thread. Simply glorious.”—K.B. Wagers, author of Behind the Throne “Galaxy-saving space opera with cool original settings and a unique band of adventurers that change each other for the better. It was a wild ride and I really enjoyed it.”—Martha Wells, Hugo Award-winning author of The Murderbot Diaries “Incorporates wonder and wit to create a feminist, humanist playground. Introduces one mind-blowing concept after another, capitalizing on the concept of personal power while candidly addressing personal failure. This feast for the imagination intelligently captures the complexities of a variety of relationships in an adrenaline-fueled series of escapades and will leave readers both exhausted and elated.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review “A fantastic tale of adventure on the grandest scale of epic space opera, spanning galaxies full of battles and traps as well as trade and negotiation, all told with humor as the crew seeks allies, weapons, and ships to fight back against The Empress to save the galaxy—and so Viv can find her way home.”—Booklist, starred review “Vivian is an amazing woman: with no more than her sharp wit in a universe of AIs and enhanced beings, she still ends up being the key to the truth. Gladstone's epic space opera and fast-paced adventure will thrill readers.”—Library Journal, starred review At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

This book retells American southern history from feral animals' perspective, examining social, cultural, and evolutionary consequences of domestication and feralization.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • A timely and unsettling novel about the people drawn to—and unmoored by—a local activist group more dangerous than it appears. From the winner of the PEN/Malamud Award and “one of our most gifted writers” (Chicago Tribune). Once a promising actor, Tim Brettigan has gone missing. His father thinks he may have seen him among some homeless people. And though she knows he left on purpose, his mother has been searching for him all over their home city of Minneapolis. She checks the usual places— churches, storefronts, benches—and stumbles upon a local community group with lofty goals and an enigmatic leader. Christina, a young woman rapidly becoming addicted to a boutique drug that gives her a feeling of blessedness, is inexplicably drawn to the same collective by a man who’s convinced he may start a revolution. A vision of modern American society and the specters of the consumerism, fanaticism, and fear that haunt it, The Sun Collective captures both the mystery and the violence that punctuate our daily lives.

Presents a selection of the best works of short fiction of the past year from a variety of acclaimed sources.