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Home , Bending the Landscape, British Fantasy Award, Dark fantasy

What w e publish and hy ChiZine Publications is willing to take Right now, we’re seeing strong and original risks. We’re looking for the unusual, the ideas, but too often they rely on interesting, the thought-provoking. We standard plots, the same settings, and look for writers who are also willing to take two-dimensional characters that serve the risks, who want to take dark genre fiction plot instead of having inner motivation. to a new place, who want to show readers These are “safe” stories—not particularly something they haven’t seen before. CZP challenging, and effortless to consume and wants to startle, to astound, to share the digest. bliss of good writing with our readership. Because we’re a smaller outfit, we can take What’s Dark Genre Fiction? some risks—find authors and manuscripts that are trying to move the genre forward. We say “dark genre fiction” because too much time is spent fighting over SF vs. Come With Us! horror vs. . If there’re , ’s fantasy . . . CZP wants fiction that takes that next step forward. Horror that isn’t just gross or Unless they’re bio-engineered dragons, then going for a cheap scare, but fundamentally it’s SF . . . disturbing, instilling a sense of true dread. Fantasy that doesn’t necessarily need spells But a apocalypse might be horror . . . or wizards to create a world far removed from ours, but that imbues the story with We want stories using speculative an otherworldly sense by knocking tropes elements—magic, technology, insanity, on their heads. that isn’t just gods, or insane-magic-technology-gods all about space travel and gadgets, but about in one—to show the dark side of human what it means to be human—or what it nature. The good guy can feel—and act on— means not to be. anger, hatred, vengeance, just like the villain. Heroes don’t always win, conclusions don’t We want to give our readers characters we always wrap things up nicely, and sometimes genuinely care about. Stories that, if you things can take a turn that’s just plain weird removed the genre element, could still stand . . . even for the genre. on their own.

Is Genre Fiction Standing Still? “” and “slipstream” are labels that come to mind, but despite any kind Larger presses are sometimes forced to of moniker, above all, we’re out to publish play it safe: plots and stories we’ve seen well-written, character-driven stories. The before, because that’s what the public single most important quality we look for at seems to crave. Teenage angst; CZP is resonance. multi-book series; and spaceships, fleet admirals, and invading Bottom-line: If you like one CZP book, aliens. Sometimes it can feel like we’re all chances are, you’ll like them all. just reading the same stories, over and over, just in slightly different settings. —Brett Savory, , and the CZP staff

what the . . .

Don’t worry. This isn’t a printing error! CHIZINE PUBLICATIONS These are QR codes—a quick way to jump Toronto, Canada to the Web with your smartphone. chizinepub.com Get the app, point the camera, click, and go! [email protected] 3 ChiZine Publications Shoebox Train Wreck John Mantooth Illustrated by Danny Evarts Dark Fiction/Short Stories

These sixteen genre-bending stories are set against a backdrop of sudden violence and profound regret, populated by characters whose circumstances and longings drive them to the point of no return . . . and sometimes even further. A young girl takes a journey to see what is really hidden within the belly of an ancient water tower. A high school senior learns about defiance on a school bus and witnesses a tragedy that he won’t soon forget. Six survivors in an underground bunker discuss the possibility of Armageddon being an elaborate hoax. Two brothers take a walk on the dark side of the wheat field and discover that some bonds are stronger than death. And in the title story, a former train conductor must confront the ghosts of his past while learning that it’s not the dead who haunt 264 PAGES the living, but the other way around. ISBN 978-1-926851-54-9 Traversing the back roads of the south and beyond, these stories probe the boundaries of USD $15.95/CAD $17.95 imagination, taking the reader to the fringes of a 8.5 5.5 society where the world looks different, and once Trade PAPERBACK/EBOOK you visit, you won’t ever be the same. March 15, 2012

“Mantooth’s stories glitter with the brilliant, jagged menace of a fistful of busted glass. Shoebox Train Wreck emits blacklight, illuminating the grim intersection of small, fragile human lives and the encroaching wilderness of the universe.” —, author of Occultation and The Imago Sequence and Other Stories

JOHN MANTOOTH is an award-winning author whose short stories have been recognized in numerous year’s best anthologies. His short fiction has been published in Fantasy Magazine, Crime Factory, Thuglit, and the - winning anthology, Haunted Legends (Tor, 2010), .

DANNY EVARTS is an illustrator, editor and graphic designer, and currently holds down the role of Art Director and Technical Editor for Shroud Publishing. He is also the illustrator of the Unchildren’s Book It’s Okay to be a , and is fomenting further adventures in this series alongside many other projects. Danny lives with his partner in the Maine woods. ChiZine Publications 4 The Steel Seraglio Mike Carey, Linda Carey & Louise Carey Illustrated by Nimit Malavia

The sultan Bokhari Al-Bokhari of Bessa has 365 concubines—until a violent coup puts the city in the hands of the religious zealot Hakkim Mehdad. Hakkim has no use for the pleasures of the flesh: he condemns the women first to exile and then to death. Cast into the desert, the concubines must rely on themselves and each other to escape from the new sultan’s fanatical pursuit. But their goals go beyond mere survival: with the aid of the champions who emerge from among them, they intend to topple the usurper and retake Bessa from the repressive power that now controls it. The assassin, Zuleika, whose hands are weapons. The seer, Rem, whose tears are ink. The wise Gursoon, who was the dead sultan’s canniest advisor. The camel-thief, Anwar Das, who offers his lying tongue to the concubines’ cause. 439 PAGES ISBN 978-1-926851-53-2 Together, they must forge the women of the into an army, a seraglio of steel, and use USD $15.95/CAD $17.95 it to conquer a city. But even if they succeed, 9 x 6 their troubles will just be beginning—because Trade PAPERBACK/EBOOK their most dangerous enemy is within their own number. . . . March 15, 2012

Praise for the Careys

“Fun, fast, and furious.” —

“Beguiling and engrossing.” —Book Magazine

Linda, Louise and Mike Carey are three writers living in North London. LOUISE wrote The Diary of a London Schoolgirl for the website of the London Metropolitan Archive. LINDA, writing as A.J Lake, authored the Darkest Age fantasy trilogy. MIKE has written extensively in the comics field, where his credits include Lucifer, Hellblazer, X-Men and The Unwritten (nominated for both the Eisner and the Hugo). He is also the author of the Felix Castor novels.

NIMIT MALAVIA is an award-winning illustrator from Ottawa, Canada. Born in 1987, he received his degree in illustration from Sheridan College. Nimit has produced work for clients including Marvel Comics, Shopify, The National Post and 20th Century Fox. He has also exhibited internationally in galleries in Berlin, London, Los Angeles, Miami and Toronto. He works to live, but really, it’s more like he lives to work. You can find more information about Nimit at www.nimitmalavia.com. 5 ChiZine Publications Ison of the Isles Carolyn Ives Gilman Fantasy

Revolution has broken out in the Forsaken Isles. The islanders have risen up to drive out the Inning Empire, but still they have no one to unite them. Only an Ison can do that—a leader whose heart has been cleansed by the curing of dhota- nur. The power to create an Ison lies in the hands of three people, and none of them are heroes. Spaeth has the ancient Lashnura heritage, but does she have the stature? Harg has the military genius, but he utterly rejects the price of dhota- nur. And Nathaway, the Inning outsider, finds himself unexpectedly holding the key to the future of the Isles. Perilously poised between Inning conquest and the savage powers of ancient forces, the Forsakens need them to decide. But for an Ison to rise, each of them must betray one of the others.

Ison of the Isles continues the story started in 320 PAGES Isles of the Forsaken. ISBN 978-1926851-56-3 USD $15.95/CAD $17.95 “In fantasy novels, we hope for many things— 9 x 6 vivid and unfamiliar landscapes, complicated and compelling characters, unexpected plot twists, high Trade PAPERBACK/EBOOK stakes and huge risks. Gilman delivers all of the above April 15, 2012 and more. This is a smart and engrossing political novel about imperialism and the clash of cultures in a fascinating new world. The best news? Apparently there will be more. Write like the wind, Gilman!” —Karen Joy Fowler, author of What I Didn’t See

CAROLYN IVES GILMAN has been publishing fantasy and science fiction for twenty years. Her first novel, Halfway Human (Avon/EOS, 1998), was called “one of the most compelling explorations of gender and power in recent SF” by Locus Magazine. Her short fiction has appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Bending the Landscape, Interzone, Universe, , Realms of Fantasy, and others. By day, Gilman is a historian specializing in 18th- and early 19th-century North American history who now lives in St. Louis and works for the Missouri History Museum. ChiZine Publications 6 Westlake Soul Rio Youers Fantasy

Meet Westlake Soul, a twenty-three-year- old former surfing champion. A loving son and brother. But if you think he’s just a regular dude, think again; Westlake is in a permanent vegetative state. He can’t move, has no response to stimuli, and can only communicate with Hub, the faithful family dog. And like all superheroes, Westlake has an archenemy: Dr. Quietus—a nightmarish embodiment of Death itself. Westlake dreams of a normal life—of surfing and loving again. But time is running out; Dr. Quietus is getting closer, and stronger. Can Westlake use his superbrain to recover . . . to slip his enemy’s cold embrace before it’s too late?

“Rio Youers is one of the most vital, most exciting young talents to come along in this decade . . . [He] writes beautiful phrases and sentences, and 250 PAGES he has an instinctive feel for horror’s flash points, ISBN 978-1-926851-55-6 those moments in a novel when its author must USD $15.95/CAD $17.95 demonstrate that he can keep his head while his 7.25 x 5.5 readers are cheerfully losing theirs.” — Trade PAPERBACK/EBOOK April 15, 2012 “Rio Youers is one of the reasons why I’m incredibly excited about, and optimistic for, the future of . If you haven’t read his work before then start right here! Westlake Soul is a novel about the very essence of what it is to be human. Numinous, poignant and achingly emotional, it is both deeply tragic and soaringly life- affirming.” —Michael Rowe, author of Enter, Night

RIO YOUERS has drawn praise from some of the most noteworthy names in the genre. He is the author of two , Mama Fish (Shroud Publishing) and Old Man Scratch (PS Publishing)—the latter earning him a nomination in 2010. His novelette, This is the Summer of Love, was the title story of PS Publishing’s first new-look Postscripts anthology, a publication in which Rio has appeared three times. His short fiction has also been published by genre leaders IDW Publishing and Edge Science Fiction & Fantasy. 7 ChiZine Publications

A Tree of Bones: Volume III of The Hexslinger Series Gemma Files Weird /Horror Months have passed since hexslinger Chess Pargeter sacrificed himself to restore the town of Bewelcome, once cursed to salt by his former lover, “Reverend” Asher Rook. Now a coalition led by Allan Pinkerton’s Detective Agency lays siege to reborn Mayan goddess Ixchel’s notorious “Hex City,” the one place on earth where hexes can act in consort, and the desert just outside Bewelcome has become the front line in what threatens to become a new Civil War—one in which wild magic and science clash headlong, producing carnage like nothing the world has ever seen. Though reinstated with the Agency, Pinkerton- turned-outlaw Ed Morrow finds himself caught between factions, as Aztec trickster god Tezcatlipoca roams the battlefield wearing Chess’s body, promising aid while sowing dissent. Further into the wasteland, spiritualist Yancey Kloves and 400 PAGES her allies struggle to stop a -spewing crack from breaching the wall between worlds. And in ISBN 978-1-926851-57-0 Hex City’s darkness, Rook—Ixchel’s key supporter USD $15.95/CAD 17.95 up ’til now—plots a final, redemptive treachery of 8.5 x 5.5 his own. Trade PAPERBACK/EBOOK May 15, 2012 Praise for The Hexslinger Series “Potent mythology, complex characters, and dollops of creeping horror and baroque gore establish Files’s Hexslinger series as a top-notch horror-fantasy saga.” —Publishers Weekly

GEMMA FILES is an award-winning horror writer, and has also been a film reviewer, teacher and screenwriter. A twenty-year veteran of the short fiction market, she had published two story collections and two chap-books of poetry by the time she wrote her first novel, A Book of Tongues, Volume One of the Hexslinger Series. It was nominated for a first novel Bram Stoker Award, and won the DarkScribe Magazine Black Quill Small Press Chill award, in both the Reader’s Choice and Publishers’ Choice categories. It was followed by a sequel, A Rope of Thorns. Her latest book, A Tree of Bones, completes the trilogy. 8 ChiZine Publications Ninja VS Pirate Featuring James Marshall Satirical Fantasy

In a world where ZOMBIES control banks and governments, only one young man sees the way things are and emerges from the CHAOS and destruction: GUY BOY MAN. While he tries to end human suffering worldwide and in his high school, Guy Boy Man meets a cute PINK-HAIRED girl named BABY DOLL15 who has a that follows her everywhere. An EPIC ROMANCE begins, but forces BEYOND THEIR CONTROL are intent on keeping the young couple apart. One of those FORCES may—or may not be!—Guy Boy Man’s closest friend, a handsome African- American NINJA named SWEETIE HONEY; another could be four EXOTICALLY BEAUTIFUL, genetically engineered and behaviourally modified EASTERN EUROPEAN girls; yet another, the principal of their HIGH SCHOOL . . . not to mention an impending standardized test known as the ZOMBIE ACCEPTANCE TEST! Will Guy Boy 240 PAGES Man find a way to be with Baby Doll15 in a WORLD ISBN 978-1-926851-58-7 WHERE EVERYONE IS DOOMED to become USD $15.95/CAD $17.95 either zombies or zombie food??!! 7.25 x 5 Ninja Versus Pirate Featuring Zombies is part Trade PAPERBACK/EBOOK Napoleon Dynamite, part The Matrix, and ALL May 15, 2012 AWESOME. It’s the first book in the How To End Human Suffering series.

“Unlike zombies, this book never ambles or staggers!” —The Frightened Whisper

“Brilliant! Fun and thought-provoking! Like a pajama party pillow fight!” —Hot Young Girls

JAMES MARSHALL’S short fiction has appeared in numerous Canadian literary magazines: PRISM International, The Malahat Review, Exile, The Literary Quarterly, and Prairie Fire. A collection of his short stories, Let’s Not Let a Little Thing Like the End of the World Come Between Us, was published by Thistledown Press in 2004, and it was shortlisted for both the 2005 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Caribbean and Canada Region) in the ‘Best First Book’ category, and the ReLit Award for short fiction. James lives and writes in BC. ChiZine Publications 9 Rasputin’s Bastards David Nickle Science Fiction

They were the beautiful dreamers. From a hidden city deep in the Ural mountains, they walked the world as the coldest of Cold Warriors, under the command of the Kremlin and under the power of their own expansive minds. They slipped into the minds of Russia’s enemies with diabolical ease, and drove their human puppets to murder, and worse. They moved as Gods. And as Gods, they might have remade the world.

It is the 1990s. The Cold War is long finished. In a remote Labrador fishing village, an old woman known only as Babushka foresees her ending through the harbour ice, in the eye of a dying kraken–and vows to have none of it. Beaten insensible and cast adrift in a life raft, ex-KGB agent Alexei Kilodovich is dragged to the deck of a ship full of criminals, and with them he will embark on a journey that will change everything he knows 500 PAGES about himself. And from a suite in an unseen hotel ISBN 978-1-926851-59-4 in the heart of Manhattan, an old warrior named USD $15.95/CAD $17.95 Kolyokov sets out with an open heart, to gather 9 x 6 together the youngest members of his immense, and immensely talented, family. They are more Trade PAPERBACK/EBOOK beautiful, and more terrible, than any who came June 15, 2012 before them. They are Rasputin’s bastards. And they will remake the world.

Praise for David Nickle’s Eutopia

“Toronto author David Nickle’s debut novel, the followup to his brilliantly wicked collection of horror stories Monstrous Affections, establishes him as a worthy heir to the mantle of .” —Alex Good, The National Post

DAVID NICKLE is a Toronto-based author and journalist whose fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies like Cemetery Dance, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, the Frights series and the Queer Fear series. Some of it has been collected in his book of stories, Monstrous Affections. His first solo novel, Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism, led the National Post to call him “a worthy heir to the mantle of Stephen King.” 10 ChiZine Publications

Imaginarium 2012: The Best Canadian Speculative Fiction Writing Edited by Sandra Kasturi & Halli Villegas

Imaginarium 2012: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing is a reprint anthology to be co-published annually by ChiZine Publications and Tightrope Books, collecting speculative short fiction and poetry (science fiction, fantasy, horror, , etc.) that represents the best work produced by Canadian writers.

Canadian speculative fiction has been increasingly recognized internationally for the calibre of its authors and their insight into the nature of social and religious identities, the implications of new technologies, and the relationship between humankind and its environments. We use the term “speculative fiction” in order to free ourselves from the associations of terms like “science fiction,” 300 PAGES “horror,” and “fantasy.” At their best, these stories ISBN 978-0-926851-67-9 disrupt habits, overcome barriers of cultural perception to make the strange through USD $15.95/17.95 CAD the use of speculative elements such as magic and 9 x 6 technology. They provide glimpses of alternate Trade PAPERBACK realities and possible futures and pasts that provoke an ethical, social, political, environmental July 15, 2012 and biological inquiry into what it means to be human.

Featuring: Kelley Armstrong, Cory Doctorow. Gemma Files, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, David Nickle, Geoff Ryman, Peter Watts, Rio Youers, and more

SANDRA KASTURI is a writer, editor, book reviewer and the co- publisher of ChiZine Publications. She has written three poetry chapbooks and has edited the poetry anthology, The Stars As Seen from this Particular Angle of Night. She is the author of two poetry collections, The Animal Bridegroom(2007), and Come Late to the Love of Birds (2012), both from Tightrope Books. Her fiction and poetry has appeared in various magazines and anthologies.

HALLI VILLEGAS is a writer, editor, and the publisher of Tightrope Books. She has published two books of poetry: Red Promises (Guernica Editions, 2001) and In the Silence Absence Makes (Guernica Editions, 2004). The Hair Wreath, a collection of ghost stories, was published in 2010 by ChiZine Publications.

ChiZine Publications 12 Enter, Night Michael Rowe Horror

The year is 1972. Widowed Christina Parr, her daughter Morgan, and her brother-in-law Jeremy have returned to the remote northern Ontario mining town of Parr’s Landing, the place from which Christina fled before Morgan was born. Built on the site of a decimated 17th-century Jesuit mission to the Ojibwa, Parr’s Landing is a town with secrets of its own buried in the caves around Bradley Lake. A three-hundred-year-old horror slumbers there, calling out to the insane and the murderous for centuries, begging for release—an invitation that has finally been answered.

420 PAGES • ISBN 978-1926851457 • USD $15.95 • 6 x 9 • PAPERBACK

Bearded Women Teresa Milbrodt Short Stories/Fantasy A woman trying to have a child has a parasitic twin, an extra lower torso, and set of legs named Bianca—should she have “Bianca’s Body” removed to improve her chances at conception? A bearded lady considers coming out of the closet about her hirsute nature in “Mr. Chicken.” A woman with four ears gets a chance to make extra money as the mascot of a tattoo parlour, and encounters a middle- aged, cookie-baking stalker who believes she is a sign that the end of the world is nigh. Meet the “freaks”—they’re mothers, wives, and lovers: all of them trying negotiate a world that is quicker to stare than sympathize. 250 PAGES • ISBN 978-1926851464• USD $15.95 • 5 x 7.25 • PAPERBACK

The Pattern Scars Caitlin Sweet Fantasy Nola is born into poverty in Sarsenay City. When her mother realizes that Nola has the gift of Othersight and can foretell the future, she sells her to a brothel seer, who teaches the girl to harness her gift. When a handsome young Otherseer from the castle promises to teach her, she eagerly embraces the prospects of luxury beyond what she can imagine and safety from a killer who stalks girls by night. Little does she know that she will soon be drawn into a web of murder, treachery, and obsessive desire that will threaten the people and land she holds dear.

375 PAGES • ISBN 978-1926851433 • USD $16.95 • 6 x 9 • PAPERBACK 13 ChiZine Publications Briarpatch Tim Pratt Dark Fantasy Darrin’s life has been going downhill ever since his girlfriend Bridget walked out on him and killed herself. In his to find out why Bridget took her own life, he encounters a depressive (and possibly immortal) cult leader; a man with a car that can drive out of this world and into others; a beautiful psychotic with a chrome shotgun; and a bridge that, maybe, leads to heaven. Darrin’s journey leads him into a place called the Briarpatch, which is either the crawlspace of the universe, or a series of ambitious building projects abandoned by God, or a tangle of alternative universes, depending on who you ask.

300 PAGES • ISBN 978-1926851440 • USD $15.95 • 6 x 9 • PAPERBACK

Picking Up the Ghost Tone Milazzo Dark Fantasy When a letter informs fourteen-year-old Cinque Williams of the passing of the father he never met, he is faced with an incomplete past and an uncertain future. A curse meant for his father condemns Cinque to a slow death even as it opens his eyes to the strange otherworld around him. With help from the ghost Willy T, an enigmatic White Woman named Iku, an African Loa, and a devious shape-shifter, Cinque gathers the tools to confront the ghost of his dead father. But he will learn that sometimes too much knowledge can be dangerous—and the people he trusts most are those poised to betray him.

263 PAGES • ISBN 978-1926851358• USD $15.95 • 5.5 x 8.5 • PAPERBACK

Isles of the Forsaken Carolyn Ives Gilman Fantasy The Forsaken Isles are on the brink of revolution. Three individuals are about to push it over the edge and trigger events that will lead to a final showdown between ancient forces and the new overlords of the land. Spaeth Dobrin is destined to life as a ritual healer. Is it slavery, or is it love? Meanwhile, Harg, the troubled and rebellious veteran, returns to find his home transformed by conquest. And Nathaway, the well-intentioned imperialist, arrives to teach Spaeth’s people “civilization,” only to become an explorer in the strange realm of the Forsakens.

312 PAGES • ISBN 978-1926851365 • USD $15.95 • 6 x 9 • PAPERBACK 14 ChiZine Publications The Door to Lost Pages Claude Lalumière Dark Fantasy On her tenth birthday, Aydee runs away from home and from her neglectful parents. After a series of bewildering encounters with strange creatures, she is lead to a bookshop called Lost Pages, where she steps into a , sometimes dangerous, but exciting life. Aydee grows up at the reality-hopping store, where the clientele is either eccentric or desperate. She is repeatedly drawn into an eternal war between enigmatic gods and , until the day she is confronted by her worst nightmare: herself.

“Insanely imaginative . . . Lalumière’s talents are on full display in this cerebral, erotic, and hypnotically compelling tale of bibliophilic wonder.” —Publishers Weekly

205 PAGES • ISBN 978-1-926851-12-9 • USD $11.95 • 7.25 x 5 • trade PAPERBACK/EBOOK

The Fecund’s Melancholy Daughter Brent Hayward Science Fiction/Fantasy Clouds over Nowy Solum have not parted in a hundred years. Gods have deserted their temples. In the last days of a dying city, the decadent chatelaine chooses a forbidden lover, separating twin outcasts and setting them on independent trajectories that might finally bring down the palace. Then, screaming from the skies, a lone god reappears, briefly, and a limbless prophet is carried through South Gate, into Nowy Solum, with a message for all: beyond the city, something ancient and monumental has come awake.

“[Brent Hayward]’s second novel combines elegant writing with moral ambiguity and an impressive array of characters.” —Locus

245 PAGES • ISBN 978-1-926851-13-6 • USD $15.95 • 8.5 x 5.5 • trade PAPERBACK/EBOOK

A Rope of Thorns: Volume II of the Hexslinger Series Gemma Files Horror/Fantasy/Western Arizona, 1867. As consort to resurrected Mayan goddess Ixchel, hexslinger “Reverend” Asher Rook has founded “Hex City,” a place where magicians can live and work together safely. But this tenuous peace is threatened by the approach of Rook’s former lover, Chess Pargeter, bent on revenge over Rook’s betrayal, dragging Pinkerton agent-turned-outlaw Ed Morrow along with him. Chess, Morrow, and young spiritualist Yancey Colder will all have to shed yet more blood as they face down Chess’s mysterious patron , known only as the Enemy, and all others he’s made along the way.

“Potent mythology and dollops of creeping horror establish Files’s series as a top- notch fantasy-horror saga.” —Library Journal

329 PAGES • ISBN 978-1-926851-14-3 • USD $15.95 • 8.5 x 5.5 • trade PAPERBACK/EBOOK 15 ChiZine Publications Every Shallow Cut Tom Piccirilli Crime/ He’s nameless, faceless, and has nothing left to lose—and now he has a gun. Alone except for his beloved bulldog, Churchill, a despondent man who’s failed at his career, his marriage, and his own simple hopes makes his way across the fierce American landscape and the spectacle of his own bitter past. As he heads home to his distant brother, he witnesses various tragedies and crimes which bring out the killer in him.

“. . . Ninety minutes spent with Every Shallow Cut will sting.” —Thomas Gaughan, Booklist

164 PAGES • ISBN 978-1-926851-10-5 • USD $10.95 • 7.25 x 5 • trade PAPERBACK/EBOOK

Napier’s Bones Derryl Murphy Science Fiction, Action/Adventure Dom is a numerate, someone able to see and control numbers and use them as a form of magic. While seeking a mathematical item of immense power that has only been whispered about, it all goes south for Dom, and he finds himself on the run across three countries on two continents, with two unlikely companions in tow and a numerate of unfathomable strength hot on his tail.

“. . . Napier’s Bones is a consistently compelling and inventive read. Think of it as liter- ary prog-rock, stretching the bounds of what is possible . . .” —Ian Daffern, Quill & Quire

253 PAGES • ISBN 978-1-926851-09-9 • USD $15.95 • 8.5 x 5.5 • trade PAPERBACK/EBOOK

Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism David Nickle Horror The year is 1911. Near Cracked Wheel, Montana, a terrible illness leaves Jason Thistledown an orphan, stranded in his dead mother’s cabin until the spring thaw shows him the true meaning of devastation—and the barest thread of hope. At the edge of the utopian mill town of Eliada, Idaho, Doctor Andrew Waggoner faces a Klansman’s noose and glimpses wonder in the twisting face of the patient known only as Mister Juke. And deep in a mountain lake overlooking that town, something stirs.

“David Nickle writes ’em damned weird and damned good and damned dark. He is bourbon-rough, poetic and vivid. Don’t miss this one.” —Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother

321 PAGES • ISBN 978-1-926851-11-2 • USD $15.95 • 9 x 6 • trade PAPERBACK/EBOOK 16 ChiZine Publications Major Karnage Gord Zajac Satiric Science Fiction It has been twenty years since The War, and Major John Karnage has finally settled into retirement: locked up in an insane asylum, with an explosive device embedded in the back of his neck to curb his violent tendencies. The world’s inhabitants live happy, profitable lives under the global rule of the benevolent Dabney Corporation, until an invading armada of aliens threatens to destroy the Earth, and it’s up to Major Karnage to stop them—as long as he doesn’t accidentally blow his own head off first.

“Zajac’s writing has a strong element of the absurd . . . A recommended read for space fiction fans.” —Ashalen Sims, Suite101.com

336 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-98-13746-6-6 • USD $15.95 • 8.5 x 5.5

Nexus : Ascension Robert Boyczuk Dark Science Fiction/ After returning home from a thirty-year trade mission, the crew of the Ea wake from cryonic suspension to find that their home world, Bh’Haret, is dead. Their fuel and other supplies nearly exhausted, the crew of the Ea has little choice but to make planet fall on Bh’Haret, infected with a virulent and deadly disease. In a desperate scramble to save themselves, the crew members must each, in his or her own way, come to terms with the death of their world—and try to rekindle a belief in the possibility of life.

“(P)age-turning thrills aplenty . . . The dystopian human dynamics (are) the stuff of an epic nihilistic hangover.” —Publishers Weekly

384 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-9-813746-8-0 • USD $15.95 • 8.5 x 5.5

The Hair Wreath and Other Stories Halli Villegas Dark Literary Fiction/Short Stories Girls and boys disappear; couples caught in the heat and suppressed rage of urban life are haunted by the ghosts of their own making; neighbourhoods drift in the murky atmosphere of buried emotions. These strange stories gather and weave themselves together into a wreath of memories, illustrating the disconnect amongst people and the places they inhabit—the gap that allows the to flourish.

“Slippery, evocative, tasty. Elegantly and eloquently unsettling.” —Ursula Pflug, author of After the Fires and Green Music

250 PAGES • ISBN 978-1-926851-02-0 • USD $15.95 • 7.25 x 5 ChiZine Publications 17 Sarah Court Craig Davidson Dark Literary Fiction/Science Fiction Meet the residents of Sarah Court . . . The haunted father of a washed-up stuntman. A disgraced surgeon and his son, a broken-down boxer. A father set on permanent self-destruct and his daughter, a reluctant power lifter. A fireworks- maker and his daughter. A very peculiar boy and his equally peculiar adopted family. Five houses. Five families. One block. Ask yourself: How well do you know your neighbours? How well do you know your own family? Ultimately, how well do you know yourself? Do you want to know? Welcome to Sarah Court: make yourself at home.

“(T)here is a boundless humanity in Mr. Davidson’s writing: a love of life that is beautifully woven with an acute sense of its darkness.” — 310 PAGES • ISBN 978-1-96851-00-6 • USD $15.95 • 7.25 x 5

In The Mean Time Paul Tremblay Dark Literary Fiction/Fantasy/Short Stories A history teacher begins his unorthodox senior course with clips from an ominous surveillance video, causing a student’s home life to deteriorate. A girl with a second head that changes into different historical and fictional identities tries to find her father. A once-awkward teen holes up in a kiddie- themed amusement park after the end of the world. This collection by Paul G. Tremblay (author of The Little Sleep and No Sleep Till Wonderland) features fifteen stories of fear and paranoia, stories of apocalypses both societal and personal, and stories of longing and coping.

“Powerful, emotional and unforgettable; these are stories that work their way into your brain and into your heart. Highly recommended.” —Ann Vandermeer, -winning editor of 216 PAGES • ISBN 978-1-926851-06-8 • USD $15.95 • 8.5 x 5.5

People Live Still In Cashtown Corners Tony Burgess Dark Literary Fiction Bob Clark owns the Self Serve in Cashtown Corners. It’s the only business there and Bob is the only resident. He’s never been comfortable around other people. Until he starts to kill them. And murder, Bob soon discovers, is magic. People Live Still in Cashtown Corners is Bob’s account of a tragedy we all thought was senseless.

“Buy all his books.” —Now Magazine

203 PAGES • ISBN 978-1-926851-04-4 • USD $13.95 • 7.25 x 5 18 ChiZine Publications Chasing the Dragon Nicholas Kaufmann Horror/Fantasy • Nominated for the Shirley Jackson and International Thriller Award •

Centuries ago, St. George failed in his mission to kill a deadly dragon. To this day it still walks the Earth, protected by an undead army and pursuing the last of St. George’s line: Georgia Quincey. She is the last, best hope for defeating the Dragon once and for all, but Georgia is also an addict, driven to the needle by the weight of her responsibility and the loss of everyone she has ever loved. Tracking her nemesis to Buckshot, New Mexico, Georgia is about to discover the Dragon’s terrible secret that could end life on Earth.

“(D)elivers gore, mayhem, and the occasional explosion . . . fast paced and technically well crafted”

134 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-9812978-4-2 • USD $10.95 • 7.25 x 5

Chimerascope Douglas Smith Fantasy/Science Fiction/Short Stories The first full collection of short fiction from award-winning Canadian author, Douglas Smith, Chimerascope is a story of many parts. Sixteen stories of fantasy and science fiction that take you from love in fourteenth-century Japan to humanity’s last stand, from virtual reality to the end of reality, from alien drug addictions to a dinner where a man loses everything.

“(An) engaging and entertaining volume, pieces of whose content resonate after the book is finished.” —Booklist

332 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-9812978-5-9 • USD $16.95 • 8.5 x 5.5

A Book of Tongues: Volume I of the Hexslinger Series Gemma Files Horror/Fantasy/Western The first in Files’ Hexslinger series, A Book of Tongues transports you to west—a world rife with dead gods, monsters, hexes galore and the magicians who control them. Pinkerton agent Ed Morrow must go undercover with a notorious group of hexslingers in order to map the extent of their powers­—and unlock the secrets of magic itself.

“(T)his promising debut fully delivers both sizzling passions and dark chills.” —Publishers Weekly

278 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-9812978-6-6 • USD $16.95 • 8.5 x 5.5 ChiZine Publications 19 Katja from the Punk Band Simon Logan Industrial Noir Katja, like everyone else stuck on the work island they call home, wants to get to the mainland by any means necessary. Shooting her boyfriend and stealing a chemical vial is one way to ensure her safe passage—the only problem is, she’s not the only one who wants it, and the freedom it will bring.

“(R)eminds me of Harlan Ellison at his most daring and dangerous—raw, fearless, unpredictable, disturbing, and much needed.” —Jack O’Connell

280 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-9812978-7-3 • USD $16.95 • 7.25 x 5

Cities of Night Philip Nutman Dark Fiction/Short Stories Ten stories. Eight cities. Three continents. One voice. From Atlanta to Blackpool, London to New York . . . from Rome, Italy to Albuquerque, New Mexico via Hollyweird and the city of Lost . . . all are cities of night. And the night is forever. Now.

“Philip Nutman has brought a fresh eye and deep enthusiasm to the business of horror. He’s a vital and original talent.” —Clive Barker

240 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-9812978-8-0 • USD $16.95 • 8.5 x 5.5

The Thief of Broken Toys Dark Literary Fiction • Nominated for the Shirley Jackson and •

When a father loses his son and his wife leaves him, he cannot tear himself away from the small fishing village where the boy’s memories reside. Thinking that his life is all but over, he takes to wandering the cliffs, carrying broken things that he always promised his son he would fix, but never did. They’re a sign of his failure, and they keep little Toby close. But then he meets the thief of broken toys, and everything begins to change.

“Together with his masterfully nuanced prose, the surprising twist Lebbon springs on readers at the climax make this one of his most powerful works to date. ” —Carl Hays, Booklist

149 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-9812978-9-7 • USD $10.95 • 7.25 x 5 20 ChiZine Publications

Filaria Brent Hayward Dark Science Fiction Four inhabitants of a crumbling world—a­ drug-addled boy, a privileged girl an old man and a fisherman—each search for absolution in a future where there’s no such thing.

“Hayward’s debut is a powerful, beautifully-written dystopian tale . . .” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

236 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-9809410-1-2 • USD $16.95 • 8.5 x 5.5

Horror Story and Other Horror Stories Robert Boyczuk Dark Fiction/Short Stories Love and loss are the two prevailing themes in this short story collection, featuring 19 of the author’s tales—five of which are original to this volume: “When Fat Men Love Thin Women,” “The Death Artist,” “The Uncertainty Principle,” “Monster,” and “The Love Clinic.”

“Robert Boyczuk is a supremely talented short-story writer.” —Cory Doctorow

312 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-9809410-3-6 • USD $16.95 • 8.5 x 5.5

Monstrous Affections David Nickle Dark Fiction/Short Stories

A young bride and her future mother-in-law risk everything to escape it. A repentant father summons help from a pot of tar to ensure it. A starving woman learns from howling winds and a whispering host just how fulfilling it can finally be. Can it be love?

“Bleak, stark and creepy, Stoker-winner Nickle’s first collection will delight the literary horror reader . . .”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

296 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-9812978-3-5 • USD $16.95 • 8.5 x 5.5

The Choir Boats: Volume I of Longing for Yount Daniel A. Rabuzzi Dark Fantasy When emissaries from a world called Yount offer Barnabas McDoon a chance to redeem himself, he accepts their price—to voyage to Yount with the key that only he can use to unlock the door to their prison. But bleak forces seek to stop him: Yount’s jailer, a once-human wizard who craves his own salvation, and a monstrous owl with eyes of fire who will unleash Hell if Yount is freed. And, meanwhile, Barnabas’s niece Sally and a mysterious pauper named Maggie seek to wake the sleeping goddess who may be the only hope for Yount and Earth alike.

408 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-9809410-7-4 • USD $16.95 • 8.5 x 5.5 ChiZine Publications 21

Objects of Worship Claude Lalumière Dark Fantasy/Short Stories Capricious gods rule a world of women. Zombies breed human cattle. The son of a superhero must decide between his heritage and his religion. Young lovers wor- ship a primordial spider god. The apocalyptic rebirth of the god of the elephants. Monstrous chimeras roam through a devastated future Earth. A retired fisherman is caught in the middle of a conflict between gods and superheroes. Teenagers struggle to survive a surreal ice age . . .

276 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-9812978-2-8 • USD $16.95 • 7.25 x 5

The Tel Aviv Dossier and Nir Yaniv Horror/Apocolyptic Fiction Through a city torn apart by violence they cannot comprehend, three disparate people­—a -maker, a yeshiva student, and a psychotic fireman— must try to survive as Tel Aviv is consumed. A strange mountain rises at the heart of the city, revealing the outside of another alien world. Can there be redemption there? Is it possible for hope to spring amid such violence and chaos?

216 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-9809410-5-0 • USD $16.95 • 8.5 x 5.5

The World More Full of Weeping Robert J. Wiersema Dark Literary Fiction Eleven-year-old Brian Page spends every waking moment in the forest behind his father’s house. But forests are always deeper than anyone can know, secrets hidden in the eternal twilight of the trees. When Brian disappears into the forest without a trace, just as his father did three decades before, these secrets emerge.

“(H)aunting . . . seamlessly blends literary fiction with mythic fantasy.” —Publishers Weekly

104 PAGES • ISBN 978-0-9809410-9-8 • USD $10.95 • 7.25 x 5 ORDERING INFORMATIONORDERING ChiZine Publications (CZP) books are available at bookstores worldwide through Diamond Book Distributors, as well as all major online retailers.

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Signed, limited edition hardcovers of ChiZine Publications’ books are available from the CZP website, Camelot Books, and Cemetery Dance Publications. When hardcover editions of our titles are available, they can be accessed from their respective pages at the CZP website.

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Co-Publishers Brett Savory, Sandra Kastri Managing Editors Helen Marshall and Samantha Beiko Editors Colleen Anderson, Chris Edwards, Gemma Files, Kari Maaren, Stephen Michell and Halli Villegas Comunications Director Matt Moore Marketing Director Laura Marshall Publicity Assistants Tristan Joseph and Beverly Bambury Senior Designer Erik Mohr Junior Designers Samantha Beiko and Danny Evarts ChiZine Webmonkey Barry King