Fall is the traditional time for harvesting, and MG has a crop of short story anthologies, novels, and non-fiction works ripe for the reading during our October 25 event!
Kenneth Wishnia is the editor of Jewish Noir, a unique collection of short fiction by Jewish and non-Jewish writers including Michael J. Cooper, Wendy Hornsby, Travis Richardson, Melanie Dante, and Stephen Jay Schwartz, all of whom will be at Mysterious Galaxy, along with editor Wishnia. The collection explores anti-Semitism in the mid to late twentieth century, the Holocaust and its long-term effects on subsequent generations, and assimilation in American society.
Occupied Earth: Stories of Aliens, Resistance and Survival at All Costs is edited by Gary Phillips and Richard Brewer and features fourteen science fiction short stories that explores the idea of what the world would look like after an alien invasion. Contributors at our event will be co-editor Brewer, Lisa Morton, and Nathan Walpow.
Occupied Earth contributor Lisa is a screenwriter, author of non-fiction books, award-winning prose writer, and Halloween expert. Her newest work, just in time for Hallowe’en, is Ghosts: A Haunted History. Jonathan Maberry said of the exploration of spooky folklore, “Ghosts is brilliant, insightful and scary as hell. Lisa Morton proves that truth is definitely stranger than fiction.”
Taffy Cannon and Gary Phillips are 40% of “Thalia Filbert,” the collaborative murder novelist who crafter Beat Slay Love: One Chef’s Hunger for Delicious Revenge. Taffy will be on hand to sign copies, and explain the novel that Charlaine Harris described as “This incredibly sly mystery has everything you’d want when you bite into a dish: suspense, spice, and a new take on an old classic. For anyone who’s ever watched Chopped or even stopped in at Williams Sonoma — Beat, Slay, Love is the perfect read.”
And rounding out our harvest of talent, Los Angeles police veteran and crime author Paul Bishop, whose passions include pulps, film noir, and sixties spy shows, brings his experience to the story of LAPD Robbery-Homicide detective “Calamity” Jane Randall and detective Ray Pagan, whose ability to read the truth in their roles as interrogators can mean the difference between life and death, in Lie Catchers.
A unique collection of all-new stories by award-winning authors.
This anthology includes the work of numerous authors such as Marge Piercy, Harlan Ellison, S. J. Rozan, Nancy Richler, Moe Prager (Reed Farrel Coleman), Wendy Hornsby, Charles Ardai, and Kenneth Wishnia. The stories explore such issues as the Holocaust and its long-term effects on subsequent generations, anti-Semitism in the mid- and late-20th-century United States, and the dark side of the Diaspora (e.g., the decline of revolutionary fervor, the passing of generations, the Golden Ghetto, etc.). The stories in this collection include Trajectories, Marge Piercy s story of the divergent paths taken by two young men from the slums of Cleveland and Detroit in a rapidly changing post WW II society; Some You Lose, Nancy Richler s empathetic exploration of the emotional and psychological challenges of trying to sum up a man s life in a eulogy; and Yahrzeit Candle, Stephen Jay Schwartz s take on the subtle horrors of the inevitable passing of time. These works include many teachable moments about the history of prejudice, the contradictions of ethnic identity, and assimilation into American society and culture.
When New York City private investigator Filomena Buscarsela takes her teenaged daughter, Antonia, to see their extended family in Ecuador, it's more than a homecoming. Filomena hasn't been back in years, and the trip brings back memories of her previous life as a revolutionary. Before she's even had time to adjust to her new surroundings, though, a priest is murdered--a man who, years ago, saved her life and helped her escape to the United States. Filomena owed him her life, and she vows to find his killer. It's an election year, and the dirty hands of politics seem to be everywhere, perhaps even in this senseless death. Filomena's investigation promises to lead her back to the very people she escaped all those years ago. As the country is wracked by natural and manmade disasters--landslides, floods, food shortages, protests, crackdowns--Filomena becomes a fugitive from the law, racing across the country toward a climactic confrontation in the Amazon jungle. This final installment in Kenneth Wishnia's acclaimed series is rich with the sights, sounds--and dangers--of Ecuador, and offers a compelling look at the provenance of one dynamic heroine.
For years, writers and filmmakers have speculated about the possibility of the Earth being invaded by aliens from another planet. But what if the aliens have been watching us, infiltrating us via human collaborators, or even surgically altering themselves to look human? "Occupied Earth" i a groundbreaking anthology that explores the idea of what the world would look like years after its conquest. 20 years after a successful invasion by the Makh-Ra, humanity still exists, only they have become subservient to a new race of occupiers who now govern the devastated planet. But, as much at things continue with some sense of normalcy, something has happened in the Mahk-Ra s empire. Earth, once considered a strategic beachhead of major importance to the Empire, has been downgraded in its value. Things are starting to degrade. Our planet is the last place any self-respecting Mahk-Ra officer wants to be assigned. Yet, despite everything, life continues. These stories bring us face to face with annihilation and show how we can pull ourselves back from the brink. Featuring Rachel Howzell Hall, Lisa Morton, Matthew V. Clemens, Howard Hendrix, Nathan Walpow and more, OCCUPIED EARTH is coming. Stay safe. Stay strong. Survive at all costs.
From that cheerful puff of smoke known as Casper to the hunkiest potter living or dead, Sam Wheat, there is probably no more iconic entity in supernatural history than the ghost. And these are just recent examples. From the earliest writings such as the "Epic of Gilgamesh" to today s ghost-hunting reality TV shows, ghosts have chilled the air of nearly every era and every culture in human history. In this book, Lisa Morton uses her scholarly prowess more powerful than any proton pack to wrangle together history s most enduring ghosts into an entertaining and comprehensive look at what otherwise seems to always evade our eyes.
Tracing the ghost s constantly shifting contours, Morton asks the most direct question What exactly is a ghost? and examines related entities such as poltergeists, wraiths, and revenants. She asks how a ghost is related to a soul, and she outlines all the different kinds of ghosts there are. To do so, she visits the spirits of the classical world, including the five-part Egyptian soul and the first haunted-house, conceived in the Roman playwright Plautus s comedy, "Mostellaria." She confronts us with the frightening phantoms of the Middle Ages who could incinerate priests and devour children and reminds us of the nineteenth-century rise of Spiritualism, a religion essentially devoted to ghosts. She visits with the Indian "bhuta" and goes to the Hungry Ghost Festival in China, and of course she spends time in Mexico, where ghosts have a particularly strong grip on belief and culture. Along the way she gathers the ectoplasmic residues seeping from books and film reels, from the Gothic novel "The Castle of Otranto" to the 2007 blockbuster "Paranormal Activity," from the stories of Ann Radcliffe to those of Stephen King.
Wide-ranging, informative, and slicked with over fifty unearthly images, "Ghosts" is an entertaining read of a cultural phenomenon that will delight anyone, whether they believe in ghosts or not.
Sex. Love. Death. Food. Sometimes it's hard to tell where one impulse ends and the other begins. When a series of celebrity chefs are murdered in gruesome fashion, there's no shortage of motives for revenge. Faced with dozens of possible suspects, food blogger Jason Bainbridge and FBI agent Kimberly Douglas have no choice but to join forces. They combine their knowledge of the cooking scene and expertise solving crimes to track an unpredictable killer through a cut-throat world of fragile egos, kinky sex, delicious but sometimes deadly dishes, and simmering feuds that could explode into murder at any time.
When Tiffany Titus shows up in the emergency room with three broken ribs and an eye that might not be saved, Logan sets out to do what he always does: Find the man responsible and make sure he doesn’t do it again. But his number one suspect, ex-con Johnny P. Jones, turns out to be the least likely person to have done the deed. Logan’s search for the culprit gets complicated by a college professor who may or may not be on the lam from his wife, as well as the disappearance of a valuable eighteenth-century drawing. Soon Logan and Johnny, along with pistol-packing doctoral student Annie Kevorkian and young Afghanistan vet Vince Bolívar, are up against bad guys both domestic and international, and the only path to defeating them will place at least one of the crew in mortal danger.
A disgraced former home run king, whose rampant steroid use has left him as a testicle shrinking, soprano speaking, bra wearing recluse, is holding on to his single season home run record, asterisk be damned. When Roy learns his record may be broken, he won’t let it happen. He leaves a trail of destruction and bodies in his wake.
