The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories [Tor, $29.99] contains 110 tales from the past 100 years of weird fiction collected in a single volume of over 750,000 words. Over 20 nationalities are represented and seven new translations were commissioned for the book. This is the...

Watching the peculiar, sometimes horrifying, "maverick" soap opera that is this year's election season, with an economic meltdown as a backdrop, I realize just how tough it is right now for writers of political fiction. It's tough to match the kind of stunningly unpredictable quality of our current reality, to...

Man-eating sharks, James Bond-style villains with snow-white lap cats, superheroes in capes and tights saving the world. Mmmm, yes. Summer reading. The potent fantasy of sitting on the beach or by the pool -- or at home with a hand-made paper umbrella...