A very unusual pursuit

Sample

Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant

**STORIES BY M. T. Anderson, Paolo Bacigalupi, Nathan Ballingrud, Holly Black, Sarah Rees Brennan, Cassandra Clare, Nalo Hopkinson, Dylan Horrocks, Nik Houser, Kathleen Jennings, Alice Sola Kim, Joshua Lewis, Kelly Link, Patrick Ness, and G. Carl Purcell** **P**redatory kraken that sing with--and for--their kin; band members and betrayed friends who happen to be demonic; harpies as likely to attract as repel. Welcome to a world where humans live side by side with monsters, from vampires both nostalgic and bumbling to an eight-legged alien who makes tea. Here you'll find mercurial forms that burrow into warm fat, spectral boy toys, a Maori force of nature, a landform that claims lives, and an architect of hell on earth. Through these and monsters that defy categorization, some of today's top authors for young adults explore ambition and sacrifice, loneliness and rage, love requited and revenged, and the boundless potential for connection, even across extreme borders. As in their acclaimed and award-winning anthology *Steampunk!*, Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant have brought together fifteen of the premier voices in speculative fiction to explore the intersection of fear and love--where the monsters within meet, and sometimes blue into, the monsters without--in a haunting, at times hilarious, darkly imaginative volume. This description comes from the publisher.

Sample

Geraldine McCaughrean

Eleven-year-old Phelim and his companions, a Maiden, a Fool, and a strange black Horse, journey to the Stoor Worm's lair to destroy the long-forgotten Worm and its Hatchlings, who have been roused from their slumber by the sounds of war.

Sample

Katherine Langrish

In the age of the Vikings, two children find themselves battling for their lives against the hideous, grasping twins Grim and Baldur Grimsson; the terrifying Granny Greenteeth and the cunning and ruthless trolls of Troll Fell.Peer Ulfsson stood miserably at his father's funeral pyre, watching the sparks whirl up like millions of shining spirits streaking away into the dark. But someone else is also at the funeral. Peer's half-uncle, Baldur Grimsson. Peer watches helplessly as Uncle Baldur sells his father's property and pockets the money. Peer is then dragged away to live with Baldur and his equally repulsive brother Grim at their mill near Troll Fell. Peer lives a life of servitude, with only the company of his faithful dog, Loki, until he meets spirited Hilde and the Nis, his uncles' house spirit. Between them, they must foil an evil transaction between the Grimsson brothers and the sinister trolls who live under Troll Fell. The Grimssons want riches, and they will do anything to get them. and as everyone knows, trolls are rich... but they are also cunning.

Sample

Catherine Leblanc, Roland Garrigue

"¿Cómo machacar monstruos? Hay muchos tipos de monstruos: grandes, pequeños, los que babean, los que pican o los que gruñen... ¡Pero todos son mucho menos fuertes de lo que aparentan!"--Page [4] of cover.