Pat Cadigan

Policewoman Dore Konstantin investigates a case of people being murdered while visiting artificial reality. Normally, such killings are only imaginary and the visitor emerges safe and sound, but not this time. To find the killer, Konstantin must enter cyberspace herself. By the author of Fools.

In Synners, the line between technology and humanity is hopelessly slim. A constant stream of new technology spawns crime before it hits the streets; the human mind and the external landscape have fused to the point where any encounter with "reality" is incidental.

"The seeds for the twelve interconnected crime stories in Darkness came from the pages of the Italian daily papers. In sparse prose that echoes the files of a police report, Dacia Maraini gives a resounding voice to the string of victims who receive only fleeting mention in the media each day. Among them is twelve-year-old Viollca, an Albanian sold into prostitution by her parents, who hope she will soon return with enough money to pay for her dowry and a new roof. And the boy Tano, who brings charges of physical abuse against his father. Two years and the death of his younger brother pass before anyone at the police station will believe him. Linking the collection together is Adele Sofia, a steel-nerved though tenderhearted police commissioner with a penchant for licorice at various points on the investigative trail, and whose job it is to hunt down those who prey on society's weakest and most vulnerable members. Told in a straight forward, unforgettably powerful and affecting manner in which the facts speak for themselves, Darkness illuminates the underbelly of Rome. With absorbing compassion and discretion Maraini creates a cast of characters who wake up each morning to a reality quite different from la dolce vita."--BOOK JACKET.

A collection forty-six horror and fantasy fiction stories from the year 1995 from a wide selection of well-known genre authors Acknowledgement -- Summation 1995: fantasy / Terry Windling -- Summation 1995: horror / Ellen Datlow -- Horror and fantasy in the media: 1995 / Edward Bryant -- Obituaries / James Frankel -- Home for Christmas / Nina Kiriki Hoffman -- Heartfires / Charles de Lint -- Screens / Terry Lamsley -- King of crows / Midori Snyder -- Professor Gottesman and the Indian rhinoceros / Peter S. Beagle -- The hunt of the unicorn / Ellen Kushner -- More tomorrow / Michael Marshall Smith -- Penguins for lunch / Scott Bradfield -- Ether OR / Ursula K. Le Guin -- Paper lantern / Stuart Dybek -- [Lunch at the Gotham café]( / Stephen King -- Queen of knives (poem) / Neil Gaiman -- Dragon-rain / Eileen Kernaghan -- Llantos de la Llorona: warnings from the wailer (poem) / Pat Mora -- Too short a death / Peter Crowther -- The James Dean garage band / Rick Moody -- Because of dust / Christopher Kenworthy -- Loop / Douglas E. Winter -- La loma, la luna / Sue Kepros Hartman -- Women's stories (poem) / Jane Yolen -- Swan/princess (poem) / Jane Yolen -- Switch / Lucy Taylor -- Scaring the train / Terry Dowling -- Blood knot / Steve Rasnic Tem -- The girl who married the reindeer (poem) / Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin -- The otter woman (poem) / Mary O'Malley -- Resolve and resistance / S.N. Dyer -- La dame / Tanith Lee -- Circe's power (poem) / Louise Glück -- Dragon's fin soup / S.P. Somtow -- The granddaughter / Vivian Vande Velde -- Daphne and Laura and so forth (poem) / Margaret Atwood -- A lamia in the Cévennes / A.S. Byatt -- The guilty party / Susan Moody -- She's not there / Pat Cadigan -- The white road (poem) / Neil Gaiman -- Refrigerator heaven / David J. Schow -- After the elephant ballet / Gary A. Braunbeck -- Henry V, part 2 / Marcia Guthridge -- Mrs. Greasy / Robert Reed -- / Joyce Carol Oates -- The printer's daughter / Delia Sherman -- Prayer (poem) / Nancy Willard -- Jacob and the angel (poem) / Jane Yolen -- The lion and the lark / Patricia A. McKillip -- Honorable mentions.

Bestselling editor Ellen Datlow (Lovecraft's Monsters) presents body horror at its most wide-ranging and shocking best. Discover twenty-nine intricate, twisted tales of the human body, soul, and psyche, as told by storytelling legends including Carmen Maria Machado, Richard Kadrey, Seanan McGuire, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Nathan Ballingrud, Tananarive Due, Cassandra Khaw, Christopher Fowler, and many more. The most terrifying thing that you can possibly imagine is your own body in the hands of a monster. Or worse, in the hands of another human being. In this definitive anthology of body horror selected by a World Horror Grandmaster, you'll find the unthinkable and the shocking: a couture designer preparing for an exquisitely grotesque runway show; a vengeful son seeking the parent who bred him as plasma donor; a celebrity-kink brothel that inflicts plastic surgery on sex workers; and organ-harvesting doctors who dissect a living man without anesthetic.