Projects

The Unfinished Land

Reynard, a young apprentice, seeks release from the drudgery of working for his fisherman uncle in the English village of Southwold. His rare days off lead him to strange encounters—not just with press gangs hoping to fill English ships to fight the coming Spanish Armada, but strangers who seem to know him—one of whom casts a white shadow.

The village’s ships are commandeered, and after a fierce battle at sea, Reynard finds himself the sole survivor of his uncle’s devastated hoy. For days he drifts, starving and dying of thirst, until he is rescued by a galleon, also lost—and both are propelled by a strange current to the unknown northern island of Thule. Here Reynard must meet his destiny in a violent clash between humans and gods.

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Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020

BASFF #6

Today’s readers of science fiction and fantasy have an appetite for stories that address a wide variety of voices, perspectives, and styles. There is an openness to experiment and pushing boundaries, combined with the classic desire to read about spaceships and dragons, future technology and ancient magic, and the places where they intersect. Contemporary science fiction and fantasy looks to accomplish the same goal as ever—to illuminate what it means to be human. With a diverse selection of stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and Diana Gabaldon, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 explores the ever-expanding and changing world of SFF today.

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Ignorance is Strength

The Dystopia Triptych #1

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. George Orwell once wrote of a world where abuse of power begins with an abuse of language and a bastardization of truth. Some of today’s most exciting voices in speculative fiction explore the ramifications of those ideas in Ignorance is Strength.

Edited by bestselling author Hugh Howey and award-winning editors John Joseph Adams and Christie Yant, The Dystopia Triptych is a series of three anthologies of dystopian fiction. Ignorance is Strength—before the dystopia—focuses on society during its descent into absurdity and madness. Burn the Ashes—during the dystopia—turns its attention to life during the strangest, most dire times. Or Else the Light—after the dystopia—concludes the saga with each author sharing their own vision of how we as a society might crawl back from the precipice of despair.

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Burn the Ashes

The Dystopia Triptych #2

We burn them to ashes and then burn the ashes. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, that’s the motto of the Firemen who hunted down and burned books wherever they found them. Bradbury warned of a world where our literary history is taken from us. In Burn the Ashes, some of the best science fiction authors working today continue to explore the dystopic worlds they introduced in volume one.

Edited by bestselling author Hugh Howey and award-winning editors John Joseph Adams and Christie Yant, The Dystopia Triptych is a series of three anthologies of dystopian fiction. Ignorance is Strength—before the dystopia—focuses on society during its descent into absurdity and madness. Burn the Ashes—during the dystopia—turns its attention to life during the strangest, most dire times. Or Else the Light—after the dystopia—concludes the saga with each author sharing their own vision of how we as a society might crawl back from the precipice of despair.

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Or Else the Light

The Dystopia Triptych #3

Into the darkness within; or else the light… When Margaret Atwood wrote these words, she left open the possibility that even our darkest tales may harbor a glimmer of hope. In Or Else the Light, the third and final entry of The Dystopia Triptych, over a dozen of the best minds in science fiction conclude their stories with a descent into darkness, or perhaps a ray of light.

Edited by bestselling author Hugh Howey and award-winning editors John Joseph Adams and Christie Yant, The Dystopia Triptych is a series of three anthologies of dystopian fiction. Ignorance is Strength—before the dystopia—focuses on society during its descent into absurdity and madness. Burn the Ashes—during the dystopia—turns its attention to life during the strangest, most dire times. Or Else the Light—after the dystopia—concludes the saga with each author sharing their own vision of how we as a society might crawl back from the precipice of despair.

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Creatures of Charm and Hunger

The Diabolist's Library #3

In the waning days of World War II, tucked into the sleepy Cumbrian countryside in the north of England, lies the Library: the repository of all occult knowledge for the Société des Éclairées, an international organization of diabolists. There, with a victory for the Allies hanging in the balance, best friends Jane Blackwood and Miriam Cantor begin to contemplate their futures as diabolists. But when Miriam learns her missing parents are suspected of betraying the Société to the Nazis, she embarks upon a desperate, dangerous gambit to clear their names. Meanwhile Jane, fearing her life might be at stake, embraces a forbidden use of the Art that puts everyone she loves in danger. As their friendship buckles under the stress of too many secrets, Jane and Miriam will come face to face with unexpected truths that change everything they know about the war, the world, and most of all themselves. After all, some choices cannot be unmade—and a sacrifice done with the most noble of intentions might end up creating a monster.

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Collected Excerpts

John Joseph Adams Books is a science fiction and fantasy imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt dedicated to publishing best-selling and award-winning science fiction and fantasy from a diverse range of voices, both new and established—fiction that is literary and accessible, sometimes experimental, and always full of a sense of wonder. If that sounds like it’s up your alley, then lucky you! You can try for free all of the titles we have to offer in our John Joseph Adams Books Collected Excerpts ebook sampler!

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Half Way Home

Five hundred colonists have been sent across the stars to settle an alien planet. Vat-grown in a dream-like state, they are educated through simulations by an artificial intelligence and should awaken at thirty years old, fully-trained, and ready to tame the new world. But fifteen years in, an explosion on their vessel kills most of the homesteaders and destroys the majority of their supplies. Worse yet, the sixty that awaken and escape the flames are only half-taught and possess the skills least useful for survival. Naked and terrified, the teens stumble from their fiery baptism ill-prepared for the unfamiliar and harsh alien world around them. Though they attempt to work with the colony A.I. to build a home, tension and misery are rampant, escalating into battles for dominance. Soon they find that their worst enemy isn’t the hostile environment, the A.I., or the blast that nearly killed them. Their greatest danger is each other.

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Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019

BASFF #5

Today’s readers of science fiction and fantasy have an appetite for stories that address a wide variety of voices, perspectives, and styles. There is an openness to experiment and pushing boundaries, combined with the classic desire to read about spaceships and dragons, future technology and ancient magic, and the places where they intersect. Contemporary science fiction and fantasy looks to accomplish the same goal as ever—to illuminate what it means to be human. With a diverse selection of stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and World Fantasy Award finalist Carmen Maria Machado, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 explores the ever-expanding and changing world of SFF today.

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