New Releases by Andy Duncan

At the turn of the twentieth century, nobody played better banjo than the hermit Daner Johnson, who just might have sold his soul for the privilege. When eleven-year-old Charlie Poole, tired of mill-boy life, seeks apprenticeship, he discovers an occult world of myth and legend and strange premonitions. Will the succeeding years bring glory or sorrow—or equal measures of both? The Paul Di Filippo Presents series showcases modern masterpieces of science fiction and fantasy selected by acclaimed author and critic Paul Di Filippo.

Black Cat Weekly #7 showcases new and classic science fiction, fantasy, and mysteries. Included in this issue: Mysteries “Death of a Light-Hearted Lady,” by Ruth Malone [short story] “The Soul of the Blue Bokhara,” by Frank Lovell Nelson [short story, Carl ton Clarke #7]] “Keys to Success,” by Hal Charles [Solve-It-Yourself Mystery] “Mysterious Blues,” by Adam Meyer [Barb Goff man Presents Mys tery] A Killing in Swords, by Reginald Bretnor [novel] The Secret of Shangore, by Nicholas Carter [novel, Nick Carter series] Science Fiction & Fantasy Charlie Tells Another One, by Andy Duncan [short story] Cat in the Box, by A.R. Morlan [short story] Sympathy for Mad Scientists, by John Gregory Betancourt [short story] Guaranteed—Forever! by Frank M. Robinson [short story] Tyrants of Time, by Stephen Marlowe [pulp science fiction novel] The Ghost of Guir House, by Charles Willing Beale [Victorian horror novel]

Join us for a feast! Step into a roadside diner run by witches. Attend a banquet with aliens who are as crass as they are brutal. Eat oysters on the half shell with a pair of conjurers, or scratch out a meal with warring pilots marooned on a desolate planet. Pity the ghost who must cook her way to freedom, and mourn with the warrior who seeks a final delicacy for his lost love. Search the far reaches of space for sustenance or descend into a hellscape of culinary horrors. In this volume, food is the star! Fantasy and science fiction authors Paige L. Christie, Diana A. Hart, A.L. Tompkins, Esther Friesner, Derrick Boden, Andy Duncan, Chaz Brenchley, Howard Andrew Jones, Mike Jack Stoumbos, R.S. Belcher, Mia Moss, Gini Koch, D.B. Jackson, Jason Palmatier, and Gabriela Santiago have prepared a GALACTIC STEW that will entice and tantalize, nourish the imagination, and sate the most ravenous of literary appetites. But beware! These dishes are not what they seem...

There is no light without dark; no highlights without shadows; no good without evil. The Devil is where things happen. Where stories begin. This collection brings together stories from multiple cultures, featuring the Devil both as an abstract concept and a creature, a terror, a force of nature, an enemy, a trickster, and so many more. Step into the world of shadows, and travel through Devil’s many incarnations spanning centuries of history and myth, from the Ancient Greece, African and Caribbean folklore, dark ages in Europe, all the way to the present day. This anthology features new and established authors from diverse, multicultural backgrounds.

In the tales gathered in An Agent of Utopia: New and Selected Stories you will meet a Utopian assassin, an aging UFO contactee, a haunted Mohawk steelworker, a time-traveling prizefighter, a yam-eating Zombie, and a child who loves a frizzled chicken—not to mention Harry Houdini, Zora Neale Hurston, Sir Thomas More, and all their fellow travelers riding the steamer-trunk imagination of a unique twenty-first-century fabulist. From the Florida folktales of the perennial prison escapee Daddy Mention and the dangerous gator-man Uncle Monday that inspired "Daddy Mention and the Monday Skull" (first published in Mojo: Conjure Stories, edited by Nalo Hopkinson) to the imagined story of boxer and historical bit player Jess Willard in World Fantasy Award winner "The Pottawatomie Giant" (first published on SciFiction), or the Ozark UFO contactees in Nebula Award winner "Close Encounters" to Flannery O’Connor’s childhood celebrity in Shirley Jackson Award finalist "Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse" (first published in Eclipse) Duncan’s historical juxtapositions come alive on the page as if this Southern storyteller was sitting on a rocking chair stretching the truth out beside you. Duncan rounds out his explorations of the nooks and crannies of history in two irresistible new stories, "Joe Diabo''s Farewell" — in which a gang of Native American ironworkers in 1920s New York City go to a show — and the title story, "An Agent of Utopia" — where he reveals what really (might have) happened to Thomas More’s head.

Winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella Wakulla Springs, in the deep jungle of the Florida panhandle, is the deepest submerged freshwater cave system in the world. In its unfathomable depths, a variety of curious creatures have left a record of their coming, of their struggle to survive, and of their eventual end. And that''s just the local human beings over the last seventy-five years. Then there are the prehistoric creatures...and, just maybe, something else. Ranging from the late 1930s to the present day, "Wakulla Springs" is a tour de force of the human, the strange, and the miraculous. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

An unabridged collection of the “best of the best” science fiction stories published in 2012 by current and emerging masters of the genre, edited by Allan Kaster. In “Invisible Men,” by Christopher Barzak, a maid in an inn encounters the Invisible Man who makes her an offer to be more than she is in this quasi-retelling of H.G. Wells’ famous story. In this year’s Nebula Award winner for best novelette, “Close Encounters,” by Andy Duncan, an old man is hounded by reporters about the stories he used to tell of an alien who took him into space and the dog he brought back with him. “Bricks, Sticks, Straw,” by Gwyneth Jones, follows virtual scientists forced to survive within their remotes when a young science team on Earth loses remote contact with their telepresences on Jupiter’s moons. In “Arbeitskraft,” by Nick Mamatas, Friedrich Engels strives to spread class revolution as a labor organizer for factory cyborg matchstick girls. “The Man,” by Paul McAuley, is a Jackaroo tale about a solitary woman, living in a cabin on the planet Yanos, whose life is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a naked man at her door. In “Nahiku West,” by Linda Nagata, set in the author’s Nanotech Succession sequence, officer Zeke Choy investigates an accident involving an illegal enhancement which was used to save a life. “Tyche and the Ants,” by Hannu Rajaniemi, showcases the plight of a young girl hidden on the moon by her parents, along with grags and Brain, as robotic ants have come from the Great Wrong Place to take her away. In “Katabasis,” by Robert Reed, human adventurers on a journey in an inhospitable high-gravity region of the Great Ship must use porters, evolved for massive worlds, to aid them. “The Contrary Gardener,” by Christopher Rowe, tells of the tough decisions a talented gardener in a society which genetically grows some crops for ammunition must come to when she’s recruited for the war effort. Finally, in “Scout,” by Bud Sparhawk, a reconstructed marine is deployed to a planet occupied by the Shardies to reconnoiter by making use of his “turtle” enhancements to avoid detection.

To the Fringe...and Beyond. A Tor.Com Original. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A book of animal collective nouns, with clever, illustrative puns to reinforce each collective term. Also included are the names for animal families - father, mother and baby animals. This sturdy, cased-in board book introduces collective nouns to children in an interesting and memorable way.

Discover Alabama''s curious underside with this oddly entertaining little guide! Travelers with a taste for the bizarre, tacky, and hilarious can visit the Coon Dog Cemetery, learn about the cattle-mutilation mystery, view the world''s largest boll weevil, and sip Kudzu Tea. Only a true Southerner could capture the essence of these and other authentic Alabama phenomena, and Andy Duncan does his home state proud.

A stellar collection of stories of the fantastic with a distinctly American Southern Literary accent. Magical realism is the dominant mode here, and other styles of fantasy are represented among these tales, which will appeal to a wide audience and especially to readers who appreciate the Southern Literary tradition. As William Faulkner once observed, "The past isn''t dead. It isn''t even past." And the past of the American South lives on in a long literary tradition where fantasy and reality blur. It is evident in the writing of giants such as Faulkner himself, Flannery O''Connor, Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, Manly Wade Wellman, Truman Capote, Alice Walker, and many others. Steeped in this tradition and proud to be its inheritors, storytellers and editors F. Brett Cox and Andy Duncan have gathered together stories of the unseen and magical American South by some of the most brilliantly talented Southern writers of our time. From darkly imagined, powerful tales by Bret Lott, Lynn Pitts, Kalanu ya Salaam, Brad Watson, and Don Webb to a deeply affecting and sensual story by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, to atmospheric works by Richard Butner, James L. Cambias, and Jack McDevitt, to wildly funny stories by Scott Edelman and Michael Swanwick, these original fictions will delight readers who appreciate the unique wealth and breadth of the Southern literary tradition and its natural affinity for the fantastic. With the addition of wonderful reprinted stories by Michael Bishop, Fred Chappell, Andy Duncan, John Kessel, Kelly Link, Sena Jeter Naslund, Daniel Wallace, and Gene Wolfe, this collection is a crossroads of styles and themes where Southern and Fantastic literary traditions meet. Together these stories paint a wide canvas of the real and mythic South in all its fabulous, terrible, joyous, chaotic uniqueness. They are set in all the Southern landscapes of the mind, from the shores of South Carolina to the city of New Orleans, from small-town Mississippi to the streets of modern Atlanta, from the ghosts of ante-bellum splendor to the shadows of what might be. The contributors range from realistic to Gothic, from magic realists to satirists. What they share in common is the South and the endless stories it inspires. At the Publisher''s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

This guide provides a quick and concise introduction to Onjective-C for programmers already familiar with either C or C++, and will continue to serve as a handy reference even after the language is mastered.

Perl is a very powerful tool for Oracle database administrators, but too few DBAs realize how helpful Perl can be in managing, monitoring, and tuning Oracle databases. Whether you''re responsible for Oracle9i, Oracle8i, or earlier databases, you''ll find Perl an invaluable addition to your database administration arsenal.You don''t need to be a Perl expert to use the excellent applications and scripts described in Perl for Oracle DBAs. The book explains what you need to know about Perl, provides a wealth of ready-to-use scripts developed especially for Oracle DBAs, and suggests many resources for further exploration. The book covers: The Perl language -- an introduction to Perl, its rich history and culture, and its extensive text processing and data transformation capabilities. The Perl/Oracle architecture -- Detailed information about Perl DBI, DBD::Oracle, the Oracle Call Interface (OCI), Oracle::OCI, extproc_perl, and mod_perl, the modules that allow Perl programs to communicate with Oracle databases. Perl applications for Oracle DBAs -- Profiles of the best Perl open source applications available for use and customization by Oracle DBAs: Perl/Tk, OraExplain, StatsView, Orac, DDL::Oracle, SchemaDiff, Senora, DBD::Chart, SchemaView-Plus, Oracletool, Karma, Embperl, and Mason. The Perl Database Administration (PDBA) Toolkit -- a comprehensive suite of specialized, ready-to-use scripts designed to help Oracle DBAs perform both routine and special-purpose administrative tasks: monitoring the Oracle alert log and databases, creating and managing Oracle user accounts, maintaining indexes and extents, extracting DDL and data, troubleshooting and tuning database problems, and much more. The book also explains how Oracle DBAs and developers can extend the toolkit and solve their own database administration problems using Perl.

The first book to tie together the commercial world of Oracle and the free-wheeling world of open source software, this guide describes nearly 100 open source tools, from the wide applied (Linux, Apache) to the Oracle-specific (Orasoft, Orac). Readers learn where to get them, their advantages to Oracle developers and DBAs, and how to create and release new open source Oracle tools.

Presents a collection of short stories, including "Beluthahatchie," which tells the story of a guitarist who refuses to disembark a train at Hell and his adventures at the next stop.