The Darker Mask

Expanding on the concept behind Byron Preiss's Weird Heroes from the 1970s, George R. R. Martin's Wild Card series, and Michael Chabon's McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, The Darker Mask is a collection of original prose stories recalling the derring-do of the beings we call Superheroes and the worlds they fight to save. But unique to The Darker Mask stories is that these plots and characters color a literary universe outside of what has been predominantly white, idiosyncratic, and male in previous homages to pulp. This is the stuff of urban legends, new mythos, and extraordinary folks who might live in a soon-to-be-gentrified ghetto, the dreary rust-belt of the city, or in another dimension. The Darker Mask offers an eclectic mix of popular fiction writers exploring worlds gritty, visceral, and fantastic. Including stories by: Walter Mosley, L. A. Banks, Naomi Hirahara, Lorenzo Carcaterra, Tananarive Due and Stephen Barnes, Mike Gonzales, Gar Anthony Haywood, Ann Nocenti, Jerry Rodriguez, Reed Farrell Coleman, Doselle Young, Mat Johnson, Peter Spiegelman, Alexandra Sokoloff, Christopher Chambers, Gary Phillips, Victor LaValle, and Wayne Wilson. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A lonely young woman who finds her entire forefather family murdered in an unsolved homicide case soon discovers secret advanced hyper sense powers within herself and an advanced jet pack device invented by her father to don a dark cape, cloak, cowl, and mask to become a hero destined to not only unravel the mystery behind the death of her family but also to search the truth of an ancient order and the true love of her own heart by finding allies and making enemies to forge new truths with the ancient alien transportation device known as the time stone to overcome any obstacle and destined ones form a force fighting evil in space and time.

From the author of Ecstasy, a novel of Renaissance England’s first female poet, and her collaboration—and love affair—with William Shakespeare. Aemilia Bassano Lanier is beautiful and accomplished, but her societal conformity ends there. She frequently cross-dresses to escape her loveless marriage and to gain freedoms only men enjoy—and then a chance encounter with a ragged, little-known poet named Shakespeare changes everything. The two outsiders strike up a literary bargain: they leave plague-ridden London for Italy, where they begin secretly writing comedies together and where Will falls in love with the beautiful country—and with Aemilia, his Dark Lady. Their Italian idyll, though, cannot last. Will gains fame and fortune for their plays back in London and years later publishes the sonnets mocking his former muse. Not one to stand by in humiliation, Aemilia takes up her own pen in her defense, and in defense of all women. Named One of the Best Books of the Year by the St. Paul Pioneer Press “An absorbing bildungsroman that grapples with strikingly contemporary issues of gender and religious identification”—New York Times Book Review “An exquisite portrait of a Renaissance woman pursuing her artistic destiny in England and Italy, who may—or may not—be Shakespeare’s Dark Lady.”—Margaret George, best-selling author of The Splendor Before the Dark “The idea of a smart, beautiful, artistic woman telling Shakespeare, ‘We shall write comedies, you and I’ is as heady as the elderflower wine Aemilia’s household staff brews.”—Washington Post “Atmospheric, well-researched, carefully plotted…and, like Shakespeare’s plays, chock-full of equal parts mirth and pith to please all.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

A NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller! Hailed as a comics masterpiece, THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS is Frank Miller's (300 and SIN CITY) reinvention of the legend of Batman. It remains an undisputed classic, one of the most influential stories ever told in comics, and is a book cited by the filmmakers as an inspiration for the most recent Batman movies. It is ten years after an aging Batman has retired and Gotham City has sunk deeper into decadence and lawlessness. Now, as his city needs him most, the Dark Knight returns in a blaze of glory. Joined by Carrie Kelly, a teenage female Robin, Batman takes to the streets to end the threat of the mutant gangs that have overrun the city. And after facing off against his two greatest enemies, the Joker and Two-Face, for the final time, Batman finds himself in mortal combat with his former ally, Superman, in a battle that only one of them will survive. This collection is hailed as a comics masterpiece and was responsible for the launch of the Christopher Nolan Batman movies. This volume collects BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS #1-4.

Between 1991 and 2007 Dark Horse Comics and DC Comics collaborated on an unprecedented level, pitting their top franchises against one another in no-holds-barred throwdowns! In this collection of DC Comics crossovers, Dark Horse brings never republished material featuring a host of heroes back to fans in a single volume. This volume features The Mask, The Grifter, and The Joker in crossover action!

An unstoppable anthology of crime stories culled from Black Mask magazine the legendary publication that turned a pulp phenomenon into literary mainstream. Black Mask was the apotheosis of noir. It was the magazine where the first hardboiled detective story, which was written by Carroll John Daly appeared. It was the slum in which such American literary titans like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler got their start, and it was the home of stories with titles like “Murder Is Bad Luck,” “Ten Carets of Lead,” and “Drop Dead Twice.” Collected here is best of the best, the hardest of the hardboiled, and the darkest of the dark of America’s finest crime fiction. This masterpiece collection represents a high watermark of America’s underbelly. Crime writing gets no better than this. Featuring • Deadly Diamonds • Dancing Rats • A Prize Fighter Fighting for His Life • A Parrot that Wouldn’t Talk Including • Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon as it was originally published • Lester Dent's Luck in print for the first time

Some years after the events of The Dark Knight Returns, America has become an even worse place to live. But a hero has come to change everything, bringing an army of other forgotten heroes to bear in the war against crime and corruption. Batman's time has come again.