Predatory kraken that sing with - and for - their kin; band members and betrayed friends who happen to be demonic; harpies as likely to attract as to repel. Welcome to a world where humans live 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 a few monsters that defy categorization, some of today's top young-adult authors explore ambition and sacrifice, loneliness and rage, love requited and avenged, and the boundless potential for connection, even across extreme borders.

Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant have brought together 15 of the premier voices in speculative fiction to explore the intersection of fear and love - in a haunting, at times hilarious, darkly imaginative volume.

With 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.

"Moriabe's Children" © 2014 by Paolo Bacigalupi. "Old Souls" © 2014 by Cassandra Clare. "Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (the Successful Kind)" © 2014 by Holly Black. "Quick Hill" © 2014 by M. T. Anderson. "The Diabolist" © 2014 by Nathan Ballingrud. "This Whole Demoning Thing" © 2014 by Patrick Ness. "Wings in the Morning" © 2014 by Sarah Rees Brennan. "Left Foot, Right" © 2014 by Nalo Hopkinson. "The Mercurials" © 2014 by G. Carl Purcell. "Kitty Capulet and the Invention of Underwater Photography" © 2014 by Dylan Horrocks. "Son of Abyss" © 2014 by Nik Houser. "The New Boyfriend" © 2014 by Kelly Link. "The Woods Hide in Plain Sight" © 2014 by Joshua Lewis. "Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They Are Terrifying" © 2014 by Alice Sola Kim.