Ben H. Winters

Compelled to OBLIVION, driven to ENTROPY, all life in our cosmos can only end in one place: COMPLETE ANNIHILATION! For the first time in 70 years, the limitless fury of EC Comics rages back to life to shred the very fabric of the universe itself—and wrench bizarre tales of time and space into our dimensional plane! Our guides across this riveting introduction to a cosmic maelstrom of strange extraterrestrial entities, malevolent scientists, and terrifying technological catastrophe? Learn to fear the void with the irradiated imaginations of writers Corinna Bechko (Invisible Republic, The Space Between), Christopher Cantwell (Thanos), Chris Condon (That Texas Blood), Matt Kindt (BRZRKR, Mind MGMT), Stephanie Phillips (Phoenix), Ben H. Winters (The Last Policeman), and more as they collide with the wondrously destructive visions of artists Jonathan Case (Green River Killer), Kano (Gotham Central), David Lapham (Stray Bullets), Alison Sampson (Department of Truth), Artyom Topilin (I Hate This Place), Caitlin Yarsky (Black Hammer: Reborn) and many more! The unpredictable return of EC Comics continues here with the quantum comics event of the millennium! Galaxies will collapse. Space-time will be distorted. And your very will to exist, too, shall be broken. . . . Just remember: It's all in the name of SCIENCE! Collecting Cruel Universe #1–5.

In this "virtuoso," "jaw-dropping" and "stellar technological thriller" (Publishers Weekly, Starred Review), a mother engulfed by her own mid-life crisis stumbles upon a dark conspiracy to harvest and sell people's time. What if time could be taken from us--the minutes, the hours, the years of our lives, extracted like organs taken for transplant? What would it mean for the world? And what would it do to the person from whom it's taken? Grace Berney is a mid-level bureaucrat in the Food and Drug Administration, a woman who once brimmed with purpose but somehow turned into a middle-aged single mom with a dull government job and a melancholy sense that life has passed her by. Until the night a strange photo comes across her desk, of a young woman in a hospital bed who has been subjected to a mysterious procedure. Against orders and against common sense, Grace sets out to bring the girl to safety, and finds herself risking her job, her future, and her life on whether she can find the missing girl before an obsessive and violent mercenary who's also looking. Big Time is a fast-paced thriller and a metaphysical mystery about the very nature of our lives.

From the "inventive...entertaining and thought-provoking" (Charles Yu) New York Times-bestselling author of Underground Airlines and Golden State, this sweeping legal thriller follows a sixteen-year-old who suffers from a neurological condition that has frozen him in time--and the team of lawyers, doctors, and detectives who are desperate to wake him up. In 2008, a cheerful ambulance-chasing lawyer named Jay Shenk persuades the grieving Keener family to sue a private LA hospital. Their son Wesley has been transformed by a routine surgery into a kind of golem, absent all normal functioning or personality, walking in endless empty circles around his hospital room. In 2019, Shenk--still in practice but a shell of his former self--is hired to defend Wesley Keener's father when he is charged with murder . . . the murder, as it turns out, of the expert witness from the 2008 hospital case. Shenk's adopted son, a fragile teenager in 2008, is a wayward adult, though he may find his purpose when he investigates what really happened to the murdered witness. Two thrilling trials braid together, medical malpractice and murder, jostling us back and forth in time. The Quiet Boy is a book full of mysteries, not only about the death of a brilliant scientist, not only about the outcome of the medical malpractice suit, but about the relationship between children and their parents, between the past and the present, between truth and lies. At the center of it all is Wesley Keener, endlessly walking, staring empty-eyed, in whose quiet, hollow body may lie the fate of humankind.

From the bestselling author of Underground Airlines and Golden State, this sweeping legal thriller follows a sixteen-year-old who suffers from a neurological condition that has frozen him in time--and the team of lawyers, doctors, and detectives who are desperate to wake him up. In 2008, a cheerful ambulance-chasing lawyer named Jay Shenk persuades the grieving Keener family to sue a private LA hospital. Their son Wesley has been transformed by a routine surgery into a kind of golem, absent all normal functioning or personality, walking in endless empty circles around his hospital room. In 2019, Shenk--still in practice but a shell of his former self--is hired to defend Wesley Keener's father when he is charged with murder . . . the murder, as it turns out, of the expert witness from the 2008 hospital case. Shenk's adopted son, a fragile teenager in 2008, is a wayward adult, though he may find his purpose when he investigates what really happened to the murdered witness. Two thrilling trials braid together, medical malpractice and murder, jostling us back and forth in time. The Quiet Boy is a book full of mysteries, not only about the death of a brilliant scientist, not only about the outcome of the medical malpractice suit, but about the relationship between children and their parents, between the past and the present, between truth and lies. At the center of it all is Wesley Keener, endlessly walking, staring empty-eyed, in whose quiet, hollow body may lie the fate of humankind.

From award-winning, New York Times bestselling novelist Ben H. Winters comes a mind-bending novel set in a world governed by absolute truth, where lies are as dangerous as murder. In a strange alternate society that values law and truth above all else, Laszlo Ratesic is a nineteen-year veteran of the Speculative Service. He lives in the Golden State, a nation standing where California once did, a place where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life and governance impossible. In the Golden State, knowingly contradicting the truth is the greatest crime -- and stopping those crimes is Laz's job. In its service, he is one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths, to speculate on what might have happened. But the Golden State is less of a paradise than its name might suggest. To monitor, verify, and enforce the truth requires a veritable panopticon of surveillance and recording. And when those in control of the facts twist them for nefarious means, the Speculators are the only ones with the power to fight back.

Not just a thrilling book, but an important one' Blake Crouch, author of Dark Matter and TV series Wayward Pines'A dystopia for our times' Financial Times'A wry commentary on our current era' Guardian ___________________Welcome to Golden State, where the worst crime you can commit is to lie.

The bestselling book that asks the question: what would present-day America look like if the Civil War never happened? A New York Times bestseller; a Goodreads Choice finalist; named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, Slate, Publishers Weekly, Hudson Bookseller, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kirkus Reviews, AudioFile Magazine, and Amazon A young black man calling himself Victor has struck a bargain with federal law enforcement, working as a bounty hunter for the US Marshall Service in exchange for his freedom. He's got plenty of work. In this version of America, slavery continues in four states called "the Hard Four." On the trail of a runaway known as Jackdaw, Victor arrives in Indianapolis knowing that something isn't right -- with the case file, with his work, and with the country itself. As he works to infiltrate the local cell of a abolitionist movement called the Underground Airlines, tracking Jackdaw through the back rooms of churches, empty parking garages, hotels, and medical offices, Victor believes he's hot on the trail. But his strange, increasingly uncanny pursuit is complicated by a boss who won't reveal the extraordinary stakes of Jackdaw's case, as well as by a heartbreaking young woman and her child -- who may be Victor's salvation. Victor believes himself to be a good man doing bad work, unwilling to give up the freedom he has worked so hard to earn. But in pursuing Jackdaw, Victor discovers secrets at the core of the country's arrangement with the Hard Four, secrets the government will preserve at any cost. Underground Airlines is a ground-breaking novel, a wickedly imaginative thriller, and a story of an America that is more like our own than we'd like to believe.

Critically acclaimed author Ben H. Winters delivers this explosive final installment in the Edgar Award winning Last Policeman series. With the doomsday asteroid looming, Detective Hank Palace has found sanctuary in the woods of New England, secure in a well-stocked safe house with other onetime members of the Concord police force. But with time ticking away before the asteroid makes landfall, Hank's safety is only relative, and his only relative-his sister Nico-isn't safe. Soon, it's clear that there's more than one earth-shattering revelation on the horizon, and it's up to Hank to solve the puzzle before time runs outfor everyone.

Set three months before the deadly asteroid 2011GV1 is due to hit Earth, this Last Policeman sequel chronicles the further adventures of Hank Palace. The Concord Police Department is now operating under the auspices of the U. S. Justice Department, and Hank is out of a job-until he's hired by a business tycoon to help find the man's estranged son. Hank's search leads him to a visibly collapsing East Coast landscape where anti-immigrant militia patrol the shores, fending off droves of people fleeing the "impact zone" of the asteroid.

In THE LAST POLICEMAN, Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling author Ben H. Winters, offers readers something they've never seen before: A police procedural set on the brink of an apocalypse. What's the point in solving murders when we're going to die soon, anyway? Hank Palace, a homicide detective in Concord, New Hampshire, asks this question every day. Most people have stopped doing whatever it is they did before the asteroid 2011L47J hovered into view. Stopped selling real estate; stopped working at hospitals; stopped slinging hash or driving cabs or trading high-yield securities. A lot of folks spend their days on bended knee, praying to Jesus or Allah or whoever they think might save them. Others have gone the other way, roaming the streets, enjoying what pleasures they can before the grand finale. Government services are beginning to slip into disarray, crops are left to rot. When it first appeared, 2011L47J was just a speck, somewhere beyond Jupiter's orbit. By mid-October it revealed itself to be seven kilometers in diameter, and on a crash course with the Earth. Now it's March, and sometime in September, 2011L47J will slam into our planet and kill half the population immediately, and most of the rest in the miserable decades that follow. All of humanity now, every person in the world - we're like a bunch of little kids, in deep, deep trouble, just waiting till our dad gets home. So what do I do while I wait? I work. Today, Hank Palace is working the case of Peter Zell, an insurance man who has comitted suicide. To his fellow police officers, it's just one more death-by-hanging in a city that sees a dozen of suicides every week. But Palace senses something wrong. There's something odd about the crime scene. Something off. Palace becomes convinced that it's murder. And he's the only one who cares. What's the difference, Palace? We're all gonna die soon, anyway. As Palace digs deeper, we are drawn into his world. We meet his sister Nico and her screwup boyfriend, Derek, who are trying to beam S. O. S messages into outer space; we meet Erik Littlejohn, a spiritual advisor helping his clients through these difficult times. Palace's investigation plays out under the long shadow of 2011L47J, forcing everyone in the book - and those reading it - to confront hard questions way beyond who-dunn-it. What basis does civilization rest upon? What is life worth? What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered?

There has been a shocking crime at Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School. In a glass case in the front hall, a trophy--the trophy, the first trophy ever won in the school's lackluster competitive history--has been stolen. Even more horrifying, an outraged Principal Van Vreeland has threatened to cancel the eighth graders' long-awaited, once-in-a-lifetime field trip to Taproot Valley unless the trophy is returned. Self-appointed sleuth extraordinaire Bethesda Fielding is confident she'll be able to track down the culprit and save her class trip. But the clock is ticking, and unless she can solve this baffling mystery, the eighth graders will be doomed to a Week of a Thousand Quizzes instead. . . .

It all started with a Special Project: Solve a mystery in your own life. For seventh grader Bethesda Fielding, one mystery is too tempting to ignore. She's convinced that her mousy Music Fundamentals teacher is hiding a secret life. But no one is prepared for what she discovers. Ms. Finkleman used to be . . . a rock star? Soon the whole school goes rock crazy, and a giant concert is in the works, led by none other than timid Ms. Finkleman But is the case really closed or could there be even more to the story of Ms. Finkleman? With the help of her rock-obsessed classmate, Tenny Boyer, Bethesda won't stop until she solves this mystery once and for all

Young audience Characters: 3 male, 3 female With help from Uncle Pirate and his faithful talking penguin, maybe, just maybe, Wilson can survive the fourth grade. Wilson is just your average kid. Then one day he finds out his uncle is a pirate...like, a REAL pirate! Grab yer eye patches and pirate hats, mateys! The adventure begins now! "At heart Uncle Pirate proves more of a Boy Scout than a buccaneer, but that won't distress theatergoers under 12, this diverting and often funny musical's ideal audience... Theatergoers at a recent performance particularly enjoyed a classroom duel in which Uncle Pirate bravely wields first a pointer, then a ruler and finally a book. Education, it seems, really is the way to win life's battles." -New York Times. "There's a talking penguin and plenty of 'arrrs!' for the young'uns, while elementary schoolers and their parents will appreciate the sarcastic dialogue and clever songs...a whimsical adaptation of the eponymous kids book is Jolly Roger fun." -Time Out New York

IN ONE L. A. MOTEL ROOM, A COSMIC QUEST IS ABOUT TO BEGIN . . . More than just a writer, more than just a science-fiction icon, Benjamin J. Carp was a cultural revolutionary. Over the course of 44 novels and hundreds of short stories—including the counterculture classic The Man They Couldn’t Erase—Carp pushed the boundaries of literary respectability for the sci-fi genre and his readers’ perception of reality itself . . . until decades of amphetamine abuse and Southern California excess finally ended a mind-bending career that always just escaped mainstream success. He died in 1982. Until 2025 . . . when Benjamin J. Carp awakens, alive, in a burned-out motel on the fringes of Los Angeles. He remembers dying. He knows he shouldn’t exist. Is he a dream? A robot? A ghost? A clone? A simulation? In his own time, Carp pondered all of these scenarios through his fiction—and now, as he treks from Studio City to Venice Beach and onward into the paranoid sprawl of 21st-century Los Angeles, he will be called to investigate his greatest mystery yet: himself. From Edgar Award nominee and Philip K. Dick Award winner Ben H. Winters (EC’s Cruel Universe, The Last Policeman trilogy) and rising star Leomacs (EC’s Epitaphs from the Abyss, Ghostlore) comes a uniquely fascinating and hilariously deranged excursion into the metatextual nexus where existence and oblivion, past and future, genius and madness, and glitter and grim reality all meet just beyond Hollywood Boulevard.

From the best-selling Worst-Case Scenario series, a hilarious and highly portable manual for surviving any car disaster, from hurricane weather to high-speed pursuits. Getting into a car is the most dangerous thing most of us do every day. And it's not just the risk of an accident. What if there's a blizzard? What if your brakes malfunction? What if you're stuck in traffic and you need to pee? Good news: The Worst-Case Scenario Pocket Guide: Driving is here to help. Learn how to: Evade a pursuer on the highwayEscape from a trunkDrive down a flight of stairsBail out at high speedsAnd more Keep one in your glove compartment at all times

From New York Times best-selling and Edgar Award-winning author Ben H. Winters, this supernatural page-turner about a real-estate nightmare will make you think twice about your dream home. Susan and Alex Wendt have found their dream apartment in a gorgeous Brooklyn brownstone. Sure, the landlady is a little eccentric. And the elderly handyman drops some cryptic remarks about the basement. But the rent is so low, it s too good to pass up. Big mistake. Susan awakens every morning with fresh bug bites, but neither Alex nor their daughter, Emma, has a single welt. An exterminator searches the property and turns up nothing. The landlady insists her building is clean. Susan fears she s going mad until she makes a chilling discovery in the bonus room. Filled with Hitchcockian suspense, The Bonus Room is a horrifying tale of a dream home that becomes a nightmare. Previously published in 2011 as Bedbugs. Susan and Alex Wendt have found their dream apartment in a gorgeous Brooklyn brownstone. Sure, the landlady is a little eccentric. And the elderly handyman drops some cryptic remarks about the basement. But the rent is so low, it s too good to pass up. Big mistake. Susan awakens every morning with fresh bug bites, but neither Alex nor their daughter, Emma, has a single welt. An exterminator searches the property and turns up nothing. The landlady insists her building is clean. Susan fears she s going mad until she makes a chilling discovery in the bonus room. Filled with Hitchcockian suspense, The Bonus Room is a horrifying tale of a dream home that becomes a nightmare. Previously published in 2011 as Bedbugs.

Something that could change the state of the country forever. And in his pursuit, Victor discovers secrets at the core of his country's arrangement with the system that imprisoned him, secrets that will be preserved at any cost. â?? It is a rare thing when a writer has a fresh new provocative idea â?? and then executes it beautifully.

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters coauthor Ben H. Winters is back with an all-new collaborator, legendary Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, and the result is Android Karenina: an enhanced edition of the classic love story set in a strange new world of robots, cyborgs, and interplanetary travel. As in the original novel, our story follows two relationships: the tragic adulterous romance of Anna Karenina and Count Alexei Vronsky, and the much more hopeful marriage of Konstantin Levin and Kitty Shcherbatskaya. These four, yearning for true love, live in a steampunk-inspired 19th century of mechanical butlers, extraterrestrial-worshiping cults, and airborne debutante balls. Their passions alone would be enough to consume them—but when a secret cabal of radical scientific revolutionaries launches an attack on Russian high society’s high-tech lifestyle, our heroes must fight back with all their courage, all their gadgets, and all the power of a sleek new cyborg model like nothing the world has ever seen. Filled with the same blend of romance, drama, and fantasy that made the first two Quirk Classics New York Times best sellers, Android Karenina brings this celebrated series into the exciting world of science fiction. LEO TOLSTOY wrote two of the greatest novels in world literature: War and Peace and Anna Karenina. BEN H. WINTERS is coauthor of the New York Times Best Seller Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, which was hailed by The Onion A. V. Club as a “sheer delight” and by Library Journal as “strangely entertaining, like a Weird Al version of an opera aria.” Mr. Winters lives in Brooklyn. The Critics Love Ben H. Winters’s Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters! “The effect is strangely entertaining, like a Weird Al version of an opera aria, and Eugene Smith’s amusing illustrations add an extra touch of bizarre hilarity.”—Library Journal “Quirk commissioned Ben H. Winters to punch up Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility with man-eating beasts from the briny deep. And once again, to the consternation of purists everywhere, the result is sheer delight.”—The Onion A. V. Club “It’s a monsterpiece.”—Real Simple “While preserving the clever dialogue and nuanced love story that drive Sense and Sensibility, Winters skillfully overlays the horror elements, producing another bizarre hybrid that will appeal to the same cult Austen audience as Zombies.”—Booklist

Following the massive success of "Pride Prejudice and Zombies", and the impressive pre-pub sales of "Sense and Sensibility" and "Sea Monsters", we have "Quirk Classic 3". Like 1 and 2 the suspense will build as we discover what new monster mayhem will descend upon us this Spring. Certain to create the same buzz and excitement as the previous "Quirk Classic" titles.

Homework, hormones, heartache...middle school has no shortage of perils. Never fear, the authors of the best-selling Worst-Case Scenario series return with a survival guide for those who are facingor just about to facethis big transitional time in school and life. The handbook is packed with funny-but-useful tips for the trickiest situations that crop up in middle school, like taking charge of a too-busy homework schedule, dealing with a cold shoulder from a friend who has suddenly become just too cool, avoiding common e-mail and cell phone disasters, and more.