SF/Fantasy/Horror Notes

Fully developed characters with complex emotional lives enhance the 14 stories in Joe Hill's extraordinary collection, 20th Century Ghosts. There's not a false note or disappointing effort in this volume from the author of the bestselling novel Heart-Shaped Box. Hill's is one of the most confident and assured new voices in horror and dark fantasy in recent years. (Morrow, $24.95 320p ISBN 978-0-06-114797-5)

Fans of Arthurian fantasy will welcome the reissue of John Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights. Christopher Paolini, author of Eragon, provides an introduction. (Viking, $29.95 416p ISBN 978-0-670-01824-6)

The reissue of Harlan Ellison's classic story collection, Shatterday, coincides with the release of a full-length documentary about the celebrated and controversial SF author, Dreams with Sharp Teeth. (Tachyon [IPG, dist.], $14.95 paper 336p ISBN 978-1-892391-48-3)

Gail Dayton's The Eternal Rose, the third in her Rose trilogy (after 2006's The Barbed Rose), is an uneasy blend of magic and eroticism that will repel some readers and fascinate others. (Juno [www.juno-books.com], $13.95 paper 416p ISBN 978-0-8095-7165-9)