The Freeze-Dried Groom is one of the nine stories in Margaret Atwood's fantastic new collection Stone Mattress. A collection of highly imaginative short pieces that speak to our times with deadly accuracy. Vintage Atwood creativity, intelligence, and humor: think Alias Grace. Margaret Atwood turns to short fiction for the first time since her 2006 collection, Moral Disorder, with nine tales of acute psychological insight and turbulent relationships bringing to mind her award-winning 1996 novel, Alias Grace. A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband in "Alphinland," the first of three loosely linked stories about the romantic geometries of a group of writers and artists. In "The Freeze-Dried Groom," a man who bids on an auctioned storage space has a surprise. In "Lusus Naturae," a woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire. In "Torching the Dusties," an elderly lady with Charles Bonnet syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. And in "Stone Mattress," a long-ago crime is avenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatolite. In these nine tales, Margaret Atwood is at the top of her darkly humorous and seriously playful game.

After bursting onto the fantasy scene with his acclaimed debut novel, Elantris, and following up with his blockbuster Mistborn trilogy, Brandon Sanderson proves again that he is today’s leading master of what Tolkien called “secondary creation,” the invention of whole worlds, complete with magics and myths all their own. Warbreaker is the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn’t like his job, and the immortal who’s still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago. Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren’s capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as breath that can only be collected one unit at a time from individual people. By using breath and drawing upon the color in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be accomplished. It will take considerable quantities of each to resolve all the challenges facing Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris; Susebron the God King; Lightsong, reluctant god of bravery, and mysterious Vasher, the Warbreaker.

One of, if not the best paradox novels I've had the good fortune to read. An incredibly well written work... -MarkTaylor281 A beautiful and powerful story unlike any I've ever read... -Ddruid Finished the whole book on the edge of my seat, absolutely brilliant and amazing original story... -batikhaz Simply daunting. I personally think this is the most mature [and] highest quality work here on Wattpad. -Oyumaa Since the mysterious closed timelike curve appeared above the world of Cassidian, nothing has come in or out of it. So when an innership emerges from the celestial cloud and crashes on the beaches of the Still, a Hunion courier named Anon Selfe is sent to investigate. When he lands, he finds the blood and footprints of the only survivor leading away from the wreckage. But inside there is someone else awaiting him in the darkness: his own dead body. What follows is Anon's desperate chase up through the tiers of Cassidian to find the survivor of the crash - a young woman named Myria who is unyielding in her belief that she knows Anon from her past. The only problem is that she claims to be from a world called Nahi, which is not known to exist.