Zura Johnson

• Biography

  Zura Johnson is a classically trained stage actor. She has performed in stages from her childhood home in California to the East coast, and all the way to Singapore. She has now worked in theater and as a voice actor for more than twenty years. She holds an MFA from the Old Globe Theatre and the University of San Diego.

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• Praise for Books

  “A gripping, whimsical, and inventive collection! Couldn’t put it down.” —Jennifer Brody, award-winning author of A Sacrifice of Blood and Stars and The 13th Continuum

  “In Tiger’s Tale, Colleen Houck thrusts readers into an empowering epic fantasy where women reign supreme. The thrilling quest of these shape-shifting twin tigers to redefine their destiny kept me captivated from start to finish!” —Kimberly Derting, award-winning author of The Body Finder

  “Harlan was not just a great fantasist and/or science fiction writer; he was a great writer, period.  When he was at the top of his form, from the late 60s through the 70s and well into the 80s, there was no finer short-story writer in all of English literature.”  —George R. R. Martin

  “A mix of classics from the past as well as original contributions by popular living writers, such as Laurell K. Hamilton and R. L. Stine…Readers who hope for a comprehensive history of Weird Tales or a definitive collection of its most notable or representative stories will find that the book includes elements of both but in fact is neither. It’s a wild mashup of uneven content, in the custom of the monthly magazine it seeks to celebrate.”  —Wall Street Journal

  “Fun and quirky tales and ruminations about a genius, a hero, and a role model for the ages!” —David Brin, author of The Postman and The Ancient Ones

  “Timely, intense, and oddly sensual, Shadow Lab proves once again that science fiction is the genre of genres, the laboratory where all stories become reinvented for our time.” —In the Hills

  “Full of grandeur and majesty, hope and darkness! Fans of the Tiger’s Curse series will devour this new take on an epic world!” —Sarah Beth Durst, award-winning author of The Spellshop

  “You should buy this book immediately, because this is a book that knows perfectly that you are seething inside.” —Algis Budrys, winner of the Pilgrim Award for Lifetime Achievement in Speculative Fiction

  “An interesting celebration of the century that has passed since the start of the titular fiction magazine. This anthology is highly recommended for fans or students of the classic magazine, as well as enthusiasts of the genres it helped nurture.”  —Mystery & Suspense

  “A richly imagined collection from a stellar group of writers. Do not miss it!” —Jason M. Hough, New York Times bestselling author of The Darwin Elevator and Instinct

  “[Will] resonate with readers in their heads and hearts, even as it hits them solidly in the gut. Sci-fi/horror mash-ups have been gaining in popularity, and this anthology provides a great overview of what readers can expect across this broad genre blend.” —Library Journal

  “Suitable for those new to the Tiger’s Curse series, or for those who have been gasping for more books, Tiger’s Tale will pull you into Houck’s fascinating world.” —Josephine Angelini, internationally bestselling author of the Starcrossed series

  “In his stories of fantasy and horror, [Ellison] strikes closest to all those things that horrify and amuse us (sometimes both at the same time) in our present lives…Most of all, we sense outrage and anger—as with the best Ellison stories, we sense personal involvement, and have a feeling that Ellison is not so much telling the tale as he is jabbing it viciously out of its hiding place. It is the feeling that we are walking over a lot of jagged glass in thin shoes, or running across a minefield in the company of a lunatic.” —Stephen King

  “Categories are too small—even the catch-all category of science fiction—to describe Harlan Ellison. Lyric poet, satirist, explorer of odd psychological corners, moralist, one-line comedian, purveyor of pure horror and of black comedy; he is all these and more.” —Washington Post

  “A furiously prolific and cantankerous writer [who] looked at storytelling as a ‘holy chore,’ which he pursued zealously for more than sixty years. His output includes more than 1,700 short stories and articles, at least 100 books, and dozens of screenplays and television scripts…ranked with eminent science fiction writers like Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov.” —New York Times

  “Harlan Ellison was, after all, one of the most interesting humans on Earth. He was one of the greatest and most influential science fiction writers alive. He marched with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, lectured to college kids, visited with death row inmates, and once mailed a dead gopher to a publisher. Ellison brought a literary sensibility to sci-fi at a time when the entire establishment was allergic to any notion of art. To say he was one-of-a-kind would be trite, and he would likely hate that. What he was, was a legend.” —NPR

  “There’s a real power to the way he uses the language and how he draws pictures in your mind.” —Ron Moore

  “You see Ellison’s unswerving social conscience throughout his fiction and critical essays…forcefully and eloquently—and at some length—lamenting the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment and railing against the scourge of misogynistic ‘knife-kill’ films.” —RogerEbert.com

  “The words—there is an attention to the words. There is an attention to the sound of the words. You’re reading them in your head, and they sing.” —Neil Gaiman

  “The spellbinding quality of a great nonstop talker, with a cultural  warehouse for a mind.” —New York Review of Books

  “Feisty, furious, yet extraordinarily kind and generous; Harlan Ellison was one of a kind.” —Leonard Maltin

  “Harlan Ellison—terrific prose, razor-sharp intellect, pulp gut punches and invention when needed, terse poetics…An original.” —Guillermo del Toro

  “An original and valuable writer…A twentieth-century Lewis Carroll.” —Los Angeles Times

  “Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, stand aside. Harlan Ellison is now a better short-story writer than you will ever be again during the rest of your lives.” —Ray Bradbury

  “The incredible Harlan Ellison writes as if an inner fuse is about to blow before he can get all the words on his pages.” —Anne McCaffrey

  “He doesn’t write like anybody else. What emerges is a surprising, eclectic, almost protean series of visions, often disturbing, always strongly felt.” —Michael Crichton

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• 

  • Shadow Lab

  • Edited by Brendan Deneen

    Stories by Nicholas Sansbury Smith, Ed Cho, Rebecca Webb, Tom Radford, Nick Herbert, Marie Hoy-Kenny, and Brian Francis Slattery

    Read by Gary Tiedemann, Tim Lounibos, Soneela Nankani, Zura Johnson, January LaVoy, Natalie Naudus, and Kevin Kenerly

  • Release Date: 11/05/24

  • Formats: Hardcover

  In Shadow Lab, a brilliant roster of speculative fiction writers pulls listeners into a diverse and genre-bending collection of stories, each as irresistible as the last.

  From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Nicholas Sansbury Smith comes Hell Divers: The Lost Years. In the radioactive wastes of what was once known as Earth, a man and his dog fight nightmarish creatures in order to return to their home in the sky.

  In Clouds by Brian Francis Slattery, a happily married couple finds their relationship strained when they end up on opposite sides of a brewing conflict in the aftermath of the arrival of an alien species.

  In Her Eyes by Rebecca Webb tells the story of Addie, a woman who discovers a pair of eyeglasses that offer a portal into the minds of their previous owners. Soon her obsession with a reckless woman named Nima begins to change everything …

  These stories and more await the curious reader in Shadow Lab, a brand-new anthology from Blackstone Publishing.

  • Shadow Lab

  • Edited by Brendan Deneen

    Stories by Nicholas Sansbury Smith, Ed Cho, Rebecca Webb, Tom Radford, Nick Herbert, Marie Hoy-Kenny, and Brian Francis Slattery

    Read by Gary Tiedemann, Tim Lounibos, Soneela Nankani, Zura Johnson, January LaVoy, Natalie Naudus, and Kevin Kenerly

  • Release Date: 11/05/24

  • Formats: Hardcover

  Learn More
• 

  • Tiger’s Tale

  • By Colleen Houck

    Read by Neil Shah and Zura Johnson

  • Release Date: 9/10/24

  • Formats: Hardcover, Trade Print ARC

  From New York Times bestselling author Colleen Houck, Tiger’s Tale begins a new series which reimagines the epic fantasy Tiger’s Curse and delights readers with more romance, danger, and magic, leaving them breathless and yearning for more.

  The Tiger’s Curse takes many forms …

  Anastasia and Verusha Stepanov are the tsar’s only children, heirs to the prosperous and sprawling Kievian Empire. Headstrong and fierce, the twins have long scorned their father’s opulent palace and the diplomatic obligations that come with it, preferring to train with the Royal Guard and dream of a soldier’s life beyond the palace walls.

  But with their father lost in the recent war and their once indomitable mother succumbing to illness, the young women know that one of them must soon ascend the throne, make a politically advantageous marriage, and begin producing heirs. Yet the succession is far from clear, as both would prefer the path of the second born: head the Royal Guard, travel the far reaches of the empire, and seek out a destiny of her own making.

  As their beloved mother’s condition worsens, the sisters grow more desperate, seeking any healer who might give her more time. But when a stranger arrives offering another option, the sisters refuse his proposal and banish the strange man. As he departs, the stranger unleashes a devastating curse that sends Veru and Stacia fleeing their home on an adventure beyond anything they ever imagined …

  • Tiger’s Tale

  • By Colleen Houck

    Read by Neil Shah and Zura Johnson

  • Release Date: 9/10/24

  • Formats: Hardcover, Trade Print ARC

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• 

  • Again, Dangerous Visions

  • Edited by Harlan Ellison

    Stories by Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and various authors

    Read by various narrators

  • Release Date: 6/04/24

  • Formats: Hardcover, Trade Paperback

  A follow-up to the original groundbreaking collection, Again, Dangerous Visions features forty-six short stories from giants of the science fiction genre.

  Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America and winner of countless awards—including the Hugo, Nebula, Edgar Allan Poe, and Bram Stoker—Harlan Ellison proved once more that he was both unpredictable and irrepressible in this second collection of innovative science fiction. Again, Dangerous Visions—the middle installment in a planned three anthology series—includes award-winning stories from incomparable writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Gene Wolfe, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Piers Anthony, Dean Koontz, and James Tiptree, among many others.

  Unprecedented and electrifying, Again, Dangerous Visions cemented Harlan Ellison’s legacy as the ultimate sci-fi anthologist.

  • Again, Dangerous Visions

  • Edited by Harlan Ellison

    Stories by Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and various authors

    Read by various narrators

  • Release Date: 6/04/24

  • Formats: Hardcover, Trade Paperback

  Learn More
• 

  • Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird

  • Edited by Jonathan Maberry

    Classic and New Tales by R. L. Stine, Laurell K. Hamilton, Ray Bradbury, Victor LaValle, Robert E. Howard, Hailey Piper, H. P. Lovecraft, Tennessee Williams, Usman T. Malik, James Aquilone, and more

    Read by Scott Brick, Bronson Pinchot, Richard J. Brewer, Natalie Naudus, Joe Hempel, Dion Graham, Neil Hellegers, Zura Johnson, Simon Vance, Peter Berkrot, James Patrick Cronin, Gabrielle de Cuir, Grover Gardner, James Anderson Foster, Ramiz Monsef, Eric G. Dove, Hillary Huber, Stefan Rudnicki, Edoardo Ballerini, Robin Miles, Kirsten Potter, Vikas Adam, and Kimberly Alexis

  • Release Date: 10/10/23

  • Formats: Hardcover

  Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the first issues of Weird Tales Magazine, 100 Years of Weird is a masterful compendium of new and classic stories, flash fiction, essays, and poems from the giants of speculative fiction, including R. L. Stine, Laurell K. Hamilton, Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, Tennessee Williams, and Isaac Asimov.

  Marking a century of uniquely peculiar storytelling, each part of this anthology features a different genre, from Cosmic Horror, Sword and Sorcery, Space Opera, to the Truly Weird—things too strange to publish elsewhere, and the magazine’s raison d’etre. Landmark stories such as “The Call of Cthulhu,” “Worms of the Earth,” and “Legal Rites” stand beside original stories and insightful essays from today’s masters of speculative fiction.

  This visually stunning hardcover edition is a collector’s dream, illustrated throughout with classic full-color and black & white art from past issues of Weird Tales Magazine.

  • Weird Tales: 100 Years of Weird

  • Edited by Jonathan Maberry

    Classic and New Tales by R. L. Stine, Laurell K. Hamilton, Ray Bradbury, Victor LaValle, Robert E. Howard, Hailey Piper, H. P. Lovecraft, Tennessee Williams, Usman T. Malik, James Aquilone, and more

    Read by Scott Brick, Bronson Pinchot, Richard J. Brewer, Natalie Naudus, Joe Hempel, Dion Graham, Neil Hellegers, Zura Johnson, Simon Vance, Peter Berkrot, James Patrick Cronin, Gabrielle de Cuir, Grover Gardner, James Anderson Foster, Ramiz Monsef, Eric G. Dove, Hillary Huber, Stefan Rudnicki, Edoardo Ballerini, Robin Miles, Kirsten Potter, Vikas Adam, and Kimberly Alexis

  • Release Date: 10/10/23

  • Formats: Hardcover

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• 

  • The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie

  • Edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Henry Herz

    Stories and poems by Scott Sigler, Jonathan Maberry, Alethea Kontis, Jane Yolen, Seanan McGuire, Lissa Price, Bryan Thomas Schmidt and G. P. Charles, Henry Herz, Christine Taylor-Butler, Mylo Carbia, Jo Whittemore, Susanne L. Lambdin, Sarah Beth Durst, Steve Pantazis, Stacia Deutsch, Dee Leone, and Emily McCosh

    Read by Tim Campbell, Natalie Naudus, Nancy Peterson, Zura Johnson, Emily Ellet, Cindy Kay, Lisa Flanagan, Kimberly M. Wetherell, Emily Lawrence, Stina Nielsen, Shiromi Arserio, Stephanie Németh-Parker, Alex Picard, Kelli Tager, Anna Caputo, Natalie Duke, Amy Landon, and Natasha Soudek

  • Release Date: 4/11/23

  • Formats: Hardcover, Large Print Hardcover, Trade Print ARC, Trade Paperback

  Luckily for humanity, scientist Marie Curie applied her brilliant mind and indomitable spirit to expanding the frontiers of science, but what if she had instead drifted toward the darkness?

  At the cusp of between child- and adulthood, at the crossroads between science and superstition, a teen Marie Curie faces the factual and the fantastic in this fabulous collection of stories that inspire, delight, and ask the question: What if she had used her talents for diabolical purposes?

  The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie includes twenty short stories and poems by award-winning writers including New York Times bestselling authors Seanan McGuire, Scott Sigler, Jane Yolen, Alethea Kontis, Stacia Deutsch, and Jonathan Maberry, among others.

  • The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie

  • Edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Henry Herz

    Stories and poems by Scott Sigler, Jonathan Maberry, Alethea Kontis, Jane Yolen, Seanan McGuire, Lissa Price, Bryan Thomas Schmidt and G. P. Charles, Henry Herz, Christine Taylor-Butler, Mylo Carbia, Jo Whittemore, Susanne L. Lambdin, Sarah Beth Durst, Steve Pantazis, Stacia Deutsch, Dee Leone, and Emily McCosh

    Read by Tim Campbell, Natalie Naudus, Nancy Peterson, Zura Johnson, Emily Ellet, Cindy Kay, Lisa Flanagan, Kimberly M. Wetherell, Emily Lawrence, Stina Nielsen, Shiromi Arserio, Stephanie Németh-Parker, Alex Picard, Kelli Tager, Anna Caputo, Natalie Duke, Amy Landon, and Natasha Soudek

  • Release Date: 4/11/23

  • Formats: Hardcover, Large Print Hardcover, Trade Print ARC, Trade Paperback

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