"A particularly interesting collection because it features emerging Canadian writers, covers a broad swath of Canadian speculative fiction, and includes as much poetry as prose." --Robert Runte--Author, editor, critic of Canadian speculative fiction. Oh, Canada! Welcome to this world-bending collection of speculative writing Canadian style. Between these boreal covers, a compilation of must-read fantastic fiction by trending and diverse authors will take readers to the next level of story discovery. New futures, fantasies and frightening realities become readers' portals connecting yesterday's print to tomorrow's digital dreams. This gathering showcases stories and poetry by many award-winning, award-nominated, yet diverse authors' and their best works, selected exclusively from Polar Borealis Magazine, a Canadian speculative fiction publication dedicated to discovering the finest ideas in a large land of divergent narratives. These stellar storytellers and poets find our common humanity, play with its evolution, evaluate the relentless tick-tock of technology and step into the seductive chill of starlight with only their imaginations to guide them against the spiralling foils of the unknown.The modern world engages with cat folklore where sleepy felines are purrfectly unpredictable, if not damned. Relationships navigate a zombie apocalypse, a curse, a technological theft, a ghostly spirit, but even those can't scare the love away. True love is a commercial venture, and in short, a long game. Meanwhile, the "other' is our tender enemy. True friendship is a lie, and all the world fits inside a cargo bay. Birds are mostly bad, but feathers--good, mostly. In a heightened and strange situation, populating the universe becomes a deeply disturbing consideration. A meal includes much more than beer and pizza when everything alive hungers and looks with more than eyes for its next feed. Never make deals with strangers--and never assume you know your teacher because we live in the matrix with our toys, don't we?