Alien landscapes. Run-down pool halls. Modern kitchens. Ghost-ridden memorials. There are shadows everywhere, housing the dark things that make us human. Love. Hate. Fear. Hope. Although best known for her urban fantasy, and her award-nominated epic fantasy series (The Vineart War trilogy and The Devil's West novels), Laura Anne Gilman began her career as a short fiction writer, using horror, SF and fantasy themes to raise questions about what it means to be aware, to be awake, to be human. Darkly Human collects eighteen of these stories, some never-before-published, featuring work reviewers have called "marvelously poetic," and containing "a high note of cleverness, craft, and sympathy."