A strange man comes to an even stranger encampment... A bouncer becomes the lynchpin of an unexpected urban movement... A courier on the run has to decide who to trust in a dangerous city... A slacker in a "zero-footprint" town get a most unusual new job... and a weapons investigator uses his skills to discover a metropolis hidden right in front of his eyes.

Welcome to the future of cities. Welcome to METAtropolis.

More than an anthology, METAtropolis is the brainchild of five of science fiction's hottest writers -- Elizabeth Bear, Tobias Buckell, Jay Lake, Karl Schroeder and project editor John Scalzi -- who combined their talents to build a new urban future, and then wrote their own stories in this collectively-constructed world. The results are individual glimpses of a shared vision, and a reading experience unlike any you've had before.

You're at the city limits now. See what's waiting on the other side.