Breed

Breed by Chase Novak (pseudonym for Scott Spencer) starts out with the reader meeting Alex and Leslie Twisden, a wealthy Manhattan couple, madly in a very Happily Ever After, devil-may-care kind of love.  They live on the Upper East Side, in a beautiful town house that has been in Alex's family for generations.  Alex is a well-known, highly successful lawyer, and Leslie has a respected position as an editor of children's books.  Their life together is perfect, except for one thing:  they want a child.  They want a child badly, especially Alex; he is a bit older than Leslie and considers adoption a very last resort, if it's to be an option at all.  He's old-fashioned and wants a proper heir; he wants to continue the Twisden line, and that means leaving a genetic legacy.  Money is no object, but while it can purchase every known treatment at every possible clinic with every fertility specialist they can find, no amount can guarantee that Leslie will conceive.  

Just when they're about ready to give up on trying to get pregnant, they hear about a doctor in Slovenia who has nearly a 100% success rate with his fertility treatment.  They've never heard of this man before, and they know nothing about what the actual treatment entails, but they are desperate.  When they get to the doctor's office, the place is questionable and the doctor himself seems like a madman, but they go through with the painful procedure anyway, and sure enough, it works.  It works so well, in fact, that Leslie becomes pregnant with twins.

Ten years later, the side effects of the treatment have taken a tremendous toll on both Alex and Leslie, and they've closed themselves off from the outside world, for the most part.  They take turns walking the children to and from school each day, but beyond that, life is spent in secret.  So secret, in fact, that much of what goes on in their once-luxurious home is a mystery even to the twins.  Adam and Alice are smart, though, and have long since realized that there is something very "off" about the way they live and the way their parents behave.  For one thing, they don't quite understand why they need to be locked in their rooms at night.

Adam's been spying on his parents, though, by listening to them at night through their old baby monitor, and what he hears makes him more and more uneasy.  Slowly, he begins to fear for both his and his sister's lives, and one night, they run away.  Finally out in the world, the twins begin to learn the very terrifying answers to both the questions they've asked and those they've been afraid to ask.  Their situation, they find, is worse than they could ever have imagined, and the most horrifying truth of all is that there may not be anything they can do to escape it.

Filtered Future and Other Dark Tales

"Filtered Future" and Other Dark Tales of Science Fiction and Horror is a collection of nine short stories, a poem, an article, and an interview by Brett Weiss, whose other published works are mainly non-fiction.  As the title of the book states, the stories range in genre from science fiction to horror, with some  elements of dark fantasy thrown into the mix as well.  Each piece is preceded by a brief introduction by the author, a sort of back-story which provides a little insight into things such as where his mind was when he wrote or conceived of the story, or the story's publication history prior to this anthology.  You won't miss any necessary information by skipping the introductions, but they're interesting to note.

Now, before I go any further, I just want to confess that I had never heard of Bentley Little before reading the table of contents, so I did not read the interview.  Having had no idea who the man was and having not read any of his work, I didn't feel I would really get much out of it, but if you're a fan of his work, I have no doubt that it would interest you.  The article on Stephen King, however, I did read, and it was very interesting.  I haven't read much of any of King's works either (I know, I know...shameful), but I have a couple on my shelves and have every intention of collecting more to read at some point.  I've seen film adaptations of some of his novels, and I admit I feel like they will be books I won't be able to read before bed, since I will likely only be able to sleep after if I take an ambien or a large dose of Nyquil.  But I digress.  On to the short stories.