Different Kinds of Darkness


David Langford - 2004
    Besides the acclaimed, Hugo-winning title piece and its influential prequels, the 36 stories include the British SF Association Award winner "Cube Root", and eight "Year's Best" and "Best Of" anthology choices. SF, fantasy, horror, and unclassifiable Langford weirdness ranging from 1975 to 2003.Contents: *Introduction (Different Kinds of Darkness) (2004) • essay by David Langford *Heatwave (1975) / short story by David Langford *Accretion (1977) / short story by David Langford *Connections (1978) / short story by David Langford *Training (1979) / short story by David Langford *The Final Days (1981) / short story by David Langford *Answering Machine (1982) / short story by David Langford * Hearing Aid (1982) / short story by David Langford * Wetware (1984) / short story by David Langford * Cube Root (1985) / short story by David Langford * Notes for a Newer Testament (1985) / short story by David Langford *In a Land of Sand and Ruin and Gold (1987) / short story by David Langford *Ellipses (1990) / short story by David Langford *A Surprisingly Common Omission (1990) / short fiction by David Langford *A Snapshot Album (1991) / short story by David Langford *Leaks (1991) / short story by David Langford *Waiting for the Iron Age (1991) / short story by David Langford *Blossoms That Coil and Decay (1992) / short story by David Langford *A Game of Consequences (1998) / short story by David Langford *Logrolling Ephesus (2003) / short fiction by David Langford *Too Good to Be (1983) / short story by David Langford *In the Place of Power (1984) / short story by David Langford *The Arts of the Enemy (1992) / short story by David Langford *As Strange a Maze as E'er Men Trod (1998) / short story by David Langford *Cold Spell (1980) / short story by David Langford *3.47 AM (1983) / short story by David Langford *The Facts in the Case of Micky Valdon (1989) / short story by David Langford *The Motivation (1989) / short story by David Langford *Encounter of Another Kind (1991) / short story by David Langford *The Lions in the Desert (1993) / short story by David Langford *Deepnet (1994) / short story by David Langford *Serpent Eggs (1994) / short story by David Langford *Blood and Silence (1995) / short story by David Langford *Blit [Blit] (1988) / short story by David Langford * What Happened at Cambridge IV [Blit] (1990) / short story by David Langford * comp.basilisk FAQ [Blit] (1999) / short fiction by David Langford (variant of Comp.Basilisk FAQ) *Different Kinds of Darkness [Blit] (2000) / short story by David Langford *Original Appearances (Different Kinds of Darkness) (2004) • essay by uncredited.

San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats


Mira Grant - 2012
    Fans from all over the world gathered in San Diego, California for the annual comic book and media convention, planning to forget about the troubling rumors of new diseases and walking dead by immersing themselves in a familiar environment. Over the course of five grueling days and nights, it became clear that the news was very close to home…and that most of the people who picked up their badges would never make it out alive.

Bring the Jubilee


Ward Moore - 1953
    Trapped in 1877, a historian writes an account of an alternative history of America in which the South won the Civil War. Living in this alternative timeline, he was determined to change events at Gettysburg.When he's offered the chance to return to that fateful turning point his actions change history as he knows it, leaving him in an all too familiar past.

The Dog Said Bow-Wow


Michael Swanwick - 2001
    The reigning master of short fiction reinvents science fiction and fantasy in a dazzling new collection unlike anything you’ve ever read. Time-traveling dinosaurs wreak havoc on a placid Vermont town. An ogre is murdered in a locked room in Faerie. An uncanny bordello proves as dangerous as it is alluring. Language is stolen from the builders of babel. Those strangely loveable Post-Utopion scoundrels and con men, Darger and Surplus, swindle their way through London, Paris, and Arcadia.The Dog Said Bow-Wow includes three Hugo Award-winning stories and an original novelette of swashbuckling romance and adventure, “The Skysailor’s Tale.” Ranging from the hardest of science fiction to the highest of fantasy, this irresistible collection amuses and enlightens as only Michael Swanwick can.

Annabel Scheme


Robin Sloan - 2009
    It's a short, snappy read -- about 128 pages/128,000 Kindle locations -- and perfect for people who like Sherlock Holmes, Douglas Adams, ghosts and/or the internet. Finally, it makes a great Kindle gift. In Scheme's San Francisco, an indie rocker's new tracks are climbing the charts, even though the rocker herself is long dead. A devout gamer has gone missing, and the only trace of him that remains is inside his favorite game, the blockbuster MMORPG called World of Jesus. And the richest man in the city, the inventor of the search engine called Grail, might just have made a deal with a devil. Meanwhile, Annabel Scheme has just hired herself a Watson, an A.I. assistant who's now learning the ropes on a case that will quickly transform into Scheme's biggest -- and possibly her last.Come on. Fog City is waiting.

METAtropolis: The Dawn of Uncivilization


John ScalziAlessandro Juliani - 2008
    The results are individual glimpses of a shared vision, and a reading experience unlike any you've had before.A strange man comes to an even stranger encampment...a bouncer becomes the linchpin 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 gets 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.Contents:Introduction (METAtropolis) - essay by John ScalziIn the Forests of the Night - novella by Jay LakeStochasti-city - novella by Tobias S. BuckellThe Red in the Sky Is Our Blood - novelette by Elizabeth BearUtere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis - novella by John ScalziTo Hie from Far Cilenia - novella by Karl Schroeder

City of Truth


James K. Morrow - 1991
    Not even politicians lie, and weirdly frank notices abound—such as warning: this elevator maintained by people who hate their jobs: ride at your own risk. In this dystopia of mandatory candor, every preadolescent citizen is ruthlessly conditioned, through a Skinnerian ordeal called a “brainburn,” to speak truthfully under all circumstances.Jack Sperry wouldn’t dream of questioning the norms of Veritas; he’s happy with his life and his respectable job as a “deconstructionist,” destroying “mendacious” works of art—relics from a less honest era. But when his adored son, Toby, falls gravely ill, the truth becomes Jack’s greatest enemy. Somehow our hero must overcome his brainburn and attempt to heal his child with beautiful lies.

Berserker


Fred Saberhagen - 1967
    The sole legacy of that war was the weapon that ended it: the death machines, the BERSERKERS. Guided by self-aware computers more intelligent than any human, these world-sized battlecraft carved a swath of death through the galaxy--until they arrived at the outskirts of the fledgling Empire of Man.These are the stories of the frail creatures who must meet this monstrous and implacable enemy--and who, by fighting it to a standstill, become the saviors of all living things.

The Time Machine/The War of the Worlds


H.G. Wells - 1961
    In this unfamiliar, utopian age creatures seemed to dwell together in perfect harmony. The Time Traveller thought he could study these marvelous beings--unearth their secret and then return to his own time--until he discovered that his invention, his only avenue of escape, had been stolen.H. G. Wells's famous novel of one man's astonishing journey beyond the conventional limits of the imagination first appeared in 1895. It won him immediate recognition and has been regarded ever since as one of the great masterpieces in the literature of science fiction.The War of the Worlds H. G. Wells's science fiction classic, the first novel to explore the possibilities of intelligent life from other planets, is still startling and vivid nearly a century after its appearance, and a half century after Orson Welles's infamous 1938 radio adaptation.This daring portrayal of aliens landing on English soil, with its themes of interplanetary imperialism, technological holocaust, and chaos, is central to the career of H. G. Wells, who died at the dawn of the atomic age. The survival of mankind in the face of "vast and cool and unsympathetic" scientific powers spinning out of control was a crucial theme throughout his work. Visionary, shocking, and chilling, The War of the Worlds has lost none of its impact since its first publication in 1898.

Selected Stories


Fritz Leiber - 2001
    P. Lovecraft and the paperback era of P. K. Dick, and arguably is as influential as both these authors. From a historical context, Leiber, in fact, knew both of the authors, and his work can be seen as a bridge connecting the many different flavors of genres of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Edited by award-winning editors Jonathan Strahan and Charles Brown, this new collection of the grand master's fiction covers all facets of his work, and features an Introduction by Neil Gaiman and an Afterword by Michael Chabon.Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

Sleep Donation


Karen Russell - 2014
    Hundreds of thousands have lost the ability to sleep. Enter the Slumber Corps, an organization that urges healthy dreamers to donate sleep to an insomniac. Under the wealthy and enigmatic Storch brothers the Corps' reach has grown, with outposts in every major US city. Trish Edgewater, whose sister Dori was one of the first victims of the lethal insomnia, has spent the past seven years recruiting for the Corps. But Trish’s faith in the organization and in her own motives begins to falter when she is confronted by “Baby A,” the first universal sleep donor, and the mysterious "Donor Y."Sleep Donation explores a world facing the end of sleep as we know it, where “Night Worlds” offer black market remedies to the desperate and sleep deprived, and where even the act of making a gift is not as simple as it appears.

Dark Benediction


Walter M. Miller Jr. - 1951
    Miller Jr in 1980. This essential collection contains fourteen short stories from the 1950's: 'You Triflin' Skunk!', 'The Will', 'Anybody Else Like Me?', 'Crucifixus Ethiam', 'I, Dreamer', 'Dumb Waiter', 'Blood Bank', 'Big Joe and the Nth Generation', 'The Big Hunger', 'Conditionally Human', 'The Darfsteller', 'Dark Benediction', 'The Lineman' and 'Vengeance For Nikolai'.

Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions


Neil Gaiman - 1998
    and anything is possible. In this, Gaiman's first book of short stories, his imagination and supreme artistry transform a mundane world into a place of terrible wonders -- a place where an old woman can purchase the Holy Grail at a thrift store, where assassins advertise their services in the Yellow Pages under "Pest Control," and where a frightened young boy must barter for his life with a mean-spirited troll living beneath a bridge by the railroad tracks. Explore a new reality -- obscured by smoke and darkness, yet brilliantly tangible -- in this extraordinary collection of short works by a master prestidigitator. It will dazzle your senses, touch your heart, and haunt your dreams.

Woman on the Edge of Time


Marge Piercy - 1976
    One will become our world. And Connie herself may strike the decisive blow...

E Pluribus Unicorn


Theodore Sturgeon - 1953
    Contents:· The Silken-Swift · nv F&SF Nov ’53 · The Professor’s Teddy-Bear · ss Weird Tales Mar ’48 · Bianca’s Hands · ss Argosy (UK) May ’47 · Saucer of Loneliness · ss Galaxy Feb ’53 · The World Well Lost · ss Universe Jun ’53 · It Wasn’t Syzygy [“The Deadly Ratio”] · nv Weird Tales Jan ’48 · The Music · vi * · Scars · ss Zane Grey’s Western Magazine May ’49 · Fluffy · ss Weird Tales Mar ’47 · The Sex Opposite · nv Fantastic Fll ’52 · Die, Maestro, Die! · nv Dime Detective Magazine May ’49 · Cellmate · ss Weird Tales Jan ’47 · A Way of Thinking · nv Amazing Oct/Nov ’53