The Robert Sheckley Megapack presents 14 short stories and 1 novel by the author Neil Gaiman called "probably the best short-story writer during the '50s to the mid-1960s working in any field." Here are tales of adventure in strange futures, full of the wry wit and piercing characterizations that made Sheckley one of the great writers working in science fiction!"Robert Sheckley: the best short-story writer the field has produced." — Alan Dean Foster "I had no idea the competition was so terrifyingly good." — Douglas AdamsIncluded in this volume are:WATCHBIRDTHE STATUS CIVILIZATIONASK A FOOLISH QUESTIONCOST OF LIVINGBAD MEDICINEDIPLOMATIC IMMUNITYWARRIOR RACETHE HOUR OF BATTLEKEEP YOUR SHAPEWARMDEATH WISHBESIDE STILL WATERSFOREVERTHE LEECHONE MAN'S POISONAnd don't forget to search this ebook store for "Wildside Megapack" to see many more entries in this series, covering science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, westerns, classics, and much, much more!

    Parker, Robert Reed, Peter Watts, and many others. Selecting the best fiction from Asimov's, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Lightspeed, Subterranean, and other top venues, The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy is your guide to magical realms and worlds beyond tomorrow.

    When she fails to return, her consort Moon, along with Stone and a party of warriors and hunters, must track them down. Finding them turns out to be the easy part; freeing them from an ancient trap hidden in the depths of the Reaches is much more difficult.The Tale of Indigo and Cloud explores the history of the Indigo Cloud Court, long before Moon came to Court. In the distant past, Indigo stole Cloud from Emerald Twilight. But in doing so, the reigning Queen Cerise and Indigo are now poised for a conflict that could ruin everything.Stories of Moon and the shape changers of Raksura have delighted readers for years. This world is a dangerous place full of strange mysteries, where the future can never be taken for granted, and must always be fought for with wits and ingenuity, and often tooth and claw. With two brand-new novellas, Martha Wells shows that the world of Raksura has many more stories to tell...Contains: The Falling World #3.6The Tale of Indigo and Cloud #0.1The Forest Boy #0.2Adaptation #0.4Appendices

    Enter a world of mystics and unicorns, angels and kings -- all realized with the same dazzling style and imagination that has made Stephen R. Donaldson a modern master of the fantasy genre.Daughter of Regals is a fantasy novella concerning a unique royal line and an unusual conception of magic.The Conqueror Worm is a deliciously creepy "horror" piece in which havoc is wreaked by one lowly centipede.Ser Visal's Tale begins as a simple story told over several flagons of wine at the local inn, this novella ends with a surprising twist.Gilden-Fire is the famous chapter about Korik of the Bloodguard and his mission to Seareach that was part of the original manuscript of The Illearth War, but omitted from the published version.

    Also included is an introduction by Herbert describing his personal feelings about the filming of David Lynch's movie version of Dune; Herbert's own favorite short story, Seed Stock and tales from throughout his career, some never before collected.

    W. Jeter’s "La Valse" forges a fable about love, the decadence of technology, and a gala dance that becomes the obsession of a young engineer—and the doom of those who partake in it.… In "You Will Attend Until Beauty Awakens", national bestselling author and John W. Campbell Award winner Jay Lake tells the story of Sleeping Beauty—and how the princess was conceived in deception, raised in danger, and rescued by a prince who may be less than valiant. The tale of "The Tinderbox" takes a turn into the surreal when a damaged young soldier comes into possession of an intricate, treacherous treasure and is drawn into a mission of mercy in national bestselling author Kat Richardson’s "The Hollow Hounds". In "The Kings of Mount Golden", Hugo and World Fantasy Award nominee Paul Di Filippo tells the story of a young man’s search for his heritage and a mechanical marvel that lies at the heart of a sinister pact in this fascinating take on "The King of the Golden Mountain".ALSO INCLUDES STORIES FROM Steven Harper Nancy A. Collins G. K. Hayes Gregory Nicoll Pip Ballantine

    Whether it’s a warning message from a survey ship, a harrowing journey to a new world, or the adventures of well-meaning AI, science fiction feeds the imagination and delivers a lens through which we can better understand ourselves and the world around us. With The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume One, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and thirty-one of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2015.Table of Contents:“Introduction: A State of the Short SF Field in 2015” by Neil Clarke“Today I Am Paul” by Martin Shoemaker“Calved” by Sam J. Miller“Three Bodies at Mitanni” by Seth Dickinson“The Smog Society” by Chen Quifan“In Blue Lily’s Wake” by Aliette de Bodard“Hello, Hello” by Seanan McGuire“Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfiang“Capitalism in the 22nd Century” by Geoff Ryman“Hold-Time Violations” by John Chu“Wild Honey” by Paul McAuley“So Much Cooking” by Naomi Kritzer“Bannerless” by Carrie Vaughn“Another Word for World” by Ann Leckie“The Cold Inequalities” by Yoon Ha Lee“Iron Pegasus” by Brenda Cooper“The Audience” by Sean McMullen“Empty” by Robert Reed“Gypsy” by Carter Scholz“Violation of the TrueNet Security Act” by Taiyo Fujii“Damage” by David D. Levine“The Tumbledowns of Cleopatra Abyss” by David Brin“No Placeholder for You, My Love” by Nick Wolven“Outsider” by An Owomeyla“The Gods Have Not Died in Vain” by Ken Liu“Cocoons” by Nancy Kress“Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World” by Caroline M. Yoachim“Two-Year Man” by Kelly Robson“Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer“Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan” by Ian McDonald“Meshed” by Rich Larson“A Murmuration” by Alastair Reynolds2015 Recommended Reading List

    There is no better anthology that captures the birth of science fiction as a literary field. Published in 1973 to honor stories that had come before the institution of the Nebula Awards, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame introduced tens of thousands of young readers to the wonders of science fiction and was a favorite of libraries across the country. This volume contains novellas by: Ray Bradbury, James Blish, Algis Budrys, Theodore Cogswell, E. M. Forster, Frederik Pohl, James H. Schmitz, T. L. Sherred, Wilmar H. Shiras, Clifford D. Simak, and Jack Vance.Contents: Introduction · Ben Bova · in · Call Me Joe · Poul Anderson · nv Astounding Apr ’57 · Who Goes There? [as by Don A. Stuart] · John W. Campbell, Jr. · na Astounding Aug ’38 · Nerves · Lester del Rey · na Astounding Sep ’42 · Universe [Hugh Hoyland] · Robert A. Heinlein · na Astounding May ’41 · The Marching Morons · C. M. Kornbluth · nv Galaxy Apr ’51 · Vintage Season [as by Lawrence O’Donnell] · Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore · na Astounding Sep ’46 · ...And Then There Were None · Eric Frank Russell · na Astounding Jun ’51 · The Ballad of Lost C’Mell · Cordwainer Smith · nv Galaxy Oct ’62 · Baby Is Three · Theodore Sturgeon · na Galaxy Oct ’52 · The Time Machine [Time Machine] · H. G. Wells · na The New Review Jan, 1895 (+4) · With Folded Hands... [Humanoids] · Jack Williamson · nv Astounding Jul ’47

    But mankind is too busy hating, stealing, scheming, and killing to care. As luminous green trails of cosmic dust and vapor stream across the heavens, blood flows beneath: nations wage all-out war, bitter strikes erupt, and jealous lovers plot revenge and murder. The earth slips past the comet by the narrowest of margins, but all succumb to the gases in its tail. When mankind wakes up, everyone is completely and profoundly different. An ill-fated romance between Willie Leadford and Nettie Stuart unfolds in a world buried in misery and bent on its own destruction. After the earth passes through the comet's tail, suffering, pettiness, and injustice melt away. Willie, Nettie, and everyone around them are reborn. They now see themselves and their world in a dramatically new and wonderful way.

    The novella “A Necessary Being” showcases Octavia E. Butler’s ability to create alien yet fully believable “others.” Tahneh’s father was a Hao, one of a dwindling race whose leadership abilities render them so valuable that their members are captured and forced to govern. When her father dies, Tahneh steps into his place, both chief and prisoner, and for twenty years has ruled without ever meeting another of her kind. She bears her loneliness privately until the day that a Hao youth is spotted wandering into her territory. As her warriors sharpen their weapons, Tahneh must choose between imprisoning the newcomer—and living the rest of her life alone. The second story in this volume, “Childfinder,” was commissioned by Harlan Ellison for his legendary (and never-published) anthology The Last Dangerous Visions™. A disaffected telepath connects with a young girl in a desperate attempt to help her harness her growing powers. But in the richly evocative fiction of Octavia E. Butler, mentorship is a rocky path, and every lesson comes at a price. The award-winning author of science fiction classics Parable of the Sower and Kindred bestows these compelling, long lost gems “like the miraculous discovery that the beloved book you’ve read a dozen times has an extra chapter” (Los Angeles Review of Books). Harlan Ellison and Dangerous Visions are registered trademarks of the Kilimanjaro Corporation. All rights reserved.

    Forget minor hazards like nuclear bombs. The discovery of time travel means that everything we know, anyone we know, might not only vanish, but never even have existed. Against that possibility stand the men and women of the Time Patrol, dedicated to preserving the history they know and protecting the future from fanatics, terrorists, and would-be dictators who would remold the shape of reality to suit their own purposes. But Manse Everard, the Patrol's finest temporal trouble-shooter, bears a heavy burden. The fabric of history is stained with human blood and suffering which he cannot, must not do anything to alleviate, lest his tampering bring disastrous alterations in future time. Everard must leave the horrors of the past in place, lest his tampering or that of the Patrol's opponents, the Exaltationists, erase all hope of a better future, and instead bring about a future filled with greater horrors than any recorded by past history at its darkest and most foul. Contents: * Time Patrol [Time Patrol • 1] (1955) / novelette by Poul Anderson: In the mid-20th century Manse Everard answers a job ad and gets hired as a time cop. Time travel will be invented centuries in the future; untold centuries beyond that mankind has evolved into a species called the Danellians, who persuaded the early time travellers to set up the Time Patrol with the aim of protecting all of time from any alteration by interfering temponauts that might risk the Danellians' existence. Manse's first mission is to go back to the late 19th century to correct the circumstances that led to the appearance of an anachronistic item in an old burial mound * Brave to Be a King [Time Patrol • 2] (1959) •/ novelette by Poul Anderson: A Time Patrol friend of Manse's, Keith, has gone missing in 6th-century Iran, and Keith's wife begs Manse to go find him. Trouble is, Manse has always had the serious hots for the wife, despite her somewhat whiny voice, so it's very tempting not to try very hard -- to assume that Keith has landed on his feet and is happy where he is, sort of thing. But his honourable self knows better. He discovers Keith has been forced to adopt the persona of Cyrus the Great; rescuing him while preserving the course of history proves to be a far more tortuous business than one might imagine. * Gibraltar Falls [Time Patrol • 3] (1975) / short story by Poul Anderson: What must have been the most remarkable spectacle of known prehistory, the collapse of the isthmus at the Gates of Hercules and the inundation of the basin that is now the Mediterranean Sea by the waters of the Atlantic * The Only Game in Town [Time Patrol • 4] (1960)/ novelette by Poul Anderson: Manse and a friend manage to head off the Chinese colonization, pre-Columbus, of the Americas. 8 Delenda Est [Time Patrol • 5] (1955) / novelette by Poul Anderson: Manse and a friend return from a holiday in the Pleistocene to their own time, only to discover it considerably changed; clearly there's been an unauthorized change to history. Eventually they trace it to an incident during the Punic Wars, which incident made it possible for Hannibal to defeat Rome. They succeed in reversing the change, but know that in so doing they're wiping out all the people they've befriended in the alternative 1950s. They succeed, though, in saving the laughing-eyed Hoirish colleen whom Manse's friend has fallen for. * Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks [Time Patrol • 6] (1983) / novella by Poul Anderson: Tells of the Exaltationists, the 23rd-century cult whose obsessive pursuit of hedonism renders them unimpressed by the effects their vicious power-and pleasure-seeking could do to the timestream, including the possibility of their wiping the existence of their own culture out of history. Pummairam, a youth who takes Manse under his wing when first the patrolman arrives in Tyre, engineers much of the tricksterism Manse must use to thwart the baddies. * The Sorrow of Odin the Goth [Time Patrol • 7] (1983) / novella by Poul Anderson: A history prof, Carl Farness, has allowed himself to become the personification of the god Odin to a 4th-century tribe of Goths; he has also allowed himself to become far too personally involved with the people whom he's there to study, marrying one of them (with the knowledge of his 20th-century wife) and keeping an eye on the usually somewhat messy fates of his children, grandchildren, etc. Manse gets involved because incarnations of gods are the kind of thing that cause history to be altered; in fact, as Carl points out, all kinds of Goth tribes were convinced they'd been visited by various deities, and their stories were usually quickly dismissed as myths, then forgotten. Still, he must extract himself from the situation with care. * Star of the Sea [Time Patrol • 8] (1991) / novella by Poul Anderson: Europe in the 1st century, and various peoples, led by the likes of Civilis, are rebelling against corrupt Roman rule -- with the violence continuing even after it becomes clear that an honourable peace could be struck. A major factor keeping them at war is the zeal of a visionary/prophetess called Veleda, who for reasons unknown has had a far greater and longer influence in a revealed timeline than she had in the known history of the period. Manse and a historian called Floris, who becomes his first real love, manage to sort out the situation. * The Year of the Ransom [Time Patrol • 9] (1988) / novel by Poul Anderson: Heroine Wanda Tamberley's Uncle Steve, living among Pizarro's brutal conquistadors at the time of the ransoming of Atahuallpa, is attacked by the Exaltationists and then abducted into a very distant past by a quick-witted Spanish soldier who believes him to be a demon. Manse and Wanda to the rescue, of course. * Death and the Knight [Time Patrol] (1995) / novelette by Poul Anderson: how to rescue an errant time agent without changing history. Hugues Marot, a time traveler from the future who towers over most men with his great height, is a member of the Templars. He has accurately predicted some future events: when he is arrested and detained by his fellow Templars, he grasps a crucifix which is a "...symbol and source of help from beyond this world". A source of help indeed, as it conceals his Time Patrol communicator..

    Here for the first time are his short stories and other short form fiction collected into one volume. A Blink of the Screen charts the course of Pratchett's long writing career: from his schooldays through to his first writing job on the Bucks Free Press,; to the origins of his debut novel, The Carpet People; and on again to the dizzy mastery of the phenomenally successful Discworld series.Here are characters both familiar and yet to be discovered; abandoned worlds and others still expanding; adventure, chickens, death, disco and, actually, some quite disturbing ideas about Christmas,all of it shot through with his inimitable brand of humour.With an introduction by Booker Prize-winning author A.S. Byatt, illustrations by the late Josh Kirby and drawings by the author himself, this is a book to treasure.

    It's a man's world - but a robot's future...One day the tough, dangerous, dirty jobs will be done by robots: - superhumanly strong and invulnerable soldiers, with a built-in killer instinct- miners and sandhogs who can work on distant planets too deadly for man- incorruptible judges, fearing neither political pressure nor criminal vengeance - librarians with total knowledge instantly available...Harry Harrison has painted a chilling yet piercingly prophetic picture of the Robot Age: a time when man's 'slave' machines have learned their own strength - and the weaknesses of their masters!

    Brave New Worlds brings together the best dystopian fiction of the last 30 years, demonstrating the diversity that flourishes in this compelling subgenre. This landmark tome contains stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, Cory Doctorow, M. Rickert, Paolo Bacigalupi, Orson Scott Card, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, and many others.Table of ContentsIntroduction / John Joseph Adams --Lottery / Shirley Jackson --Red card / S.L. Gilbow --Ten with a flag / Joseph Paul Haines --Ones who walk away from Omelas / Ursula K. Le. Guin --Evidence of love in a case of abandonment / M. Rickert --The Funeral / Kate Wilhelm --O happy day! / Geoff Ryman --Pervert / Charles Coleman Finlay --From homogeneous to honey / Neil Gaiman & Bryan Talbot --Billennium / J.G. Ballard --Amaryllis / Carrie Vaughn --Pop squad / Paolo Bacigalupi --Auspicious eggs / James Morrow --Peter Skilling / Alex Irvine --The Pedestrian / Ray Bradbury --Things that make me weak and strange get engineered away / Cory Doctorow --Pearl diver / Caitlin R. Kiernan --Dead space for the unexpected / Geoff Ryman --"Repent harlequin!", said the Ticktockman / Harlan Ellison --Is this your day to join the revolution? / Genevieve Valentine --Independence day / Sarah Langan --Lunatics / Kim Stanley Robinson --Sacrament / Matt Williamson --Minority report / Philip K. Dick --Just do it / Heather Lindsley --Harrison Bergeron / Kurt Vonnegut Jr. --Caught in the organ draft / Robert Silverberg --Geriatric ward / Orson Scott Card --Arties aren't stupid / Jeremiah Tolbert --Jordan's waterhammer / Joe Mastroianni --Of a sweet slow dance in the wake of temporary dogs / Adam-Troy Castro --Resistance / Tobias S. Buckell --Civilization / Vylar Kaftan.

    . . Bradbury?You might see rockets to Mars. Or bizarre circuses where otherworldly acts whirl in the center ring. Perhaps you travel to a dystopian future, where books are set ablaze . . . or to an out-of-the-way sideshow, where animated illustrations crawl across human skin. Or maybe, suddenly, you're returned to a simpler time in small-town America, where summer perfumes the air and life is almost perfect . . . "almost."Ray Bradbury--peerless storyteller, poet of the impossible, and one of America's most beloved authors--is a literary giant whose remarkable career has spanned seven decades. Now twenty-six of today's most diverse and celebrated authors offer new short works in honor of the master; stories of heart, intelligence, and dark wonder from a remarkable range of creative artists.TABLE OF CONTENTSSam Weller and Mort Castle - IntroductionRay Bradbury - Second HomecomingNeil Gaiman - The Man Who Forgot Ray BradburyMargaret Atwood - HeadlifeJay Bonansinga - HeavySam Weller - The Girl In The Funeral ParlorDavid Morrell - The CompanionsThomas F. Monteleone - The ExchangeLee Martin - Cat on a Bad CouchJoe Hill - By The Silver Water Of Lake ChamplainDan Chaon - Little AmericaJohn McNally - The Phone CallJoe Meno - Young PilgrimsRobert McCammon - Children Of The Bedtime MachineRamsey Campbell - The Page Mort Castle - LightAlice Hoffman - ConjureJohn Maclay - MaxJacqueline Mitchard - Two Of A KindGary Braunbeck - Fat Man And Little BoyBonnie Jo Campbell - The TattooAudrey Niffenegger - Backwards In SevilleCharles Yu - Earth: (A Gift Shop)Julia Keller - Hayleigh's DadDave Eggers - Who Knocks?Bayo Ojikutu - Reservation 2020Kelly Link - Two HousesHarlan Ellison - Weariness