Book picks similar to
The Preserving Machine by Philip K. Dick


science-fiction
sci-fi
fiction
short-stories

Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days


Alastair Reynolds - 2003
    . . Alastair Reynolds burst onto the SF scene with the Arthur C. Clarke Award-shortlisted REVELATION SPACE, British Science Fiction Award-winning CHASM CITY, and REDEMPTION ARK. Now experience the phenomenal imagination and breathtaking vision of 'The most exciting space opera writer working today' (Locus) in these two tales of high adventure set in the same universe as his novels. The title story, 'Diamond Dogs', tells of a group of mercenaries trying to unravel the mystery of a particularly inhospitable alien tower on a distant world; 'Turquoise Days' is about Naqi, who has devoted her life to studying the alien Pattern Jugglers.

N-Space


Larry Niven - 1969
    talk show Arthur C. Clarke was once asked to name his favorite writer. His answer was "Larry Niven." Countless others agree. The Baltimore Sun and Kirkus Reviews have both dubbed Niven "the premier writer of hard SF," and Gregory Benford has hailed him as "the paradigm of SF personality of the last several decade."Now Larry Niven presents us with his undisputed masterwork. N-Space contains, very simply, the best SF of his career--marvelous fiction, a wealth of anecdotes and gossip, plus Niven's own special brand of wit and excitement.Contents:1 • Introduction: The Maker of Worlds • (1990) • essay by Tom Clancy3 • On Niven • (1992) • essay by Frederik Pohl and Steven Barnes and David Brin and John Hertz and Wendy All and Gregory Benford15 • Dramatis Personae • (1990) • essay by Larry Niven25 • Foreword: Playgrounds for the Mind • (1990) • essay by Larry Niven31 • From World of Ptavvs (excerpt) • (1990) • shortfiction by Larry Niven36 • Bordered in Black • (1966) • shortstory by Larry Niven56 • Convergent Series • (1967) • shortstory by Larry Niven (variant of The Long Night)62 • All the Myriad Ways • [Time Travel - Parallel Universe] • (1968) • shortstory by Larry Niven73 • From A Gift From Earth (Excerpt) • (1990) • shortfiction by Larry Niven90 • The Meddler • (1968) • novelette by Larry Niven112 • Passerby • [State] • (1969) • shortstory by Larry Niven126 • Down in Flames • (1969) • essay by Larry Niven139 • From Ringworld (Excerpt) • (1990) • shortfiction by Larry Niven148 • The Fourth Profession • (1971) • novelette by Larry Niven195 • "Shall We Indulge in Rishathra?" • (1978) • shortfiction by Larry Niven195 •  "Shall We Indulge in Rishathra?" • (1978) • interior artwork by William Rotsler199 • Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex • (1969) • essay by Larry Niven208 • Inconstant Moon • (1971) • novelette by Larry Niven234 • What Can You Say About Chocolate Covered Manhole Covers? • (1971) • shortstory by Larry Niven245 • Cloak of Anarchy • [Known Space] • (1972) • shortstory by Larry Niven269 • From Protector (excerpt) • (1990) • shortfiction by Larry Niven279 • The Hole Man • (1974) • shortstory by Larry Niven293 • Night on Mispec Moor • [State] • (1974) • shortstory by Larry Niven305 • Flare Time • (1978) • novella by Larry Niven347 • The Locusts • (1979) • novelette by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes389 • From The Mote in God's Eye (excerpt) • (1990) • shortfiction by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle394 • Building the Mote in God's Eye • [A Step Farther Out] • (1976) • essay by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle420 • Brenda • (1988) • novella by Larry Niven465 • The Return of William Proxmire • (1989) • shortstory by Larry Niven475 • The Tale of the Jinni and the Sisters • (1988) • shortstory by Larry Niven491 • Madness Has Its Place • [Man-Kzin Wars] • (1990) • novelette by Larry Niven519 • Niven's Laws (1990 version) • (1990) • essay by Larry Niven528 • The Kiteman • [Integral Trees] • (1990) • novelette by Larry Niven571 • The Alien in Our Minds • (1987) • essay by Larry Niven580 • Space • (1990) • essay by Larry Niven597 • Bibliography of Larry Niven • (1990) • essay by uncredited

The Wind's Twelve Quarters


Ursula K. Le Guin - 1975
    Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien inevitable.Now, in The Wind's Twelve Quarters, seventeen of her favorite stories reaffirm Ursula Le Guin as one of America's outstanding writers.CONTENTS:ForewordSemley's NecklaceApril in ParisThe MastersDarkness BoxThe Word of UnbindingThe Rule of NamesWinter's KingThe Good TripNine LivesThingsA Trip to the HeadVaster than Empires and More SlowThe Stars BelowThe Field of VisionDirection of the RoadThe Ones Who Walk Away from OmelasThe Day Before the Revolution

The Planet on the Table


Kim Stanley Robinson - 1986
    There would never be another departure like it.And aboard one of the ships was Manuel Tetuan, a young Moroccan orphan shanghaied from a Franciscan monastery. “Black Air” is the multiple award nominated and World Fantasy Award-winning novelette of Manuel’s beatific innocence, of his compassion in the face of war, and of the miracles that enabled him to survive the tragedy of the doomed Armada.Robinson’s extraordinary range of interests is demonstrated in haunting stories of: tourists looting the beautiful, sunken ruins of Venice; an amoral future sleuth who, with her bumbling Watson, must find the forger of Monets on a planet of wealthy esthetes; three friends, one brain-damaged, who confront eternity and subtle magic in the snowbound Sierras; a repertoire company of hypnotically trained, surgically altered actors, and an unknown psychopath whose murders mock the scripts of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama; the historic effects of the Second World War’s last traitor, the pilot who deliberately fails to A-bomb Hiroshima; impoverished Uranian miners who seek fame in an interplanetary music competition by reviving an ancient, lost form—Dixieland Jazz; and a dilapidated Arizona grill-souvenir shop that becomes the focus of a drifter’s encounters with Time and destiny.

Destination: Universe!


A.E. van Vogt - 1952
    First published in 1952. It contains the following stories:Far Centaurus (1944) The Monster (1948) Dormant (1948) The Enchanted Village (1950) A Can of Paint (1944) Defence (1947) The Rulers (1944) Dear Pen Pal (1949) The Sound (1950) The Search (1943)

Dangerous Visions


Harlan EllisonRobert Bloch - 1967
    Dick, Larry Niven, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, Damon Knight, J.G. Ballard, John Brunner, Frederik Pohl, Roger Zelazny and Samuel Delany.Contentsxi • Foreword: Year 2002 (Dangerous Visions 35th Anniversary Edition) • (2002) • essay by Michael Moorcockxiii • Introduction: Year 2002 (Dangerous Visions 35th Anniversary Edition • (2002) • essay by Harlan Ellisonxxiii • Foreword 1-The Second Revolution • (1967) • essay by Isaac Asimovxxxiii • Introduction: Thirty-Two Soothsayers • (1967) • essay by Harlan Ellison (variant of Thirty-Two Soothsayers)xxxix • Foreword 2-Harlan and I • (1967) • essay by Isaac Asimov1 • Evensong • (1967) • shortstory by Lester del Rey9 • Flies • (1967) • shortstory by Robert Silverberg21 • The Day After the Day the Martians Came • (1967) • shortstory by Frederik Pohl (variant of The Day the Martians Came)30 • Riders of the Purple Wage • (1967) • novella by Philip José Farmer105 • The Malley System • (1967) • shortstory by Miriam Allen deFord115 • A Toy for Juliette • (1967) • shortstory by Robert Bloch128 • The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World • (1967) • novelette by Harlan Ellison154 • The Night That All Time Broke Out • (1967) • shortstory by Brian W. Aldiss169 • The Man Who Went to the Moon - Twice • (1967) • shortstory by Howard Rodman181 • Faith of Our Fathers • (1967) • novelette by Philip K. Dick216 • The Jigsaw Man • [Known Space] • (1967) • shortstory by Larry Niven231 • Gonna Roll the Bones • (1967) • novelette by Fritz Leiber256 • Lord Randy, My Son • (1967) • shortstory by Joe L. Hensley272 • Eutopia • (1967) • novelette by Poul Anderson295 • Incident in Moderan • [Moderan] • (1967) • shortstory by David R. Bunch299 • The Escaping • (1967) • shortstory by David R. Bunch305 • The Doll-House • (1967) • shortstory by James Cross326 • Sex and/or Mr. Morrison • (1967) • shortstory by Carol Emshwiller338 • Shall the Dust Praise Thee? • (1967) • shortstory by Damon Knight344 • If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister? • (1967) • novella by Theodore Sturgeon390 • What Happened to Auguste Clarot? • (1967) • shortstory by Larry Eisenberg396 • Ersatz • (1967) • shortstory by Henry Slesar404 • Go, Go, Go, Said the Bird • (1967) • shortstory by Sonya Dorman412 • The Happy Breed • (1967) • shortstory by John Sladek [as by John T. Sladek ]433 • Encounter with a Hick • (1967) • shortstory by Jonathan Brand439 • From the Government Printing Office • (1967) • shortstory by Kris Neville447 • Land of the Great Horses • (1967) • shortstory by R. A. Lafferty458 • The Recognition • (1967) • shortstory by J. G. Ballard472 • Judas • (1967) • shortstory by John Brunner483 • Test to Destruction • (1967) • novelette by Keith Laumer510 • Carcinoma Angels • (1967) • shortstory by Norman Spinrad523 • Auto-da-Fé • (1967) • shortstory by Roger Zelazny532 • Aye, and Gomorrah . . . • (1967) • shortstory by Samuel R. Delany

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.

Bagombo Snuff Box


Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - 1999
    A young PR man working at General Electric sold his first magazine piece. By the time he'd sold his third, he decided to quit his job and join the likes of Salinger, Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Faulkner, and make a living as a full-time writer. That young man was Kurt Vonnegut.Bagombo Snuff Box collects Vonnegut’s favourite stories from the postwar years that sharpened his dark, vaudevillian and quietly subversive voice. Here we see the mind-bending wit and central themes of his masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five. A must-read for Vonnegut aficionados new and old.

Worlds of Exile and Illusion: Rocannon’s World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions


Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin - 1966
    Le Guin is one of the greatest science fiction writers and many times the winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Her career as a novelist was launched by the three novels contained in Worlds Of Exile And Illusion. These novels, Rocannon's World, Planet Of Exile, and City Of Illusions, are set in the same universe as Le Guin's ground-breaking classic, The Left Hand Of Darkness.Tor is pleased to return these previously unavailable works to print in this attractive new edition.

Treason


Orson Scott Card - 1978
    He is a "rad" -- radical regenerative. A freak among people who can regenerate injured flesh... and trade extra body parts to the Offworld oppressors for iron. For, on a planet without hard metals -- or the means of escape -- iron is power in the race to build a spacecraft. Iron is the promise of freedom -- which may never be fulfilled as Lanik uncovers a treacherous conspiracy beyond his imagination. Now charged with a mission of conquest -- and exile -- Lanik devises a bold and dangerous plan... a quest that may finally break the vicious chain of rivalry and bloodshed that enslaves the people of Treason as the Offworld never could.

Three For Tomorrow


Robert Silverberg - 1969
    Includes Robert Silverberg's "How It Was When The Past Went Away"; "The Eve of RUMOKO" by Roger Zelazny and "We All Die Naked" by James Blish.

The Queen of Air and Darkness and Other Stories


Poul Anderson - 1971
    Read by Tom Teti.

All My Sins Remembered


Joe Haldeman - 1977
    The only problem is that the Confederacion needs him as one of its twelve Prime Operators for its secret service, the TBII. The TBII wants him as a spy, thief & assassin. It's not, of course, a problem for the Confederacion, which simply uses immersion therapy & hypnotic personality overlay for Otto's training, then sends him out in deep cover, encased in plastiflesh, on a variety of dangerous missions on a number of bizarre worlds. But for him, it's a different matter: what he has to witness & what he's forced to do take a terrible toll. Always he returns to his original self--his conscience stabbed by the memory of all those he'd killed in the service of interstellar harmony.

Otherness


David Brin - 1994
    Pak's Preschool" a woman discovers that her baby has been called upon to work while still in the womb.  In "NatuLife" a married couple finds their relationship threatened by the wonders of sex by simulation.  In "Sshhh . . . " the arrival of benevolent aliens on Earth leads to frenzy, madness . . . and unimaginable joy.  In "Bubbles" a sentient starcraft reaches the limits of the universe--and dares to go beyond.  These are but a few of the challenging speculations in Otherness, from the pen of an author whose urgent and compelling imaginative fiction challenges us to wonder at the shape and the nature of the universe--as well as at its future.• The Giving Plague • (1988)• Myth Number 21 • (1990)• Story Notes (Transitions) • (1994)• Dr. Pak's Preschool • (1989)• Detritus Affected • (1993)• The Dogma of Otherness • [Editorial (Analog)] • (1986)• Sshhh ... • (1988)• Story Notes (Contact) • (1994)• Those Eyes • (1994)• What to Say to a UFO • (1994)• Bonding to Genji • (1992)• The Warm Space • (1985)• Whose Millennium? • (1994)• NatuLife ® • (1994)• Piecework • (1990)• Science versus Magic • (1990)• Bubbles • (1987)• Story Notes (Cosmos) • (1994)• Ambiguity • (1989)• What Continues ... And What Fails ... • (1991)• The Commonwealth of Wonder • (1990)

David Starr, Space Ranger


Paul French - 1952
    The vital foodstuffs supplied by its Martian colony are being poisoned. Working in secret, the ruling Council of Science sends David Starr, its youngest member, to the Martian farmlands to discover the truth behind the murders...