Book picks similar to
Roads Not Taken: Tales of Alternate History by Gardner DozoisGregory Benford
alternate-history
science-fiction
short-stories
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Glitter & Mayhem
John KlimaTansy Rayner Roberts - 2013
Your hosts are the Hugo Award-winning editors John Klima (Electric Velocipede) and Lynne M. Thomas (Apex Magazine), and the Hugo-nominated editor Michael Damian Thomas (Apex Magazine).Join glittery authors Christopher Barzak (One for Sorrow) and Daryl Gregory (Pandemonium) on the dance floor, drink cocktails with Maria Dahvana Headley (Queen of Kings: A Novel of Cleopatra, the Vampire) and Tim Pratt (Marla Mason series), and skate with Seanan McGuire (InCryptid series), Diana Rowland (Kara Gillian series), and Maurice Broaddus (The Knights of Breton Court series). The fantastic Amber Benson gets the party started with her floor-rattling introduction (Calliope Reaper-Jones series).We’re waiting.Table of ContentsIntroduction by Amber BensonSister Twelve: Confessions of a Party Monster by Christopher BarzakApex Jump by David J. SchwartzWith Her Hundred Miles to Hell by Kat HowardStar Dancer by Jennifer PellandOf Selkies, Disco Balls, and Anna Plane by Cat RamboSooner Than Gold by Cory SkerrySubterraneans by William Shunn & Laura ChavoenThe Minotaur Girls by Tansy Rayner RobertsUnable to Reach You by Alan DeNiroSuch & Such Said to So & So by Maria Dahvana HeadleyRevels in the Land of Ice by Tim PrattBess, the Landlord’s Daughter, Goes for Drinks with the Green Girl by Sofia SamatarBlood and Sequins by Diana RowlandTwo-Minute Warning by Vylar KaftanInside Hides the Monster by Damien Walters GrintalisBad Dream Girl by Seanan McGuireA Hollow Play by Amal El-MohtarJust Another Future Song by Daryl GregoryThe Electric Spanking of the War Babies by Maurice Broaddus & Kyle S. JohnsonAll That Fairy Tale Crap by Rachel Swirsky
Beyond Armageddon: Twenty-One Sermons to the Dead
Walter M. Miller Jr. - 1985
Miller Jr. (1923–96) and the famed anthologist Martin H. Greenberg (1941-2011) have together collected stories that address one of the most challenging themes of imaginative fiction: the nature of life after nuclear war. These richly imagined stories offer glimpses into a future no reader will soon forget. Miller’s incisive introduction and a thought-provoking and irreverent commentary are included. All stories are preceded by intros, written by Miller, which comment on the story to come, and sometimes also the story preceeding the note.Contents: Introduction: Forewarning (Beyond Armageddon) (1985) • essay by Walter M. Miller, Jr. Salvador (1984) / short story by Lucius Shepard The Store of the Worlds (1959) / short story by Robert Sheckley The Big Flash (1969) / novelette by Norman Spinrad Lot [David Jimmon] (1953) / novelette by Ward Moore Day at the Beach (1959) / short story by Carol Emshwiller The Wheel (1952) / short story by John Wyndham Jody After the War (1972) / short story by Edward Bryant The Terminal Beach (1964) / novelette by J. G. Ballard Tomorrow's Children [Tomorrow's Children • 1] (1947) / novelette by Poul Anderson and F. N. Waldrop Heirs Apparent (1954) / novelette by Robert Abernathy A Master of Babylon (1966) / novelette by Edgar Pangborn (variant of The Music Master of Babylon 1954) Game Preserve (1957) / short story by Rog Phillips By the Waters of Babylon (1937) / short fiction by Stephen Vincent Benét (variant of The Place of the Gods) [as by Stephen V. Benet] There Will Come Soft Rains [The Martian Chronicles] (1950) / short story by Ray Bradbury To the Chicago Abyss (1963) / short story by Ray Bradbury Lucifer (1964) / short story by Roger Zelazny Eastward Ho! (1958) / short story by William Tenn The Feast of Saint Janis (1980) / novelette by Michael Swanwick "If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth ..." (1951) / short story by Arthur C. Clarke A Boy and His Dog [Vic and Blood • 2] (1969) / novella by Harlan Ellison My Life in the Jungle (1985) / short story by Jim AikinAlso published as "Beyond Armageddon: Survivors of the Megawar"
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2016
John Joseph AdamsMaria Dahvana Headley - 2016
Valente, Dexter Palmer and others KAREN JOY FOWLER, guest editor, is the author of six novels and four short story collections, including We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. She is the winner of the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award, a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, and has won numerous Nebula and World Fantasy awards. JOHN JOSEPH ADAMS, series editor, is the best-selling editor of more than two dozen anthologies, including Brave New Worlds and Wastelands. He is the editor and publisher of the digital magazines Lightspeed and Nightmare and is the editor of John Joseph Adams Books, a new science fiction/fantasy novel imprint from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Table of Contents:"Meet Me in Iram" by Sofia Samatar"The Game of Smash and Recovery" by Kelly Link"Interesting Facts" by Adam Johnson"Planet Lion" by Catherynne M. Valente"The Apartment Dweller’s Bestiary" by Kij Johnson"By Degrees and Dilatory Time" by S.L. Huang"The Mushroom Queen" by Liz Ziemska"The Daydreamer by Proxy" by Dexter Palmer"Tea Time" by Rachel Swirsky"Headshot" by Julian Mortimer Smith"The Duniazát" by Salman Rushdie"No Placeholder for You, My Love" by Nick Wolven"The Thirteen Mercies" by Maria Dahvana Headley"Lightning Jack’s Last Ride" by Dale Bailey"Things You Can Buy for a Penny" by Will Kaufman"Rat Catcher’s Yellows" by Charlie Jane Anders"The Heat of Us: Notes Toward an Oral History" by Sam J. Miller"Three Bodies at Mitanni" by Seth Dickinson"Ambiguity Machines: an Examination" by Vandana Singh"The Great Silence" by Ted Chiang
A Science Fiction Omnibus
Brian W. AldissEliza Blair - 1973
Including authors such as Clifford Simak, Harry Harrison, Bruce Sterling, A. E. Van Vogt and Brian Aldiss himself, these stories portray struggles against machines, epic journeys, genetic experiments, time travellers and alien races. From stories set on Earth, to uncanny far distant worlds and ancient burnt-out suns, the one constant is humanity itself, compelled by an often fatal curiosity to explore the boundless frontiers of time, space and probability.Thirty short stories and a novella, first published in Penguin Modern Classics November 2007 with a cover illustration by Jim Burns. The new stories are:• James Tiptree, Jr : And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side• Bruce Sterling : Swarm• Greg Bear : Blood Music• Fredric Brown : Answer• Kim Stanley Robinson : Sexual Dimorphism• Eliza Blair : Friends in Need• James Inglis : Night Watch• Ted Chiang : Story of Your Life• Garry Kilworth : Alien Embassy• John Crowley : Great Work of Time
Gods and Pawns
Kage Baker - 2007
The eight stories, reprinted for the first time in this collection delve further into the history and exploits of the Company and its operatives, including Mendoza, Lewis, and Alec. The book opens with the novella, "To the Land Beyond the Sunset," starring Lewis and Mendoza, and involving a strange tribe in Bolivia whose members claim to be gods. Their ability to grow a small tropical paradise in the middle of the desert certainly seems godlike, and it's Mendoza's job to figure what their secret is."Standing in His Light" features Van Drouten, and her role in the career of the artist Jan Vermeer. The story illustrates how, with a little help from the Company, lost masterpieces can be found (or created) easily. Other stories include "Welcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst," which opens up intriguing questions about The Company, and the original novelette, "Hellfire at Twilight," which concludes the volume and tells of Lewis infiltrating the famous Hellfire Club in the England of the 18th century. This book is a compelling read for every Baker fan, and essential for Company addicts
Steampunk Prime: A Vintage Steampunk Reader
Mike Ashley - 2010
The modern day steampunk genre is a reinventing of the past through the eyes of its inventors and adventures, but this collection is from real Victorians and Edwardians who saw the future potential of science and its daring possibilities. Steam-powered automobiles, submarines, and robots are featured alongside great airships and spaceships in these bold and creative stories of hope, triumph, and disaster.
The Dark Tower: And Other Stories
C.S. Lewis - 1977
S. Lewis’s adult religious books, a repackaged edition of the revered author’s definitive collection of short fiction, which explores enduring spiritual and science fiction themes such as space, time, reality, fantasy, God, and the fate of humankind.From C.S. Lewis—the great British writer, scholar, lay theologian, broadcaster, Christian apologist, and author of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many other beloved classics—comes a collection of his dazzling short fiction.This collection of futuristic fiction includes a breathtaking science fiction story written early in his career in which Cambridge intellectuals witness the breach of space-time through a chronoscope—a telescope that looks not just into another world, but into another time. As powerful, inventive, and profound as his theological and philosophical works, The Dark Tower reveals another side of Lewis’s creative mind and his longtime fascination with reality and spirituality. It is ideal reading for fans of J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis’s longtime friend and colleague.
Roma Eterna
Robert Silverberg - 2003
Through brute force, terror, and sheer indomitable will, her armies have enslaved a world. From the reign of Maximilianus the Great in A.U.C. 1203 onward through the ages -- into a new era of scientific advancement and astounding technologies -- countless upstarts and enemies arise, only to be ground into the dust beneath the merciless Roman bootheels. But one people who suffer and endure throughout the many centuries of oppressive rule dream of the glorious day that is coming -- when the heavens themselves will be opened to them...and the ships they are preparing in secret will carry them on their "Great Exodus" to the stars.
Dangerous Women
George R.R. MartinSharon Kay Penman - 2013
Lansdale - “Neighbors” by Megan Lindholm - “I Know How to Pick ’Em” by Lawrence Block - “Shadows For Silence in the Forests of Hell” by Brandon Sanderson - A Cosmere story - “A Queen in Exile” by Sharon Kay Penman - “The Girl in the Mirror” by Lev Grossman - A Magicians story - “Second Arabesque, Very Slowly” by Nancy Kress - “City Lazarus” by Diana Rowland - “Virgins” by Diana Gabaldon - An Outlander story - “Hell Hath No Fury” by Sherilynn Kenyon - “Pronouncing Doom” by S.M. Stirling - An Emberverse story - “Name the Beast” by Sam Sykes - “Caretakers” by Pat Cadigan - “Lies My Mother Told Me” by Caroline Spector - A Wild Cards story - “The Princess and the Queen” by George R.R. Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire story
Ash: A Secret History
Mary Gentle - 2000
War is her job. She has fought her way to the command of a mercenary company, and on her unlikely shoulders lies the destiny of a Europe threatened by the depredations of an Infidel army more terrible than any nightmare.
Daughter of Regals and Other Tales
Stephen R. Donaldson - 1984
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.
The Probability Broach
L. Neil Smith - 1979
He accidentally stumbles upon the probability broach, a portal to a myriad of worlds--some wildly different from, others disconcertingly similar to our own. Win finds himself transported to an alternate Earth where Congress is in Colorado, everyone carries a gun, there are gorillas in the Senate, and public services are controlled by private businesses.
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.
Without Warning
John Birmingham - 2009
In Paris, a covert agent, a woman who inhabits a twilight of lies and death, is close to cracking a terrorist cell. And just north of the equator, a forty-foot wood-hulled sailboat, manned by a drug runner, a pirate, and two gun-slinging beauties, is witness to the unspeakable. In one instant, all around the world, for politicians and peasants, from Gaza to Geneva, things will never be the same. A wave of inexplicable energy has slammed into the continental United States.
America, as we know it, is gone. . . .
WITHOUT WARNING
Now U.S. soldiers are fighting a war without command or control. A correspondent records horrors for no one. Washington is gone and the line of succession is in tatters; the functioning remnants of government are in Pearl Harbor, Guantánamo Bay, and one desperate, isolated corner of the Northwest. For the jihadists, it’s Allah’s miracle. For Saddam, it’s a chance to attack. Iran declares war on an America that doesn’t exist–except in the hearts and souls of the men and women who want it to.In this astounding work of alternate fiction, John Birmingham hurtles us into a scenario that is unimaginable but shatteringly real: a world of financial ruin where a cloud of noxious waste–from America’s burning cities–darkens Europe, while men and women in offices around the globe struggle to make decisions that cannot hold and opportunists unleash their secret demons.From a slick Texas lawyer who happens to be in the right place at the right time to a hard-working city engineer in Seattle who becomes his terrified city’s only hope, from the cancer-stricken secret agent to a drug runner off the Mexican coast and a U.S. general in Cuba, Without Warning tells a fast, furious story of survival, violence, and a new, soul-shattering reality.
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.