Youth


Isaac Asimov - 1952
    The animals seem intelligent enough, and Red recruits Slim to help him train the odd creatures to do circus tricks. But the boys are about to discover their playthings aren’t exactly animals—and they’ve allowed themselves to be caught for a reason . . . Youth is a riveting tale from the author of countless classics, including I, Robot and the Foundation Trilogy, which won the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series.

They're Made Out of Meat


Terry Bisson - 1991
    Here’s the correct version, as published in Omni, 1990." -- Terry Bisson

Finna


Nino Cipri - 2020
    Multi-dimensional swashbuckling would be hard enough, but our two unfortunate souls broke up a week ago.Can friendship blossom from the ashes of a relationship? In infinite dimensions, all things are possible.

Astounding Science Fiction, February 1943


John W. Campbell Jr.Kolliker - 1943
    John W. Campbell Jr.)The Weapon Makers, Part 1 of 3 (Weapon Shops of Isher #) / A.E. van Vogt; interior artwork by Frank Kramer In Times to Come / essay by unknownFlight into Darkness / Webb Marlowe (i.e. J. Francis McComas); interior artwork by Frank KramerMimsy Were the Borogoves / Lewis Padgett (i.e. Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore); interior artwork by KollikerThe Man in the Moon / Henry A. Norton; interior artwork by KollikerGod's Footstool / essay by Malcolm JamesonThe Analytical Laboratory: December 1942 / essay by The Editor (i.e. John W. Campbell Jr.)Blue Ice (Probability Zero series) / Henry KuttnerProbability Zero! / essay by L. Sprague de Camp and Fox B. Holden and Colin Keith and Henry KuttnerEfficiency (Probability Zero series) / Colin Keith (i.e. Malcolm Jameson)Noise is Beautiful! (Probability Zero series) / Fox B. HoldenThe Anecdote of the Movable Ears (Probability Zero series) / L. Sprague de CampBrass Tacks / essay by The Editor (i.e. John W. Campbell Jr.)Opposites—React!, Part 2 of 2 (Seetee serial) / Willi Stewart (i.e. Jack Williamson); interior artwork by Kolliker

Forest of Memory


Mary Robinette Kowal - 2016
    Her clients are rich and they demand items and experiences with only the finest verifiable provenance. Other people’s lives have value, after all.But when her A.I. suddenly stops whispering in her ear she finds herself cut off from the grid and loses communication with the rest of the world.The man who stepped out of the trees while hunting deer cut her off from the cloud, took her A.I., and made her his unwilling guest.There are no Authenticities or Captures to prove Katya’s story of what happened in the forest. You’ll just have to believe her.

Pygmalion's Spectacles


Stanley G. Weinbaum - 1935
    Is it not so? Either to dream that what you seek is yours, or else to dream that what you hate is conquered. You drink to escape reality, and the irony is that even reality is a dream.'

Emergency Skin


N.K. Jemisin - 2019
    The mission comes with a warning: a graveyard world awaits him. But so do those left behind—hopeless and unbeautiful wastes of humanity who should have died out eons ago. After all this time, there’s no telling how they’ve devolved. Steel yourself, soldier. Get in. Get out. And try not to stare.N. K. Jemisin’s Emergency Skin is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

Desertion


Clifford D. Simak - 1944
    The administrator can’t in good conscience send another volunteer to look for them, so he transforms himself and his faithful dog into Lopers.

Young Zaphod Plays It Safe


Douglas Adams - 1986
    It doesn't appear as a standalone work, but is included with several collections. The story is a prequel to the events in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and has the young Zaphod Beeblebrox working as a salvage ship operator. He guides some bureaucrats to a crashed spaceship which may be leaking some hazardous materials. The bureaucrats are determined to "make it safe". The comic asides in the story include some of the time travel paradoxes which are a common running theme in Adams' SF work, and plenty of material about lobsters

The Future is Japanese: Science Fiction Futures and Brand New Fantasies from and about Japan


Masumi WashingtonPat Cadigan - 2012
    The longest, loneliest railroad on Earth. A North Korean nuke hitting Tokyo, a hollow asteroid full of automated rice paddies, and a specialist in breaking up “virtual” marriages. And yes, giant robots. These thirteen stories from and about the Land of the Rising Sun run the gamut from fantasy to cyberpunk, and will leave you knowing that the future is Japanese! Contributors:-Pat Cadigan-Toh EnJoe-Project Itoh-Hideyuki Kikuchi-Ken Liu-David Moles-Issui Ogawa-Felicity Savage-Ekaterina Sedia-Bruce Sterling-Rachel Swirsky-TOBI Hirotaka-Catherynne M. Valente

Diary of an AssCan


Andy Weir - 2015
    Read on for more from this exceptional character. Please note: This story includes language that some might find offensive.

The Thing in the Attic


James Blish - 1954
    In their exile on the ground they have to adapt to vastly different circumstances, fight monsters resembling dinosaurs, and finally happen upon the godly giants, whose existence they had questioned.

The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin


Ursula K. Le Guin - 2016
    Le Guin, an icon in American literature, collected for the first time in one breathtaking volume.Ursula K. Le Guin has won multiple prizes and accolades from the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to the Newbery Honor, the Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, and PEN/Malamud Awards. She has had her work collected over the years, but never as a complete retrospective of her longer works as represented in the wonderful The Found and the Lost.CONTENT "Vaster Than Empires And More Slow" "Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight" "Hernes" by Ursula K. Le Guin "The Matter Of Seggri" "Another Story Or A Fisherman Of The Inland Sea" "Forgiveness Day" "A Man Of The People" "A Woman’s Liberation" "Old Music And The Slave Women" "The Finder" "On The High Marsh" "Dragonfly" "Paradises Lost"This collection is a literary treasure chest that belongs in every home library.

You Have Arrived at Your Destination


Amor Towles - 2019
    Discover a bold new way to raise a child in this unsettling story of the near future by the New York Times bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow.When Sam’s wife first tells him about Vitek, a twenty-first-century fertility lab, he sees it as the natural next step in trying to help their future child get a “leg up” in a competitive world. But the more Sam considers the lives that his child could lead, the more he begins to question his own relationships and the choices he has made in his life.Amor Towles’s You Have Arrived at Your Destination is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

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.