In Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth, Zelazny's rare ability to mix the dream-like, disturbing imagery of fantasy with the real-life hardware of science fiction is on full display. His vivid imagination and fine prose made him one of the most highly acclaimed writers in his field.Contents:· The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth · nv F&SF Mar ’65 · The Keys to December · nv New Worlds Aug ’66 · Devil Car [Sam Nurdock] · ss Galaxy Jun ’65 · A Rose for Ecclesiastes · nv F&SF Nov ’63 · The Monster and the Maiden · vi Galaxy Dec ’64 · Collector’s Fever · vi Galaxy Jun ’64 · This Mortal Mountain · nv If Mar ’67 · This Moment of the Storm · nv F&SF Jun ’66 · The Great Slow Kings · ss Worlds of Tomorrow Dec ’63 · A Museum Piece · ss Fantastic Jun ’63 · Divine Madness · ss Magazine of Horror Sum ’66 · Corrida · ss Anubis v1 #3 ’68 · Love Is an Imaginary Number · ss New Worlds Jan ’66 · The Man Who Loved the Faioli · ss Galaxy Jun ’67 · Lucifer · ss Worlds of Tomorrow Jun ’64

    Nothing is simple and everything is perilous when humans are involved: corruption, greed, and even love (of a sort).A permanent corporate branding gives a young woman enhanced physical abilities and a nearly-constant highRecruits lifted out of poverty find a far worse fate collecting biohazardous plants on an inhospitable worldThe only adult survivor of the apocalypse decides he will be the savior of teenagers; the teenagers are not amused.From Johannesburg to outer space, these previously uncollected tales are a compelling, dark, and slippery ride.

    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.

    Only his second collection (the first was Dark Carnival, later reworked into The October Country), it is a marvelous, if mostly dark, quilt of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. In an ingenious framework to open and close the book, Bradbury presents himself as a nameless narrator who meets the Illustrated Man--a wanderer whose entire body is a living canvas of exotic tattoos. What's even more remarkable, and increasingly disturbing, is that the illustrations are themselves magically alive, and each proceeds to unfold its own story, such as "The Veldt," wherein rowdy children take a game of virtual reality way over the edge. Or "Kaleidoscope," a heartbreaking portrait of stranded astronauts about to reenter our atmosphere--without the benefit of a spaceship. Or "Zero Hour," in which invading aliens have discovered a most logical ally--our own children. Even though most were written in the 1940s and 1950s, these 18 classic stories will be just as chillingly effective 50 years from now. --Stanley WiaterContents:· Prologue: The Illustrated Man · ss * · The Veldt [“The World the Children Made”] · ss The Saturday Evening Post Sep 23 ’50 · Kaleidoscope · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct ’49 · The Other Foot · ss New Story Magazine Mar ’51 · The Highway [as by Leonard Spalding] · ss Copy Spr ’50 · The Man · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb ’49 · The Long Rain [“Death-by-Rain”] · ss Planet Stories Sum ’50 · The Rocket Man · ss Maclean’s Mar 1 ’51 · The Fire Balloons [“‘In This Sign...’”] · ss Imagination Apr ’51 · The Last Night of the World · ss Esquire Feb ’51 · The Exiles [“The Mad Wizards of Mars”] · ss Maclean’s Sep 15 ’49; F&SF Win ’50 · No Particular Night or Morning · ss * · The Fox and the Forest [“To the Future”] · ss Colliers May 13 ’50 · The Visitor · ss Startling Stories Nov ’48 · The Concrete Mixer · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’49 · Marionettes, Inc. [Marionettes, Inc.] · ss Startling Stories Mar ’49 · The City [“Purpose”] · ss Startling Stories Jul ’50 · Zero Hour · ss Planet Stories Fll ’47 · The Rocket [“Outcast of the Stars”] · ss Super Science Stories Mar ’50 · Epilogue · aw *

    Passion is the keynote as you encounter the Harlequin and his nemesis, the dreaded Tictockman, in one of the most reprinted and widely taught stories in the English language; a pyretic who creates fire merely by willing it; the last surgeon in a world of robot physicians; a spaceship filled with hideous mutants rejected by the world that gave them birth. Touching and gentle and shocking stories from an incomparable master of impossible dreams and troubling truths.Contents:7 · New Introduction: Your Basic Crown of Thorns · in 19 · Spero Meliora · in 24 · Paingod · ss Fantastic Jun ’64 35 · “Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman · ss Galaxy Dec ’65 49 · The Crackpots [Kyben] · nv If Jun ’56 89 · Sleeping Dogs · ss Analog Oct ’74 100 · Bright Eyes · ss Fantastic Apr ’65 112 · The Discarded [“The Abnormals”] · ss Fantastic Apr ’59 125 · Wanted in Surgery · nv If Aug ’57 156 · Deeper Than the Darkness · nv Infinity Science Fiction Apr ’57

    He wasn't concerned about getting the wrong man. He knew what the man looked like. There was no way he could make a mistake about his target's identity -- he had the man's skull under his shoulder.

    Yes, it will be dangerous, frequently brutal, and often devastating. But it’s also savagely funny, deliriously strange, and absolutely brimming with adventure.In these edgy, unexpected tales, a body-hopping mercenary avenges his pet elephant, and an orphan falls in love with a sentient starship. Fighters ally to power a reality-bending engine, and a swamp-dwelling introvert tries to save the world—from her plague-casting former wife.So come meet Kameron Hurley in the future. The version she's created here is weirder—and far more hopeful—than you could ever imagine.

    His traps and machinations are the stuff of legends. His faces are legion. No matter what face the devil wears, Sympathy for the Devil has them all. Edited by Tim Pratt, Sympathy for the Devil collects the best Satanic short stories by Neil Gaiman, Holly Black, Stephen King, Kage Baker, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, Kelly Link, China Mieville, Michael Chabon, and many others, revealing His Grand Infernal Majesty, in all his forms. Thirty-five stories, from classics to the cutting edge, exploring the many sides of Satan, Lucifer, the Lord of the Flies, the Father of Lies, the Prince of the Powers of the Air and Darkness, the First of the Fallen... and a Man of Wealth and Taste. Sit down and spend a little time with the Devil.

    R. Martin and multiple-award winning editor Gardner Dozois Burroughs’s A Princess of Mars. Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles. Heinlein’s Red Planet. These and so many more inspired generations of readers with a sense that science fiction’s greatest wonders did not necessarily lie far in the future or light-years across the galaxy but were to be found right now on a nearby world tantalizingly similar to our own—a red planet that burned like an ember in our night sky . . . and in our imaginations. This new anthology of fifteen all-original science fiction stories, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, celebrates the Golden Age of Science Fiction, an era filled with tales of interplanetary colonization and derring-do. Before the advent of powerful telescopes and space probes, our solar system could be imagined as teeming with strange life-forms and ancient civilizations—by no means always friendly to the dominant species of Earth. And of all the planets orbiting that G-class star we call the Sun, none was so steeped in an aura of romantic decadence, thrilling mystery, and gung-ho adventure as Mars. Join such seminal contributors as Michael Moorcock, Mike Resnick, Joe R. Lansdale, S. M. Stirling, Mary Rosenblum, Ian McDonald, Liz Williams, James S. A. Corey, and others in this brilliant retro anthology that turns its back on the cold, all-but-airless Mars of the Mariner probes and instead embraces an older, more welcoming, more exotic Mars: a planet of ancient canals cutting through red deserts studded with the ruined cities of dying races. FEATURING ALL-NEW STORIES BY James S. A. Corey • Phyllis Eisenstein • Matthew Hughes • Joe R. Lansdale • David D. Levine • Ian McDonald • Michael Moorcock • Mike Resnick • Chris Roberson • Mary Rosenblum • Melinda Snodgrass • Allen M. Steele • S. M. Stirling • Howard Waldrop • Liz Williams And an Introduction by George R. R. Martin!Table of contents:RED PLANET BLUES (Introduction) by George R.R. MartinMARTIAN BLOOD, by Allen M. SteeleTHE UGLY DUCKLING, by Matthew HughesTHE WRECK OF THE MARS ADVENTURE, by David D. LevineSWORDS OF ZAR-TU-KAN, by S.M. StirlingSHOALS, by Mary RosenblumIN THE TOMBS OF THE MARTIAN KINGS, by Mike ResnickOUT OF SCARLIGHT, by Liz WilliamsTHE DEAD SEA-BOTTOM SCROLLS, by Howard WaldropA MAN WITHOUT HONOR, by James S.A. CoreyWRITTEN IN DUST, by Melinda SnodgrassTHE LOST CANAL, by Michael MoorcockTHE SUNSTONE, by Phyllis EisensteinKING OF THE CHEAP ROMANCE, by Joe R. LansdaleMARINER, by Chris RobersonTHE QUEEN OF NIGHT’S ARIA, by Ian McDonald

    Odd is a tale of how an ordinary man profited from an extraordinary time paradox when he stops to help a man seemingly lost and confused, and then learns the reasons why.Stitch in Time concerns an elderly lady reflecting on a lost love and, thanks to her sons' experiments with time, finally discovering the reason why her lover abandoned her so many years ago.Oh Where, Now, is Peggy MacRafferty? is a social satire on Hollywood glamour in which a bright, individual young Irish woman becomes part of the celebrity circuit, and loses all that makes her special in the process of becoming a star.Random Quest combines romance and parallel universes.A Long Spoon is the story of how a demon is summoned by mistake and the lengths the couple that invoked him have to go to get rid of him without losing their souls in the bargain.

    Where tinkerers and dreamers craft and re-craft a world of automatons, clockworks, calculating machines, and other marvels that never were. Where scientists and schoolgirls, fair folk and Romans, intergalactic bandits, utopian revolutionaries, and intrepid orphans solve crimes, escape from monstrous predicaments, consult oracles, and hover over volcanoes in steam-powered airships.

    In "Selected Stories," thirteen of Sturgeon's very best tales have been gathered into one collection: Here are stories of love and darkness, transcendence and obsession, alien contact and human interaction. In the devastating wake of a nuclear holocaust, an actress performs her swan song before a small audience of survivors. A machine is possessed and intent upon destruction. Humankind's place in the vast cosmos is explored, as is the strange humanity of evil. In the author's acclaimed story "The Man Who Lost the Sea," a life is reconstructed in bizarre shattered fragments. And in "Slow Sculpture," Sturgeon's award-winning classic, a breast cancer patient surrenders to a healer's most unorthodox methods. Lyrical, often witty, frequently provocative, and always surprising, "Selected Stories" covers a wide range of human and inhuman emotion and experience, deftly traversing the borders between science fiction, dark fantasy, and horror. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Theodore Sturgeon including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the University of Kansas's Kenneth Spencer Research Library and the author's estate, among other sources.

    In this series of perfectly rendered vignettes, written just as he was starting to find his comic voice, Kurt Vonnegut paints a warm, wise, and funny portrait of life in post—World War II America–a world where squabbling couples, high school geniuses, misfit office workers, and small-town lotharios struggle to adapt to changing technology, moral ambiguity, and unprecedented affluence. Here are tales both cautionary and hopeful, each brimming with Vonnegut's trademark humor and profound humanism. A family learns the downside of confiding their deepest secrets into a magical invention. A man finds himself in a Kafkaesque world of trouble after he runs afoul of the shady underworld boss who calls the shots in an upstate New York town. A quack psychiatrist turned "murder counselor" concocts a novel new outlet for his paranoid patients. While these stories reflect the anxieties of the postwar era that Vonnegut was so adept at capturing– and provide insight into the development of his early style–collectively, they have a timeless quality that makes them just as relevant today as when they were written. It's impossible to imagine any of these pieces flowing from the pen of another writer; each in its own way is unmistakably, quintessentially Vonnegut.Featuring a Foreword by author and longtime Vonnegut confidant Sidney Offit and illustrated with Vonnegut's characteristically insouciant line drawings, Look at the Birdie is an unexpected gift for readers who thought his unique voice had been stilled forever–and serves as a terrific introduction to his short fiction for anyone who has yet to experience his genius. Contents: Letter from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., to Walter J. Miller, 1951. Confido F U B A R Shout About It from the Housetops Ed Luby's Key Club A Song for Selma Hall of Mirrors The Nice Little People Hello, Red Little Drops of Water The Petrified Ants The Honor of a Newsboy Look at the Birdie King and Queen of the Universe The Good Explainer

    Elliott is a highly-compelling voice in genre fiction, an innovative author of historically-based narratives set in imaginary worlds. This first, retrospective collection of her short fiction is the essential guide to Elliott's shorter works. Here her bold adventuresses, complex quests, noble sacrifices, and hard-won victories shine in classic, compact legends. In "The Memory of Peace," a girl's powerful emotions rouse the magic of a city devastated by war. Meeting in "The Queen's Garden," two princesses unite to protect their kingdom from the blind ambition of their corrupted father. While "Riding the Shore of the River of Death" a chieftain's daughter finds an unlikely ally on her path to self-determination. Elliott's many readers, as well as fantasy fans in search of powerful stories featuring well-drawn female characters, will revel in this unique gathering of truly memorable tales.

    CLARKE'S FAVORITE STORIESTHE NINE BILLION NAMES OF GOD -- A short-term course for computer the way to God.TROUBLE WITH TIME -- Martian time proves that crimes doesn't pay!NO MORNING AFTER -- Drink, drink and be merry, for tomorrow there will be no morning after...THE POSSESSED -- Or, why the lemmings drowned.ENCOUNTER AT DAWN -- The day the gods came to Earth.THE SENTINEL -- The story which inspired 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY; when man sets off the galactic burglar alarm, who will answer the call?