The Crystal Crypt


Philip K. Dick - 1954
    For the black-clad Leiters were on the prowl ... and the grim red planet was not far behind. First published in 1954.

Hardfought


Greg Bear - 1983
    Humans are engaged in a long war against an advanced alien race, the Senexi, but the possibility for peace may exist thanks to a young girl who learns the enemy's larger role and humanity's opportunity to evolve.

Leviathan Wept and Other Stories


Daniel Abraham - 2004
    Or a backyard tale from the 1001 American Nights. Macbeth re-imagined as a screwball comedy. Three extraordinary economic tasks performed by a small expert in currency exchange that risk first career and then life and then soul.From the disturbing beauty of 'Flat Diane' (Nebula-nominee, International Horror Guild award-winner) to the idiosyncratic vision of 'The Cambist and Lord Iron' (Hugo- and World Fantasy-nominee), Daniel Abraham has been writing some of the most enjoyable and widely admired short fiction in the genre for over a decade.Ranging from high fantasy to hard science fiction, screwball comedy to gut-punching tragedy, Daniel Abraham's stories never fail to be intelligent, compassionate, thoughtful, and humane. Leviathan Wept and Other Stories is the first collection of his short works, including selections from both the well-known and the rare.Contents:The Cambist and Lord Iron (2007)Flat Diane (2004)The Best Monkey (2009)The Support Technician Tango (2007)A Hunter in Arin-Quin (2010)Leviathan Wept (2004)Exclusion (2001)As Sweet (2001)The Curandero and the Swede (2010)

They're Made Out of Meat


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

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.

Thousandth Night / Minla's Flowers


Alastair Reynolds - 2009
    This new double volume from Subterranean Press stands squarely in that distinguished tradition, offering a pair of colorful, fast-paced stories from the reigning master of the intergalactic space opera: Alastair Reynolds. Thousandth Night, the genesis for the epic novel House of Suns, is quintessential Reynolds. A visionary account of intrigue, ambition, and technological marvels set within a beautifully realized far-future milieu, it combines world-class storytelling with a provocative meditation on the mystery, grandeur, and inconceivable immensity of the universe.The masterful novella Minla s Flowers features Merlin, a familiar figure to Reynolds s readers. Diverted by technical difficulties to a planet known as Lecythus, Merlin finds himself forced to play a part in the moral and military dilemmas of a world on the verge of extinction.

Night's Slow Poison


Ann Leckie - 2012
    “Night’s Slow Poison” is from the same setting as Ancillary Justice, and tells a rich, claustrophobic story of a galactic voyage that forces one guardsmen to confront his uneasy family history through the lens of a passenger with his lost lover’s eyes.

The Island


Peter Watts - 2009
    

Wakulla Springs


Andy Duncan - 2013
    In its unfathomable depths, a variety of curious creatures have left a record of their coming, of their struggle to survive, and of their eventual end. And that's just the local human beings over the last seventy-five years. Then there are the prehistoric creatures...and, just maybe, something else.Ranging from the late 1930s to the present day, "Wakulla Springs" is a tour de force of the human, the strange, and the miraculous.

Expiration Date


Duane Swierczynski - 2010
    Mickey Wade is a recently-unemployed journalist who lucked into a rent-free apartment – his sick grandfather's place. The only problem: it's in a lousy neighborhood. The one where Mickey grew up, in fact. The one he was so desperate to escape.But now he's back. Dead broke. And just when he thinks he's reached rock bottom, Mickey wakes up in the past. Literally.At first he thinks it's a dream. All of the stores he remembered from his childhood, the cars, the rumble of the elevated train. But as he digs deeper into the past, searching for answers about the grandfather he hardly knows, Mickey meets the twelve-year-old kid who lives in the apartment below. The kid who will grow up to someday murder Mickey's father.

Extracurricular Activities


Yoon Ha Lee - 2017
    A space opera adventure set in a distant future where an undercover agent has to go behind enemy lines to recover a lost ship and a possible traitor.

Daddy's World


Walter Jon Williams - 1999
    and his family is using an AI interface to pretend everything is normal.

Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers


Lawrence Watt-Evans - 1987
    The Hugo-winning short story about diners, bored teenagers, and parallel worlds.

Six Months, Three Days


Charlie Jane Anders - 2011
    Judy can see every possible future, branching out from each moment like infinite trees. Doug can also see the future, but for him, it's a single, locked-in, inexorable sequence of foreordained events. They can't both be right, but over and over again, they are. Obviously these are the last two people in the world who should date. So, naturally, they doSix Months, Three Days is the winner of the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties


Neil Gaiman - 2007
    "It'll be great.""No, it won't," I said, although I'd lost this fight hours ago, and I knew it."It'll be brilliant," said Vic, for the hundredth time. "Girls! Girls! Girls!" He grinned with white teeth.