A child who feels no pain and who should not exist sees the future. Between them are truths that will shake worlds.In a distant future, no remnants of human beings remain, but their successors thrive throughout the galaxy. These are the offspring of humanity's genius-animals uplifted into walking, talking, sentient beings. The Fant are one such species: anthropomorphic elephants ostracized by other races, and long ago exiled to the rainy ghetto world of Barsk. There, they develop medicines upon which all species now depend. The most coveted of these drugs is koph, which allows a small number of users to interact with the recently deceased and learn their secrets.To break the Fant's control of koph, an offworld shadow group attempts to force the Fant to surrender their knowledge. Jorl, a Fant Speaker with the dead, is compelled to question his deceased best friend, who years ago mysteriously committed suicide. In so doing, Jorl unearths a secret the powers that be would prefer to keep buried forever. Meanwhile, his dead friend's son, a physically challenged young Fant named Pizlo, is driven by disturbing visions to take his first unsteady steps toward an uncertain future.

    When two of the most dangerous inmates take a twisted interest in Siggy, she becomes caught in a potential war between two races -- a war that only a forgotten secret from her past can prevent...

    That's an odd way to begin a work of popular science . . . . but amusing.Please heed the warning from the Introduction by Bruce Sterling: "If you are examining Saucer Wisdom imagining that Rudy (or some fictional 'Frank Shook') has been actually logging a lot of on board saucer time, well, you can knock that off right now. Rudy Rucker made up the flying saucer part. There is no actual flying saucer. The saucer is not an interplanetary faster-than-light device. Its what we professional authors like to call a narrative device."I'm going to spill the beans as directly as I can here: Saucer Wisdom is a work of popular science speculation. Its a nonfiction book in which Prof. Rucker takes a few quirky grains of modern scientific fact, drops them into the colorful tide pool of his own imagination, and harvests a major swarm of abalones, jellyfish, and giant anemones."Pop-science writers didn't used to treat 'science' in this boisterous way, but there might well be a trend here, there may be a real future in this. Saucer Wisdom is a book by a well-qualified mathematician and computer scientist, a veteran pop science writer, in which 'science' is treated, not as some distant and rarefied quest for absolute knowledge, but as naturally great source material for a really long, cool rant."Rucker, in character, describes, and illustrates with delightful cartoon sketches (the way he would use chalk and a blackboard while talking science), the world of the progressively more distant future as it is transformed by computer technology, biotechnology, and human evolution. He also describes a hell of a party in Berkeley. Popular science writing will never be the same.

    Franklin was caught, convicted, and put away in juvenile detention for what he did. The ordeal seems to be over.Until Rem’s mother selects Franklin as a test subject for an experimental brain procedure intended to “cure” him of his cruel and violent impulses. Suddenly Rem’s memories of that day start coming back to the surface. His nightmares become worse than ever. Plus he has serious doubts about whether his mother’s procedure will even work. Can evil really just be turned off?Then, as part of Franklin’s follow-up testing, he and Rem are brought face to face, and Rem discovers…Franklin does seem different. Despite everything, Rem finds himself becoming friends with Franklin. Maybe even something more than friends.But when another of their classmates turns up dead, Rem’s world turns upside-down yet again. Franklin insists that he’s innocent, that he’s cured, but Rem doesn’t know what to believe. Is someone else responsible for this new murder, or is Franklin fated to stay a monster forever? And can Rem find out the answer to this question before the killer, whoever it is, comes after him too?

    But Kirby is destined to inherit the magical power to freeze time itself--a power that could rock the entire universe.

    But Geoffrey's family, the vast Akinya business empire, has other plans. After the death of Eunice, Geoffrey's grandmother, erstwhile space explorer and entrepreneur, something awkward has come to light on the Moon, and Geoffrey is tasked - well, blackmailed, really - to go up there and make sure the family's name stays suitably unblemished. But little does Geoffrey realise - or anyone else in the family, for that matter - what he's about to unravel.Eunice's ashes have already have been scattered in sight of Kilimanjaro. But the secrets she died with are about to come back out into the open, and they could change everything.Or shatter this near-utopia into shards...

     Thanksgiving, 2075. Shadowrunning vampire-mage Rick “Red” Lang used to make his living hunting dangerous insect spirits and twisted mages, but when he awakens after twelve years of involuntary hibernation, he finds the rest of the world has gotten even stranger. Red begins piecing together what had happened during his lost time—and who put him under in the first place. But as he journeys through the neon-drenched ruins of Chicago and its augmented facades, Red uncovers an even larger plot involving eldritch forces seeking to invade from beyond our reality. He teams up with the few allies he can trust—Pretty, a beautiful ghoul, and Slim, a hacker extraordinaire—as they head into the middle of multiple schemes and power plays surrounding a dangerous new conflict threatening to shatter the uneasy peace into all-consuming chaos.

    Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards. This volume collects 8 classic stories:WITCH OF THE DEMON SEAS (1951)DUEL ON SYRTIS (1951)SECURITY (1953)SENTIMENT, INC. (1953)THE SENSITIVE MAN (1954)THE CHAPTER ENDS (1954)THE VALOR OF CAPPEN VARRA (1957)INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (1963)And if you enjoy this volume, don't forget to search your favorite ebook store for "Wildside Press Megapack" to see the more than 170 entries in the MEGAPACK™ ebook series, covering science fiction, fantasy, horror, mysteries, westerns, classics -- and much, much more!

    But they're about to get far worse. Because he's being hunted by a team of relentless assassins. Soon Hall discovers that advanced electronics have been implanted in his brain, and he now has two astonishing abilities. He can surf the web using thoughts alone. And he can read minds. But who inserted the implants? And why? And why is someone so desperate to kill him?As Hall races to find answers, he comes to learn that far more is at stake than just his life. Because his actions can either catapult civilization to new heights--or bring about its total collapse.Extrapolated from actual research on thought-controlled web surfing, Mind's Eye is a smart, roller-coaster ride of a thriller. One that raises a number of intriguing, and sometimes chilling, possibilities about a future that is just around the corner.

    It was waiting for him, just as he had left it. But where? He only knew he was in the center of a galaxy in a universe of galaxies. Within them lay endless varieties of the planet Earth. And there was only one way to find his Earth again: he would have to visit each one. And he would have to hurry--because his search for home had turned into a race with death.

    A world that exists in the shadows of our own. A conflict we will never see. One woman stands between those determined to control history and those who will risk their lives for freedom.A world that exists in the shadows of our own.A conflict we will never see.One woman stands between those determined to control history and those who will risk their lives for freedom.Maya is hiding in plain sight in London. The twenty-six-year-old has abandoned the dangerous obligations pressed upon her by her father, and chosen instead to live a normal life. But Maya comes from a long line of people who call themselves Harlequins—a fierce group of warriors willing to sacrifice their lives to protect a select few known as Travelers.Gabriel and Michael Corrigan are brothers living in Los Angeles. Since childhood, the young men have been shaped by stories that their late father was a Traveler, one of a small band of prophets who have vastly influenced the course of history. Travelers are able to attain pure enlightenment, and have for centuries ushered change into the world. Gabriel and Michael, who may have inherited their father's gifts, have always protected themselves by living “off the Grid”—that is, invisible to the real-life surveillance networks that monitor people in our modern society.Summoned by her ailing father, Maya is told of the existence of the brothers. The Corrigans are in severe danger, stalked by powerful men known as the Tabula—ruthless mercenaries who have hunted Travelers for generations. This group is determined to inflict order on the world by controlling it, and they view Travelers as an intolerable threat. As Maya races to California to protect the brothers, she is reluctantly pulled back into the cold and solitary Harlequin existence. A colossal battle looms—one that will reveal not only the identities of Gabriel and Michael Corrigan but also a secret history of our time.Moving from the back alleys of Prague to the heart of Los Angeles, from the high deserts of Arizona to a guarded research facility in New York, The Traveler explores a parallel world that exists alongside our own. John Twelve Hawks' stunningly suspenseful debut is an international publishing sensation that marks the arrival of a major new talent.

    Winters is back with an all-new collaborator, legendary Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, and the result is Android Karenina an enhanced edition of the classic love story set in a dystopian world of robots, cyborgs, and interstellar space travel.As in the original novel, our story follows two relationships: the tragic adulterous romance of Anna Karenina and Count Alexei Vronsky, and the much more hopeful marriage of Konstantin Levin and Kitty Shcherbatskaya.These four, yearning for true love, live in a steampunk-inspired 19th century of mechanical butlers, extraterrestrial-worshiping cults, and airborne debutante balls. Their passions alone would be enough to consume them-but when a secret cabal of radical scientific revolutionaries launches an attack on Russian high society's high-tech lifestyle, our heroes must fight back with all their courage, all their gadgets, and all the power of a sleek new cyborg model like nothing the world has ever seen."Filled with the same blend of romance, drama, and fantasy that made the first two Quirk Classics New York Times best sellers, Android Karenina brings this celebrated series into the exciting world of science fiction.

    But her best friend, Libby, is determined to give it a try, longing for a new, improved version of herself.What starts as Libby’s dream turns into Clair’s nightmare when Libby falls foul of a deadly trap. With the help of Jesse, the school freak, and a mysterious—but powerful—stranger called Q, Clair’s attempt to protect Libby leads her to an unimagined world of conspiracies and cover-ups. Soon her own life is at risk, and Clair is chased across the world in a desperate race against time.Action and danger fuel Sean Williams’ tale of technology, identity, and the lengths to which one girl will go to save her best friend.

    The southernmost city in the world, with only a glass dome and a faltering infrastructure to protect its citizens from the freezing, ceaseless winds of the Antarctic wilderness. Within this bell jar four people–some human, some not–will shape the future of the city forever:Eliana Gomez, a female PI looking for a way to the mainland.Diego Amitrano, the right-hand man to the gangster who controls the city’s food come winter.Marianella Luna, an aristocrat with a dangerous secret.Sofia, an android who has begun to evolve.But the city is evolving too, and in the heart of the perilous Antarctic winter, factions will clash, dreams will shatter, and that frozen metropolis just might boil over…

    Americans worship their infallible Emperor, and nobody believes that Japan’s conduct in the war was anything but exemplary. Nobody, that is, except the George Washingtons – a shadowy group of rebels fighting for freedom. Their latest subversive tactic is to distribute an illegal video game that asks players to imagine what the world might be like if the United States had won the war instead.   Captain Beniko Ishimura's job is to censor video games, and he's working with Agent Akiko Tsukino of the secret police to get to the bottom of this disturbing new development. But Ishimura's hiding something... He's slowly been discovering that the case of the George Washingtons is more complicated than it seems, and the subversive videogame's origins are even more controversial and dangerous than either of them originally suspected. Part detective story, part brutal alternate history, United States of Japan is a stunning successor to Philip K Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. File under: Science Fiction [ Gamechanger | Area #11 | Robot Wars | Strike Back the Empire ]