"Tank Farm Dynamo" sure tried! What if we found the nerve, the spirit and daring to use every resource -- including those that NASA simply threw away? An unabashedly old-fashioned hard SF story with science and technology as central, problem-solving players... plus a real twist.

    Kornbluth and The Merchant's War by Frederik Pohl. In a future world controlled by the power of advertising, an underground group plans to colonize Venus where they can create their own advertising-free society.

    L. Moore created Jirel, ruler of Joiry, in reaction to the beefy total-testosterone blood-and-thunder tales of '30s pulp magazines, but Jirel is no anti-Conan. She's a good Catholic girl, stubbornly purposeful, relentless in pursuit of enemies or vengeance, hard-boiled and a little stupid, and cannot be distracted by mere physical attractiveness. Indeed, in Jirel's world, beauty = decadence = corruption. Were these stories written today, inevitably Jirel would have a lot of hot sex, but as they were first published in Weird Tales between 1934-1939, sexual attraction is mostly only vividly implied. No loss. Jirel's journeys through unnatural landscapes and her battles with supernatural opponents are still wonderful to read, and though newcomers Red Sonja and Xena are more famous now, Jirel rules as the archetypal, indomitable redheaded swordswoman in chain mail and greaves, swinging her "great two-edged sword."Contents:· Jirel Meets Magic · nv Weird Tales Jul ’35 · Black God’s Kiss · nv Weird Tales Oct ’34 · Black God’s Shadow · nv Weird Tales Dec ’34 · The Dark Land · nv Weird Tales Jan ’36 · Hellsgarde · nv Weird Tales Apr ’39

    Jack Vance is one of the most remarkable talents ever to grace the world of science fiction. His unique, stylish voice has been beloved by generations of readers. Some of his enduring classics are the 1950 novel The Dying Earth and its sequels, The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel's Saga, and Rialto the Marvelous.

    The truth of these tales was lost millennia ago, but the myths and legends themselves are timeless.These are the most enduring of those tales. From the princess Manussa and her giant snake Mara, to the Vardon Horse of Xeriphin, these stories shed light on the universe around us and the beings from other worlds that we meet. Myths hold up a mirror to our past, present and future, explaining our culture, our history, our hopes and fears.A collection of epic adventures from the Time Lords’ mist-covered past, Myths and Legends is an unforgettable gallery of heroes and villains, gods and monsters.

    Henry Jekyll discovers a monster.This spine-chilling thriller is a terrifying study of the duality of man's nature, and it is the book which established Stevenson's reputation as a writer.Also included in this volume is Stevenson's collection of short stories The Merry Men containing two other sinister tales Markheim and Thrawn Janet.

    In “Vortex,” by Gregory Benford, astronauts find a once thriving microbial lifeform that carpets the caves of Mars dying off. A code monkey tracks down the vain creator of a pernicious software virus that people jack cerebrally in “RedKing,” by Craig DeLancey. In “Number Nine Moon,” by Alex Irvine, illicit scavengers on Mars are on a rescue mission to save themselves after one of their team members dies. A young girl’s thirst for vengeance becomes a struggle for survival when she is swallowed by a gigantic sea creature on an alien planet in “Of the Beast in the Belly,” by C.W. Johnson. In “The Seventh Gamer,” by Gwyneth Jones, a writer immerses herself into a MMORPG community to search for characters being played by real aliens from other worlds. A woman armed with a rifle stalks a herd of cloned wooly mammoths in British Columbia in “Chasing Ivory,” by Ted Kosmatka. In “Fieldwork,” by Shariann Lewitt, a volcanologist struggles with her research on Europa where both her mother and grandmother suffered dire consequences. A daughter pays homage to her mother with mega-engineering projects to deal with climate change over eons in “Seven Birthdays,” by Ken Liu. In “The Visitor from Taured,” by Ian R. MacLeod, a cosmologist in the near future is obsessed with proving his theory of multiverses. The citizens of a small town on a “Jackaroo” planet object to a corporation placing a radio telescope near local alien artifacts in “Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was,” by Paul McAuley. And finally, in “Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee,” by Alastair Reynolds, a graduate student defends her dissertation on a solar anomaly that threatens humanity.

    These stories feature cats, bees, wolves, dogs, and even that most capricious of animals, humans, and have been reprinted in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, and The Secret History of Fantasy. Kij Johnson's stories have won the Sturgeon and World Fantasy awards. She has taught writing; worked at Tor, Dark Horse, and Microsoft; worked as a radio announcer; run bookstores; and waitressed in a strip bar.Contents:The Man Who Bridged the Mist (2011)Wolf Trapping (1989)The Empress Jingu Fishes (2004)The Bitey Cat (2012)Chenting, in the Land of the Dead (1999)My Wife Reincarnated as a Solitaire—Exposition on the Flaws in my Spouse's Character—The Nature of the Bird—The Possible Causes—Her Final Disposition (2007)Schrödinger's Cathouse (1993)Names for Water (2010)Fox Magic (1993)Spar (2009)The Horse Raiders (2000)26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss (2008)At the Mouth of the River of Bees (2003)The Evolution of Trickster Stories among the Dogs of North Park after the Change (2007)The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles (2009)Ponies (2010)

    Simak's "City" is a series of connected stories, a series of legends, myths, and campfire stories told by Dogs about the end of human civilization, centering on the Webster family, who, among their other accomplishments, designed the ships that took Men to the stars and gave Dogs the gift of speech and robots to be their hands.Contents:· City · May 1944 · Huddling Place · Jul 1944 · Census · Sep 1944 · Desertion · Nov 1944 · Paradise · Jun 1946 · Hobbies · Nov 1946 · Aesop · Dec 1947 · The Simple Way [The Trouble with Ants] · Jan 1951.

    Now he offers us a superb quintet of novellas -- five dazzling masterworks of speculative fiction, including "Orphans of the Helix," his award-winning return to the Hyperion Universe -- that demonstrates the unique mastery, breathtaking invention, and flawless craftsmanship of one of contemporary fiction's true greats.Human colonists seeking something other than godhood encounter their long-lost "cousins"...and an ancient scourge.A devastated man in suicide's embrace is caught up in a bizarre cat-and-mouse game with a young woman possessing a world-ending power.The distant descendants of a once-oppressed people learn a chilling lesson about the persistence of the past.A terrifying ascent up the frigid, snow-swept slopes of K2 shatters preconceptions and reveals the true natures of four climbers, one of whom is not human.At the intersection of a grand past and a threadbare present, an aging American in Russia confronts his own mortality as he glimpses a wondrous future.

    In “Mimsy Were the Borogoves”–the inspiration for New Line Cinema’s major motion picture The Last Mimzy–a boy finds a discarded box containing a treasure trove of curious objects. When he and his sister begin to play with these trinkets–including a crystal cube that magnifies the unimaginable and a strange doll with removable organs that don’t quite correspond to those of the human body–their parents grow concerned. And they should be. For the items are changing the way the children think and perceive the world around them–for better or worse. Ray Bradbury called Henry Kuttner “a man who shaped science fiction and fantasy in its most important years.” Marion Zimmer Bradley and Roger Zelazny said he was a major inspiration. Kuttner was a writer’s writer whose visionary works anticipated our own computer-controlled, machine-made world. At the time of his death at forty-two in 1958, he had created as many as 170 stories under more than a dozen pseudonyms–sometimes writing entire issues of science fiction magazines–in close collaboration with his wife, C. L. Moore. This definitive collection will be a revelation to those who wish to discover or rediscover Henry Kuttner, a true master of the universe.

    Bawdy, funny, touching, and downright outrageous, there's simply no one else like Roald Dahl.This volume is a diabolical collection of 28 of Dahl's best stories. Shiver to classics like The Man From the South, Taste, Royal Jelly and The Great Switcheroo and hard-to-find gems like Poison, The Wish and Neck. It's the perfect remedy for a sleepless night. From Someone Like YouTasteLamb to the SlaughterMan from the SouthThe SoldierDip in the PoolGalloping FoxleySkinPoisonWishNeckSound MachineNunc DimittisGreat Automatic GrammatizatorClaud's DogRatcatcherRumminsMr HoddyMr FeaseyFrom Kiss KissLandladyWilliam and MaryThe Way Up to HeavenRoyal JellyGeorgy PorgyGenesis and CatastropheEdward the ConquerorPigChampion of the WorldFrom Switch BitchGreat SwitcherooLast ActBitch

    Each sought his own brand of happiness. But none could have guessed what awaited them. Not even in a million years....

    *** These stories were selected (and edited) by his wife Leigh Brackett, an author and a screenwriter. Her screen-writing credits include works on such films as The Big Sleep, Rio Bravo, The Long Goodbye and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. I*** This collection spans nearly half a century of Edmond Hamilton's work and was selected from a repository of hundreds of stories that he had written over that period.Contents:The Monster-God of Mamurth (1926)The Man Who Evolved (1931)A Conquest of Two Worlds (1932)The Island of Unreason (1933)Thundering Worlds (1934)The Man Who Returned (1934)The Accursed Galaxy (1935)In the World's Dusk (1936)Child of the Winds (1936)The Seeds from Outside (1937)Fessenden's Worlds (1937)Easy Money (1938)He That Hath Wings (1938)Exile (1943)Day of Judgment (1946)Alien Earth (1949)What's It Like Out There? (1952)Requiem (1962)After a Judgement Day (1963)The Pro (1964)Castaway (1969)

    In This Elegantly Designed and Illustrated Book, Bradbury Presents All of His Dinosaur Stories in One Volume! "I have an idea that Bradbury's work would have given Edgar Allan Poe a peculiar satisfaction to have written them himself." -Somerset Maugham