Perchance to Dream: Selected Stories


Charles Beaumont - 2015
    Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont’s finest stories, including five that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes.Beaumont dreamed up fantasies so vast and varied they burst through the walls of whatever box might contain them. Supernatural, horror, noir, science fiction, fantasy, pulp, and more: all were equally at home in his wondrous mind. These are stories where lions stalk the plains, classic cars rove the streets, and spacecraft hover just overhead. Here roam musicians, magicians, vampires, monsters, toreros, extraterrestrials, androids, and perhaps even the Devil himself. With dizzying feats of master storytelling and joyously eccentric humor, Beaumont transformed his nightmares and reveries into impeccably crafted stories that leave themselves indelibly stamped upon the walls of the mind. In Beaumont’s hands, nothing is impossible: it all seems plausible, even likely.

Novelties and Souvenirs: Collected Short Fiction


John Crowley - 1989
    Now, for the first time, all of his short fiction has been collected in one volume, demonstrating the scope, the vision, and the wonder of one of America's greatest storytellers. Courage and achievement are celebrated and questioned, paradoxes examined, and human frailty appreciated in fifteen tales, at once lyrical and provocative, ranging fromthe fantastic to the achingly real. Be it a tale of an expulsion from Eden, a journey through time, the dreams of a failed writer, ora dead woman's ambiguous legacy, each story in Novelties & Souvenirs is a glorious reading experience, offering delights to be savored ... and remembered.Contents:Antiquities (1977)Her Bounty to the Dead (1978)The Reason for the Visit (1980)The Green Child (1981)Novelty (1983)Snow (1985)The Nightingale Sings at Night (1989)Great Work of Time (1989)In Blue (1989)Missolonghi 1824 (1990)Exogamy (1993)Lost and Abandoned (1993)Gone (1996)An Earthly Mother Sits and Sings (2000)The War between the Objects and the Subjects (2002)

Again, Dangerous Visions


Harlan EllisonEdward Bryant - 1972
    It was edited by Harlan Ellison, illustrated by Ed Emshwiller. Like its predecessor, Again, Dangerous Visions and the 46 stories within it received many awards. The Word for World Is Forest, by Ursula K. Le Guin, won a Hugo for Best Novella. When It Changed by Joanna Russ won a Nebula Award for Best Short Story. For a 2nd time, Ellison received a special Hugo for editing the anthology. Again, Dangerous Visions was to be followed by a 3rd anthology, The Last Dangerous Visions. At this point, Ellison has said that it will probably never see the light of day.Introduction: An Assault of New Dreamers by Harlan Ellison The Counterpoint of View by John Heidenry Ching Witch! by Ross Rocklynne The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin For Value Received by Andrew J. Offutt Mathoms from the Time Closet: 1/Robot's Story, 2/Against the Lafayette Escadrille, 3/Loco Parentis by Gene Wolfe Time Travel for Pedestrians by Ray Nelson Christ, Old Student in a New School (poem) by Ray Bradbury King of the Hill by Chad Oliver The 10:00 Report Is Brought to You by... by Edward Bryant The Funeral by Kate Wilhelm Harry the Hare by James B. Hemesath When It Changed by Joanna Russ The Big Space Fuck by Kurt Vonnegut Bounty by T.L. Sherred Still-Life by K.M. O'Donnell (Barry N. Malzberg) Stoned Counsel by H.H. Hollis Monitored Dreams & Strategic Cremations: 1/The Bisquit Position, 2/The Girl with Rapid Eye Movements by Bernard Wolfe With a Finger in My I by David Gerrold In the Barn by Piers Anthony Soundless Evening by Lee Hoffman [█] by Gahan Wilson The Test-Tube Creature, Afterward by Joan Bernott And the Sea Like Mirrors by Gregory Benford Bed Sheets Are White by Evelyn Lief Tissue: At the Fitting Shop & 53rd American Dream by James Sallis Elouise and the Doctors of the Planet Pergamon by Josephine Saxton Chuck Berry, Won't You Please Come Home by Ken McCullough Epiphany for Aliens by David Kerr Eye of the Beholder by Burt K. Filer Moth Race by Richard Hill In re Glover by Leonard Tushnet Zero Gee by Ben Bova A Mouse in the Walls of the Global Village by Dean R. Koontz Getting Along by James Blish & Judith Ann Lawrence Totenbüch by Parra y FiguéredoThings Lost by Thomas M. Disch With the Bentfin Boomer Boys on Little Old New Alabama by Richard A. Lupoff Lamia Mutable by M. John Harrison Last Train to Kankakee by Robin Scott Empire of the Sun by Andrew Weiner Ozymandias by Terry Carr The Milk of Paradise by James Tiptree, Jr.

Jagannath


Karin Tidbeck - 2011
    Whether through the falsified historical record of the uniquely weird Swedish creature known as the “Pyret” or the title story, “Jagannath,” about a biological ark in the far future, Tidbeck’s unique imagination will enthrall, amuse, and unsettle you. How else to describe a collection that includes “Cloudberry Jam,” a story that opens with the line “I made you in a tin can”? Marvels, quirky character studies, and outright surreal monstrosities await you in what is likely to be one of the most talked-about short story collections of the year.Tidbeck is a rising star in her native country, having published a collection there in Swedish, won a prestigious literary grant, and just sold her first novel to Sweden’s largest publisher. A graduate of the iconic Clarion Writer’s Workshop at the University of California, San Diego, in 2010, her publication history includes Weird Tales, Shimmer Magazine, Unstuck Annual and the anthology Odd.

The Eternal Champion


Michael Moorcock - 1970
    Timeless, classic and beyond a doubt one of the foundations of modern Fantasy, the Eternal Champion is a series of stories that no Fantasy aficionado should pass up.Includes The Eternal Champion, Phoenix in Obsidian, To Rescue Tanelorn and The Sundered Worlds.

Pretty Monsters: Stories


Kelly Link - 2008
    Through the lens of Link's vivid imagination, nothing is what it seems, and everything deserves a second look. From the multiple award-winning The Faery Handbag, in which a teenager's grandmother carries an entire village (or is it a man-eating dog?) in her handbag, to the near-future of The Surfer, whose narrator (a soccer-playing skeptic) waits with a planeload of refugees for the aliens to arrive, Link's stories are funny and full of unexpected insights and skewed perspectives on the world. Her fans range from Michael Chabon to Peter Buck of R.E.M. to Holly Black of Spiderwick Chronicles fame. Now teens can have their world rocked, too!

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever


James Tiptree Jr. - 1990
    Revisions from the author's notes are included, allowing a deeper view into her world and a better understanding of her work. The Nebula Award–winning short story Love Is the Plan, the Plan Is Death, the Hugo Award–winning novella The Girl Who Was Plugged In, and the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning novella Houston, Houston, Do You Read? are included.The stories of Alice Sheldon, who wrote as James Tiptree Jr. ( Up the Walls of the World ) until her death in 1987, have been heretofore available mostly in out-of-print collections. Thus the 18 accomplished stories here will be welcomed by new readers and old fans. ''The Screwfly Solution'' describes a chilling, elegant answer to the population problem. In ''Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death,'' the title tells the tale--species survival insured by imprinted drives--but the story's force is in its exquisite, lyrical prose and its suggestion that personal uniqueness is possible even within biological imperatives. ''The Girl Who Was Plugged In'' is a future boy-meets-girl story with a twist unexpected by the players. ''The Women Men Don't See '' displays Tiptree's keen insight and ability to depict singularity within the ordinary. In Hugo and Nebula award-winning ''Houston, Houston, Do You Read?'' astronauts flying by the sun slip forward 500 years and encounter a culture that successfully questions gender roles in ours.ContentsIntroduction by Michael SwanwickThe Last Flight of Doctor Ain (1969)The Screwfly Solution (1977)And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side (1972)The Girl Who Was Plugged In (1973)The Man Who Walked Home (1972)And I Have Come Upon This Place by Lost Ways (1972)The Women Men Don’t See (1973)Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light! (1976)Houston, Houston, Do You Read? (1976)With Delicate Mad Hands (1981)A Momentary Taste of Being (1975)We Who Stole the Dream (1978)Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (1974)Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death (1973)On the Last Afternoon (1972)She Waits for All Men Born (1976)Slow Music (1980)And So On, and So On (1971)

Steampunk (Steampunk, #1)


Jeff VanderMeerJoseph E. Lake - 2008
    Blaylock"The Giving Mouth" by Ian R. MacLeod "A Sun in the Attic" by Mary Gentle "The God-Clown is Near" by Jay Lake"The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel" by Joe R. Lansdale"The Selene Gardening Society" by Molly Brown"Seventy-Two Letters" by Ted Chiang"The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance" by Michael Chabon"Victoria" by Paul Di Filippo"Reflected Light" by Rachel E. Pollock"Minutes of the Last Meeting" by Stepan Chapman"Excerpt from the Third and Last Volume of Tribes of the Pacific Coast" by Neal Stephenson"The Steam-Driven Time Machine: A Pop Culture Survey" by Rick Klaw"The Essential Sequential Steampunk: A Modest Survey of the Genre within the Comic Book Medium" by Bill Baker

The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories


Walter Jon Williams - 2006
    Few authors have matched the versatility and stylishness of Walter Jon Williams. His genre-defining novels have received wide critical acclaim and captured the rapt attention of fans worldwide. He has been nominated for every major SF award. The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories contains nine bleeding-edge tales showcasing Williams’ flexibility, power-chord storytelling, and engagingly human and post-human characters. From Walter Jon Williams, author of more than twenty novels, including This Is Not a Game, Implied Spaces, and the definitive cyberpunk novel Hardwired, comes The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories, a stunning collection of short fiction including the Nebula Award-winning stories “Daddy’s World” and “The Green Leopard Plague,” and featuring an introduction by Charles Stross, plus in-depth story notes.

Black Seas of Infinity: The Best of H.P. Lovecraft


Andrew Wheeler - 2001
    

The Spell Sword


Marion Zimmer Bradley - 1974
    Most of the planet's wild terrain was unexplored...and many of its peoples seclusive and secretive.But for Andrew Carr there was an attraction he could not evade. Darkover drew him, Darkover haunted him--and when his mapping plane crashed in unknown heights, Darkover prepared to destroy him.Until the planet's magic asserted itself--and his destiny began to unfold along lines predicted only by phantoms and wonder workers of the kind Terran science could never acknowledge.THE SPELL SWORD is a Darkover novel to stand with the great ones of the series.

Looking for Jake


China MiévilleCristina Jurado - 2003
    Now from this brilliant young writer comes a groundbreaking collection of stories, many of them previously unavailable in the United States, and including four never-before-published tales–one set in Miéville’s signature fantasy world of New Crobuzon. Among the fourteen superb fictions are“Jack”–Following the events of his acclaimed novel Perdido Street Station, this tale of twisted attachment and horrific revenge traces the rise and fall of the Remade Robin Hood known as Jack Half-a-Prayer. “Familiar”–Spurned by its creator, a sorceress’s familiar embarks on a strange and unsettling odyssey of self-discovery in a coming-of-age story like no other.

The Time Traveler's Almanac


Ann VanderMeer - 2013
    Gathered into one volume by intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, this book compiles more than a century's worth of literary travels into the past and the future that will serve to reacquaint readers with beloved classics of the time travel genre and introduce them to thrilling contemporary innovations.This marvelous volume includes nearly seventy journeys through time from authors such as Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, William Gibson, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, Michael Moorcock, H. G. Wells, and Connie Willis, as well as helpful non-fiction articles original to this volume (such as Charles Yu's "Top Ten Tips For Time Travelers").In fact, this book is like a time machine of its very own, covering millions of years of Earth's history from the age of the dinosaurs through to strange and fascinating futures, spanning the ages from the beginning of time to its very end. The Time Traveler's Almanac is the ultimate anthology for the time traveler in your life.

To Hold Up the Sky


Liu Cixin - 2020
    From Cixin Liu, the New York Times bestselling author of The Three-Body Problem, To Hold Up the Sky is a breathtaking collection of imaginative science fiction.Stories included are:The Village TeacherThe Time Migration2018-04-01Fire In The EarthContractionMirrorOde To JoyFull Spectrum Barrage JammingSea of DreamsCloud of PoemsThe Thinker

The Best of Robert E. Howard: Crimson Shadows (Volume 1)


Robert E. Howard - 2007
    Howard is one of the most famous and influential pulp authors of the twentieth century. Though largely known as the man who invented the sword-and-sorcery genre-and for his iconic hero Conan the Cimmerian-Howard also wrote horror tales, desert adventures, detective yarns, epic poetry, and more. This spectacular volume, gorgeously illustrated by Jim and Ruth Keegan, includes some of his best and most popular works.Inside, readers will discover (or rediscover) such gems as "The Shadow Kingdom," featuring Kull of Atlantis and considered by many to be the first sword-and-sorcery story; "The Fightin'est Pair," part of one of Howard's most successful series, chronicling the travails of Steve Costigan, a merchant seaman with fists of steel and a head of wood; "The Grey God Passes," a haunting tale about the passing of an age, told against the backdrop of Irish history and legend; "Worms of the Earth," a brooding narrative featuring Bran Mak Morn, about which H. P. Lovecraft said, "Few readers will ever forget the hideous and compelling power of [this] macabre masterpiece"; a historical poem relating a momentous battle between Cimbri and the legions of Rome; and "Sharp's Gun Serenade," one of the last and funniest of the Breckinridge Elkins tales.These thrilling, eerie, compelling, swashbuckling stories and poems have been restored to their original form, presented just as the author intended. There is little doubt that after more than seven decades the voice of Robert E. Howard continues to resonate with readers around the world.