So ... a mechanical answerer, geared to produce the ultimate revelations in reference to anything you want to know, might have unsuspected limitations."-From Ask A Foolish QuestionThis short science fiction story by Robert Sheckley was first publsihed in Science Fiction magazine but is now available on the Kindle with illustrations and original text.

    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.

    Please enjoy this historical and classic work. All of our titles are only 99 cents and are formatted to work with the Nook. Also, if it is an illustrated work, you will be able to see all of the original images. This makes them the best quality classic works available for the lowest price. So enjoy this classic work as if it were the original book!

    That would be untrue; for though the mightiest mage of the era was forced by law and custom to refrain from visiting his realm in Castal, he had left behind a significant body of learned and dedicated colleagues to continue his policies and see to the protection of the magelands.“These were not all warmagi, nor even High Magi; indeed, the strength of Sevendor depended on magi of all types and descriptions. As Minalan fought against the darkest foes in the West, his lands in the east were protected by his vassals, allies, and friends. Their powers varied, as did their station. But they were uniformly devoted to Minalan the Spellmonger and the land he had wrought. They kept watch against secret incursions or hidden dangers against the realm while the Spellmonger’s strength was elsewhere. Whilst he grappled with the fearsome minions of Korbal the Necromancer, his magical land was well-warded by the famous Wizards of Sevendor.”From the Heeth the Arcanist’s History of the Magelands

    Anacondas, piranha, giant crocodiles/alligators/lizards, mutated bears near nuclear power stations, prehistoric sharks. All featured heavily in books and films of the 70s and 80s, when bio-horror was at its modern peak. This anthology of military-bio-horror stories takes you back to those classic days. Think Greg McLean’s Rogue, Lake Placid, Eight-legged Freaks, Anaconda, Meg, Prophecy, Deep Blue Sea, and other films/books where people (in this case soldiers) are fighting against mutated or ultra-dangerous animals. Join some of the best writers working today, along with some SNAFU favourites, for an unnaturally good time. TOC: 1. Here There Be Monsters - Dave Beynon 2. Unborn - Justin Bell 3. The Weavers in Darkness - James A. Moore & Charles R. Rutledge 4. Kill Team Kill - Justin A Coates 5. Restless - Lee Murray 6. A Hole in the World - Tim Lebbon & Christopher Golden 7. Cargo - B. Michael Radburn 8. Vermin - Richard Lee Byers 9. The Valley of Death - David W. Amendola 10. Venom - Michael McBride

    The anthology also includes an invaluable summation about the state of the science fiction publishing field, and a list of honorable mentions (think of them as almost-made-its) for 1997.Contents xi • Summation: 1997 • essay by Gardner Dozois1 • Beauty in the Night • (1997) • novelette by Robert Silverberg30 • Second Skin • (1997) • shortstory by Paul J. McAuley49 • Steamship Soldier on the Information Front • (1997) • novelette by Nancy Kress69 • Reasons to Be Cheerful • (1997) • novelette by Greg Egan95 • Moon Six • (1997) • novelette by Stephen Baxter122 • We Will Drink a Fish Together . . . • (1997) • novelette by Bill Johnson155 • Escape Route • [Confederation Universe Stories] • (1997) • novella by Peter F. Hamilton197 • Itsy Bitsy Spider • (1997) • shortstory by James Patrick Kelly207 • A Spy in Europa • [Revelation Space] • (1997) • shortstory by Alastair Reynolds224 • The Undiscovered • (1997) • novelette by William Sanders245 • Echoes • (1997) • novelette by Alan Brennert267 • Getting to Know You • [North American future] • (1997) • novelette by David Marusek288 • Balinese Dancer • (1997) • shortstory by Gwyneth Jones306 • Marrow • [The Great Ship Universe] • (1997) • novella by Robert Reed348 • Heart of Whitenesse • (1997) • shortstory by Howard Waldrop364 • The Wisdom of Old Earth • (1997) • shortstory by Michael Swanwick373 • The Pipes of Pan • (1997) • novelette by Brian Stableford391 • Crossing Chao Meng Fu • (1997) • novelette by G. David Nordley418 • Yeyuka • (1997) • shortstory by Greg Egan432 • Frost Painting • (1997) • shortstory by Carolyn Ives Gilman447 • Lethe • (1997) • novelette by Walter Jon Williams474 • Winter Fire • (1997) • shortstory by Geoffrey A. Landis488 • Nevermore • (1997) • novelette by Ian R. MacLeod505 • Open Veins • (1997) • shortstory by Simon Ings520 • After Kerry • (1997) • novelette by Ian McDonald543 • The Masque of Agamemnon • [Troy Stories] • (1997) • novelette by Sean Williams and Simon Brown565 • Gulliver at Home • (1997) • novelette by John Kessel576 • A Cold Dry Cradle • (1997) • novella by Elisabeth Malartre and Gregory Benford617 • Honorable Mentions: 1997 • essay by Gardner Dozois

    In doing so, the book triumphed over a very strong shortlist, including collections by one Booker Prize winner in Anne Enright and two authors who have been Booker shortlisted in Shena Mackay and Ali Smith (the latter a winner of the Whitbread Prize).When announcing the winner, one of the judges – James Walton, journalist and chair of BBC Radio 4’s The Write Stuff – said, “I suspect Chris Beckett winning the Edge Hill Prize will be seen as a surprise in the world of books. In fact, though, it was also a bit of surprise to the judges, none of whom knew they were science fiction fans beforehand.”In 2012 the Sunday Times named Chris’ latest novel Dark Eden the best science fiction novel of the year, and it is currently shortlisted for the BSFA Award in the same category. NewCon Press are delighted to be publishing The Peacock Cloak, the latest collection from one of Britain’s most distinguished and accomplished genre authors. Contains twelve stories (85,000 words) all previously uncollected.

    Many of the stories in this collection were published during the heyday of popular science fiction magazines from the 1930s to the 1950s.Included within this work are stories by Poul Anderson, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Phillip K. Dick, Randall Garrett, Paul Ernst, Kurt Vonnegut, Jack Williamson, Phillip Jose Farmer, Lester Del Rey, Leigh Brackett, Fredric Brown, Murray Leinster, Ben Bova, and many others.This collection includes an active table of contents for easy navigation.A Strange Manuscript found in a Copper Cylinder (James De Mille)A World by the Tale (Randall Garrett)A World is Born (Leigh Brackett)Accidental Death (Peter Baily)Arena (Fredric Brown)Atom Boy (Ray Cummings)Beyond Lies the Wub (Phillip K. Dick)Blind Spot (Bascom Jones)Cully (Jack Egan)Dead Giveaway (Randall Garrett)Dead Ringer (Lester Del Rey)Dead World (Jack Douglas)Divinity (Joseph Samachson)Four Miles Within (Anthony Gilmore)Heist Job on Thizar (Randall Garrett)Hex (Laurence Janifer)In the Year 2889 (Jules Verne)Indulgence of Negu Mah (Robert Arthur)Lease to Doomsday (Lee Archer)Lost in Translation (Laurence Janifer)McIlvane’s Star (August Derleth)Missing Link (Frank Herbert)Next Logical Step (Ben Bova)Pandemic (J.F. Bone)Remember the Alamo (T.R. Fehrenbach)Salvage in Space (Jack Williamson)Security (Poul Anderson)Subspace Survivors (E.E. “Doc” Smith)The Aliens (Murray Leinster)The Big Trip Up Yonder (Kurt Vonnegut)The Chronic Argonauts (H.G. Wells)The Cosmic Express (Jack Williamson)The Day Time Stopped Moving (Bradner Buckner)The Eternal Wall (Raymond Z. Gallun)The Gifts of Asti (Andre Norton)The Hated (Frederick Pohl)The Last Evolution (John W. Campbell)The Man Who Saw the Future (Edmond Hamilton)The Memory of Mars (Raymond F. Jones)The Moon is Green (Fritz Leiber)The Nothing Equation (Tom Godwin)The Power and the Glory (Charles W. Diffin)The Radiant Shell (Paul Ernst)The Stoker and the Stars (Algis Budrys)The Street That Wasn’t There (Carl Jacobi and Clifford D. Simak)The World Behind the Moon (Paul Ernst)There is a Reaper (Charles De Vet)They Twinkled Like Jewels (Phillip José Farmer)Waste Not, Want (Dave Dryfoos)Year of the Big Thaw (Marion Zimmer Bradley)

    Unearthing a den of corruption, Spinoza learns what it means to fight alongside the Emperor’s Angels, and vows to prove herself worthy of this honour or die in the attempt. Read it because It's not often we get to see Space Marines through the eyes of a servant of the Inquisition, and seeing the contrast between their different methods of serving the Emperor is quite fascinating.

    Captain Ransom atones for his sins. T'Pol pursues a composer, after she is captivated by the human's music. Strands of DNA are woven together from four Starfleet captains, creating one man with one mission. An entity fights for its right to live, despite the fact that it is not alive. From the ordinary to the extraordinary, all of these stories are embraced by the vision of Star Trek®. When Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek, he also tapped a wellspring of human imagination. Viewers were transformed into fans, who embraced the show and turned the definition of "fan" on its ear. However, when what was on the screen was simply not enough, fans started writing their own stories, which they then shared among friends and family. Ten years ago, Pocket Books offered Star Trek fans a unique opportunity to become a part of the Star Trek mythos. A contest was created in which the best stories submitted by nonprofessional writers would be published. And over the course of a decade, hundreds of pounds of submissions poured in. Many of the writers who submitted to Strange New Worlds went on to become professional writers. This time there are nineteen writers: Rigel Ailur, David DeLee, M.C. DeMarco, Rick Dickson, Louis E. Doggett, Aimee Ford Foster, Edgar Governo, Robyn Sullivent Gries, Jim Johnson, Gerri Leen, Muri McCage, Brian Seidman, Randy Tatano, Paul C. Tseng, Rob Vagle, Laura Ware, Carolyn Winifred, Jerry M. Wolfe, and Jeremy Yoder. We welcome them to the book that is by the fans, for the fans.

    Ballard. The Venus Hunters. London: Gollancz, 1986. First hardcover edition, first printing. Octavo. 142 pages.

    

    Sentenced as a spy and condemned to suffer 'The Death', Hadron must prove that John Carter's warriors are not so easily destroyed. In Swords of Mars, the eighth adventure, we once again join John Carter himself. Disguised as a panthan (or mercenary), Carter sets out to end the curse of the Assassins of Zodanga-but he soon discovers that their threat is reaching out to the very heart of his own family. Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian series continues to delight lovers of fantastic fi ction with heroic deeds, hairsbreadth escapes, duels and battles, all set in a strange and alien landscape. The complete John Carter of Mars adventures are published by Leonaur.

    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

    Anderson's The Saga of Shadows: The Dark Between the StarsThis is a slightly edited extract from the first quarter of The Dark Between the Stars, corresponding to chapters 1-2, 6-7, 11-12, 17-19, 22-23, 27-28, 37.