Fiction by Hugo and Nebula award winners and nominees as well as talented newcomers. Stories were selected by the Unidentified Funny Objects series curator Alex Shvartsman.

    It was every smuggler's dream, the "Big Score," and they find themselves filthy rich as a result. But their good fortune attracts exactly the wrong kind of attention: the Alliance of Free Worlds has been trying to infiltrate Ur Voys without success, so they conscript the only man who has: Grif Vindh. The Radiant Throne, desperate to know how their security was so easily thwarted, send one of their best to track him down and learn the truth... by any means necessary. Grif and his crew must perform the impossible a second time: break into Ur Voys, steal something so secretive their employers don't really know what it is, and get away clean. Along the way they'll have to deal with deadly spies, psychotic telepaths, vicious cyborgs, inconvenient family ties... and a hyperintelligent bug who always bets against its captain.

     Lieutenant Commander Torrance Black, career is already on shaky grounds, finds himself facing questions. Did they just contact sentient life in the Centauri system? Will humankind sacrifice an entire alien species in their quest for the stars? Starflight, the first book of Stealing the Sun, a space based Science Fiction series from frequent Analog contributor and bestselling Amazon Dark Fantasy author Ron Collins. “Ron Collins is one of our best hard science fiction writers—a novel from him is a major event. Enjoy!” Robert J. Sawyer Hugo Award-Winning Author of Quantum Night

    This collection includes If Vanity Doesn't Kill Me and The Devil Within which have not been previously released or collected with these other stories. Tricknomancy tells the story of Patrick Molloy, a magick-using ex-cop who was busted off the force on trumped up bribery charges. He works as a bouncer in a Gentlemen's Club, Club Flesh, where all the women use magick to conjure dollars out of the patrons' pockets. His only true friend is the coroner; his family hates him with a passion, and the cop who busted him off the force is just itching to find a way to send him to jail. Trick Molloy's world is one in which magick-users are feared and hated. Televangelists make bank on casting them as the devil's tools. Gangsters often use magick more readily than guns. Respectable magickers use their skills for seduction, robbery and murder. No one in power really cares about what befalls the criminal class, which Trick Molloy as the one man smart enough to discover the truth, and tough enough to administer justice.

     The very word immediately conjures up images of cackling madmen waving death rays as they rant and rave about their maniacal plot for world domination. But there is more to professional evil - so many questions left unanswered by movies and comic books. What kind of salary do henchmen get? Where do all these super gadgets come from? How come good guys never use the door? One man has the answers. Mike Leon spent months following Baron Hammerspace during his rise from C-list rogue to A-list arch-nemesis of the most powerful heroes on the planet. This is the startling and true story of those events.

     These are some of the stories you will encounter in Chimerascope, the first full collection of short fiction from multi-award-winning Canadian author, Douglas Smith. Sixteen engaging stories of fantasy and science fiction that take you from love in fourteenth-century Japan to humanity's last stand, from virtual reality to the end of reality, from alien drug addictions to a dinner where a man loses everything.

    Three years into a twenty year mission to a new solar system, the colony ship Magellan and its ten million residents sent their last pulse message… "Peace with the Navereen is at an end." Trapped in Cargo Bay 37, fighter pilot Fristion Nash and twelve hundred others lived through the Magellan apocalypse. They have survived for a decade under Frank Block's exacting leadership. Now survival isn’t enough. Nash wants answers. Frank Block wants only control and obedience.Praise for Map Runners: “I found the book funny and exciting. I can't wait for the rest of them to come out.”

    A collection of science fiction stories written by acclaimed author Poul Anderson.Poul Anderson is best known for sci-fi adventure stories in which larger-than-life characters succeed gleefully or fail heroically. Anderson's also famous for writing 'Call Me Joe' (not included in this volume) which featured the premise of a paralyzed man whose mind is remotely controlling an alien body. This same theme also appears in James Cameron's 2009 movie "Avatar" – similar enough that some reviewers are calling for Anderson to receive some form of credit.Included in this volume:Story One: Duel on SyrtisBold and ruthless, he was famed throughout the System as a big-game hunter. From the firedrakes of Mercury to the ice-crawlers of Pluto, he'd slain them all. But his trophy-room lacked one item; and now Riordan swore he'd bag the forbidden game that roamed the red deserts ... a Martian!Story Two: SecurityIn a world where Security is all-important, nothing can ever be secure. A mountain-climbing vacation may wind up in deep Space. Or loyalty may prove to be high treason. But it has its rewards...Story Three: The Valor of Cappen VarraWe have said that there are many and strange shadows, memories surviving from dim pasts, in this fantastic universe of ours...Story Four: Industrial RevolutionEver think how deadly a thing it is if a machine has amnesia—or how easily it can be arranged…Story Five: The Sensitive ManOne man stood between a power-hungry cabal and world mastery--but a man of unusual talents...These are the original and unabridged versions of these classic science fiction treasures. A must-have for fans of classic sci-fi!

     Future America is dangerous and bankrupt. The interstate highways are littered with the rusted hulks of ambushed cars and trucks, and only Mad Max would dare travel the back roads. When an arms race with Russia and China to develop time travel for military purposes achieves success, the body count skyrockets as both patriot and enemy try to hijack the new technology. Like the Manhattan Project and Operation Overtime before it, such a project attracts the best and the brightest as well as the worst and the psychotic. But not everyone has given up on the rule of law. In Tennessee, Fayette County D.A. Pete Dance wants to prosecute the murder of a man whose fossilized remains turn up after a series of devastating earthquakes. The problem is that the victim is still alive. When the violence starts, it doesn’t stop until the final whirlwind of teeth and claws and lasers. The first spinoff series from William Alan Webb’s immensely popular series The Last Brigade is described by one critic as “…Spectre agents chasing Fast and Furious through Jurassic World,” while another reviewer added “…with a heavy dose of Harry Bosch for good measure.” “After the heart-pounding finale, you won’t see the shocking ending coming. Guaranteed to keep you awake at night.”

    But throughout the island's history, its isolation also made it the perfect place to hide things the world was never meant to see.As Laurel finds herself entangled in the island's newest and most bizarre chapter, she must not only solve its mysteries, but also survive long enough to pass them on.This short story (about 7,500 words) mixes science fiction and horror with endearing and enigmatic characters who can only solve the mysteries of Anansi Island by facing their worst fears.

    Heat vision? Super strength? Flight? They are nowhere to be found. Instead, powers like photosynthesis or the ability to spontaneously change hair color seem to be the best the world can offer. To make matters worse, the gifted individuals tend to suffer from psychological issues. Nonetheless, in hopes of finding enough functional meta-humans to form a squad, in 1965 the US military created The Guardian Project. The head of the Army's current incarnation of the project hires Dr. Adam Aiken, a psychologist specializing in the meta-human condition, to filter out the most dangerously unbalanced of the prospective super-soldiers. The screening process is to be done with all possible secrecy. This proves to be more easily said than done. A misfiring superpower leaks news of the recruitment effort to the public, attracting a flood of misfit meta-humans from around the nation, each hungry for heroic validation. A sleazy PR officer knows publicity when he sees it and converts the secret program into a nationally broadcast competition with all of the dignity and grace of a reality show. The ultimate prize is a coveted spot on a government sanctioned super team.The Other Eight follows the exploits of the applicants deemed sane enough for consideration. On one side are earnest but underpowered heroes like the twitch-inducing Nonsensica or the fluorescent tube-hurling Phosphor. On the other are the better equipped but less dedicated recruits like walking good luck charm Johnny on The Spot and seed-spitting loose cannon The Hocker. Who will win a place on the team, and what will be done about the jilted heroes who didn't make the cut?

    We employ. 1-800-555-0606 How lucky do you feel? So reads the business card from LIMBUS, INC., a shadowy employment agency that operates at the edge of the normal world. LIMBUS's employees are just as suspicious and ephemeral as the motives of the company, if indeed it could be called a company in the ordinary sense of the word. In this shared-world anthology, five heavy hitters from the dark worlds of horror, fantasy, and scifi pool their warped takes on the shadow organization that offers employment of the most unusual kind to those on the fringes of society. One thing's for sure - you'll never think the same way again about the fine print on your next employment application!

    But when a terrified woman falls through his bathroom ceiling, he's forced back into a life of gunfights, double agents and paranormal research. The secret he's been keeping for nearly four decades might reunite him with his lost love, or kill millions.This new short story by John August falls into the genre of paranoid "spy-fi" popularized by writers like Jorge Luis Borges and shows like The Prisoner and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.== What Others Say =="I really dug the story. Gave it a glance just to see, got totally hooked, and blazed on through to the end."-- Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, The Yiddish Policemen's Union) "The Variant" is both a good, fun, smart story and an interesting experiment in indie self-publishing for fiction."-- John Gruber, daringfireball.net== About the Author ==An excerpt of The Variant is available at johnaugust.com/variant About the AuthorJohn August is the screenwriter of eight feature films, including Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride. He wrote and directed the 2007 movie The Nines.He can be found on Twitter, @johnaugust

    Nine misfit academics on an expedition to find the volcryn, a mythic race of intersteller nomads, and the only ship available for this strange quest is the Nightflyer, a cybernetic wonder with a never-seen captain...Nine innocents are about to find themselves in deep space, trapped with an insane murderer who can go anywhere, do anything, and intends to kill them all.

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