V. Larson! This 60,000 word book is an Anthology of short stories. Most are Science Fiction mixed with Horror. Others might be called Dark Fantasy... Many have been published previously in various magazines.The Barrier – What does it take to go faster than light?Symptoms of Godhood – How far can you modify a body and still call the results human?Discharged – A long war and an even longer stay in an automated hospital.Teeth at Bedtime – Technology follows us everywhere.The Insect Requirement – Great sacrifices are required for Earth’s early colonists.Blind Eyes – If we can design our own children, how far will we go?TA96 – Do our genes belong to us?Zundra’s Movies – A future where video is created with the mind, and insanity is fun to watch.Pinball – A young man builds his own watchdog.Love Aboard the Kamadeva – A love triangle between two desperate souls and a digital mirage.Starplay – A window into the universe becomes a door.The One-Way Gang – Leaving Earth is easy, but you can never come back.Rusted Metal – What has spent the last century in the basement?Lunar Lotto – Death comes instantly to outlaws in vacuum.The Rollers – Crime has been mostly eliminated by removing all forms of cash... Mostly.

    Chapters: Harrison Bergeron, Epicac, 2br02b, Welcome to the Monkey House, Miss Temptation, Report on the Barnhouse Effect, All the King's Horses, Who Am I This Time?, Deer in the Works. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: "Harrison Bergeron" is a satirical, dystopian science fiction short story written by Kurt Vonnegut and first published in October 1961. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the story was re-published in the author's collection, Welcome to the Monkey House in 1968. In the story, social equality has been achieved by handicapping the more intelligent, athletic or beautiful members of society. For example, strength is handicapped by the requirement to carry weight, beauty by the requirement to wear a mask and so on. This is due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments to the United States Constitution. This process is central to the society, designed so that no one will feel inferior to anyone else. Handicapping is overseen by the United States Handicapper General, Diana Moon-Glampers. Harrison Bergeron, the protagonist of the story, has exceptional intelligence, strength, and beauty, and thus has to bear enormous handicaps. These include headphones that play distracting noises, three hundred pounds of weight strapped to his body, eyeglasses designed to give him headaches, a rubber ball on his nose, black caps on his teeth, and shaven eyebrows. Despite these societal handicaps, he is able to invade a TV station, declare himself Emperor, strip himself of his handicaps, then dance with a ballerina whose handicaps he has also discarded. Both are shot dead by the brutal and relentless Handicapper General. The story is framed by an additional perspective from Bergeron's parents, who are w...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=18941

    Gabriel Kane goes from a struggling architect to one of the most powerful men in the world; Armonía Solorsano -- a young Hispanic girl who grew up in a dilapidated suburban McMansion-turned-tenement -- invents one of the most important and influential pieces of technology in history; a non-profit organization goes from a charity to a decentralized domestic terrorist group; and the greatest democracy in the world finds itself falling into the ever-tightening grip of a dictator.As five people come together with the shared goal of changing the world, they discover that their approaches are fundamentally and irreconcilably at odds. Their partnership becomes a bitter political and high-tech rivalry from which only one of them can emerge.This novella by Christian Cantrell (about 16,000 words) portrays an intersection of politics and technology which is both extremely relevant, and frighteningly feasible.

    R. Martin's "The Thousand Worlds" setting.

    This was published as a Clarkesworld audiobook podcast in 2020.

    

    

    His major inspiration and invention was cosmic horror: the idea that life is incomprehensible to human minds and that the universe is fundamentally alien. Those who genuinely reason, like his protagonists, gamble with sanity. He has developed a cult following for his Cthulhu Mythos, a series of loosely interconnected fictions featuring a pantheon of human-nullifying entities, as well as the Necronomicon, a fictional grimoire of magical rites and forbidden lore. His works were deeply pessimistic and cynical, challenging the values of Enlightenment, Romanticist, and Christian humanism. Lovecraft's protagonists usually achieve the mirror-opposite of traditional gnosis and mysticism by momentarily glimpsing the horror of ultimate reality. Although Lovecraft's readership was limited during his life, his reputation has grown over the decades, and he is now commonly regarded as one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century, exerting widespread and indirect influence, and frequently compared to Edgar Allan Poe.

    Introduction by Robert Silverberg. Afterwords by Norman Spinrad, Vonda N McIntyre, Robert Sheckley, Philip Jose Farmer, Thomas M Disch, and Edward Bryant.

    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!

    Can Superman make a baby with Lois Lane, or is he doomed to be the last of his kind? This article discusses the scientific and medical issues involved in copulating with a Kryptonian.27 minutes

    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

    Poe's work is full of mystery, horror, and a dark imagination, while Verne focuses on action and adventure. It is a fascinating look at two great literary minds as they work on the same subject: the strange voyage of Arthur Gordon Pym to the Antarctic.

    Part of the Shadows Beneath - The Writing Excuses Anthology

    With "Nightfall," written in 1941, Asimov triggered a spark of awareness in the publishing community that science fiction could be more than Buck Rogers comic books. His "Foundation" series and robot novels (he coined the word "robotics") are acknowledged as the cornerstone of modern science fiction. Asimov's Foundation series was awarded the Best All-time Novel Series Hugo Award in 1966. He was awarded the special lifetime Nebula Grandmaster award in 1987.Over the next fifty years, Isaac Asimov would distinguish himself as one of the most prolific, versatile, and creative authors ever. His broad range of works includes histories, children's books, collections of articles, mysteries, and books concerning the Bible, literature, geography, humor, and nonfiction science material. He managed over his creative lifetime to have at least one book included in each of the Dewey Decimal System's 10 major library classifications. He was known for his profound knowledge of Shakespeare, the Bible, Gilbert and Sullivan, limericks, and history, whether it be Roman, Greek or American. Isaac Asimov died in 1992 at the age of 72.Volume 1 of "Isaac Asimov: Short Stories" contains the Hugo and Nebula Award Nominee, Locus Poll Award Winner and Asimov's Reader's Choice Award Winner "Robot Dreams," the Hugo Award Winner and Locus Poll Award Nominee "Gold," the Locus Poll Award Nominee "Potential," the Asimov's Reader's Choice Award Nominated "Kid Brother," and more excellent short science fiction, including arare 1974 Saturday Evening Post four-part series, collectively entitled the "The Dream."