Book picks similar to
The Ethical Way by Joseph Farrell
sci-fi
short-stories
20th-century
classic
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.
Hall of Mirrors
Fredric Brown - 1953
Hall of Mirrors appeared in the December 1953 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.It is a tough decision to make—whether to give up your life so you can live it over again!
Nineteen Ghost Stories of M.R. James to Keep You Up at Night: 3 Volumes
M.R. James - 2009
R. James is best remembered for his ghost stories which are widely regarded as among the finest in English literature. One of James' most important achievements was to redefine the ghost story for the new century by dispensing with many of the formal gothic trappings of his predecessors, and replacing them with more realistic contemporary settings.According to James, a story must "put the reader into the position of saying to himself: 'If I'm not careful, something of this kind may happen to me!'"
The Variant
John August - 2009
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
On the Head of a Pin: A Novel from Crosstown to Oblivion
Walter Mosley - 2012
JTE is developing advanced animatronics editing techniques to create high-end movies indistinguishable from live-action. Long dead stars can now share the screen with today's A-list. But one night Joshua and Ana discover something lingering in the rendered footage…an entity that will lead them into a new age beyond the reality they have come to know.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
The Bear That Fell From The Stars
Keith C. Blackmore - 2011
On the night he decides to strike, his life, and his world, are forever changed. Alien scientists from across the cosmos, abduct and place Kazaka in deep storage for centuries. When they revive him with the intent to subject him to extraterrestrial evisceration, the ninja escapes. The shadow warrior then begins to hunt his captors, one by one, leading up to a battle that will shake the galaxy.The Bear That Fell From the StarsA different kind of alien terror. NOTE: This is a Novella of approx. 20,000 words, or about 60 pages.Science Fiction Fantasy and not hard SciFi.Some scenes of graphic violence.
Pygmalion's Spectacles
Stanley G. Weinbaum - 1935
Is it not so? Either to dream that what you seek is yours, or else to dream that what you hate is conquered. You drink to escape reality, and the irony is that even reality is a dream.'
Of Mice and Me
Mishka Shubaly - 2014
He had a beautiful new girlfriend and sudden prosperity as an author. But when he adopts an orphaned infant mouse, his world is turned on its head. The mouse comes to symbolize everything left unresolved in his life — his relationship with his divorced parents, his fear of family and commitment, and his inability to feel true happiness and love. By turns hilarious and moving, Mishka Shubaly’s latest Kindle Single captures the journey we all take in life — from being loved, to giving love. Cover by Adil Dara.
The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies
Clark Ashton Smith - 1935
P. Lovecraft into calling him "perhaps unexcelled by any other writer, dead or living” or compel Fritz Lieber to employ the worthy term sui generis. Clark Ashton Smith—autodidact, prolific poet, amateur philosopher, bizarre sculptor, and unmatched storyteller—simply wrote like no one else, before or since. This new collection of his very best tales and poems is selected and introduced by supernatural literature scholar S. T. Joshi and allows readers to encounter Smith’s visionary brand of fantastical, phantasmagorical worlds, each one filled with invention, terror, and a superlative sense of metaphysical wonder.
The Life of Insects
Victor Pelevin - 1993
With consummate literary skill Pelevin creates a satirical bestiary which is as realistic as it is delirious - a bitter parable of contemporary Russia, full of the probing, disenchanted comedy that makes Pelevin a vital and altogether surprising writer.
The Voyage of the Space Beagle
A.E. van Vogt - 1950
The saga of the Space Beagle, mankind's first effort to reach another galaxy. And what strange life-forms are encountered!
Owning the Future: Short Stories
Neal Asher - 2018
However, though I think some of them are great, some aren’t, and some are profoundly dated. I am aware that there are those out there, who will just buy these without a second thought, so I have to edit, be selective, and I damned well have to show some respect for my readers. Kindle in this respect can be a danger for a known writer, because you can publish any old twaddle and someone will buy it. Time and again, I’ve had fans, upon hearing that I have this and that unpublished in my files, demanding that I publish it at once because surely they’ll love it. No they won’t. A reputation like trust: difficult to build and easy to destroy. I’ve therefore chosen stories other people have published here and there, and filled in with those I really think someone should have published. Here you’ll find some Polity tales, some that could have been set in the Polity (at a stretch) and some from the bleak Owner universe. Enjoy! Neal Asher 04/06/18
Time and the Gods
Lord Dunsany - 1906
Lovecraft, L. Sprague de Camp, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, and many other modern writers. Time and the Gods is Dunsany at his peak of his talent. The stories here are a lush tapestry of language, conjuring images of people, places, and things which cannot possibly exist, yet somehow ring true. Together with Dunsany's other major collections, The Book of Wonder, A Dreamer's Tales and Tales of Three Hemispheres, they are a necessary part of any fantasy collection.
The Complete Roderick
John Sladek - 1992
Educated by watching television, he is adopted by an elderly couple in Kansas and tries to adjust to American society. Sladek conveys, with great sensitivity and insight, the innocence of an artificial intelligence and asks profound questions about mankind's right to manipulate others. It also portrays how a numerological mind might structure a narrative.Inventive, funny, yet melancholy, this is one of SF's greatest creative geniuses writing at his thought-provoking best. Omnibus edition includes Roderick and Roderick at Random.
The Clockwork Man
E.V. Odle - 1923
At the cost of a certain amount of agency, these devices will permit us to move unhindered through time and space, and to live complacent, well-regulated lives. However, when one of these devices goes awry, a “clockwork man” appears accidentally in the 1920s, at a cricket match in a small English village. Comical yet mind-blowing hijinks ensue.(source: http://hilobrow.com/2013/01/21/hilobo...)