Senior Agent Hamed al-Nasr shows his new partner Agent Onsi the ropes of investigation when they are called to subdue a dangerous, possessed tram car. What starts off as a simple matter of exorcism, however, becomes more complicated as the origins of the demon inside are revealed.

    Quarrels are made in an apartment flat, baijiu is served in a state of surveillance, chow mein alternates with autonomous cars, and a girl has to choose between romance and money. It’s poignant how Beijing is divided into three segments that decides life for its 80 million citizens, and separates them — even physically — into the working, professional, and ruling class, in which ones birth determines ones future. This alone is an eerie parallel to today, where people are increasingly divided, and inhabiting different worlds within the same space — a parallel in which education, fresh air and nutritious food — and even sunlight — become luxuries, just like designer clothing and jewellery. Hao Jingfang’s writing, translated by Ken Liu, is poetic and clean, and carries a political message. It’s science-fictional, but it is the timelessness that gives this story its elegance.

    She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. In Glitches, a short prequel story to Cinder, we see the results of that illness play out, and the emotional toll that takes on Cinder. Something that may, or may not, be a glitch…

    Discover a bold new way to raise a child in this unsettling story of the near future by the New York Times bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow.When Sam’s wife first tells him about Vitek, a twenty-first-century fertility lab, he sees it as the natural next step in trying to help their future child get a “leg up” in a competitive world. But the more Sam considers the lives that his child could lead, the more he begins to question his own relationships and the choices he has made in his life.Amor Towles’s You Have Arrived at Your Destination is part of Forward, a collection of six stories of the near and far future from out-of-this-world authors. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

    The advanced technology of a house first pleases then increasingly terrifies its occupants.

    Experience the horror of Tade Thompson's The Murders of Molly Southbourne.The rule is simple: don't bleed.For as long as Molly Southbourne can remember, she's been watching herself die. Whenever she bleeds, another molly is born, identical to her in every way and intent on her destruction.Molly knows every way to kill herself, but she also knows that as long as she survives she'll be hunted. No matter how well she follows the rules, eventually the mollys will find her. Can Molly find a way to stop the tide of blood, or will she meet her end at the hand of a girl who looks just like her?

    Now, years later, the military has need of her expertise in order to prevent the destruction of their AI-powered fleet.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    "First Flight" is a finalist for the 2010 Locus Award.The winner of the 2008 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of short fiction published in Strange Horizons, Cosmos, and Asimov's. Her first novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, will be published by Tor in 2010.

    As twelve-year-olds struggling to survive in two very different worlds within the Republic’s stronghold, June was starting her first day of school at Drake University as the youngest cadet ever admitted, and Day was fighting for food on the streets of the Lake sector. LIFE BEFORE LEGEND contains two original stories written by Marie Lu that give readers a sneak peek into the lives of their favorite characters in a thrilling new context.

    How does this technology impact a person's feeling of self-worth? What if different countries have different ethics for what robots may or may not do?

    Here’s the correct version, as published in Omni, 1990." -- Terry Bisson

    It was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction.It won a Hugo Award in 1968. The name was also used for a short story collection of Ellison's work, featuring this story. It was recently reprinted by the Library of America, collected in volume two (Terror and the Uncanny, from the 1940s to Now) of American Fantastic Tales (2009).

    With a prize on his head and his life in danger, trust is a luxury he can't afford. Hirald, pale and deadly in the blistering heat, is an ambiguous presence. But who is she? What does she want from him? Mankind has sought Snow's secret for thousands of years, and blood will flow in the desert before it's revealed.This short tale is compelling, brutal and lingers long after the final word: the perfect introduction to Neal Asher's Polity universe fiction.Snow is an albino, immortal, very dangerous, and someone wants his bollocks. Spectrum SF 8 (2002), David G Hartwell’s & Kathryn Cramer’s Year’s Best SF 8 (June 2003), and to be published in the Czech SF magazine Ikarie.

    Rarely do they even leave their own rooms, in which all of their needs are met by the Machine. The Machine allows the humans to communicate "ideas" with one another, which is essentially their only activity. It doesn't stop them from leaving their rooms, but they have little desire to do so anyway. They've started to believe the Machine is omnipotent and omniscient, not to be questioned. And when it begins to malfunction, they trust that it knows what it's doing--forgetting they invented it in the first place . . .From the author of A Passage to India, A Room with a View, and other classic novels, and a sixteen-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, this remarkable science fiction story, which was included in a Science Fiction Hall of Fame anthology, was published in 1909--yet becomes more relevant and thought-provoking with each passing day of the twenty-first century.

    But now, it seems to describe the real world of cell phones, Blackberries and iPods, and its prediction of terrible things to come isn't so easy to shrug off. Leiber sets the tale in a future when "missiles are on the prowl," and most people live underground. George Gusterson is a writer with crazy ideas -- one being, he still lives on the surface. For another, he imagines a gizmo that would remind him of things like when to turn on the TV. George's mere whim inspires an actual gadget called the Tickler, just a "wire recorder and clock" at first, but then . . . it whispers constantly through an earphone. It instills positive thinking. It injects drugs. It makes decisions. It weights 28 pounds. And it won't get off. Only Gusterson understands what "the little fellow perched on your shoulder" is really saying, one word: Obey! And only Gusterson knows what to say back, if it's not too late.