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Brave New Worlds


John Joseph AdamsNeil Gaiman - 2010
    Brave New Worlds brings together the best dystopian fiction of the last 30 years, demonstrating the diversity that flourishes in this compelling subgenre. This landmark tome contains stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, Cory Doctorow, M. Rickert, Paolo Bacigalupi, Orson Scott Card, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, and many others.Table of ContentsIntroduction / John Joseph Adams --Lottery / Shirley Jackson --Red card / S.L. Gilbow --Ten with a flag / Joseph Paul Haines --Ones who walk away from Omelas / Ursula K. Le. Guin --Evidence of love in a case of abandonment / M. Rickert --The Funeral / Kate Wilhelm --O happy day! / Geoff Ryman --Pervert / Charles Coleman Finlay --From homogeneous to honey / Neil Gaiman & Bryan Talbot --Billennium / J.G. Ballard --Amaryllis / Carrie Vaughn --Pop squad / Paolo Bacigalupi --Auspicious eggs / James Morrow --Peter Skilling / Alex Irvine --The Pedestrian / Ray Bradbury --Things that make me weak and strange get engineered away / Cory Doctorow --Pearl diver / Caitlin R. Kiernan --Dead space for the unexpected / Geoff Ryman --"Repent harlequin!", said the Ticktockman / Harlan Ellison --Is this your day to join the revolution? / Genevieve Valentine --Independence day / Sarah Langan --Lunatics / Kim Stanley Robinson --Sacrament / Matt Williamson --Minority report / Philip K. Dick --Just do it / Heather Lindsley --Harrison Bergeron / Kurt Vonnegut Jr. --Caught in the organ draft / Robert Silverberg --Geriatric ward / Orson Scott Card --Arties aren't stupid / Jeremiah Tolbert --Jordan's waterhammer / Joe Mastroianni --Of a sweet slow dance in the wake of temporary dogs / Adam-Troy Castro --Resistance / Tobias S. Buckell --Civilization / Vylar Kaftan.

Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History


Rose FoxClaire Humphrey - 2014
    In 1633 Al-Shouf, a mother keeps demons at bay with the combined power of grief and music. In 1775 Paris, as social tensions come to a boil, a courtesan tries to save the woman she loves. In 1838 Georgia, a pregnant woman's desperate escape from slavery comes with a terrible price. In 1900 Ilocos Norte, a forest spirit helps a young girl defend her land from American occupiers. These gripping stories have been passed down through the generations, hidden between the lines of journal entries and love letters. Now 27 of today's finest authors – including Tananarive Due, Sofia Samatar, Ken Liu, Victor LaValle, Nnedi Okorafor, and Sabrina Vourvoulias – reveal the people whose lives have been pushed to the margins of history.

Visions of Distant Shores: An Andre Norton Collection


Andre Norton - 2010
    In most of Norton's works, alienated outsiders undertake a journey through which they realize their full potential. Many planets in the books are Earth-like places, where humans can live without special protection, and have extensive flora and fauna which are described in considerable detail and often have substantial bearing on the plot.On February 20, 2005, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, which had earlier honored her with its Grand Master Award in 1983, announced the creation of the Andre Norton Award, to be given each year for an outstanding work of fantasy or science fiction for the young adult literature market, beginning in 2006. Nobody today is telling better stories of straight-forward interstellar adventure.Included in this volume:Book One: Storm Over Warlock - Stranded on the alien world of Warlock, Shann Lantree's expedition camp has been wiped out by the Throgs, beings so alien that humans have yet to communicate with them. Lantree must quickly learn how to survive under harsh conditions while being chased by the Throgs -- and how to distinguish the real from the dreamed when he meets the mysterious Wyverns. A satisfying and mature novel which readers will seize upon if they want to enjoy a good adventure story...Book Two: Star Born - When the oppressive global dictatorship of Pax took over Earth they put a stop to space exploration. Still, a few rebels escaped in the sleeper ships to found free new colonies -- or perish in the attempt. Those few colonists that reached inhabitable worlds were cut off for centuries, and in that isolation and freedom they developed the mysterious mental powers that "civilization" had all but destroyed...Book Three: Star Hunter - Somewhere on the jungle world of Jumala, there was a man in hiding--a man whose mind had been reconditioned with another's brain pattern and for whom there was a fabulous reward. Star Hunter is a thrill-packed account of that other-worldly game of hide-and-seek between a man who did not know all his own powers and an interstellar safari that sought something no man had a right to find...Book Four: Plague Ship - A fast-moving suspense tale, full of unusual detail and unexpected turns. Several highlights make the book really shine: the sunset gorp hunt on the reefs of an oily sea; a raid on an asteroid's emergency station; and a landing in the Big Burn, resulting in an encounter with the mutant life-forms that reside there...Book Five: Voodoo Planet - Dane Thorson of the space-trader 'Solar Queen' found himself embroiled in a desperate battle of minds between the rational science of the spaceways and the hypnotic witchcraft of the mental wizard that ruled the Voodoo Planet...Book Six: The Gifts of Asti - Varta, the last priestess of Asti, lives alone with Lur, a telepath of the lizardfolk, in Asti's isolated mountain retreat. Decadent Memphir has long since drifted away from the austere paths of Asti, and now the barbarians of Klem are sacking the city, and the smoke of its burning drifts up to the temple...Book Seven: The People of the Crater - "Send the Black Throne to dust; conquer the Black Ones, and bring the Daughter from the Caves of Darkness." These were the tasks Garin must perform to fulfill the prophecy of the Ancient Ones--and establish his own destiny in this hidden land!This are the original and unabridged versions of these tales.

The Best of Kage Baker


Kage Baker - 2012
    A late starter, Baker published her first short stories in 1997, at the age of forty-five. From then until the end of her life, she wrote prolifically and well, leaving an astonishing body of work behind.The Best of Kage Baker is a treasure trove that gathers together twenty stories and novellas, eleven of which have never been collected anywhere. The volume is bookended by a pair of tales from her best known and best loved creation: The Company, with its vivid cast of time traveling immortals. In “Noble Mold,” Mendoza the botanist and Joseph, the ancient “facilitator,” find themselves in 19th century California, where a straightforward acquisition grows unexpectedly complex, requiring, in the end, a carefully engineered “miracle.” In “The Carpet Beds of Sutro Park,” an autistic Company operative named Ezra encounters a lost soul named Kristy Ann, and finds a way to give her back the world that she has lost.Among the volume’s many other highlights are a pair of brilliant Company novellas: the Hugo Award-nominated “Son, Observe the Time” and “Welcome to Olympos, Mr. Hearst,” a tour de force set in the Hollywood of the 1930s and featuring an encounter with legendary newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst. There is also a generous assortment of equally brilliant standalone tales, including “Calamari Curls,” the account of a faded resort town that takes a surprising turn into Lovecraftian terrain, and the World Fantasy Award-nominated “Caverns of Mystery,” in which ancient stories play themselves out repeatedly, shaping and altering the world around them.These are only a few of the pleasures waiting within this book. The Best of Kage Baker is exactly what the title proclaims: the best short work of a gifted and irreplaceable writer. Anyone with an interest in first-rate imaginative fiction – anyone with an interest in lovingly crafted fiction of any kind – needs to read this book.

The Country of the Blind and Other Science-Fiction Stories


H.G. Wells - 1911
    The Dover Thrift Edition:"The Country of the Blind" (1904)"The Star" (1897)"The New Accelerator" (1901)"The Remarkable Case of Davidson's Eyes" (1895)"Under the Knife" (1896)"The Queer Story of Brownlow's Newspaper" (1932)

A Fire in the Heavens


Mary Robinette Kowal - 2014
    Part of the Shadows Beneath - The Writing Excuses Anthology

WhiteSpace: Season Two


Sean Platt - 2013
    But the shooter wasn’t acting alone.Roger Heller was part of something bigger…A conspiracy of scientific experiments, missing citizens, and ancient secrets threatening the island and its people.Behind it all: the enigmatic Blake Conway.Can Jon Conway piece the mystery together before he loses someone else that he loves?Can Roger Heller’s surviving family move on from his heinous actions?Will Cassidy’s addictions destroy her new family with Emma and Jon?Can Milo trust the mysterious Don Bellows?What will happen when Brock Houser launches his own investigation?WhiteSpace is a character-driven, mysterious, sci-fi thriller that would be right at home with superbly scripted TV shows like LOST, The Killing, and Fringe.

Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer


Tanith Lee - 1983
    In RED AS BLOOD, she displays her soaring imagination at its most fantastically mischievous. Not for nothing was the title story named as a Nebula nominee. Not for nothing was the author of THE BIRTHGRAVE & THE STORM LORD called by New York's Village Voice, "Goddess-Empress of the Hot Read."Here are the world-famous tales of such as the Brothers Grimm as they might have been retold by the Sisters Grimmer! Fairy tales for children? Not on your life!Contents:Paid Piper (1981)Red as Blood (1979)Thorns (1972)When the Clock Strikes (1980)The Golden Rope (1983)The Princess and Her Future (1983)Wolfland (1980)Black as Ink (1983)Beauty (1983)

Take Us To Your Trump


Andrew Stanek - 2018
    Okay yes, all that stuff too, but I'm not talking about that right now. The government has also been lying to us about space aliens. Aliens have landed on the National Mall and are asking to speak with the President of the United States. For the sake of the planet, diplomat Michael Wallenson is tasked with keeping them away from Donald Trump at all costs. Will Michael succeed? Or will these heavily armed, easily offended aliens succeed in reaching our leader? Building the border dome, coal-powered missiles, and the true identities of the men in black - all in Take Us To Your Trump, another hilarious satirical comedy from author Andrew Stanek.

The Last Broadcast


Christopher Ruz - 2011
    There are too many gaps in his code, too many mistakes left unfixed.Could Barry's programmers really have been so lax? Or does he have a greater purpose, some secret mission buried in his source code? He has another eighteen thousand years to find the answer. In the meantime, he's growing bored, and idle hands are the devil's playthings...

Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy


Ellen DatlowKathe Koja - 2013
    A number of wonderful fantasy novels, including Stardust by Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, and The Prestige by Christopher Priest, owe their inspiration to works by nineteenth-century writers ranging from Jane Austen, the Brontës, and George Meredith to Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, and William Morris. And, of course, the entire steampunk genre and subculture owes more than a little to literature inspired by this period.Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells is an anthology for everyone who loves these works of neo-Victorian fiction, and wishes to explore the wide variety of ways that modern fantasists are using nineteenth-century settings, characters, and themes. These approaches stretch from steampunk fiction to the Austen-and-Trollope inspired works that some critics call Fantasy of Manners, all of which fit under the larger umbrella of Gaslamp Fantasy. The result is eighteen stories by experts from the fantasy, horror, mainstream, and young adult fields, including both bestselling writers and exciting new talents such as Elizabeth Bear, James Blaylock, Jeffrey Ford, Ellen Kushner, Tanith Lee, Gregory Maguire, Delia Sherman, and Catherynne M. Valente, who present a bewitching vision of a nineteenth century invested (or cursed!) with magic.The Line-up:“Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells” by Delia Sherman“The Fairy Enterprise” by Jeffrey Ford“From the Catalogue of the Pavilion of the Uncanny and Marvelous, Scheduled for Premiere at the Great Exhibition (Before the Fire)” by Genevieve Valentine“The Memory Book” by Maureen McHugh“La Reine D’Enfer” by Kathe Koja“Briar Rose” by Elizabeth Wein“The Governess” by Elizabeth Bear“Smithfield” by James P. Blaylock“The Unwanted Women of Surrey” by Kaaron Warren“Charged” by Leanna Renee Hieber“Mr. Splitfoot” by Dale Bailey“Phosphorus” by Veronica Schanoes“We Without Us Were Shadows” by Catherynne M. Valente“The Vital Importance of the Superficial” by Ellen Kushner and Caroline Stevermer“The Jewel in the Toad Queen’s Crown” by Jane Yolen“A Few Twigs He Left Behind” by Gregory Maguire“Their Monstrous Minds” by Tanith Lee“Estella Saves the Village” by Theodora Goss

Memories of the Future


Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky - 1929
    Written in Soviet Moscow in the 1920s—but considered too subversive even to show to a publisher—the seven tales included here attest to Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s boundless imagination, black humor, and breathtaking irony: a man loses his way in the vast black waste of his own small room; the Eiffel Tower runs amok; a kind soul dreams of selling “everything you need for suicide”; an absentminded passenger boards the wrong train, winding up in a place where night is day, nightmares are the reality, and the backs of all facts have been broken; a man out looking for work comes across a line for logic but doesn’t join it as there’s no guarantee the logic will last; a sociable corpse misses his own funeral; an inventor gets a glimpse of the far-from-radiant communist future.

The Last Mimzy


Henry Kuttner - 1975
    In “Mimsy Were the Borogoves”–the inspiration for New Line Cinema’s major motion picture The Last Mimzy–a boy finds a discarded box containing a treasure trove of curious objects. When he and his sister begin to play with these trinkets–including a crystal cube that magnifies the unimaginable and a strange doll with removable organs that don’t quite correspond to those of the human body–their parents grow concerned. And they should be. For the items are changing the way the children think and perceive the world around them–for better or worse. Ray Bradbury called Henry Kuttner “a man who shaped science fiction and fantasy in its most important years.” Marion Zimmer Bradley and Roger Zelazny said he was a major inspiration. Kuttner was a writer’s writer whose visionary works anticipated our own computer-controlled, machine-made world. At the time of his death at forty-two in 1958, he had created as many as 170 stories under more than a dozen pseudonyms–sometimes writing entire issues of science fiction magazines–in close collaboration with his wife, C. L. Moore. This definitive collection will be a revelation to those who wish to discover or rediscover Henry Kuttner, a true master of the universe.

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume II A


Ben BovaH.G. Wells - 1973
    There is no better anthology that captures the birth of science fiction as a literary field. Published in 1973 to honor stories that had come before the institution of the Nebula Awards, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame introduced tens of thousands of young readers to the wonders of science fiction and was a favorite of libraries across the country. This volume contains novellas by: Ray Bradbury, James Blish, Algis Budrys, Theodore Cogswell, E. M. Forster, Frederik Pohl, James H. Schmitz, T. L. Sherred, Wilmar H. Shiras, Clifford D. Simak, and Jack Vance.Contents: Introduction · Ben Bova · in · Call Me Joe · Poul Anderson · nv Astounding Apr ’57 · Who Goes There? [as by Don A. Stuart] · John W. Campbell, Jr. · na Astounding Aug ’38 · Nerves · Lester del Rey · na Astounding Sep ’42 · Universe [Hugh Hoyland] · Robert A. Heinlein · na Astounding May ’41 · The Marching Morons · C. M. Kornbluth · nv Galaxy Apr ’51 · Vintage Season [as by Lawrence O’Donnell] · Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore · na Astounding Sep ’46 · ...And Then There Were None · Eric Frank Russell · na Astounding Jun ’51 · The Ballad of Lost C’Mell · Cordwainer Smith · nv Galaxy Oct ’62 · Baby Is Three · Theodore Sturgeon · na Galaxy Oct ’52 · The Time Machine [Time Machine] · H. G. Wells · na The New Review Jan, 1895 (+4) · With Folded Hands... [Humanoids] · Jack Williamson · nv Astounding Jul ’47

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, November 1985


Stanley SchmidtLarry Powell - 1985
    Gillett, Ph.D.• The Efficiency Expert by W. R. Thompson• Second Helpings by George R. R. Martin• Random Sample by Heidi Heyer• On Gaming by Dana Lombardy• Siblings by Larry Powell• Diabetes and Rockets by G. Harry Stine• Béisbol by Ben Bova• The Darkling Plain by P. M. Fergusson• Biolog: P. M. Fergusson by Jay Kay Klein• The Reference Library by Thomas A. Easton •   Review: Artifact by Gregory Benford by Thomas A. Easton •   Review: Cuckoo's Egg by C. J. Cherryh by Thomas A. Easton •   Review: Skinner by Richard S. McEnroe by Thomas A. Easton •   Review: Blood Music by Greg Bear by Thomas A. Easton •   Review: A Coming of Age by Timothy Zahn by Thomas A. Easton •   Review: Trumps of Doom by Roger Zelazny by Thomas A. Easton •   Review: The Fall of Winter by Jack C. Haldeman, II by Thomas A. Easton •   Review: The Time Travelers; A Science Fiction Quartet by Martin H. Greenberg and Robert Silverberg by Thomas A. Easton •   Review: The Hugo Winners, 1976-1979 by Isaac Asimov by Thomas A. Easton •   Review: Young Extraterrestrials by Isaac Asimov and Martin Greenberg and Charles Waugh by Thomas A. Easton •   Review: The Year's Best Science Fiction, Second Annual Collection by Gardner Dozois by Thomas A. Easton •   Review: The Future of Flight by Dean Ing and Leik Myrabo by Thomas A. Easton •   Review: Out of the Cradle: Exploring the Frontiers Beyond Earth by William K. Hartmann and Pamela Lee and Ron Miller by Thomas A. Easton • Brass Tacks by Stanley Schmidt• Analog: A Calendar of Upcoming Events by Anthony R. Lewis