Scott Fitzgerald, first published in 1920 in Fitzgerald's short story collection Flappers and Philosophers. It tells the story of a young girl, Lois, who is on her way to a tryst with her lover, Howard, and stops to meet her much older brother, Kieth, who is in a seminary and about to become a priest..

    Now he confirms his reputation for brilliance and for the unexpected in this luminous short work.A Short, Sharp ShockA man tumbles through wild surf, half drowned, to collapse on a moonlit beach. When he regains consciousness, he has no memory of who he is or where he came from. he know only that the woman who washed ashore with him has disappeared sometime in the night, and that he has awakened in a surreal landscape of savage beauty -- a mysterious watery world encircled by a thin spine of land. Aided by strange tribesmen, he will journey to the cove of the spine kings, a brutal race that has enslaved the woman and several of the tribesmen. That is only the beginning of his quest, as he struggles to find her identity in this wondrous and cruel land -- and seeks out the woman whose hold on his imagination is both unfathomable and unshakable.Haunting and lyrical, filled with uncommon beauty and terrible peril, A Short, Sharp Shock is an ambitious and enthralling story by one of science fiction's most respected talents.

    There are plenty of mercenaries, spies, and guns for hire in the galaxy. But probably none as dangerous and determined as Bazine Netal. A master of disguise—and lethal with a blade, a blaster, or bare handed—she learned from the best. Now it’s her turn to be the teacher—even if schooling an eager but inexperienced recruit in the tricks of her trade is the last thing she wants to do. But it’s the only way to score the ship she needs to pull off her latest job. An anonymous client has hired Bazine to track down an ex-stormtrooper and recover the mysterious package he’s safeguarding. Payment for the mission promises to be astronomical, but the obstacles facing Bazine will prove to be formidable. And though her eager new sidekick has cyber skills crucial to the mission, only Bazine’s razor-sharp talents will mean the difference between success or failure—and life or death.

    But when a bio-technological monstrosity known as a farm squats on their land, Joe and Maddie must confront not only it, but also their own hopes and dreams.Originally issued in print as part of the short story collection: Wireless. New York : Ace Books, 2009.1 sound disc (45 min.)

    It can be read in ten minutes. Please don't purchase this expecting a novel for your dollar.This story was written in a small cafe on the corner of Bleeker and Grove in New York City on Tuesday, May 27th. The idea came to me yesterday while walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. I saw the locks on several of the small cables on the bridge. I remembered my time in both London and Paris, taking pictures of all the love locks on bridges there. And I thought about all the couples those locks represent. I wondered how many are still together.Maybe this story isn't worth your dollar. If I could price a work on Amazon for less, I would. It is what it is. I hope this will be the first of many short pieces that I write and publish in a single day while recording what I'm thinking and where I am when I write them. For those who take the plunge, I hope you get your money's worth. Thank you for all of your support.-Hugh

    Contains the stories:"The Narrow Land""The Masqerade on Dicantropus""Where Hesperus Falls""The World-Thinker""Green Magic""The Ten Books""Chateau D'If" (aka "New Bodies for Old")

    S. Lewis’s adult religious books, a repackaged edition of the revered author’s definitive collection of short fiction, which explores enduring spiritual and science fiction themes such as space, time, reality, fantasy, God, and the fate of humankind.From C.S. Lewis—the great British writer, scholar, lay theologian, broadcaster, Christian apologist, and author of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many other beloved classics—comes a collection of his dazzling short fiction.This collection of futuristic fiction includes a breathtaking science fiction story written early in his career in which Cambridge intellectuals witness the breach of space-time through a chronoscope—a telescope that looks not just into another world, but into another time. As powerful, inventive, and profound as his theological and philosophical works, The Dark Tower reveals another side of Lewis’s creative mind and his longtime fascination with reality and spirituality. It is ideal reading for fans of J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis’s longtime friend and colleague.

    For those readers who have followed this remarkable talent since the beginning, here are all those amazing stories gathered together in one place, with some extra surprises as well. For the many who are newly come to Card, here is chance to experience the wonder of a writer so versatile that he can handle everything from traditional narrative poetry to modern experimental fiction with equal ease and grace. The brilliant story-telling of the Alvin Maker books is no accident; the breathless excitement evoked by the Ender books is not a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In this enormous volume are forty-six stories, plus ten long, intensely personal essays, unique to this volume. In them the author reveals some of his reasons and motivations for writing, with a good deal of autobiography into the bargain.Contents: Introduction (Book 1: The Hanged Man, Tales of Dread) • essay by Orson Scott Card Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory (1979) / novelette by Orson Scott Card Quietus (1979) / short story by Orson Scott Card Deep Breathing Exercises (1979) / short story by Orson Scott Card Fat Farm (1980) / short story by Orson Scott Card Closing the Timelid (1979) / short story by Orson Scott Card Freeway Games (1979) / short story by Orson Scott Card A Sepulchre of Songs (1981) / novelette by Orson Scott Card Prior Restraint (1986) / short story by Orson Scott Card The Changed Man and the King of Words (1982) / novelette by Orson Scott Card Memories of My Head (1990) / short story by Orson Scott Card Lost Boys (1989) / short story by Orson Scott Card Afterword (Book 1: The Hanged Man, Tales of Dread) • essay by Orson Scott Card Introduction (Book 2: Flux, Tales of Human Futures) • essay by Orson Scott Card A Thousand Deaths [Tales of Capitol] (1978) / novelette by Orson Scott Card Clap Hands and Sing (1982) / short story by Orson Scott Card Dogwalker (1989) / novelette by Orson Scott Card But We Try Not to Act Like It (1979) / short story by Orson Scott Card I Put My Blue Genes On (1978) / short story by Orson Scott Card In the Doghouse (1978) / short story by Orson Scott Card and Jay A. Parry The Originist [Foundation] (1989) / novella by Orson Scott Card Afterword (Book 2: Flux, Tales of Human Futures) • essay by Orson Scott Card Introduction (Book 3: Maps in a Mirror, Fables and Fantasies) • essay by Orson Scott Card Unaccompanied Sonata (1979) / short story by Orson Scott Card A Cross-Country Trip to Kill Richard Nixon (1980) / novelette by Orson Scott Card The Porcelain Salamander (1981) • short story by Orson Scott Card Middle Woman (1981) / short story by Orson Scott Card The Bully and the Beast (1979) / novella by Orson Scott Card The Princess and the Bear (1980) / novelette by Orson Scott Card Sandmagic [Mither Mages] (1979) / novelette by Orson Scott Card The Best Day (1984) / short story by Orson Scott Card A Plague of Butterflies (1981) / short story by Orson Scott Card The Monkeys Thought 'Twas All in Fun (1979) / novelette by Orson Scott Card Afterword (Book 3: Maps in a Mirror, Fables and Fantasies) • essay by Orson Scott Card Introduction (Book 4: Cruel Miracles, Tales of Death, Hope, and Holiness) • essay by Orson Scott Card Mortal Gods (1979) / short story by Orson Scott Card Saving Grace (1987) / short story by Orson Scott Card Eye for Eye (1987) / novella by Orson Scott Card St. Amy's Tale (1980) / novelette by Orson Scott Card Kingsmeat (1978) / short story by Orson Scott Card Holy (1980) / novelette by Orson Scott Card Afterword (Book 4: Cruel Miracles, Tales of Death, Hope, and Holiness) • essay by Orson Scott Card Introduction (Book 5: Lost Songs, The Hidden Stories) • essay by Orson Scott Card Ender's Game [Ender Wiggin] (1977) / novelette by Orson Scott Card Mikal's Songbird (1978) / novelette by Orson Scott Card Prentice Alvin and the No-Good Plow [The Alvin Maker Saga] (1989) • poem by Orson Scott Card Malpractice (1977) / short story by Orson Scott Card Follower (1978) / short story by Orson Scott Card Hitching (1978) / short story by Orson Scott Card Damn Fine Novel (1989) / short story by Orson Scott Card Billy's Box (1978) / short story by Orson Scott Card The Best Family Home Evening Ever (1978) / short story by Orson Scott Card Bicicleta (1977) / short story by Orson Scott Card I Think Mom and Dad Are Going Crazy, Jerry (1979) / short story by Orson Scott Card Gert Fram (1977) / short story by Orson Scott Card Afterword (Book 5: Lost Songs, The Hidden Stories) • essay by Orson Scott Card

    and so, they knew, were the Aliens. When two expanding empires meet... war is inevitable. Or is it...?

    But the war will be decided by Morkai himself as he challenges the aliens' sinister leader to single combat.

    Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

    Here is a society as complex and troubled as any on our world, peopled with unforgettable characters struggling to become fully human. For the disgraced revolutionary Abberkam, the callow "space brat" Solly, the haughty soldier Teyeo, and the Ekumen historian and Hainish exile Havzhiva, freedom and duty both begin in the heart, and success as well as failure has its costs.CONTENT Betrayals Forgiveness Day A Man of the People A Woman's Liberation Notes on Werel and YeoweIn this stunning collection of four intimately interconnected novellas, Ursula K. Le Guin returns to the great themes that have made her one of America's most honored and respected authors.

    Gerald Livingston is an orbital garbage collector. For a hundred years, people have been abandoning things in space, and someone has to clean it up. But there’s something spinning a little bit higher than he expects, something that isn’t on the decades’ old orbital maps. An hour after he grabs it and brings it in, rumors fill Earth’s infomesh about an “alien artifact.” Thrown into the maelstrom of worldwide shared experience, the Artifact is a game-changer. A message in a bottle; an alien capsule that wants to communicate. The world reacts as humans always do: with fear and hope and selfishness and love and violence. And insatiable curiosity.

    It was Avluela the Flier's scarlet and ebony wings that lead the Watcher to the seven hills of the ancient city, leaving the skies and deep space unguarded. And so the invaders came and conquered and Avluela became lost in the turmoil.

    It was first published in the anthology Far Horizons in 1999.