As a priestess of the Sisterhood, she travels the stars alongside the soldiers of Earth and Mars—the same ones who own the rights to her body and soul. When her former captain abandons her, First Sister’s hopes for freedom are dashed when she is forced to stay on her ship with no friends, no power, and a new captain—Saito Ren—whom she knows nothing about. She is commanded to spy on Captain Ren by the Sisterhood, but soon discovers that working for the war effort is so much harder to do when you’re falling in love.Lito val Lucius climbed his way out of the slums to become an elite soldier of Venus, but was defeated in combat by none other than Saito Ren, resulting in the disappearance of his partner, Hiro. When Lito learns that Hiro is both alive and a traitor to the cause, he now has a shot at redemption: track down and kill his former partner. But when he discovers recordings that Hiro secretly made, Lito’s own allegiances are put to the test. Ultimately, he must decide between following orders and following his heart.

    A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry and the helpless—people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumored healing powers.Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. He has seen inside the biodome, and doesn't care to again—but when something begins killing off others like himself, Kaaro must defy his masters to search for an answer, facing his dark history and coming to a realization about a horrifying future.

    When you realize that the 33 stories are ordered chronologically, you begin to grasp the scale of Cordwainer Smith's creation. Regimes, technologies, planets, moralities, religions, histories all rise and fall through his millennia.These are futuristic tales told as myth, as legend, as a history of a distant and decayed past. Written in an unadorned voice reminiscent of James Tiptree Jr., Smith's visions are dark and pessimistic, clearly a contrast from the mood of SF in his time; in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s it was still thought that science would cure the ills of humanity. In Smith's tales, space travel takes a horrendous toll on those who pilot the ships through the void. After reaching perfection, the lack of strife stifles humanity to a point of decay and stagnation; the Instrumentality of Mankind arises in order to stir things up. Many stories describe moral dilemmas involving the humanity of the Underpeople, beings evolved from animals into humanlike forms.Stories not to be missed in this collection include "Scanners Live in Vain", "The Dead Lady of Clown Town", "Under Old Earth", "The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal", "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons", and the truly disturbing "A Planet Called Shayol". Serious SF fans should not pass up the chance to experience Cordwainer Smith's complex, distinctive vision of the far future.--Bonnie BoumanContents:- Introduction by John J. Pierce- Editor’s Introduction by James A. Mann• Stories of the Instrumentality of Mankind- No, No, Not Rogov! (1959)- War No. 81-Q (rewritten version) - Mark Elf (1957)- The Queen of the Afternoon (1978)- Letter to Editor, Fantasy Book (March 9, 1948)- Scanners Live in Vain (1950)- The Lady Who Sailed The Soul (1960)- When the People Fell (1959)- Think Blue, Count Two (1963)- The Colonel Came Back from Nothing-at-All (1979)- The Game of Rat and Dragon (1955)- The Burning of the Brain (1958)- From Gustible’s Planet (1962)- Himself in Anachron- The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal (1964)- Golden the Ship Was — Oh! Oh! Oh! (1959)- The Dead Lady of Clown Town (1964)- Under Old Earth (1966)- Drunkboat (1963)- Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons (1961)- Alpha Ralpha Boulevard (1961)- The Ballad of Lost C’Mell (1962)- A Planet Named Shayol (1961)- On the Gem Planet [Casher O'Neill] (1963)- On the Storm Planet [Casher O'Neill] (1965)- On the Sand Planet [Casher O'Neill] (1965)- Three to a Given Star [Casher O'Neill] (1965)- Down to a Sunless Sea (1975)• Other Stories- War No. 81-Q (original version) (1928)- Western Science Is So Wonderful (1958)- Nancy (1959)- The Fife of Bodidharma (1959)- Angerhelm (1959)- The Good Friends (1963)Cover art by Jack Gaughan

    Now, two hundred years after Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, SF-expert Lisa Yaszek presents the best of the female tradition in American science fiction, in the most comprehensive collection of its kind ever published. From Pulp Era pioneers to New Wave experimentalists, here are over two dozen brilliant writers ripe for discovery and rediscovery, including Leslie F. Stone ("The Conquest of Gola," 1931), Judith Merril ("That Only a Mother," 1948), Leigh Brackett ("All the Colors of the Rainbow," 1957), Kit Reed ("The New You," 1962), Joanna Russ ("The Barbarian," 1968); Ursula K. Le Guin ("Nine Lives," 1969), and James Tiptree Jr. ("Last Flight of Dr. Ain," 1969). Imagining strange worlds and unexpected futures, looking into and beyond new technologies and scientific discoveries, in utopian fantasies and tales of cosmic horror, these women created and shaped speculative fiction as surely as their male counterparts. Their provocative, mind-blowing stories combine to form a thrilling multidimensional voyage of literary-feminist exploration and recovery.Contents:Introduction / Lisa Yaszek --The miracle of the lily / Clare Winger Harris --The conquest of Gola / Leslie F. Stone --The black god's kiss / C. L. Moore --Space episode / Leslie Perri --That only a mother / Judith Merril --In hiding / Wilmar H. Shiras --Contagion / Katherine Maclean --The inhabited men / Margaret St. Clair --Ararat / Zenna Henderson --All cats are gray / Andrew North --Created he them / Alice Eleanor Jones --Mr. Sakrison's halt / Mildred Clingerman --All the colors of the rainbow / Leigh brackett --Pelt / Carol Emshwiller --Car pool / Rosel George Brown --For sale, reasonable / Elizabeth Mann Borgese --Birth of a gardener / Doris Pitkin Buck --The tunnel ahead / Alice Glaser --The new you / Kit Reed --Another rib / John Jay Wells & Marion Zimmer Bradley --When I was Miss Dow / Sonya Dorman --Baby, you were great / Kate Wilhelm --The barbarian / Joanna Russ --The last flight of Dr. Ain / James Tiptree Jr --Nine lives / Ursula K Le Guin --Biographical notes.

    George Fergusson is one of them. He works as a trek guide for "Take You Higher, Ltd.", leading groups of tourists into the back country and occasionally assisting on serious climbs. George "Freds" Fredericks is another, a tall, easy-going American who converted to Buddhism while in college. He visited Nepal one year and never went home.The adventures started when George and Freds got together over the capture of a Yeti--an abominable snowman--by a scientific expedition. The thought of such a wild and mysterious creature in captivity--in prison--was too much for them to bear. And in freeing the Yeti, a great partnership was born. George and Freds will go on to greater heights as they explore the mysteries of Nepal, from Shangri-La to Kathmandu's governmental bureaucracy.

    The results are individual glimpses of a shared vision, and a reading experience unlike any you've had before.A strange man comes to an even stranger encampment...a bouncer becomes the linchpin of an unexpected urban movement...a courier on the run has to decide who to trust in a dangerous city...a slacker in a "zero-footprint" town gets a most unusual new job...and a weapons investigator uses his skills to discover a metropolis hidden right in front of his eyes.Welcome to the future of cities. Welcome to Metatropolis.Contents:Introduction (METAtropolis) - essay by John ScalziIn the Forests of the Night - novella by Jay LakeStochasti-city - novella by Tobias S. BuckellThe Red in the Sky Is Our Blood - novelette by Elizabeth BearUtere Nihil Non Extra Quiritationem Suis - novella by John ScalziTo Hie from Far Cilenia - novella by Karl Schroeder

    These creatures live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness—save their greenish skin, serrated earlobes, and strange birthmarks. Aided by her elusive former professor and his enigmatic assistant, our narrator sets off to document each beast, and is slowly drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens her very sense of self. Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China engages existential questions of identity, humanity, love and morality with whimsy and stylistic verve.

    The collection offers a haunting montage that works its magic subtly on the reader's subconscious. As Karen Joy Fowler, Author of The Jane Austen Book Club says, ''This lovely collection will take you, like a magic carpet, to some strange and wonderful places.'' The eminent novelist and critic Ursula K. Le Guin writes: ''From the exotic, baroque complexities of 'At the Huts of Ajala' to the stark, folktale purity of 'The Beads of Ku,' these fourteen superbly written stories will weave around you a ring of dark, dark magic.'' Matt Ruff, author of Set This House In Order and Bad Monkeys calls Filter House ''A traveling story-bazaar, offering treasures and curios from diverse lands of wonder.'' Tobias Buckell, author of Crystal Rain and Ragamuffin, says ''Nisi Shawl uses the tools of future and fable, usually used to explore the other, the future, and the mysterious, to magically reveal what and who we all are here and today.'' Karen Joy Fowler declares, ''Sometimes enigmatic, often surprising, always marvelous. This lovely collection will take you, like a magic carpet, to some strange and wonderful places.'' And Eileen Gunn, author of Stable Strategies, concurs that these are ''Remarkably involving stories that pull you along a path of wonder, word by word, in worlds where everything is a bit different.''

    The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything's on the line.With power comes corruption. For Ken, this is his chance to do right by the idealistic Policy1st party and get a steady job in the big leagues. For Domaine, the election represents another staging ground in his ongoing struggle against the pax democratica. For Mishima, a dangerous Information operative, the whole situation is a puzzle: how do you keep the wheels running on the biggest political experiment of all time, when so many have so much to gain?Infomocracy is Malka Older's debut novel.

    Thara Celehar found the truth, though it did him no good to discover it. He lost his place as a retainer of his cousin the former Empress, and made far too many enemies among the many factions vying for power in the new Court. The favor of the Emperor is a dangerous coin.Now Celehar lives in the city of Amalo, far from the Court though not exactly in exile. He has not escaped from politics, but his position gives him the ability to serve the common people of the city, which is his preference. He lives modestly, but his decency and fundamental honestly will not permit him to live quietly. As a Witness for the Dead, he can, sometimes, speak to the recently dead: see the last thing they saw, know the last thought they had, experience the last thing they felt. It is his duty use that ability to resolve disputes, to ascertain the intent of the dead, to find the killers of the murdered.Now Celehar’s skills lead him out of the quiet and into a morass of treachery, murder, and injustice. No matter his own background with the imperial house, Celehar will stand with the commoners, and possibly find a light in the darkness.Katherine Addison has created a fantastic world for these books – wide and deep and true.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    A detective on the edge of madness. The future of time travel at stake.January Cole’s job just got a whole lot harder.Not that running security at the Paradox was ever really easy. Nothing’s simple at a hotel where the ultra-wealthy tourists arrive costumed for a dozen different time periods, all eagerly waiting to catch their “flights” to the past.Or where proximity to the timeport makes the clocks run backward on occasion—and, rumor has it, allows ghosts to stroll the halls.None of that compares to the corpse in room 526. The one that seems to be both there and not there. The one that somehow only January can see.On top of that, some very important new guests have just checked in. Because the U.S. government is about to privatize time-travel technology—and the world’s most powerful people are on hand to stake their claims.January is sure the timing isn’t a coincidence. Neither are those “accidents” that start stalking their bidders.There’s a reason January can glimpse what others can’t. A reason why she’s the only one who can catch a killer who’s operating invisibly and in plain sight, all at once.But her ability is also destroying her grip on reality—and as her past, present, and future collide, she finds herself confronting not just the hotel’s dark secrets but her own.

    Two men while away the days in an Antarctic research station. Tensions between them build as they argue over a love-letter one of them has received. One is practical and open. The other surly, superior and obsessed with reading one book - by the philosopher Kant. As a storm brews and they lose contact with the outside world they debate Kant, reality and the emptiness of the universe. The come to hate each other, and they learn that they are not alone.

    When William III of England commissioned Capt. William Kidd to command the first expedition to Mars in the late 1600s, they proved that space travel was both possible and profitable. Now, one century later, a plantation in the flourishing British colony on Mars is home to Arabella Ashby. A tomboy who shares her father's deft hand with complex automatons. Being raised on the Martian frontier by her Martian nanny, Arabella is more a wild child than a proper young lady. Something her mother plans to remedy with a move to an exotic world Arabella has never seen: London, England. Arabella soon finds herself trying to navigate an alien world until a dramatic change in her family's circumstances forces her to defy all conventions in order to return to Mars in order to save both her brother and the plantation. To do this, Arabella must pass as a boy on the Diana, a ship serving the Mars Trading Company with a mysterious Indian captain who is intrigued by her knack with automatons. Arabella must weather the naval war between Britain and France, learning how to sail, and a mutinous crew if she hopes to save her brother from certain death.

    But as two best friends discover, the light of that miracle may be blinding the world to its horrors.Chance and Leap are jolted out of their professional routines by a terrifying stranger—a remorseless killer who freely manipulates the networks that regulate life in the post-Join world. Their quest for answers—and survival—brings them from the networks and spire communities they’ve known to the scarred heart of an environmentally ravaged North American continent and an underground community of the “ferals” left behind by the rush of technology.In the storytelling tradition of classic speculative fiction from writers like David Mitchell and Michael Chabon, Join offers a pulse-pounding story that poses the largest possible questions: How long can human life be sustained on our planet in the face of environmental catastrophe? What does it mean to be human, and what happens when humanity takes the next step in its evolution? If the individual mind becomes obsolete, what have we lost and gained, and what is still worth fighting for?

    Though most of Earth has already been evacuated, it’s Samantha’s job to catalog plant samples for the survivors’ unknowable journey beyond.Preparing to stay behind and watch the world end, she makes a final human connection.As certain doom hurtles nearer, the unexpected and beautiful potential for the future begins to flower.Veronica Roth’s Ark 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.