A. Corey . . . Somewhere in the vast expanse of space, a group of prisoners lives in permanent captivity.The only company they have is each other and the Belters who guard them. The only stories they know are the triumphs and crimes that brought them there. The only future they see is an empty life in an enormous room.And then the man from Mars came along . . .Set in the hard-scrabble solar system of the Expanse, The Vital Abyss deepens James S. A. Corey's acclaimed series.

    With this in mind, noted anthologist Jonathan Strahan (who is also the reviews editor of Locus magazine) asked sixteen of today's most inventive, compelling writers to look past the horizon of the present day. Neil Gaiman (Anansi Boys), Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners), Garth Nix (the Abhorsen Trilogy), Scott Westerfeld (Uglies; Pretties; Specials) and their colleagues have crafted a dazzling range of stories. Whether on spaceships, in suburbia, or in simulated gaming worlds, whether about cloning, battle tactics, or corporate politics, the stories of The Starry Rift will give every reader something to consider. This original anthology is crucial reading for those who want to see where the future (and the future of science fiction) is headed.CONTENT"Ass-Hat Magic Spider" by by Scott Westerfeld"Cheats" by Ann Halam"Orange" by Neil Gaiman"The Surfer" by Kelly Link"Repair Kit" by Stephen Baxter"The Dismantled Invention of Fate" by Jeffrey Ford"Anda's Game" By Corey Doctorow"Sundiver Day" by Kathleen Ann Goonan"The Dust Assassin" by Ian McDonald"The Star Surgeon's Apprentice" by Alastair Reynolds"An Honest Day's Work" By Margo Lanigan"Lost Continent" by Greg Egan"Incomers" by Paul McAuley"Post--Ironic Stress Syndrome" by Tricia Sullivan"Infestation" by Garth Nix"Pinocchio" by Walter Jon Williams

    It doesn't appear as a standalone work, but is included with several collections. The story is a prequel to the events in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and has the young Zaphod Beeblebrox working as a salvage ship operator. He guides some bureaucrats to a crashed spaceship which may be leaking some hazardous materials. The bureaucrats are determined to "make it safe". The comic asides in the story include some of the time travel paradoxes which are a common running theme in Adams' SF work, and plenty of material about lobsters

    From tales of The Shaper/Mechanist to Leggy Starlitz to his Chattanooga Stories, this anthology spans the gamut of Sterlings works from 1976 to 2007.Swarm --Spider Rose --Cicada queen --Sunken gardens --Twenty evocations --Green days in Brunei --Dinner in Audoghast --The compassionate, the digital --Flowers of Edo --The little magic shop --Our neural Chernobyl --We see things differently --Dori Bangs --Hollywood Kremlin --Are you for 86? --The littlest jackal --Deep eddy --Bicycle repairman --Taklamakan --The sword of Damocles --Maneki Neko --In paradise --The blemmye's strategem --Kiosk

    And now it's nearly Christmas, and the commission assigned to establish communications is at their wits' end. They've resorted to taking the aliens to Broncos games, lighting displays, and shopping malls, in the hope they'll respond to something!And they do, but in a way nobody ever expected, and Meg, the commission, and an overworked choir director find themselves suddenly caught up in an intergalactic mess involving Christmas carols, scented candles, seventh-grade girls, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Meg's Aunt Judith, Victoria's Secret, and Handel's Messiah.Multiple Nebula and Hugo Award-winning author Connie Willis may be most famous for her books To Say Nothing of the Dog, Doomsday Book, Inside Job, D.A., and The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories, but she's also a huge fan of the holidays and their accompanying frivolity and nonsense, and has written a marvelous array of Christmas stories, including Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, "Just Like the Ones We Used to Know" (made into the CBS movie Snow Wonder), "deck.halls@boughs/holly", and now the hilarious "All Seated on the Ground."

    Anderson * Doug Beason * M. Shayne Bell * David Bischoff * A.C.Crispin * Kenneth C. Flint * Barbara Hambly * Rebecca Moesta * Daniel KeysMoran * Jerry Oltion * Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens * Jennifer Roberson* Kathy Tyers * Tom Veitch & Martha Veitch * Dave Wolverton * TimothyZahn

    It was first published in the May 1954 issue of Universe Science Fiction, and has since been republished in several collections and anthologies, including Earth Is Room Enough (1957) and The Best Science Fiction of Isaac Asimov (1986). Like many of his stories, it is told as a conversation, in this case between two professors at a college faculty's annual Christmas party.It is likely that Asimov wrote this short story after seeing how literary academia viewed his own writing. His autobiography, In Memory Yet Green, describes how science fiction gradually became more "respectable", while at the same time, professors of literary studies wrote things about SF — even about Asimov's own stories — which he completely failed to grasp. "The Immortal Bard" is an expression of Asimov's own deep admiration for William Shakespeare which also satirizes the interpretations built upon Shakespeare's work — such as symbolic, Freudian, and New Critical.

    This time the passenger seems to have been with a woman, and now the unwilling host is obsessed to find her. Hugo Award Nominee, Nebula Award(R) Winner

    John W. Campbell Jr.)The Weapon Makers, Part 1 of 3 (Weapon Shops of Isher #) / A.E. van Vogt; interior artwork by Frank Kramer In Times to Come / essay by unknownFlight into Darkness / Webb Marlowe (i.e. J. Francis McComas); interior artwork by Frank KramerMimsy Were the Borogoves / Lewis Padgett (i.e. Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore); interior artwork by KollikerThe Man in the Moon / Henry A. Norton; interior artwork by KollikerGod's Footstool / essay by Malcolm JamesonThe Analytical Laboratory: December 1942 / essay by The Editor (i.e. John W. Campbell Jr.)Blue Ice (Probability Zero series) / Henry KuttnerProbability Zero! / essay by L. Sprague de Camp and Fox B. Holden and Colin Keith and Henry KuttnerEfficiency (Probability Zero series) / Colin Keith (i.e. Malcolm Jameson)Noise is Beautiful! (Probability Zero series) / Fox B. HoldenThe Anecdote of the Movable Ears (Probability Zero series) / L. Sprague de CampBrass Tacks / essay by The Editor (i.e. John W. Campbell Jr.)Opposites—React!, Part 2 of 2 (Seetee serial) / Willi Stewart (i.e. Jack Williamson); interior artwork by Kolliker

    Then a space pilot bought him a drink, and the next thing Smythe knew, he was shanghaied to Mars.Suddenly he found himself agreeing to the most difficult role of his career: impersonating an important politician who had been kidnapped. Peace with the Martians was at stake — failure to pull off the act could result in interplanetary war. And Smythe's own life was on the line — for if he wasn't assassinated, there was always the possibility that he might be trapped in his new role forever!

    well... godlike beings? An immense topic! But from a writer's perspective, it presents a problem. One can write stories leading up to the singularity, about all the problems. (Little things like rebellious AI.) But how do you write a tale set AFTER the singularity has happened?Never one to refuse a challenge, that's exactly the topic of "Stones of Significance."

    and on reaches of unimaginable horror. When prospector Robinette Broadhead went out to Gateway on the Heechee spacecraft, he decided he would know which was the right mission to make him his fortune. Three missions later, now famous and permanently rich, Rob Broadhead has to face what happened to him and what he has become... in a journey into himself as perilous and even more horrifying than the nightmare trip through the interstellar void that he drove himself to take!

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

    It is an offense punishable by death-and a fate to which Commander Yaru Korsin will not succumb. But on a crucial run to deliver troops and precious crystals to a combat hotspot in the Sith's war against the Republic, Korsin and the crew of the mining ship Omen are ambushed by a Jedi starfighter. And when the Sith craft crash-lands, torn and crippled, on a desolate alien planet, the hard-bitten captain finds himself at odds with desperate survivors on the brink of mutiny-and his own vengeful half brother, who's bent on seizing command. No matter the cost, Korsin vows that it will not be his blood and bones left behind on this unknown world. For the way of the Sith leaves little room for compromise-and none at all for mercy.

    It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English. This process could follow the normal teaching of a child. Things would be pointed out and named, etc. Again I do not know what the right answer is, but I think both approaches should be tried."The first approach has been tried many times in both science fiction and reality. In this new novella, at over 30,000 words, his longest work to date, Ted Chiang offers a detailed imagining of how the second approach might work within the contemporary landscape of startup companies, massively-multiplayer online gaming, and open-source software. It's a story of two people and the artificial intelligences they helped create, following them for more than a decade as they deal with the upgrades and obsolescence that are inevitable in the world of software. At the same time, it's an examination of the difference between processing power and intelligence, and of what it means to have a real relationship with an artificial entity.