After watching depressing and cynical movies throughout the early 1970s, audiences enthusiastically embraced the positive energy of the Star Wars universe as they followed moisture farmer Luke Skywalker on his journey through galaxies, meeting extraordinary characters like mysterious hermit Obi-Wan Kenobi, space pirates Han Solo and Chewbacca, bumbling droids C-3PO and R2-D2, bold Princess Leia and the horrific Darth Vader, servant of the dark, malevolent Emperor.Writer, director, and producer George Lucas created the modern monomyth of our times, one that resonates with the child in us all. He achieved this by forming Industrial Light & Magic and developing cutting-edge special effects technology, which he combined with innovative editing techniques and a heightened sense of sound to give audiences a unique sensory cinematic experience.Made with the full cooperation of George Lucas and Lucasfilm, this first volume covers the making of the original trilogy – Episode IV: A New Hope, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi– and features an exclusive interview with Lucas. The book is profusely illustrated with script pages, production documents, concept art, storyboards, on-set photography, stills, and posters.“Love people. That’s basically all Star Wars is.”— George Lucas

    Dick was a hugely influential writer who drew upon his own life to address the nature of drug abuse, paranoia, schizophrenia, and transcendental experiences of all kinds. He was a prolific author and many of his books were turned into popular films such as Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly, Total Recall, and Minority Report. This book has been written with the cooperation of several close acquaintances and looks to examine his work as well as the socio-political-cultural environment in which he lived. It will be of great interest to any fan of Philip K. Dick or science fiction in general, as well as anyone who grew up the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

     These are some of the stories you will encounter in Chimerascope, the first full collection of short fiction from multi-award-winning Canadian author, Douglas Smith. Sixteen engaging stories of fantasy and science fiction that take you from love in fourteenth-century Japan to humanity's last stand, from virtual reality to the end of reality, from alien drug addictions to a dinner where a man loses everything.

    Moreau to Dr. Doom, readers have long been fascinated by insane plans for world domination and the madmen who devise them. Typically, we see these villains through the eyes of good guys. This anthology, however, explores the world of mad scientists and evil geniuses—from their own wonderfully twisted point of view. An all-star roster of bestselling authors—including Diana Gabaldon, Daniel Wilson, Austin Grossman, Naomi Novik, and Seanan McGuire ... twenty-two great storytellers, all told—have produced a fabulous assortment of stories, guaranteed to provide readers with hour after hour of high-octane entertainment born of the most megalomaniacal mayhem imaginable. Everybody loves villains. They’re bad; they always stir the pot; they’re much more fun than the good guys, even if we want to see the good guys win. Their fiendish schemes, maniacal laughter, and limitless ambition are legendary, but what lies behind those crazy eyes and wicked grins? How—and why—do they commit these nefarious deeds? And why are they so set on taking over the world? If you've ever asked yourself any of these questions, you’re in luck: It’s finally time for the madmen’s side of the story.Between each chapter falls a single-page essay by the editor, by way of introduction to the story ahead; they have titles of their own, but all contain spoilers, so are not listed here (they can be found on the Internet Science Fiction Database if desired). All individual works in this anthology are in short story form, with the exception of Diana Gabaldon's 80-page Outlander novella, and unless otherwise noted, were first published within. CONTENTS Foreword - Chris Claremont, The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination: Original Short Fiction for the Modern Evil Genius (p9)01 - Austin Grossman, Professor Incognito Apologizes: An Itemized List (p16)02 - Harry Turtledove, Father of the Groom (p28)03 - Seanan McGuire, Laughter at the Academy: A Field Study in the Genesis of Schizotypal Creative Genius Personality Disorder (SCGPD) (p38)04 - David D. Levine, Letter to the Editor (p52)05 - Jeremiah Tolbert, Instead of a Loving Heart (2004, p59)06 - Daniel H. Wilson, The Executor (p68)07 - Heather Lindsley, The Angel of Death Has a Business Plan (p83)08 - Dave Wolverton (as David Farland), Homo Perfectus (p96)09 - L.A. Banks, Ancient Equations (p108)10 - Alan Dean Foster, Rural Singularity (p123)11 - Genevieve Valentine, Captain Justice Saves the Day (p133)12 - Theodora Goss, The Mad Scientist's Daughter (2010, p142)13 - Diana Gabaldon, The Space Between (2012 Outlander novella, p161)14 - Carrie Vaughn, Harry and Marlowe Meet the Founder of the Aetherian Revolution (p245)15 - Laird Barron, Blood and Stardust (p261)16 - L.E. Modesitt Jr., A More Perfect Union (p276)17 - Naomi Novik, Rocks Fall (p289)18 - Mary Robinette Kowal, We Interrupt This Broadcast (Lady Astronaut short story, p298)19 - Marjorie M. Liu, The Last Dignity of Man (p306)20 - Jeffrey Ford, The Pittsburgh Technology (p328)21 - Grady Hendrix, Mofongo Knows (p341)22 - Ben H. Winters, The Food Taster's Boy (p357)

    Escher was born in 1898 in Leeuwarden (Netherlands). He received his first drawing lessons during secondary school from F.W. van der Haagen, who also taught him the block printing, thus fostering Escher's innate graphic talents. From 1912 to 1922 he studied at the School of Architecture and Ornamental Design in Haarlem, where he was instructed in graphic techniques by S. Jessurun de Mesquita, who greatly influenced Escher's further artistic development. Between 1922 and 1934 the artist lived and worked in Italy. Afterwards Escher spent two years in Switzerland and five in Brussels before finally moving back to Barn in Holland, where he died in 1972. M.C. Escher is not a surrealist drawing us into his dream world, but an architect of perfectly impossible worlds who presents the structurally unthinkable as though it were a law of nature. The resulting dimensional and perspectival illusions bring us into confrontation with the limitations of our sensory perception. About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features:a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

    Contains:Introduction"A Dead Singer" (1974) novelette"The Greater Conqueror" (1963) novelette"Behold the Man" (1966) novella"Good-Bye, Miranda" (1964) short fiction"Flux" (1963) novelette"Islands" (1963) short story"Waiting for the End of Time..." (1970) short story

    What would Terry Gilliam’s Watchmen have been like, and how did Darren Aronofsky almost end up directing the movie? Why was Nicolas Cage paid $20 million for not playing Superman?Also covered are Steven Spielberg’s Night Skies, Stanley Kubrick’s Childhood’s End, Philip Kaufman’s Star Trek: Planet of the Titans, Kevin Smith’s Six Million Dollar Man, Tim Burton’s Superman Lives and James Cameron’s Alien 5!

    Enterprise NCC-1701-D models, bags of wigs, and bins of plastic phasers, sits a dusty cardboard box. Inside is a pile of VHS tapes that contain never-before-seen episodes and behind-the-scenes footage for something truly amazing. The world thinks there are only seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but there’s one more. A secret season.Actually, not really. But that didn’t stop Mike McMahan, creator of the parody Twitter account @TNG_S8, from making a guide full of:REAL* TNG SEASON 8 FACTS AND STORIES!REAL* TNG SEASON 8 DIALOGUE AND IMAGES!(* Again, not really, of course. This is humor. Sorry.)So impress your friends and bewilder your enemies with your newfound knowledge of these very lost Star Trek episodes! Engage!

    His stories won every award the science fiction field had to offer, many times over. His first collection, The Persistence of Vision, published in 1978, was the most important collection of the decade, and changed what fans would come to expect from science fiction. Now, The John Varley Reader gathers his best stories, many out of print for years. This is the volume no Varley fan - or science fiction reader - can do without. 1 • Picnic on Nearside • [Eight Worlds] • (1974) • novelette by John Varley 24 • Overdrawn at the Memory Bank • [Eight Worlds] • (1976) • novelette by John Varley 53 • In the Hall of the Martian Kings • (1976) • novella by John Varley 91 • Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance • [Eight Worlds] • (1976) • novelette by John Varley 119 • The Barbie Murders • [Anna-Louise Bach] • (1978) • novelette by John Varley 146 • The Phantom of Kansas • [Eight Worlds] • (1976) • novelette by John Varley 180 • Beatnik Bayou • [Eight Worlds] • (1980) • novelette by John Varley 212 • Air Raid • (1977) • shortstory by John Varley 228 • The Persistence of Vision • (1978) • novella by John Varley 271 • Press Enter [] • (1984) • novella by John Varley 327 • The Pusher • (1981) • shortstory by John Varley 343 • Tango Charlie and Foxtrot Romeo • [Eight Worlds] • (1986) • novella by John Varley 409 • Options • [Eight Worlds] • (1979) • novelette by John Varley 437 • Just Another Perfect Day • (1989) • shortstory by John Varley 449 • In Fading Suns and Dying Moons • (2003) • novelette by John Varley 467 • The Flying Dutchman • (1998) • shortstory by John Varley 486 • Good Intentions • (1992) • shortstory by John Varley 502 • The Bellman • [Anna-Louise Bach] • (2003) • novelette by John Varley

    Pull up a chair, grab a glass of your favorite, and listen to the stories spun by time travelers, cybernetic aliens, telepaths...and a bunch of regular folks on a mission to save the world, one customer at a time.Callahan's Crosstime Saloon contains the following stories, virtually all of which were published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact: * "The Guy With the Eyes" * "The Time-Traveler" * "The Centipede's Dilemma" * "Two Heads Are Better Than One" * "The Law Of Conservation of Pain" * "Just Dessert" * "A Voice is Heard in Ramah..." * "Unnatural Causes" * "The Wonderful Conspiracy"

    Nothing is simple and everything is perilous when humans are involved: corruption, greed, and even love (of a sort).A permanent corporate branding gives a young woman enhanced physical abilities and a nearly-constant highRecruits lifted out of poverty find a far worse fate collecting biohazardous plants on an inhospitable worldThe only adult survivor of the apocalypse decides he will be the savior of teenagers; the teenagers are not amused.From Johannesburg to outer space, these previously uncollected tales are a compelling, dark, and slippery ride.

    That single tragedy set off a whole series of events, resulting in the Spanish Armada's defeat of England and subsequent demise of Protestantism. Now it's the 20th century, and the Church of Rome reigns supreme. People live a pastoral existence of guilds and farming, with technology held back to the level of the steam locomotive and primitive radio. Still, science cannot be held back forever...a revolution is building.

    P. Lovecraft. Despite this nearly unprecedented posthumous trajectory, at the time of his death at the age of forty-six, Lovecraft's work had appeared only in dime-store magazines, ignored by the public and maligned by critics. Now well over a century after his birth, Lovecraft is increasingly being recognized as the foundation for American horror and science fiction, the source of "incalculable influence on succeeding generations of writers of horror fiction" (Joyce Carol Oates).In this volume, Leslie S. Klinger reanimates Lovecraft with clarity and historical insight, charting the rise of the erstwhile pulp writer, whose rediscovery and reclamation into the literary canon can be compared only to that of Poe or Melville. Weaving together a broad base of existing scholarship with his own original insights, Klinger appends Lovecraft's uncanny oeuvre and Kafkaesque life story in a way that provides context and unlocks many of the secrets of his often cryptic body of work.Over the course of his career, Lovecraft―"the Copernicus of the horror story" (Fritz Leiber)―made a marked departure from the gothic style of his predecessors that focused mostly on ghosts, ghouls, and witches, instead crafting a vast mythos in which humanity is but a blissfully unaware speck in a cosmos shared by vast and ancient alien beings. One of the progenitors of "weird fiction," Lovecraft wrote stories suggesting that we share not just our reality but our planet, and even a common ancestry, with unspeakable, godlike creatures just one accidental revelation away from emerging from their epoch of hibernation and extinguishing both our individual sanity and entire civilization.Following his best-selling The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Leslie S. Klinger collects here twenty-two of Lovecraft's best, most chilling "Arkham" tales, including "The Call of Cthulhu," At the Mountains of Madness, "The Whisperer in Darkness," "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," "The Colour Out of Space," and others. With nearly 300 illustrations, including full-color reproductions of the original artwork and covers from Weird Tales and Astounding Stories, and more than 1,000 annotations, this volume illuminates every dimension of H. P. Lovecraft and stirs the Great Old Ones in their millennia of sleep.

    In To Walk the Night, Bark Jones and his college buddy Jerry Lister, a science whiz, head back to their alma mater to visit a cherished professor of astronomy. They discover his body, consumed by fire, in his laboratory, and an uncannily beautiful young widow in his house—but nothing compares to the revelation that Jerry and Bark encounter in the deserts of Arizona at the end of the book. In The Edge of Running Water, Julian Blair, a brilliant electrophysicist, has retired to a small town in remotest Maine after the death of his wife. His latest experiments threaten to shake up the town, not to mention the universe itself.

    The girl detective must go to the underworld to solve the case of the tap-dancing bank robbers. A librarian falls in love with a girl whose father collects artificial noses. A dead man posts letters home to his estranged wife. Two women named Louise begin a series of consecutive love affairs with a string of cellists. A newly married couple become participants in an apocalyptic beauty pageant. Sexy blond aliens invade New York City. A young girl learns how to make herself disappear.These eleven extraordinary stories are quirky, spooky, and smart. They all have happy endings. Every story contains a secret prize. Each story was written especially for you.Stories from Stranger Things Happen have won the Nebula, Tiptree, and World Fantasy Award. Stranger Things Happen was a Salon Book of the Year, one of the Village Voice's 25 Favorite Books of 2001, and was nominated for the Firecracker Alternative Book Award.Contents:- Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1998)- Water Off a Black Dog's Back (1995)- The Specialist's Hat (1998)- Flying Lessons (1995)- Travels with the Snow Queen (1996/1997)- Vanishing Act (1996)- Survivor's Ball, or, The Donner Party (1998)- Shoe and Marriage (2000)- Most of My Friends Are Two-Thirds Water (2001)- Louise's Ghost (2001)- The Girl Detective (1999)Cover painting by Shelley Jackson