butler --Press enter / John Varley --Blood child / Octavia e. Butler --The crystal spheres / David Brin

    For the ten short stories collected here, John Wyndham turns his imagination to, among other subjects, body-snatching, time-travel and mind-travel, and the the tricky business of interplanetary colonization.

    and the overstressed crew prepares for a direct assault by a deadly insectoid race. But the pressures of combat and close quarters have taken their toll, threatening to turn the crew to the enemy's prime advantage.

    When an opportunity to join the Mechanized Infantry presents itself, Pete is first in line. He knows that he's going to get shot at one way or another, but the idea of sitting in a warm and more importantly, dry mechanized suit appeals to him almost beyond reason. While still training in the jungle, Pete's squad is called out to intervene in a skirmish in a nearby village. Of course, the Marines haven't seen fit to certify his squad with ordnance. The fact that they'll be up against a platoon of squishies doesn't convince him that's it's any better of an idea and things turn quickly to crap when they discover the squishies are protected by grav-tanks. Pete, Popeye and Olive is a fast paced, short-story with plenty of action.

    KornbluthGHOST, by Darrell SchweitzerDEATH WISH, by Robert Sheckley THE WAVERIES, by Fredric BrownADAM AND NO EVE, by Alfred BesterFOXY LADY, by Lawrence Watt-EvansTHIN EDGE, by Randall GarrettCOMPANDROID, by Nina Kiriki HoffmanPOSTMARK GANYMEDE, by Robert SilverbergKEEP OUT, by Fredric BrownTHE HATE DISEASE, by Murray LeinsterUNIVERSAL DONOR, by Nina Kiriki HoffmanTHE GREEN BERET, by Tom PurdomMR. SPACESHIP, by Philip K. DickBRKNK’S BOUNTY, by Jerry SohlTHE BATTLE OF LITTLE BIG SCIENCE, by Pamela RentzTHE EGO MACHINE, by Henry KuttnerTHE MAN FROM TIME, by Frank Belknap LongTHE SENSITIVE MAN, by Poul AndersonREVOLUTION, by Mack ReynoldsTHE THING IN THE ATTIC, by James BlishKNOTWORK, by Nina Kiriki HoffmanTHE DUELING MACHINE, by Ben Bova and Myron R. LewisTHE PLANET SAVERS, by Marion Zimmer BradleyAnd don't forget to check out all the other volumes in the "Megapack" series! Search on "Megapack" in the ebook store to see the complete list...covering adventure stories, military, fantasy, ghost stories, and more!

    She didn't want to be beautiful. And she wasted time doing mad things--like eating and sleeping...This story was the basis for a classic episode of "The Twilight Zone" TV show!

    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

    Greenberg / The King of Beasts / My Sister's Brother / The Alley Man / The God Business / Mother / Sail On! Sail On!

    It is a sad city, the saddest of cities, a place so utterly depressing that even their ales are brewed with the most sorrow-filled tears. They built it on the back of a colossal mountain-sized animal, where its woeful citizens live like human fleas within the hairy, pulsing landscape. And those tasked with keeping the city in a state of constant melancholy are the Stressmen-a team of professional sadness-makers who are perpetually striving to invent new ways of causing absolute misery. But for the Stressman known as Fernando Mendez, creating grief hasn't been so easy as of late. His ideas aren't effective anymore. His treatments are more likely to induce happiness than sadness. And if he wants to get back in the game, he's going to have to relearn the true meaning of despair.Like "James and the Giant Peach" combined with one of David Cronenberg's early body horror films, "The Tick People" is a charming children's fable that quickly devolves into a grotesque sexual nightmare.

    Every day the cynical, cigar-chomping, hard-drinking monkey climbs into his Spitfire to do battle with the waves of German ninjas parachuting over the gentle fields of Kent. But life is not all the joyous rattle of machine guns and the roar of the engine, as Ack-Ack is about to find out… Because it is not 1944. It is the 21st century, in a world where France and Germany merged in the late 1950s, where nuclear-powered Zeppelins circle the globe, where technology is rapidly changing humanity, and Ack-Ack has lived his whole life in a videogame. Ex-journalist Victoria Valois finds herself drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse with the man who butchered her husband and stole his electronic soul. The heir to the British throne is on the run after an illegal break-in at a research laboratory, and Ack-Ack has been rudely awakened from his game world to find the doomsday clock ticking towards Armageddon… Two unlikely heroes and one mightily pissed-off monkey come together in a sci-fi trilogy full of action, adventure, bananas and bottles of rum. Includes the original Ack-Ack Macaque short story and a brand new epilogue, The Last Macaque.

    

    

     John Lively was a mouth-breather that no one cared about, an over-sized sixth grader voted most likely to see jail. In Harold's opinion, God had wasted a body on John Lively. Harold was a curious loner that sat in the back of the classroom. Unlike John's family, Harold's parents loved him. They just didn't have time for him. They spent days in the basement working on something that would change the world. Sometimes they were down there for weeks. Harold was tired of being forgotten and pushed around. So he pushed back. That day would change the world.

    Captain Lee Saito's massive new starship is sent to seal the uneasy truce.But a series of terrorist attacks on Earth and the mysterious acts of a strange cult threaten to derail the fragile peace.When the mission goes awry, Saito must try to salvage what he can in deep space while his estranged son must navigate a conspiracy back on Earth that could implicate the highest levels of government.As it all spirals out of control, the future of humanity hangs in the balance.Includes all 9 books in the Oblivion series:Lost MissionFirst ContactFinal InvasionStar FallenBeyond RuinOrion InboundEnter AbyssEarth AriseLast StandFive star reviews for Lost Mission, book 1 in the series:★★★★★ "Plenty of high octane action sequences ... Readers should expect a twisting and curving wild ride."★★★★★ "This is a fast moving book that you won’t want to put down."★★★★★ "A rip roaring tale that does a fine job of world building and character development."

    103 pages of summaries and analysis on Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.This comprehensive study guide includes the following sections written by BookRags.com: Plot Summary, Chapter Summaries & Analysis, Characters, Objects/Places, Themes, Style, and Topics for Discussion.