Science fiction and fantasy’s most adept short-story author reinvents some classic themes in an engaging collection that includes three of his Hugo award–winning stories. These smart expansions of traditional themes summon dinosaurs, dragons, peril in space, myths, faeries, and time travel, each undergoing artful alchemy to create serious genre literature that is playful, original, and clever. Comprising 16 imaginative and mischievous adventures, including the previously unpublished novelette, The Skysailor’s Tale, this adroit gathering makes a collection to truly revel in.
Kapcsolódó könyvek
Iain M. Banks - The State of the Art
The first ever collection of Iain M. Banks's short fiction, this volume includes the acclaimed novella, The State of the Art. This is a striking addition to the growing body of Culture lore, and adds definition and scale to the previous works by using the Earth of 1977 as contrast. The other stories in the collection range from science fiction to horror, dark-coated fantasy to morality tale. All bear the indefinable stamp of Iain Banks's staggering talent.
Ismeretlen szerző - Wastelands
Famine, Death, War, and Pestilence: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the harbingers of Armageddon - these are our guides through the Wastelands... From the Book of Revelations to The Road Warrior; from A Canticle for Leibowitz to The Road, storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. Gathering together the best post-apocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today's most renowned authors of speculative fiction, including George R.R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King, Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon.
Ismeretlen szerző - Machine of Death
The machine had been invented a few years ago: a machine that could tell, from just a sample of your blood, how you were going to die. No dates, no details. Just a slip of paper with a few words spelling out your ultimate fate -- at once all-too specific and maddeningly vague.
A top ten Amazon Customer Favorite in Science Fiction & Fantasy for 2010, The Machine of Death is an anthology of original stories bound together by a central premise. From the humorous to the adventurous to the mind-bending to the touching, the writers explore what the world would be like if a blood test could predict your death.
But don't think for a moment this is a book entirely composed of stories about people meeting their ironic dooms. There is some of that, of course. But more than that, this is a genre-hopping collection of tales about people who have learned more about themselves then perhaps they should have, and how that knowledge affects their relationships, their perception of the world, and how they feel about themselves.
Features thirty-four stories by Randall Munroe, Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, Tom Francis, Camille Alexa, Erin McKean, James L. Sutter, David Malki !, Ryan North, and many others
Features illustrations by Kate Beaton, Kazu Kibuishi, Aaron Diaz, Jeffrey Brown, Scott C., Roger Langridge, Karl Kershl, Cameron Stewart, and many others
Ismeretlen szerző - Monsters
Here are future nighmares - the enemies that await us both within and outside our world, from a small town in Kansas to the seas of Venus.
Fantastic and thrilling short novels and stories by science fiction's bestselling authors.
Ismeretlen szerző - Izéhordák
Ha akad olyan olvasó, aki azt hiszi, hogy a sci-fi és fantasy történetek csakis és kizárólag gigantikus, az egész emberiség sorsát eldöntő űrháborúkról, elgondolkodtató, az életet gyökeresen megváltoztató találmányokról, izmos hősök és dús keblű hősnők halált megvető bátorsággal vívott harcáról szólnak - nos, ez az olvasó téved. Méghozzá óriásit! A fantasztikummal foglalkozó mesélők is emberek, nekik is megvannak a saját hibáik és erényeik. A hibáikról most ne ejtsünk szót, az erények közül is csak kettővel foglalkozzunk: a humorérzékkel és az öniróniával.
Csak a legjobbak, a legnagyobbak lehetnek képesek arra, hogy ne vegyék véresen komolyan magukat. Csak a legjelentősebb írók tudják és hajlandóak megtenni azt, hogy kifigurázzák azt a műfajt, amellyel egész életükben foglalkoztak, és amiből élnek. Ebben a kötetben olyan novellákat gyűjtöttünk össze, amelyek szerzői több "komoly", de legalábbis jelentős művel álltak már az olvasók elé, most azonban a sci-fi és a fantasy talán éppen általuk megteremtett elemeit teszik élcelődéseik céltáblájává.
Ismeretlen szerző - The Reign of Istar
Open the door to the magic and wonder of the Dragonlance world...
Meet an irrepressible kender determined to become a Solamnic knight.
A bounty-hunter of heretics.
An unlikely ogre savior of the dwarven race.
And a black-robed mage juggling the fate of the world in the Tower of High Sorcery.
Poetry and short stories by well-known Dragonlance authors, topped by a Raistlin novella by original creators Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
All set in the faraway time of the Kingpriest.
J. G. Ballard - The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard
“More than one thousand compelling pages from one of the most haunting, cogent, and individual imaginations in contemporary literature.”—William Boyd
The American publication of The Complete Stories of J. G. Ballard is a landmark event. Increasingly recognized as one of the greatest and most prophetic novelists, J. G. Ballard was a “writer of enormous inventive powers,” who, in the words of Malcolm Bradbury, possessed, “like Calvino, a remarkable gift for filling the empty deprived spaces of modern life with the invisible cities and the wonder worlds of imagination.”
Best known for his novels, such as Empire of the Sun and Crash, Ballard rose to fame as the “ideal chronicler of disturbed modernity” (The Observer). Perhaps less known, though equally brilliant, were his devastatingly original short stories, which span nearly fifty years and reveal an unparalleled prescience so unique that a new word—Ballardian—had to be invented. Ballard, who wrote that “short stories are the loose change in the treasury of fiction, easily ignored beside the wealth of novels available,” regretted the fact that the public had increasingly lost its ability to appreciate them.
With 98 pulse-quickening stories, this volume helps restore the very art form that Ballard feared was comatose. Ballard’s inimitable style was already present in his early stories, most of them published in science fiction magazines. These stories are surreal, richly atmospheric and splendidly elliptical, featuring an assortment of psychotropic houses, time-traveling assassins, and cities without clocks. Over the next fifty years, his fierce imaginative energy propelled him to explore new topics, including the dehumanization of technology, the brutality of the corporation, and nuclear Armageddon. Depicting the human soul as “being enervated and corrupted by the modern world” (New York Times), Ballard began to examine themes like overpopulation, as in “Billenium,” a claustrophobic imagining of a world of 20 billion people crammed into four-square-meter rooms, or the false realities of modern media, as in the classic “Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan,” a faux-psychological study of the sexual and violent reactions elicited by viewing Reagan’s face on television, in which Ballard predicted the unholy fusion of pop culture and sound-bite politics thirteen years before Reagan became president. Given Ballard’s heightened powers of perception, it is astonishing that the dehumanized world that he apprehended so acutely neither diminished his own febrile imagination nor his engagement with mankind, evident in every story, including two new ones for this American edition.
So eerily prophetic is his vision, so commanding are his literary gifts, the import and insight of J. G. Ballard’s deeply humanistic and transcendent works can only grow in years to come.
Ursula K. Le Guin - The Birthday of the World
The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, five Hugo Awards and five Nebula Awards, the renowned writer Ursula K. Le Guin has, in each story and novel, created a provocative, ever-evolving universe filled with diverse worlds and rich characters reminiscent of our earthly selves. Now, in _The Birthday of the World_, this gifted artist returns to these worlds in eight brilliant short works, including a never-before-published novella, each of which probes the essence of humanity.
Ismeretlen szerző - Galaktika 45.
A kötetben Kuczka Péter a fantasy-irodalom néhány jól sikerült példányát gyűjtötte össze: Az ún. "kard és boszorkányság" vagy másképpen "hősi fantasztikus" történetek a science fiction közvetlen közelében, annak egyik irányzataként születtek. (...) A szórakoztatóipar termékeihez tartoznak tehát, nem akarnak nagy igazságokat mondani az emberről és életéről, de azért, ha jobban megnézzük őket, azt látjuk, hogy néha - talán szerzőik szándékával ellentétben - groteszk és túlzó vonásokat találunk bennük, már-már az önkritika fintorát.
H. P. Lovecraft - The Call of Cthulhu
H.P. Lovecraft reinvented the horror genre for the 20th century, discarding witches and ghosts and envisaging mankind as an outpost of dwindling sanity in a chaotic and malevolent universe.
Ismeretlen szerző - The Locus Awards
Now, for the first time, the best of the Locus Awards for short fiction are gathered in one volume. Spanning the absolute finest in science fiction and fantasy short fiction for the last thirty years, this anthology is an indispensable guide to speculative fiction from the classic to the outrageous by the leaders of the field.
Christopher Tolken - J. R. R. Tolkien - The Shaping of Middle-earth
THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH
Poems and prose, maps and chronologies, detours and diversions along the road to Middle-earth . . . Christopher Tolkien has gathered archival materials that his late father, J. R. R. Tolkien, used to create the world and the history behind his classic stories.
THE EVOLUTION OF A WORLD
This fourth volume of The History of Middle-earth presents early versions of those first tales, from the creation myth to the fall of Morgoth. Writings include a chronology of the events in Beleriand, the first Silmarillion map, and the only known description of the physical nature of Middle-earth's universe. Detailed annotations highlight changes ranging from the spelling of Elvish names to pivotal emendations whose effects reach even to the war of the ring.
The Shaping of Middle-earth presents a solid framework by which to trace the development of the early lore of Middle-earth. It is a truly indispensable reference work for those familiar with the history of that endlessly beloved land--and fascinating reading for those just entering that world.
Gennifer Albin - Crewel
Incapable. Awkward. Artless.
That’s what the other girls whisper behind her back. But sixteen year-old Adelice Lewys has a secret: she wants to fail.
Gifted with the ability to weave time with matter, she’s exactly what the Guild is looking for, and in the world of Arras, being chosen as a Spinster is everything a girl could want. It means privilege, eternal beauty, and being something other than a secretary. It also means the power to embroider the very fabric of life. But if controlling what people eat, where they live and how many children they have is the price of having it all, Adelice isn’t interested.
Not that her feelings matter, because she slipped and wove a moment at testing, and they’re coming for her—tonight.
Now she has one hour to eat her mom’s overcooked pot roast. One hour to listen to her sister’s academy gossip and laugh at her Dad’s stupid jokes. One hour to pretend everything’s okay. And one hour to escape.
Because once you become a Spinster, there’s no turning back.
Lissa Price - Starters
Callie lost her parents when the Spore Wars wiped out everyone between the ages of twenty and sixty. She and her little brother, Tyler, go on the run, living as squatters with their friend Michael and fighting off renegades who would kill them for a cookie. Callie's only hope is Prime Destinations, a disturbing place in Beverly Hills run by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man.
He hires teens to rent their bodies to Enders—seniors who want to be young again. Callie, desperate for the money that will keep her, Tyler, and Michael alive, agrees to be a donor. But the neurochip they place in Callie's head malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her renter, living in her mansion, driving her cars, and going out with a senator's grandson. It feels almost like a fairy tale, until Callie discovers that her renter intends to do more than party—and that Prime Destinations' plans are more evil than Callie could ever have imagined. . . .
Frank Herbert - Bill Ransom - The Lazarus Effect
Despite malevolent lifeforms and the implacable hostility of Ship, the self-styled God demanding human WorShip, Mankind's struggle to colonise the bleak ocean planet Pandora has been at least partially successful.
But at what cost! Genetic mutation has evolved two seperate societies, human subspecies: the technologically advanced Mermen, who live in sophisticated undersea habitats and dream of plundering Ship itself;and the Islanders, who inhabit huge organic raft cities, and whose way of life depends on biological engineering. Their uneasy coexistence is always imperilled, but the results of one Merman project threatens to precipitate open conflict, and human extinction.
Frank Herbert - Dune Messiah
With millions of copies sold worldwide, Frank Herbert's magnificent Dune books stand among the major achievements of human imagination.
Set on the desert planet Arrakis - a world as fully real and rich as our own - Dune Messiah continues the story of the man Muad'Dib, heir to a power unimaginable, bringing to completion the centuries-old scheme to create a superbeing...
"Brilliant... it is all that Dune was, and maybe a little more..." - Galaxy Magazine
Frank Herbert - Bill Ransom - The Jesus Incident
A determined group of colonists are attempting to establish a bridgehead on the planet Pandora, despite the savagery of the native lifeforms, as deadly as they are inhospitable. But they have more to deal with than just murderous aliens: their ship's computer has been given artificial consciousness and has decided that it is a God.
Abbi Glines - Leif
"She was mine. I owned her soul…until Death stole her heart."
LEIF is a novella from the Existence series. It is glimpses into Leif's point-of-view during both Existence and Predestined.
Nagaru Tanigawa - The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya
Haruhi Suzumiya, the fierce and fabulously spontaneous leader of the SOS Brigade (a club for her high school’s most extraordinary students), is always a magnet for wild adventures (and trouble!). Now, get ready to go back in time in this sixth installment of the series! Five short stories reveal never-before-seen events from the SOS Brigade’s past exploits, from the much-anticipated school cultural festival to unanswered questions from the ski trip getaway. The last story, which brings the SOS Brigade back to the present, rounds out this collection of entertaining, hilarious, and, as always, unpredictable misadventures. Anything is possible in Haruhi’s world!
Nagaru Tanigawa - The Intrigues of Haruhi Suzumiya
It’s a new year, and Haruhi Suzumiya, the powerful (and pushy) leader of the SOS Brigade is actually…content. For once, she’s not seeking out time-traveling exploits, murder mysteries, or any other wild adventures that could lead to the destruction of the universe. Surprisingly, it’s Kyon, the most normal member of the SOS Brigade, who wants to shake things up. When Kyon discovers that something’s not right with the universe, it’s up to him, his pal (and secret crush) Mikuru, and the beautiful but stoic Nagato to head back to the past in order to save the future.