"SFWA Grand Master Silverberg (Voyagers) demonstrates why he merits that plaudit in this superior collection of three novels and one short story linked by the theme of humanity encountering intelligent alien life, or, as he puts it in his introduction, “reach out to meet others with uncertain hands.” “Those Who Watch” begins with an explosion over New Mexico that turns out to be a crashing spaceship; the ship’s three crew members survive and successfully pose as humans until three Earthlings see through their disguise. “The Man in the Maze” offers a less traditional story line, inspired by Sophocles’s tragedy Philoctetes and centered on diplomat Richard Muller. Muller’s the first human to contact the inhabitants of Beta Hydri IV—and he becomes a pariah upon his return to Earth. Silverberg shifts gears dramatically in “Tom O’Bedlam,” in which all of Earth’s governments have collapsed, and the eponymous lead has visions of fantastic crystalline beings that others dismiss as psychotic episodes. The anthology is enhanced by Silverberg’s introductions to each piece, which provide the personal and editorial background to the stories. Lovers of first contact fiction owe it to themselves to pick this up."--Publishers Weekly

Hand-picked authors and a literary legacy... You may want to read it in one quick bite... Or savor it slowly like fine Swiss chocolate... One delicious prose at a time! For 22 years, SF lovers from around the world have enjoyed the stories and poems of the Tesseracts series, ( Tesseracts One through Tesseracts Ten , and Tesseracts Q ). This unique collection of books has featured the work of some of Canada's finest speculative fiction writers, selected and edited by ever changing combinations of editors, hand-picked for each edition. For many science fiction writers, Tesseracts was a spring board to their fame. Tesseracts Eleven brings the series to a new height, with a tasty blend of past and present writers, with their own individual visions of the future. The literature of Tesseracts Eleven has been critically selected and shaped into the collection you see by this year's editors, two of Canada's finest writers - acclaimed authors Cory Doctorow and Holly Phillips. Together they have chosen a powerful combination of works by well-known writers, as well as newer authors whose futures you will want to follow. Some favorite Tesseracts ingredients are a featured part of this edition's literary blend: some very popular award winning names in Canada's SF scene, like Canada's grand dame of speculative fiction, Elisabeth Vonarburg, Claude Lalumiere, David Nickle and Candas Jane Dorsey, to name just a few. As well, readers will find some bright new stars in the science fiction world like Yukon's Jerome Stueart, or Calgary's Susan Forest - just 2 of the delicious authors featured in this fine offering. All told, Doctorow and Phillips have presented 22 pieces of literary delights to tantalize your imagination, and although you may want to consume the book in one sitting - take your time, and savor each exquisite morsel - delight in every bite. Grab your favorite beverage, settle down, and enjoy the latest in Canada's literary legacy - Tesseracts Eleven

Babbage Press, 2001. Trade paperback, reprints the 1976 Avon paperback original. Collection of science fiction stories from the author of "The Game of Thrones."

"This volume showcases the nuanced, playful, ever-expanding definitions of the genre and celebrates its current renaissance." --Washington Post Science fiction and fantasy can encompass so much, from far-future deep-space sagas to quiet contemporary tales to unreal kingdoms and beasts. But what the best of these stories do is the same across the genres--they illuminate the whole gamut of the human experience, interrogating our hopes and our fears. With a diverse selection of stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Charles Yu, The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 continues to explore the ever-expanding and changing world of SFF today, with Yu bringing his unique view--literary, meta, and adventurous--to the series' third edition.

Harlan Ellison is probably best known as a script writer for sci-fi and fantasy movies and TV series such as the original Outer Limits, The Hunger, Logan's Run, and Babylon Five. But his range is much broader than that, encompassing stories, novels, essays, reviews, reminiscences, plays, even fake autobiographies. Essential Ellison includes contains 74 unabridged works, including such classics as "A Boy and His Dog," "Xenogenesis," and "Mefisto in Onyx." Includes black-and-white photos.

Five years in the making, the Edgeworks Abbey Archive represents Harlan Ellison's last word on his written legacy. Researched and edited by the author's long-time associate, Jason Davis, under the supervision of Harlan and Susan Ellison, this collection assembles the preferred texts of each story and essay along with previously uncollected and unpublished material to create the definitive edition.A FEW (AMONG THE MANY) QUESTIONS THIS BOOK ANSWERS: What stopped Attila the Hun from sacking the Holy City of Rome in the year 452 when it lay defenseless before him? Where is the sunken continent of Atlantis and what will happen if it rises? Has anyone ever made an interesting case for the merits of waging war, and how does war benefit the human race? What happened When Santa Claus attacked Ronald Reagan in the men's toilet of the abandoned Camarillo State Mental Institution? Is it true that Jesus had a homosexual liaison with Prometheus? Does the Abominable Snowman exist, and what's his sex life like? What's the worst thing that can happen to those who do too much bad dope? How do you identify and survive the attentions of emotional vampires? Are you listening? Why are the bizarre stories of Harlan Ellison so damned popular, translated into thirteen languages, and made into movies; why do they influence a whole generation of younger writers, provoke lynch mobs, and win this Ellison person such an unconscionable array of literary awards? ASK NOT FOR WHOM THIS BOOK TOILS. IT TOILS FUR THEE, KIDDO.

The sixteen stories collected here are spread over the farthest stretches of time and space, but even the bleakest of them is warmed by a passionate faith in the endurance of life and its ultimate possibilities. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

"Despite his ability to control the ambient digital cloud, a foster teen falls for a clever con man. Luring bullies to a quarry, a boy takes revenge through unnatural powers of suggestion. After an alien invasion, a survivor fears that he brought something infectious back from the Arctic. A rebellious group of queer artists create a new identity that transcends even the anonymity of death. In Shirley Jackson and Nebula Award-winning author Sam J. Miller's devastating debut short fiction collection, queer infatuation, inevitable heartbreak, and brutal revenge seemlessly intertwine. Miller shows his savage wit, unrelenting candor, and lush imagery in this essential career retrospective, taking his place alongside luminaries of the short fiction form such as Carmen Maria Machado, Carson McCullers, and Jeff VanderMeer."

In this thought-provoking collection of short stories, some of the most ingenious talents in science fiction explore the secret lives of the aliens who walk among us....Philip K. Dick * Gene Wolfe * Paul J. McAuley * Pat Cadigan * Theodore Sturgeon * Kim Newman * and others!

Written as a collaboration between the multi-Nebula Award winning Ed Bryant and Harlan Ellison, one of the Grand Masters of science fiction and a multiple Hugo-, Nebula-, and Edgar Award-winner, PHOENIX WITHOUT ASHES is the novel edition of Harlan's famous, award-winning teleplay. (Please note this book is the novel edition, not the graphic novel.) The year is 2785, and Devon, a farmer banished for challenging his community's Elders, discovers a secret that changes everything he knew about the world, leading him on a quest to solve a mystery beyond his understanding before his entire world is destroyed in a cataclysm. With a Harlanesque introduction by Harlan Ellison. Harlan is very graciously donating his author's income to Ed for this book. THANK YOU, HARLAN! Because of Ed's financial needs, almost all the profits from this book go directly to Ed. Donations to help with Ed's medical and other financial needs are also most appreciated via www.FriendsOfEd.org. Thank you! About the Author Edward Bryant is the multi-Nebula Award winning author of over a hundred short stories, over a thousand essays and reviews, and one novel with Harlan Ellison, PHOENIX WITHOUT ASHES.

Armchair Fiction features the best in classic classic science fiction short story collections. "Masters of Science Fiction, Vol. Three" features the works of Robert Sheckley. He was born in New York in 1931 and passed away in 2005. Most of his life was spent concocting brilliant pieces of imaginative mind fodder. What would the perfect woman look like? He pondered what, if anything, would a man be able to eat on a distant planet? Would the end-all to financial worry and violence bring man the utopia he has always searched for? Unlock the answers to these questions and many more with this unmatched collection of Robert Sheckley stories...just waiting to be devoured.

"The stories in this volume were written between July of 1990 and March of 1995-the second half of the fifth decade of my career as a science-fiction writer. I don't think I could have imagined, when I began that career in the early 1950s, that science-fiction publishing would evolve the way it did over the next forty years. Here, then, is the cream of the Silverberg output, 1990-95. I suppose I wrote more short stories in the first six months of 1957 than in that entire six-year period; but so be it. It's a different world today. I look back nostalgically on the small-town atmosphere of the era in which I began my career, and there are times when I'd be glad to 'call back yesterday, bid time return.' As Shakespeare pointed out, though, that can't be done. The one recourse is the one I have chosen, which is to soldier staunchly onward through the years, come what may, writing a story or two here and a book there, while the world changes out of all recognition around me. And so-to leap neatly from the Bard of Avon to F. Scott Fitzgerald-'so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.'" -Robert Silverberg, from the Introduction

Best known as the author of "Psycho", Robert Bloch is world-renowned for his stories of horror, mystery, fantasy, and science fiction. Many of the 25 stories in this first volume of "The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch" have been unavailable for decades. The stories are in his classic style of gripping suspense, science fiction and fantasy. As Bloch writes, "These stories in this collection have a common theme; they deal with monsters. Some of the monsters are human, some are not-- but all of them embody, in one way or another, the fears common to us in our dreams. We call these monsters by many names-- ghosts, vampires, extraterrestrials, changelings. But we recognize them for what they are; manifestations of the secret dreads and desires which lurk beneath the surface of consciousness." "Bloch has become a virtual fixture on the popular culture landscape." --Publishers Weekly "If you're not familiar with Bloch's short fiction, find someone to borrow this from; if you already are familiar, you know that you want to own these volumes." --Locus

The eighth in a series of superb science fiction. The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality and importance to the science fiction genre. Here is another set of the best stories, stories which were ahead of their epoch when they were new, which display a freshness and vigor that make them almost indistinguishable from the best of today's s-f, and which set the standard by which modern writers have guided their careers. A DUSK OF IDOLS: Not only are the gods cruel, but they can make you like it. THE HUMAN OPERATORS: The great ships possess unlimited cruising range--and unbounded ferocity. WARM: It's just a simple guessing game: to be? or not to be? KLYSTERMAN'S SILENT VIOLIN: Powerful weapons are a fine thing--but you wouldn't want your lover to marry one. THE NEW REALITY: It's amazing how much destruction you can wreak with a few simple tools--if you put your mind to it. These and six other tales of the highest quality--the most amazing conviction

The seventh in a series of superb science fiction. The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality and importance to the science fiction genre. Since its inception in 1970, the Alpha series has been dedicated to the proposition that science fiction can be a literature not only of stimulating and unfamiliar ideas but also of skilful and vigorous writing. Thus far Alpha has offered sixty-odd stories that exemplify the best of science fiction: challenging, provocative views of the universe, presented in crisp, sparkling prose. The volumes in the series offer some of the liveliest work produced in the short-story form anywhere in the world, and not just of the science-fiction category. Alpha serves a secondary purpose: to rescue from oblivion stories that might otherwise be undeservedly forgotten. Herewith, the seventh feast of outstanding fiction.

The second in a series of superb science fiction. The Alpha series of anthologies center on no particular theme except that of literary quality. Two criteria were used in the selecting of these stories—literary merit and importance to the genre. The result is that the variety of subjects is matched only by the richness and diversity of their handling—brilliant, frightening, clever, bizarre, powerful, witty, funny—and several steps in-between. Whatever else these stories may be doing, they all explore the interplay between human beings and the technological society man has created for himself. Good science fiction simultaneously peers into remote realms of space and time and holds a mirror to the contemporary moment; and if the reflection in that mirror is somewhat distorted, so be it. Blame not the messenger for bearing bad tidings. Herewith ten stories which demonstrate the unsettling kinds of insights that science fiction alone can offer. More are on the way. The nine volumes of this series provide an exciting cumulative view of a field in which some of the most vigorous and inventive fiction of our times has been produced. Simply put, here is the best science fiction from the best science fiction writers.

The first in a series of superb science fiction. Alpha is, aside from the first letter of the Greek alphabet, a term that denotes excellence and primacy in a variety of disciplines: in nuclear physics, for example, it is the name of a particle of unusually large mass and charge. It seemed a useful label to attach to this volume, the first of an intended series of collections of science fiction stories. The Alpha series of anthologies will center on no particular theme except that of literary quality. The presence in any one volume of a cluster of stories bearing other thematic resemblance-as in this volume, where there are four or five time-travel stories-will be purely coincidental. I propose to cull the files of the science fiction magazines for stories that an educated and sophisticated reader will find stimulating, and to assemble them in books of roughly equal size that will appear once a year over the next few years. Some of the stories will be fifteen or twenty years old and richly in need of restoration to print. Others will be quite recent: the literary level of the science fiction short story has undergone an extraordinary transformation in the past few years, a fact that demands recognition here. Appropriately enough, this first volume of the ALPHA series covers a roster of writers from A to Z. Specifically, Aldiss to Zelazny-although this coincidence in alphabet is merely incidental to the fact that both these gentlemen, and the several others represented in this anthology, all write superb science fiction. Two criteria were used in the selecting of these stories-literary merit and importance to the genre. The result is that the variety of subjects is matched only by the richness and diversity of their handling-brilliant, frightening, clever, bizarre, powerful, witty, funny-and several steps in-between. So much for policy. The nine volumes of this series provide an exciting cumulative view of a field in which some of the most vigorous and inventive fiction of our times has been produced. Simply put, here is the best science fiction from the best science fiction writers.

"26 new short stories representing the state of the art in international science fiction, selected by Lavie Tidhar. The Best of World SF draws together stories from across the spectrum of science fiction - expect robots, spaceships and time travel, as well as some really weird stuff - representing twenty-one countries and five continents."--Provided by publisher.

Projecting a near-future United States in which justice is blind in at least one eye and the ranks of the disenchanted have swollen to dangerous levels, Mosely offers nine interconnected stories whose characters appear and reappear in each others' lives. For all its denizens, from technocrats to terrorists, celebs to crooks, "Futureland" is an all-American nightmare just waiting to happen.