“[Stross] has the ability to superimpose an intriguing take on contemporary events over an imaginative story peopled by bizarre characters.” – The Kansas City Star A G2 star doesn’t just explode—not without outside interference. So the survivors of the planet Moscow, which was annihilated in just such an event, have launched a counterattack against the most likely culprit: the neighboring system of New Dresden. But New Dresden wasn’t responsible, and as the deadly missiles approach their target, Rachel Mansour, agent for the interests of Old Earth, is assigned to find out who was. Opposing her is an unknown—and unimaginable—enemy. At stake is not only the fate of New Dresden but also the very order of the universe. And the one person who knows the identity of that enemy is a disaffected teenager who calls herself Wednesday Shadowmist. But Wednesday has no idea what she knows…

Albert Morris is a private investigator. Actually, he's lots of private investigators, in a near future when anyone can send forth copies of themselves . Cheap, clay duplicates fulfill every legal task or illicit whim. It's a world of several billion real people - that also throngs with disposable dittos . And you would do it, too. With several cases on the go at once, it's crucial that a P.I. keep track of his many selves! But when Albert takes on a ring of bootleggers making illegal copies of a famous actress, he stumbles on a secret so explosive it triggers open warfare across Dittotown. A secret that might throw this delicately balanced world into chaos. Welcome to a shadowy world of kiln-baked golems, where memory itself is suspect and the line between life and death may no longer exist. Kiln People takes you to a future as thrilling as it is terrifying. A 2003 Hugo Award Nominee for Best Novel.

From New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow, Radicalized is four urgent SF novellas of America's present and future within one book Told through one of the most on-pulse genre voices of our generation, Radicalized is a timely collection consisting of four SF novellas connected by social, technological, and economic visions of today and what America could be in the near, near future. Unauthorized Bread is a tale of immigration, the toxicity of economic and technological stratification, and the young and downtrodden fighting against all odds to survive and prosper. In Model Minority , a Superman-like figure attempts to rectifiy the corruption of the police forces he long erroneously thought protected the defenseless...only to find his efforts adversely affecting their victims. Radicalized is a story of a darkweb-enforced violent uprising against insurance companies told from the perspective of a man desperate to secure funding for an experimental drug that could cure his wife's terminal cancer. The fourth story, Masque of the Red Death , harkens back to Doctorow's Walkaway , taking on issues of survivalism versus community.

"A razor-sharp comedy and a smart meditation on the nature of gaming." -- Boston Globe When Russell joins Black Arts games, brainchild of two visionary designers who were once his closest friends, he reunites with an eccentric crew of nerds hacking the frontiers of both technology and entertainment. In part, he's finally given up chasing the conventional path that has always seemed just out of reach. But mostly, he needs to know what happened to Simon, his strangest and most gifted friend, who died under mysterious circumstances soon after Black Arts' breakout hit. As the company's revolutionary next-gen game is threatened by a software glitch, Russell finds himself in a race to save his job, Black Arts' legacy, and the people he has grown to care about. The deeper Russell digs, the more dangerous the glitch appears--and soon, Russell comes to realize there's much more is at stake than just one software company's bottom line.

Hugo Award Winner, from an SF Grandmaster!Conquering warrior Francisco Pizarro found himself... somewhere. Somewhere strange. He didn't know where, but he was sure it wasn't where he should be. After some time, another warrior appeared...About this story Robert Silverberg writes: I wrote this one in October, 1987 for an anthology I was editing myself, the basic idea of which involved using computer-generated simulacra of actual historical figures set in conflict against one another. The ones I chose were Socrates and Francisco Pizarro, and the story very quickly became an exciting thing to write as these two powerful personalities began to clash. I think it's one of the major achievements of my career.It was published in ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION and then in TIME GATE, my anthology, and it was picked for Gardner Dozois' 1989 YEAR'S BEST SCIENCE FICTION anthology. And at the World Science Fiction Convention in Holland in August, 1990, it brought me the Hugo award for Best Novelet.Robert Silverberg is a SFWA Grandmaster and winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula awards.

"The Marching Morons" is a look at a far future in which the world's population consists of five billion idiots and a few million geniuses - the precarious minority of the "elite" working desperately to keep things running behind the scenes. "The Marching Morons" is a direct sequel to "The Little Black Bag" it is easy to miss this, as "Bag" is set in the contemporary present while "Morons" takes place several centuries from now, and there is no character that appears in both stories. The titular black bag in the first story is actually an artifact from the time period of "The Marching Morons" a medical kit filled with self-driven instruments enabling a far-future moron to "play doctor". A future Earth similar to "The Marching Morons" - a civilization of morons protected by a small minority of hidden geniuses - is used again in the final stages of "Search the Sky".

This cyber-erotic romantic thriller, written by two queer icons in the 1990s, has been "rebooted" for today's readers. In this rowdy cyber-romance originally written in the 1990s, two people meet online and fall in love in every guise they can manage. As Scratch and Winc go from anonymous lovers to accidental heroes and gender outlaws, they expose the shadowy Web stretched between technology and capitalist greed, nearly becoming roadkill on the internet superhighway. With a little help from their friends including a brave teenager and a mysterious hacker, these darling rebels fight government intervention and find chosen family in this eerily prescient tale. The 30th anniversary “reboot” edition includes an updated lens for today’s readers, as GenZ investigative journalist Drew uncovers what just might be the greatest queer love story of all time . Like Octavia Butler's PARABLE OF THE SOWER, Margaret Atwood's A HANDMAID'S TALE, and George Orwell's 1984, the return of NEARLY ROADKILL is right on time with urgent lessons for our contemporary landscape.

A brilliant collaboartion from Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross, two defining personalities of post-cyberpunk SF—now repackaged with a new cover! Welcome to the fractured future, at the dusk of the twenty-first century. Earth has a population of roughly a billion hominids. For the most part, they are happy with their lot, living in a preserve at the bottom of a gravity well. Those who are unhappy have emigrated, joining one or another of the swarming densethinker clades that fog the inner solar system with a dust of molecular machinery so thick that it obscures the sun. The splintery metaconsciousness of the solar-system has largely sworn off its pre-post-human cousins dirtside, but its minds sometimes wander...and when that happens, it casually spams Earth's networks with plans for cataclysmically disruptive technologies that emulsify whole industries, cultures, and spiritual systems. A sane species would ignore these get-evolved-quick schemes, but there's always someone who'll take a bite from the forbidden apple. So until the overminds bore of stirring Earth's anthill, there's Tech Jury Service: random humans, selected arbitrarily, charged with assessing dozens of new inventions and ruling on whether to let them loose. Young Huw, a technophobic, misanthropic Welshman, has been selected for the latest jury, a task he does his best to perform despite an itchy technovirus, the apathy of the proletariat, and a couple of truly awful moments on bathroom floors.

Sometime in the twenty-third century, humanity went extinct, leaving only androids behind to fulfill humanity’s dreams. And, having learned well from their long-dead masters, they’ve established a hierarchical society—one with humanoid aristo rulers at the top and slave-chipped workers at the bottom, performing the lowly tasks all androids were originally created to do. Designed as a concubine for a species that hasn’t existed for two hundred years, femmebot Freya Nakamichi-47—one of the last of her kind still functioning—accepts a job from a stranger to deliver a package from mercury to Mars. Unfortunately, she’s just made herself a moving target for some very powerful, very determined humanoids desperate to retrieve the package’s contents…

These are the tales of Eternal Voyager. Tales from a distant future in which all life is virtual. Everyone in the Metaverse takes for granted the ability to teleport; to change shape; to create entire planets for their playgrounds and to make backup copies of themselves, so they cannot permanently die. And what do these people who live beyond the conventional universe do with their powers? Mostly they play RPGs. ***** "I loved Conor Kostick's Epic and these six short novels (more like long, self-contained chapters) are sort of related. They are set in a universe (called the Metaverse) where virtual characters have come alive and have fun and adventures." Reader Review ***** "From a plague of vampyrism to silver orb aliens, to talking to dragons and battling orcs, Eternal Voyager [party animal] tackles them all with sharp humour and several quick avatar changes. Have you ever solved your own murder? Join a romp through metaversal adventures which just about cover every possible realm and involves a broad spectrum of characters. Parallels between the avatar world and our own are unmistakable - sometimes amusing, sometime deadly serious. Highly recommended." Reader Review