In this collection, one of the great classics of science fiction, Asimov set out the principles of robot behavior that we know as the Three Laws of Robotics. Here are stories of robots gone mad, mind-reading robots, robots with a sense of humor, robot politicians, and robots who secretly run the world, all told with Asimov's trademark dramatic blend of science fact and science fiction.

Lai Zhen is about to die. As an Internet-famous survivalist, she's spent her life prepping for the end of the world. But now, desperate and cornered in a mall in Singapore, she's mad she might go out not knowing what the hell is going on. If she makes it out alive, what kind of a future will be waiting for her? Across the world, Martha Einkorn works the room at a gathering of mega-rich companies hell-bent securing a future just for them. Covert weapons, private weather, technological prophecy, when Martha fled her father's compound she may have left the cult behind, but if the apocalyptic warnings of his fox and rabbit sermon are starting to come true, how much future is actually left? Martha and Zhen's worlds are about to collide. While a few billionaires assured of their own safety lead the world to destruction, Martha's relentless drive and Zhen's insatiable curiosity could lead to something beautiful or the cataclysmic end of civilization.[Bokinfo]

From the wondrously talented author of The mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys comes a magnificent collection of ironic, understated tales that confirm his reputation as "the young star of American letters." -- Washington Post Book World . Here are eleven superb stories about growing up and growing wise -- stories in which people attempt to create and inhabit their own model worlds, only to watch them collapse in the face of the real world.

The second collection of short stories from the highly acclaimed author of THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY and WONDER BOYS. There are the two boys of the title story, locked in their own world of fantasy and make-believe, reaching out to each other to survive the terrible prospect of fatherlessness. 'House Hunting' shows us the grim spectacle of a couple whose marriage is in its death throes, and whose search for a happy home is doomed; in another story a couple struggle to overcome the effects of a brutal rape. Elsewhere, a family therapist comes face to face with the dark secret of his childhood, and an American football star down on his luck makes his peace with his father. The collection culminates in a daring and wonderfully baroque horror story, 'In the Black Mill', which chronicles the terrifying fate that befalls an archaeologist as he uncovers cannibalism and ritual sacrifice in a gloomy Pennsylvanian town. Serious in their subject matter, yet shot through with wit, humour and compassion, these nine short stories are testament to Chabon's ability to weave together comedy and tragedy with unforgettable results.

An unprecedented glimpse into the formation of the legendary talent of Leonard Cohen. Before the celebrated late-career world tours, before the Grammy awards, before the chart-topping albums, before 'Hallelujah' and 'So Long, Marianne' and 'Famous Blue Raincoat', the young Leonard Cohen wrote poetry and fiction and yearned for literary stardom. [Bokinfo]

From one of the preeminent literary voices in Israel comes a darkly funny collection of surrealist stories exploring the increasingly complex relationship between humans and technology. Set in our world, alternate realities, distant futures, and the immortal realm, the stories in Autocorrect traverse the wide range of human experience. With wit and creativity, Keret blends the absurd and the profound, juxtaposing life's smallest details with weighty existential questions. A man names an asteroid after his wife only to find that it's on a collision course with Earth in "For the Woman Who Has Everything." In "Squirrels," a widower's husband reincarnates as a rodent, and "Eating Olives at the End of the World" considers proper social etiquette in the face of destruction. Keret's collection speaks to the uncertainty and fragility of our time, expertly capturing its misunderstandings and miscommunications. His stories probe society's uncomfortable truths, searching for meaning in our ever-changing world.

"Dreams play a powerful role in Indigenous culture, serving as warning, insight, guidance, solace, or hope. Bawaajigan - an Anishinaabemowin word for dream or vision - is a collection of powerful literary short fiction by Indigenous writers from across Turtle Island. Stories about the connection between the spirit world and everyday life and the rest of the cosmos; urban-fantasy and high-fantasy worlds; alternative histories, and alternative realities; brushes with the supernatural, the prophetic, the hallucinatory, and the surreal. Among these themes we find stories ranging from the gritty, the gothic, the comedic, and the heart-wrenchingly tragic: a tale about the state of sleep-deprivation that conjures an uncertainty as to where dream ends and reality begins; the ominous tension of television static that conjures a certainty of something terrible about to happen; encounters with spirit guides, and spirit enemies; confrontations with ghosts haunting residential school hallways, and ghosts looking on from the afterlife; and with concepts based on Ouija boards, bead-dreamers, Haudenosaunee wizards, talking eagles, giant snakes, sacred white buffalo calves, spider's silk, a burnt and blood-stained diary, longings for what could-have-been, worm holes fallen through reality, poppy-induced deliriums, imaginary friends, and knowledge revealed. Unifying everything: these are stories about the strength and power of dreams."--

Harold Brodkey's masterful first volume of short fiction, with two never-before anthologized stories. When originally published in 1958, First Love and Other Sorrows won Harold Brodkey widespread acclaim and announced a brilliant new arrival on the literary scene. Brodkey was hailed as an "unusually gifted writer" (The Atlantic) and a "rich talent" (San Francisco Chronicle), whose stories read like "murmured confidences, highly personal yet carefully contrived" (Chicago Tribune). In First Love and Other Sorrows, the young Brodkey chronicles the world of the educated and affluent middle class of the 1950s, at leisure and in love. He establishes the themes that would appear throughout his career--the painful uncertainties of childhood, the halting intimacies of social life--with rare terness, humor, and haunting insight. Two new stories, never before collected, from Brodkey's early writings join the original volume to complete a much-loved classic.

Eight stories portray the world of the New York intellectual during the 1930s and 40s, probing the conflict between ambitious, educated youths and their immigrant parents.

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

"Pyromaniacs, vigilantes, mysterious phenomena, prehistoric beasts, cryptid species, grave robbers and ghosts... the stories of Ghost Lake feature a cast of interrelated characters and their brushes with the supernatural, creatures of Ojibwe cosmology, the Spirit World, and with monsters, both human and otherwise. Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler shows us that the precolonial past is not so distant, that history informs the present, and nothing is ever truly lost or destroyed, because the land remembers."--

Best Russian Short Stories, compiled and edited by Thomas Seltzer is a collection of short stories by famous Russian authors. The collection includes: THE QUEEN OF SPADES A.S. Pushkin THE CLOAK N.V. Gogol THE DISTRICT DOCTOR I.S. Turgenev THE CHRISTMAS TREE AND THE WEDDING F.M. Dostoyevsky GOD SEES THE TRUTH, BUT WAITS L.N. Tolstoy HOW A MUZHIK FED TWO OFFICIALS M.Y. Saltykov THE SHADES, A PHANTASY V.G. Korolenko THE SIGNAL V.N. Garshin THE DARLING A.P. Chekhov THE BET A.P. Chekhov VANKA A.P. Chekhov HIDE AND SEEK F.K. Sologub DETHRONED I.N. Potapenko THE SERVANT S.T. Semyonov ONE AUTUMN NIGHT M. Gorky HER LOVER M. Gorky LAZARUS L.N. Andreyev THE REVOLUTIONIST M.P. Artzybashev THE OUTRAGE A.I. Kuprin Odin's Library Classics is dedicated to bringing the world the best of humankind's literature from throughout the ages. Carefully selected, each work is unabridged from classic works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama.

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.

"Selected by Cynthia Ozick from a dozen books written across more than fifty years, the essays and short stories gathered here constitute a summing-up of her remarkable literary career. In such classic essays as 'Who Owns Anne Frank?,' 'What Helen Keller Saw,' 'Dostoevsky's Unabomber,' and 'Transcending the Kafkaesque,' Ozick examines some of the world's most illustrious writers and their work, tackles compelling contemporary literary and moral issues, and looks into the wellsprings of her own lifelong engagement with literature. In her short stories, including 'A Hebrew Sibyl,' 'What Happened to the Baby?,' 'Dictation,' 'The Biographer's Hat,' and 'The Conversion of the Jews,' Ozick demonstrates again and again her stylistic brilliance and the originality of her distinctive interweaving of the strands of history and myth." -

The present collection marks an attempt to bring together outstanding examples of the Short Story as it has been practiced by writers of almost every race, from the earliest days of civilization down to the present century. Its purpose is not to show, by a series of texts chosen on academic grounds, how the form developed, but to bring together the best examples of every form by which men have endeavoured to entertain and instruct their fellows. No art is more spontaneous than that of the short story, also it is certain that stories of some sort were told as soon as man became articulate. The period covered in the present collection embraces nearly five thousand years, but there can be no reasonable doubt that the Egyptian tales that open the volume, the first of their kind known to us, are the finished products of an art that was practised thousands of years before these were written. And since the beginning of civilization as we know it, there has been no break in the tradition of tale-telling: the demand for stories is as strong and insatiable in man today as it was before he discovered how to make stone weapons. The editors of this collection have approached their task of selection with open minds: they have not allowed themselves to be influenced by any theory of what a short story should be, except that which requires that it be interesting of its kind. So, without confining themselves to any theory of classification, the editors have chosen a wide variety of stories designed to appeal to the general reader and perhaps to the student as well, in the belief that what has delighted the Indians and Chinese from time immemorial, the ancient Egyptians, the Jewish shepherds and warriors of Biblical times, the Greeks of Homer`s days and the Romans of Caesar`s, will appeal with equal force to the inhabitants of the civilized world of today. These stories were written not for critics and historians, editors of anthologies and specialists, but for all mankind. They have tried to bear in mind that the Short Story is a tale which 'holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney corner.'

Informed by Levi's sly and scientific imagination, the fictions in this collection explore a strangely familiar parallel universe in which scientific advances, gone unchecked, create a dehumanized and amoral world where machines write poetry and replicate anything—including human beings.

In The Age of Wire and String, hailed by Robert Coover as "the most audacious literary debut in decades," Ben Marcus weilds together a new reality from the scrapheap of the past. Dogs, birds, horses, automobiles, and the weather are some of the recycled elements in Marcus's first collection—part fiction, part handbook—as familiar objects take on markedly unfamiliar meanings. Gradually, this makeshift world, in its defiance of the laws of physics and language, finds a foundation in its own implausibility, as Marcus produces new feelings and sensations—both comic and disturbing—in the definitive guide to an unpredictable yet exhilarating plane of existence.

It is the story of Jozsef Sondor, a tough, irreverently witty Jewish boy growing up in World War II Hungary. Jozsef carries the reader into the whirl of everyday life in war-torn Budapest, from the eve of the Holocaust in Hungary to the Russian liberation in 1945. Through his eyes, we witness history, or, as he sees it, the adult world gone mad. What is this "Jewish problem", he asks. And what can God be thinking of? Jozsef soon finds that his questions have no simple answers, but they do lead him on a journey to understanding the war, politics, religion, and, in the end, the complexity of human nature.

A selection of short stories from a twentieth-century “American master” (Dan Cryer, Newsday). A contemporary of Ann Beattie and Tobias Wolff, Frederick Busch was a master craftsman of the form; his subjects were single-event moments in so-called ordinary life. The stories in this volume, selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout, are tales of families trying to heal their wounds, save their marriages, and rescue their children. In "Ralph the Duck," a security guard struggles to hang on to his marriage. In "Name the Name," a traveling teacher attends to students outside the school, including his own son, locked in a country jail. In Busch's work, we are reminded that we have no idea what goes on behind closed doors or in the mind of another. In the words of Raymond Carver, "With astonishing felicity of detail, Busch presents us with a world where real things are at stake―and sometimes, as in the real world, everything is risked." From his first volume, Hardwater Country (1974), to his most recent, Rescue Missions (2006), this volume selects thirty stories from an "American master" (Dan Cryer, Newsday), showcasing a body of work that is sure to shape American fiction for generations to come.

A new collection of stories by Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist Gary Barwin that puts the fab in fabulist. Scandal at the Alphorn Factory: New and Selected Short Fiction, 1984-2024 couples brand new and uncollected stories with selections of the most playful and ambitious of Barwin's previous collections, including Cruelty to Fabulous Animals , Big Red Baby , Doctor Weep and Other Strange Teeth , and I, Dr. Greenblatt, Orthodontist, 251-1457 . Barwin's prose kicks against short fiction's more traditional forms: these are pieces that flirt with poetry and playwriting. Whole stories--and worlds--are packed into single compact paragraphs. There are narrators and fleas and lists and imperatives and Hitler's moustache and radiant happiness. Known as a "whiz-bang storyteller" who can deliver magical, dream-like sequences and truisms about the human condition in the same paragraph, Barwin's trademark brilliance, wit, and originality are on display in this can't-miss collection of short fiction.