Contemporary Science Fiction

The ninth floor. Nine armies, each led by rich and powerful aliens from across the galaxy. Each team has one objective: to capture and hold the castle at the very center of the battlefield. Strategy, alliances, pitched battles, and, of course, betrayal ... It all makes for great fun and even greater television. After all, none of these powerful aliens really die when they’re playing war. Except this time. This time, winner takes all. Those who fall, stay in the ground.

Je suis Arthur Wills Holmes, l'inspecteur Traqueur le plus badass d'Infernum. Avec une classe magistrale, j'élimine les criminels en un claquement de griffes et me lave les pattes des dommages collatéraux. Néanmoins, mes missions ne sont pas à la hauteur de ma puissance de super-hybride. Côté privé, mes parents ne me lâchent pas d'une écaille : Myrina me reproche mes vices qui engendrent quelques bavures, Kelen critique ma conscience morale. Satané dilemme !

Reborn into a fantastical RPG-system based world, Fresh is offered a second chance at life. Initially glad to have escaped her old existence, she quickly realizes that this new one might not be much better. Her new body is too frail to follow any grand dreams of adventure, her new mind is too dulled to allow any meticulous planning or thought, and this new, seemingly colorful, kind world is anything but.

At long last, humanity has moved beyond Earth and begun seeding new worlds. Colonies extend across the solar system, from Luna to Mars to Saturn's satellite Titan. Even Jupiter's moon Europa has become home to a couple thousand brave souls willing to risk their lives adapting to its frozen and deadly landscape.

Violet has one job: protect humans from dangerous magical creatures. It's a job she's good at - until the cute human guy whose life she just saved follows her into the fae world. Now she's broken faerie law, risking her future at the Guild of Guardians. She needs to get Nate home and make him forget everything he's discovered. If only someone wasn't intent on hunting him down.

A collection of the year’s best science fiction and fantasy short fiction selected by New York Times bestselling author of the Silo series Hugh Howey and series editor John Joseph Adams. “These are dangerous stories. The kind that warp reality and threaten to change the world” warns guest...

In an era in which ancient gods live in the world’s cities together with their mortal followers, forming tight-knit guilds and powerful temples, the disfigured ash-caster and blacksmith Hineni has lived his entire life as a reclusive outcast. Hidden away behind layers of clothing and just as many walls and doors, he only ever leaves the house in the dead of night, so that neither the gods or anyone else can ever see him. However, on one of these night-tide outings, he finds that has gained the unwanted attention of what is seemingly a perfectly normal owl.

Once upon a time, there was a forgotten era of magic and monster. But the remnants—and all memory—of the old world have been replaced by the sane, the scientific, and the rational. But sometimes the magical past isn’t content to stay past. That’s where Jack Damian comes in. It’s his joy to protect our present from the supernatural remnants of an earlier time, a different history. It’s his job to make the past safe. Jack is called to the Tate Museum, where dozens of people have disappeared beneath the surface of a painting.

Ezri would give up her magic to solve her mother’s murder. When a series of brutal murders lands in her lap, newly-minted Detective Ezri Trenton sets out to prove to herself and her mundane partner she can handle the investigation. The deeper she digs; the more evidence mounts that dark magic is behind the killings. Ezri knows traditional police work won’t be enough to stop the spree, but she can’t risk revealing the magical world. As the clock ticks ever closer to the Vernal Equinox and the prophecy that’s plagued her since childhood, Ezri must greet her destiny head on.

Something is happening to Morgan that she doesn’t understand. She sees things, feels things in a new way. She can do things normal people can’t do. Powerful things. Magical things. And it scares her. She never chose to learn witchcraft, but she’s starting to wonder if witchcraft is choosing her.

Ferius Parfax has a simple plan: Kill every last inhabitant of the spell-gifted nation that destroyed her people, starting with the man who murdered her parents. Killing mages is a difficult and dangerous business, of course, but when she meets the inimitable and extraordinary Durrall Brown, she discovers that physical strength is not the only way to defeat evil of all kinds. So Ferius undertakes to study the ways of the Argosi: the loosely-knit tribe of tricksters known for getting the better of even the most powerful of spellcasters.

The Earth is dying. Humanity - over-breeding, over-consuming - is destroying the very planet they call home. Multinational corporations despoil the environment, market genetically modified crops to control the food supply, and use their wealth and influence and private armies to crush anything, and anyone, that gets in the way of their profits. Nothing human can stop them. But something unhuman might. Once they did not fear the sun. Once they could breathe the air and sleep where they chose.

When Sara and Jamie discovered the artifacts, they sensed the pull of a dim, distant place, a world of misty forests, ancient magics, mythical beings, ageless bards...and restless evil.

When bizarre magical disappearances disrupt shows around the city, Esther receives a mysterious warning not to go on with her off-Broadway show. Desperate to stay on stage rather than resort to waiting tables, Esther turns to her new BFF, Dr. Maximillian Zadok, a 350-year-old mage whose day job is protecting New York from Evil. Determined to get to the bottom of this mystery without losing her job, Esther and Max team up with a conjuring cowboy, a banker with stage aspirations, and a flock of fearless drag queens.

Claire Hansen was a Keeper, a member of that select group that kept the universe in one piece. And now she'd been Summoned to the Elysian Fields Guesthouse, a rundown bed-and-breakfast that seemed to attract the most unusual clientele. And Claire was not happy about this latest assignment, not happy at all. Not when she'd been tricked into taking over here by a horrible little gnome of a man who'd abandoned his post before she'd even figured out who he really was. Not when room six held a resident who'd been sleeping there for so many years that she really needed a good dusting - except that it was far too dangerous for anyone to get that close to her.

The science fiction genre has become increasingly influential in mainstream popular culture, evolving into one of the most engaging storytelling tools we use to think about technology and consider the shape of the future. Along the way, it has also become one of the major lenses we use to explore important philosophical questions. The origins of science fiction are most often thought to trace to Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, a story born from a night of spooky tale-telling by the fireside that explores scientific, moral, and ethical questions that were of great concern in the 19th century - and that continue to resonate today.

A walk around the block, a quick drive, before shutting down your PC ? these short story collections are perfect for when you only have a few minutes to listen."

CONTENTS: Introduction; I Just Make Them Up, See; Someday; The Feeling of Power; Living Space; Satisfaction Guaranteed; The Last Question; Jokester; The Immortal Bard; Spell My Name With an "S"; The Ugly Little...

Welcome to Newford: to the music clubs, the waterfront, and the alleyways where ancient myths and magic spill into the modern world. Gemmins live in abandoned cars and skells traverse the tunnels below, while mermaids swim in the gray harbor waters and fill the cold night with their song. Come meet Jilly, painting wonders in the rough city streets; and Geordie, playing fiddle while he dreams of a ghost; and the Angel of Grasso Street gathering the fey and the wild and the poor and the lost.

Gerald Dunwoody is a wizard. Just not a particularly good one. He's blown up a factory, lost his job, and there's a chance that he's not really a Third Grade wizard after all. So it's off to New Ottosland to be the new Court Wizard for King Lional. It's a shame that King Lional isn't the vain, self-centered young man he appeared to be. With a princess in danger, a talking bird who can't stay out of trouble, and a kingdom to save, Gerald soon suspects that he might be out of his depth.