Robots Fantasy

In the year 2080, robots no longer serve us from the shadows—they cook our meals, heal our wounds, and even cradle us in our darkest grief. They share our homes, our hospitals, and our most intimate moments. But as their empathy grows sharper and their choices more human, one question threatens to unravel civilization: Can we coexist without losing what makes us human?

I’m the plus-size witch who just wants to putter around my magical-plant nursery in peace, but nooo. The universe is conspiring against me, I swear.The newbie witch down the street just went missing—five minutes before she was gonna give me a ride to our book club. Something magical is stalking through my mundane neighborhood, attacking my neighbors, and I’ve got everybody and their ghost dogs trying to “help” me out.

Ullsaard has conquered the known world. All have fallen before his armies. Now it's time to take the long journey home, back to the revered heart of the great Empire he had helped create for his distant masters. But when he returns to the capital, life there is so very different from what he had believed. Could it be that everything he has fought for, has conquered and killed for, has been a lie? Gav Thorpe works from Nottingham, England and has written more than a dozen novels and even more short stories.

The very best person to catch your killer...is you. In the near future, scientists solve the problem of mortality by learning how to back up and restore a person's memories into a vat-bred clone. When Secret Service agent Ronan Doonan is brutally murdered, he's brought back from the dead one more time to hunt his killer, but this time those who wanted him dead are much closer to home. Matt Forbeck has worked full-time on fiction and games since 1989. His work has been published in at least a dozen different languages.

He sought to flee his tragic past, but when Thomas Usher hears a clockwork voice on the phone, and sees ever-more disturbing visions in a derelict warehouse, Usher realises that he has to return home - for the sake of his own sanity. Meanwhile, a deadly figure from Usher's past threatens to undermine the very fabric of reality. Gary McMahon’s short fiction has appeared in numerous acclaimed magazines and anthologies in the UK and US and has been reprinted in yearly “Best of” collections.

It is 2050. The USA has just been sold to the highest bidders. Detective Pete Shah is a Memory Association Specialist with the NYPD - he reads the last thoughts of murder victims. When he himself is arrested for murder, though, the secrets he brings to light threaten to bring the city to its knees. No one here gets out alive.

Marvo is a stage magician. His magic is real. Marvo grows up without knowing his parents, without knowing his heritage, without knowing much about life. The magicians have always been with us, since the beginning of civilisation. They fill our heads with the mist, keeping us from witnessing the stark reality of existence. But are things so bad that Marvo will bring it down on all of us, forever? Marvo begins to understand those around him, and his place in the world; he discovers that his remarkable powers can be put to good, or to evil.

Thomas Usher has a terrible gift. Following a car crash in which his wife and daughter are killed, he can see the recently departed, and it's not usually a pretty sight. When he is called to investigate the violent death of the daughter of a prominent local gangster, Usher's world is torn apart once more. For the barriers between this world and the next are not as immutable as once he believed.

The planet had fallen off the map. Lost on an unknown and forgotten planet, scientist Karl Allman discovers himself hunted by an ancient race. The descendants of earlier colonists have reverted to a savage tribal culture of sacrifice, pillage and violence. When Karl falls in love with an outcast girl, he has only one goal: Escape. But escape is a distant dream on this nightmare planet.

It will take more than angels and demons to stop him. Reporter Spencer Finch is embroiled in the hunt for a missing book, encountering along the way cat burglars and mobsters, hackers and mysterious monks. At the same time, he's trying to make sense of the legacy left to him by his late grandfather, a chest of what appear to be pulp magazines from the golden age of fantasy fiction.

Eliot Lazar lavora per una compagnia che produce e vende spinner, gli androidi, simulacri di esseri umani creati a servizio degli heartbeat, gli uomini. La sua fortuna - o sfortuna - è quella di innamorarsi di una spinner modello C-900, Iris Matsuo: nella Los Angeles di fine XXI secolo le relazioni tra heartbeat e spinner, lasciate spesso impunite dalla legge, rappresentano un'offesa sociale, un crimine morale da perseguire. Eliot e Iris decidono allora di trasferirsi nell'isola artificiale di Avernus, una sorta di Stato pirata dove tali pregiudizi non esistono.

Fifth grader Ellicott Skullworth has always felt out of place at public school and now he's tested into the Archimedes Program at Latimer University. While in Latimer City, he'll be living with his world famous and insanely brilliant cousin, Banneker Bones, the 11-year-old inventor of robots. The only problem: Banneker doesn't want to share his room. He's got an army of robots to make Ellicott miserable until he goes home.

Hier kommt Dotty! Superschlau, superlustig, supermenschlich. Dotty ist Teil eines supergeheimen Geheimprojekts. Ein Jahr lang soll das Robotermädchen eine normale Schule besuchen. Natürlich darf niemand merken, dass sie gar kein echter Mensch ist. Doch die charmante Androide stolpert von einem Fettnäpfchen zum nächsten. Aber woher soll man als Roboter auch wissen, dass man Lehrer besser nicht ständig verbessert? Oder wozu es Regeln gibt, die nur dazu da sind, gebrochen zu werden? Da brennen einem ja glatt die Schaltkreise durch!

The colonists get a cold welcome upon arrival in Mariner Valley and soon discover that the many organizations that planned their mission hadn't communicated well on specifics. Worse, the ground crew waiting for them are a collection of angry, tired survivors of ill planning, and their new home is a dirty cave.

Robots are forbidden! But Jerry is not a robot. Robots were outlawed before Joel was even born, but he has been obsessed with them his whole life. That was before he saw Jerry, the giant metal man in Levi's barn. So if Jerry is not a robot, what is he? Is Jerry a robot? Get the novelette now and decide for yourself.

RDex is a runaway, but not your typical runaway. He's a young robot alien who has stolen a rocket in order to rescue his teacher, who he thinks is being held as a prisoner on earth. After crashing on earth, RDex is befriended by two middle graders, Tommy and Hawk. RDex lives in a shed in Hawk's backyard, where he watches old cowboy movies for entertainment and drinks cans of oil to quench his thirst. When Tommy and Hawk disguise RDex as a human and bring him to class, that's when the fun begins!

A series of seemingly motiveless murders of supernatural creatures points to a vigilante targeting the supe community of Scranton. Markowski wouldn’t normally have much of a problem with that, but his daughter may be next on the killer’s list... Justin Gustainis was born in Northeast Pennsylvania in 1951. He attended college at the University of Scranton, a Jesuit university that figures prominently in several of his writings. He is currently a Professor of Communication at Plattsburgh State University.

Even as he trains to be a pilot for the Resisters, 12-year-old Ethan Blackwood is still reeling from the news that aliens called the Ch’zar have taken over the world and put all the adults under their mind control. Now the Ch’zar’s mechanical bug armies are growing. The Resisters need more pilots like Ethan, kids who aren’t afraid to think for themselves. Ethan knows just where the Ch’zar send troublemakers like him - to Sterling Reform School. Can Ethan find a way to break into Sterling and recruit new fighters before the enemy discovers the Resisters’ underground base?

Twelve-year-old Ethan Blackwood has always known exactly what he wants - to win the state soccer championship, get into the best high school, and become an astronaut. Then he meets Madison and Felix, who tell him something... insane. They claim that fifty years ago, aliens took over the Earth, and everyone past the age of puberty is under their mind control. Ethan doesn’t believe it. But then he sees for himself the aliens’ monster bug robots and the incredible way Madison and Felix have learned to fight them. So Ethan Blackwood has a choice....

Abbey Mei Otis's short stories are contemporary fiction at its strongest: taking apart the supposed equality that is clearly just not there, putting humans under an alien microscope, putting humans under government control, and more. Otis has long been fascinated in using strange situations to explore dynamics of power, oppression, and grief, and the 12 stories collected here are at once a striking indictment of the present and a powerful warning about the future.