Short Science Fiction Fantasy Stories

With more than 10 stories from exciting new voices and a few veterans of the universe, the second anthology highlights the lives and struggles of humanity's best and worst years after system advent.

Ursula K. Le Guin has enthralled fans with her imagination, clarity, and moral vision. The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, and five Hugo and five Nebula Awards, this renowned writer has created a provocative, ever-evolving universe filled with diverse worlds and rich characters reminiscent of our earthly selves. Now, in The Birthday of the World, this gifted artist returns to these worlds in eight brilliant short works, including a never-before-published novella, each of which probes the essence of humanity.

The anthology Songs of the Dying Earth has assembled one of the most distinguished casts of authors ever - including Dan Simmons, Neil Gaiman, George R. R. Martin, Paula Volsky, Mike Resnick, Robert Silverberg, Lucius Shepard, Tad Williams, Tanith Lee, Liz Williams, Glen Cook, and eleven other famous writers - to write stories in honor of the genius of Jack Vance, stories using the bizarre and darkly beautiful far future setting of the Dying Earth, near the very end of Earth's lifespan.

At the heart of these stories, as with all the best of Lovecraft’s work, is the belief that the Earth was once inhabited by powerful and evil gods, just waiting for the chance to recolonise their planet. Cthulhu is one such god, lurking deep beneath the sea until called into being by cult followers who – like all humans – know not what they do.

These are stories that explore the scarred outposts of desperation and desire, sickness and death, sex and decay. Within this audiobook, you will also find the acclaimed novella Nearly People (nominated for awards by the International Horror Guild and the British Fantasy Society), in which a woman's search for food in a nightmarish city brings her attention from an enigmatic man known as The Dancer, and a host of terrible epiphanies.

This collection from grand master Robert A. Heinlein includes five short stories sure to please science fiction fans everywhere. The title story tells the tale of a young man who meets a time-traveling bartender whose origins - and relation to the young man - are more complex and stranger than the Ouroboros ring on the barkeep's finger.

Contains three complete, novel-length books in the Middle Falls Time Travel series: The Empathetic Life of Rebecca Wright, The Successful Life of Jack Rybicki, and The Many Short Lives of Charles Waters.

Ferne Welten, ferne Zeiten. Nichts ist spannender als das Unbekannte, das nicht nur da draußen wartet, sondern auch in einer anderen Zeit. Die Zukunft birgt nicht nur Lösungen und Antworten, sie fordert ein Umdenken und eine neue Betrachtung unserer Rolle. Sind wir allein? Und warum nicht? Ist der Mensch oder sein Schaffen noch wichtig? Und weshalb sollte es das nicht sein? Seit 2009 veröffentlicht Galax Acheronian seine Zukunftsgedanken in verschiedenen Facetten. Raumschiffe, Aliens, der Spiegel der Gegenwart und all die schmutzigen Dinge der Realität.

It is in Skinwalker that Jane Yellowrock first meets George Dumas (Bruiser) and Leo Pellissier. Now, in "First Sight", that encounter is revisited - only this time from Bruiser’s point of view.

Villains have all the fun - everyone knows that - and this anthology takes you on a wild ride through the dark side! The top villains from 16 urban fantasy series get their own stories - including the baddies of New York Times best-selling authors Jim Butcher, Kevin Hearne, Kelley Armstrong, Seanan McGuire, and Jonathan Maberry. For every hero trying to save the world, there's a villain trying to tear it all down.

Archdruid Owen Kennedy and his sloth, Slomo, are off to see the world when Coriander, Herald Extraordinary of the First among the Fae, interrupts to ask for the tiny favor of solving a supernatural murder. That sets the pair off on a trail that leads from Granada, Spain, to London, England and then to Austin, Texas. Owen and Slomo will have to outwit an Irish goddess of wisdom, some nasty spriggans, and streak across the Kew Gardens to find the culprit. They're going to see the world after all - just not the way they thought.

Between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities...there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars.... Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand...to tread the jeweled thrones of the earth under his sandalled feet.

Before Area X, there was Ambergris. Jeff VanderMeer conceived what would become his first cult classic series of speculative works: the Ambergris trilogy. Now, for the first time ever, the story of the sprawling metropolis of Ambergris is collected into a single volume, including City of Saints and Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch.

Acclaimed science fiction luminary and a godfather of the genre’s remarkable offspring - cyberpunk - Bruce Sterling carries readers to a far-future universe where stunning achievements in human development have been tainted by a virulent outbreak of prejudice and hatred.

With an all-new Sookie Stackhouse story and 12 other original tales, editors Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner bring together a stellar collection of tour guides who offer vacations that are frightening, funny, and touching for the fanged, the furry, the demonic, and the grotesque. Learn why it really can be an endless summer - for immortals.

Royce Melborn, a cynical ex-assassin, and Hadrian Blackwater, an idealistic ex-mercenary, are a pair of rogues-for-hire known as Riyria (its elvish for two). This duo makes a living taking nefarious jobs for conspiring nobles. Doing so usually involves stealing something, but when a young heiress asks them to steal her . . . well, that is a first for the pair.

Look outward beyond the stars with six stories from bestselling visionary authors. An AI awakens to its purpose. A researcher seeds a thousand new worlds for one more chance at love. A murder rocks the crew of an interstellar ship. With a sweeping sense of wonder, these stories explore the galaxy . . . and the horizons of humanity’s potential.

Here is the precursor to Jurassic Park. Victorian explorers have heard there is a remote plateau where dinosaurs still survive, and a group set outs on a dangerous mission to find out more about it.

Clementine has been taken by a creature of darkness. Dorin is a fiend in love who must find Clementine before losing her forever. While on his desperate search, Dorin pens eight dark and romantic monstrous tales, written only for Clementine.

Follow a core group of characters known as the Trailblazers as they use alien technology and knowledge discovered in Antarctic ruins to obtain limited immortality and lead humanity out into the galaxy, encountering, befriending, and fighting hundreds of alien races, all the while desperately trying to prepare Earth for the unbeatable threat at the core of the Milky Way that is destined to return and reclaim their lost colony... and their former human slaves.