System Fiction

In Robert Louis Stevenson’s haunting and introspective short story “Markheim,” a chance encounter on Christmas Day leads to a chilling exploration of morality, free will, and the struggle between good and evil. With gothic atmosphere and philosophical depth, Stevenson crafts a psychological tale that lingers long after the final tick. A masterwork of Victorian horror and spiritual suspense, "Markheim" invites listeners into the dark recesses of the human soul.

A revolution is afoot in Sparta! And not just any revolution: an industrial revolution. Water wheels and mechanical hammers have come to replace primitive labor. That means more ploughs in the fields and more arms for the soldiers. After all, the enemy grows by the day, too.

Die Welt, wie wir sie kennen, ist Geschichte. Als aus heiterem Himmel die Apokalypse über sie hereinbrach, gab es für niemanden ein Entrinnen. Immerhin sorgt das System weiterhin für Unterhaltung. Beinahe täglich stellt es die Bewohner des Planeten vor neue Möglichkeiten und Herausforderungen. Warum? Das weiß niemand so genau. Vielleicht will eine höhere Macht die Überlebenden auf diese Weise dazu bringen, sich weiterzuentwickeln. Stärker und schlauer zu werden. Ans Äußerste ihrer Kräfte zu gehen. Und ihr langweiliges und bedeutungsloses altes Leben endgültig hinter sich zu lassen.

The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane is one of Sherlock Holmes’s most unusual late-career cases—told entirely from Holmes’s own perspective after his retirement to the Sussex coast. When a local schoolmaster collapses on the beach, gasping the mysterious words “Lion’s Mane,” Holmes is drawn into a baffling investigation with no clear suspect, no human culprit, and clues that defy ordinary logic. As Holmes analyzes strange wounds, missing timelines, and the secret lives of seaside residents, he uncovers a deadly natural phenomenon as dangerous as any human adversary.

In the fog-shrouded streets of Edwardian London, legendary detective Sherlock Holmes is drawn into a deceptively simple case: an elderly widow receives a mysterious offer to buy her home—the very house called Three Gables—along with every item of its furniture, so long as nothing may ever leave it. What follows is a twist-laden investigation involving a murdered diplomat’s secret manuscript, hired thugs, a glamorous widow with something to hide, and Watson silently watching the game unfold at Baker Street.

They found ruins. Now they must build a future — or die trying. When Edwin and his weary band of survivors stumble upon the abandoned village of Greenreach, they uncover more than just ash and rubble. Signs of a brutal goblin raid mark the land — but so does the opportunity to start again. Armed with a mysterious Stronghold Stone and guided by a game-like System interface only he can see, Edwin has one shot to turn these ruins into a stronghold. But the village still hides secrets... and possibly traps left by those who came before. Goblins. Tragedy. A defiled shrine.

Jonah of the Jove-Run by Ray Bradbury is a poignant, thought-provoking science fiction novella that explores the fragile boundary between human intuition and machine precision in the age of space exploration. Set in a future where humanity has colonized Mars and pushes onward toward Jupiter, the story centers on Nibley—an aging, underestimated navigator whose instinctive grasp of cosmic movement defies the cold logic of computers.

Set amid an endless interstellar conflict, the narrative follows Sam Burnett, a weary coroner aboard the morgue ship Constellation, whose grim task is to retrieve and preserve the bodies of fallen soldiers drifting through space. As moral duty collides with personal conscience, Burnett is forced to reckon with the futility of violence, the machinery of war, and the humanity lost in its wake.

This dog’s about to blast off. Will his trip be out-of-this-world? Arthur can’t wait to make his first flight into outer space. Jumping for joy, he’s rocketing off on a mission to see the twinkling stars. And once he boards his ship, he’s eager to sniff out the most paw-some planets in our solar system. Flying to each of the heavenly bodies circling our sun, Arthur has to find out what makes each one so special. But from worlds with rings and moons to balls of gas and rock, he’s not sure how to choose his favorite place in space.

"For a woman who thinks of herself as a New Yorker at this point, I buy a lot of clothes from companies named things like Shrimp & Grits. Why? Because identity is complicated." Elizabeth Passarella is content with being complicated. She grew up in Memphis in a conservative Republican family with...

The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge by Arthur Conan Doyle is one of Sherlock Holmes’s most atmospheric and chilling mysteries. When a wealthy Englishman receives a cryptic note inviting him to a secluded country estate, he soon finds himself entangled in a bizarre web of murder, deception, and superstition.

Caleb Hanson assumed the most exciting part of his field trip scouting in Northern Minnesota would be a rare bird sighting. Instead, he was abducted by hive-minded hexapods and forced to be their children's teacher. Not the worst way to ride out the end of the world. Two years later, the apocalypse has finally come for Caleb. His savior-captors are murdered, leaving him as the last line of defense for the alien kids he's grown to know and love. Now, he'll have to bend his values or watch his students die.

An interdisciplinary work that brings life writing scholarship into conversation with prison studies and law and literature studies, Prison Life Writing theorizes how life writing works in prison, explains literature’s complicated entanglements with institutional power, and demonstrates the political and aesthetic innovations of one of America’s most fascinating literary genres.

The Creatures That Time Forgot by Ray Bradbury is a haunting and thought-provoking science fiction masterpiece set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity’s existence has been compressed into a mere eight days. Following the tragic yet heroic journey of Sim, a boy born into a dying cave society, Bradbury explores the fragility of life, the relentlessness of time, and the desperate yearning for freedom and meaning.

The battle for Sar rages on. The Alliance offensive has failed, ammunition is running out, and only nuclear weapons have saved the players from utter obliteration. Ivan Susanin, also known as Vasily, found himself in a Lich trap and escaped by a miracle. Yet the mission continues as long as the return card has not been used. He can still return and find a way to reverse this seemingly hopeless situation. Retreat is not an option—the fate of two worlds rests in his hands. Victory or death!

Glitches are appearing across the Minecraft server. Blocks are flickering unexpectedly and randomly disappearing. To make matters worse, villagers are claiming that their entire villages have mysteriously vanished, and they desperately need Gameknight999's help. What's causing the server to overload and glitch, and where have all the NPCs gone? The User-that-is-not-a-user suspects the two questions are related, and that somehow Herobrine's henchmen are responsible.

The System Apocalypse has brought the clothing industry, and just about everything else, to a grinding halt. Now Lana Pearson intends to kickstart the local industry into gear to help Vancouver self-sustain itself. Key to her strategy are special teams of non-combat classes.

They couldn’t afford a ship or a fleet...and now they have a whole system to defend! Harmon Tomeral, along with friends Clip, Zerith, and the artificial intelligence Jayneen, were heroes. They’d brought back the battlecruiser Salvage Title from an unknown system and had defeated the alien Squilla and saved their home system of Tretrayon, not once, but twice. But now they have a system of their own, and the Bith are about to open it up to the galaxy at large.

THE TOP TEN SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Could the courts really order the death of your innocent baby? Was there an illegal immigrant who couldn't be deported because he had a pet cat? Are unelected judges truly enemies of the people? Most of us think the law is only relevant to criminals, if we...

Journey into the mind-bending world of Philip K. Dick's "The Skull," a short story that masterfully blends time travel with moral ambiguity. When a prisoner is offered freedom for a mysterious assignment in the past, he stumbles upon revelations that challenge everything he believes about destiny and choice. This captivating tale showcases Dick's signature style—weaving philosophical questions with psychological tension and reality-warping concepts that leave listeners questioning everything.