Download or read book The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year written by Jonathan Strahan and published by Start Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2013-04-18 with total page 949 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In print and on-line, science fiction and fantasy is thriving as never before. A multitude of astonishingly creative and gifted writers are boldly exploring the mythic past, the paranormal present, and the promises and perils of myriad alternate worlds and futures. There are almost too many new and intriguing stories published every year for any reader to be able to experience them all. So how to make sure you haven’t missed any future classics? Award-winning editor and anthologist Jonathan Strahan has surveyed the expanding universes of modern sf and fantasy to find the brightest stars in today’s dazzling literary firmament. From the latest masterworks by the acknowledged titans of the field to fresh visions from exciting new talents, this outstanding collection is a comprehensive showcase for the current state of the art in both science fiction and fantasy. Anyone who wants to know where the future of imaginative short fiction is going, and treat themselves to dozens of unforgettable stories, will find this year’s edition of Best Science Fiction and Fantasy to be just what they’re looking for!

Download or read book The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 written by Joe Hill and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2015 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of the best American science fiction and fantasy stories published during 2014.

Download or read book The Year s Best Science Fiction Fantasy Novellas 2015 written by Paula Guran and published by Prime Books. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novellas 2015 inaugurates a new annual series of anthologies featuring some of the year's best novella-length science fiction and fantasy. Novellas, longer than short stories but shorter than novels, are a rich and rewarding literary form that can fully explore tomorrow's technology, the far reaches of the future, thought-provoking imaginings, fantastic worlds, and entertaining concepts with the impact of a short story and the detailed breadth of a novel. Gathering a wide variety of excellent SF and fantasy, this anthology of "short novels" showcases the talents of both established masters and new writers.

Download or read book Falling in Love with Hominids written by Nalo Hopkinson and published by Tachyon Publications. This book was released on 2015-07-20 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An alluring new collection from the author of the New York Times Notable Book, Midnight Robber Nalo Hopkinson (Brown Girl in the Ring, The Salt Roads, Sister Mine) is an internationally-beloved storyteller. Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as having "an imagination that most of us would kill for," her Afro-Caribbean, Canadian, and American influences shine in truly unique stories that are filled with striking imagery, unlikely beauty, and delightful strangeness. In this long-awaited collection, Hopkinson continues to expand the boundaries of culture and imagination. Whether she is retelling The Tempest as a new Caribbean myth, filling a shopping mall with unfulfilled ghosts, or herding chickens that occasionally breathe fire, Hopkinson continues to create bold fiction that transcends boundaries and borders.

Download or read book City of the Iron Fish written by Simon Ings and published by Gollancz. This book was released on 2014-04-10 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simon Ings has written a surreal adventure probing the very fabric of existence, tearing it open to reveal a sometimes horrifying world within. It is a work that will delight any fan of China Mieville. Only a fool would question the strange magics that maintain the cool haven of the City of the Iron Fish in the middle of an inferno of scorching heat and splintered rock, for the well-watered streets of the city hide secrets in their shadows. Thomas Kemp is just such a fool ... And embarks on a journey that will take him to the limits of reality. It may kill him, worse, that may not be enough. Especially as it is his only friend, Blythe, who may discover the secret of the city's isolation.

Download or read book Our Lady of the Ice written by Cassandra Rose Clarke and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015-10-27 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Yiddish Policeman’s Union meets The Windup Girl when a female PI goes up against a ruthless gangster—just as both humans and robots agitate for independence in an Argentinian colony in Antarctica. In Argentine Antarctica, Eliana Gomez is the only female PI in Hope City—a domed colony dependent on electricity (and maintenance robots) for heat, light, and survival in the icy deserts of the continent. At the center is an old amusement park—now home only to the androids once programmed to entertain—but Hope City’s days as a tourist destination are long over. Now the City produces atomic power for the mainland while local factions agitate for independence and a local mobster, Ignacio Cabrera, runs a brisk black-market trade in illegally imported food. Eliana doesn’t care about politics. She doesn’t even care much that her boyfriend, Diego, works as muscle for Cabrera. She just wants to save enough money to escape Hope City. But when an aristocrat hires Eliana to protect an explosive personal secret, Eliana finds herself caught up in the political tensions threatening to tear Hope City apart. In the clash of backstabbing politicians, violent freedom fighters, a gangster who will stop at nothing to protect his interests, and a newly sentient robot underclass intent on a very different independence, Eliana finds her job coming into deadly conflict with Diego’s—just as the electricity keeping Hope City from freezing begins to fail… With the inner workings of the mob combined with the story of a revolution, “Clarke brings novelty and delight to steampunk Antarctica in this complex and lovely mystery” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Our Lady of the Ice questions what it means to be human, what it means to be free, and whether we’re ever able to transcend our pasts and our programming to find true independence.

Download or read book The Best of the Best written by Gardner Dozois and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2005-02 with total page 690 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Features the finest science fiction writings from the past two decades of the annual "The Year's Best Science Fiction," including writings from such authors as Greg Bear, Pat Cadigan, Robert Silverberg, and Ursula K. Le Guin.

Download or read book Three Moments of an Explosion written by China Miéville and published by Del Rey. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • NPR • The Guardian • Kirkus Reviews • The fiction of multiple award–winning author China Miéville is powered by intelligence and imagination. Like George Saunders, Karen Russell, and David Mitchell, he pulls from a variety of genres with equal facility, employing the fantastic not to escape from reality but instead to interrogate it in provocative, unexpected ways. London awakes one morning to find itself besieged by a sky full of floating icebergs. Destroyed oil rigs, mysteriously reborn, clamber from the sea and onto the land, driven by an obscure purpose. An anatomy student cuts open a cadaver to discover impossibly intricate designs carved into a corpse’s bones—designs clearly present from birth, bearing mute testimony to . . . what? Of such concepts and unforgettable images are made the twenty-eight stories in this collection—many published here for the first time. By turns speculative, satirical, and heart-wrenching, fresh in form and language, and featuring a cast of damaged yet hopeful seekers who come face-to-face with the deep weirdness of the world—and at times the deeper weirdness of themselves—Three Moments of an Explosion is a fitting showcase for one of literature’s most original voices. Praise for Three Moments of an Explosion “China Miéville is dazzling. His latest collection of short stories, Three Moments of an Explosion, crowds virtuosity into every sentence.”—The New York Times “You can’t talk about [China] Miéville without using the word ‘brilliant.’ . . . His wit dazzles, his humour is lively, and the pure vitality of his imagination is astonishing.”—Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian “[A] gripping collection . . . Miéville expertly mixes science fiction, fantasy and surrealism. . . . Amid the longer stories are more cerebral, poetic flash pieces that will haunt the reader beyond the pages of this exceptional book.”—The Washington Post “The stories shine . . . with a winking brilliance.”—The Seattle Times “Mind-bending excursions into the fantastic.”—NPR “Bradbury meets Borges, with Lovecraft gibbering tumultuously just out of hearing.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Three Moments of an Explosion is a book filled with fabulous oddities.”—Entertainment Weekly “Miéville moves effortlessly among realism, fantasy, and surrealism. . . . His characters, whether ordinary witnesses to extraordinary events or lunatics operating out of inexplicable compulsions, are invariably well drawn and compelling.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Download or read book Last Song Before Night written by Ilana C. Myer and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-09-29 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A high fantasy following a young woman's defiance of her culture as she undertakes a dangerous quest to restore her world's lost magic in Ilana C. Myer's Last Song Before Night. Her name was Kimbralin Amaristoth: sister to a cruel brother, daughter of a hateful family. But that name she has forsworn, and now she is simply Lin, a musician and lyricist of uncommon ability in a land where women are forbidden to answer such callings-a fugitive who must conceal her identity or risk imprisonment and even death. On the eve of a great festival, Lin learns that an ancient scourge has returned to the land of Eivar, a pandemic both deadly and unnatural. Its resurgence brings with it the memory of an apocalypse that transformed half a continent. Long ago, magic was everywhere, rising from artistic expression-from song, from verse, from stories. But in Eivar, where poets once wove enchantments from their words and harps, the power was lost. Forbidden experiments in blood divination unleashed the plague that is remembered as the Red Death, killing thousands before it was stopped, and Eivar's connection to the Otherworld from which all enchantment flowed, broken. The Red Death's return can mean only one thing: someone is spilling innocent blood in order to master dark magic. Now poets who thought only to gain fame for their songs face a challenge much greater: galvanized by Valanir Ocune, greatest Seer of the age, Lin and several others set out to reclaim their legacy and reopen the way to the Otherworld-a quest that will test their deepest desires, imperil their lives, and decide the future. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book Ready Player One written by Ernest Cline and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-08-16 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture directed by Steven Spielberg. “Enchanting . . . Willy Wonka meets The Matrix.”—USA Today • “As one adventure leads expertly to the next, time simply evaporates.”—Entertainment Weekly A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate prize. Are you ready? In the year 2045, reality is an ugly place. The only time Wade Watts really feels alive is when he’s jacked into the OASIS, a vast virtual world where most of humanity spends their days. When the eccentric creator of the OASIS dies, he leaves behind a series of fiendish puzzles, based on his obsession with the pop culture of decades past. Whoever is first to solve them will inherit his vast fortune—and control of the OASIS itself. Then Wade cracks the first clue. Suddenly he’s beset by rivals who’ll kill to take this prize. The race is on—and the only way to survive is to win. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Entertainment Weekly • San Francisco Chronicle • Village Voice • Chicago Sun-Times • iO9 • The AV Club “Delightful . . . the grown-up’s Harry Potter.”—HuffPost “An addictive read . . . part intergalactic scavenger hunt, part romance, and all heart.”—CNN “A most excellent ride . . . Cline stuffs his novel with a cornucopia of pop culture, as if to wink to the reader.”—Boston Globe “Ridiculously fun and large-hearted . . . Cline is that rare writer who can translate his own dorky enthusiasms into prose that’s both hilarious and compassionate.”—NPR “[A] fantastic page-turner . . . starts out like a simple bit of fun and winds up feeling like a rich and plausible picture of future friendships in a world not too distant from our own.”—iO9

Download or read book What Makes This Book So Great written by Jo Walton and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2014-01-21 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As any reader of Jo Walton's Among Others might guess, Walton is both an inveterate reader of SF and fantasy, and a chronic re-reader of books. In 2008, then-new science-fiction mega-site Tor.com asked Walton to blog regularly about her re-reading—about all kinds of older fantasy and SF, ranging from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems. These posts have consistently been among the most popular features of Tor.com. Now this volumes presents a selection of the best of them, ranging from short essays to long reassessments of some of the field's most ambitious series. Among Walton's many subjects here are the Zones of Thought novels of Vernor Vinge; the question of what genre readers mean by "mainstream"; the underappreciated SF adventures of C. J. Cherryh; the field's many approaches to time travel; the masterful science fiction of Samuel R. Delany; Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children; the early Hainish novels of Ursula K. Le Guin; and a Robert A. Heinlein novel you have most certainly never read. Over 130 essays in all, What Makes This Book So Great is an immensely readable, engaging collection of provocative, opinionated thoughts about past and present-day fantasy and science fiction, from one of our best writers. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Download or read book Wonderblood written by Julia Whicker and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set 500 years in the future, a mad cow-like disease called “Bent Head” has killed off most of the U.S. population. Those remaining turn to magic and sacrifice to cleanse the Earth. Wonderblood is Julia Whicker's fascinating literary debut, set in a barren United States, an apocalyptic wasteland where warring factions compete for control of the land in strange and dangerous carnivals. A mad cow-like disease called "Bent Head" has killed off millions. Those who remain worship the ruins of NASA's space shuttles, and Cape Canaveral is their Mecca. Medicine and science have been rejected in favor of magic, prophecy, and blood sacrifice. When traveling marauders led by the bloodthirsty Mr. Capulatio invade her camp, a young girl named Aurora is taken captive as his bride and forced to join his band on their journey to Cape Canaveral. As war nears, she must decide if she is willing to become her captor's queen. But then other queens emerge, some grotesque and others aggrieved, and not all are pleased with the girl's ascent. Politics and survival are at the centre of this ravishing novel.

Download or read book The Water Knife written by Paolo Bacigalupi and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A "fresh, genre-bending thriller” (Los Angeles Times) set in the near future when water is scarce and a spy, a hardened journalist and a young Texas migrant find themselves pawns in a corrupt game. "Think Chinatown meets Mad Max." NPR, All Things Considered In the near future, the Colorado River has dwindled to a trickle. Detective, assassin, and spy, Angel Velasquez “cuts” water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, ensuring that its lush arcology developments can bloom in Las Vegas. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in Phoenix, Angel is sent south, hunting for answers that seem to evaporate as the heat index soars and the landscape becomes more and more oppressive. There, he encounters Lucy Monroe, a hardened journalist with her own agenda, and Maria Villarosa, a young Texas migrant, who dreams of escaping north. As bodies begin to pile up, the three find themselves pawns in a game far bigger and more corrupt than they could have imagined, and when water is more valuable than gold, alliances shift like sand, and the only truth in the desert is that someone will have to bleed if anyone hopes to drink.

Download or read book The Cottingley Secret written by Hazel Gaynor and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Cottingley Secret tells the tale of two girls who somehow convince the world that magic exists. An artful weaving of old legends with new realities, this tale invites the reader to wonder: could it be true?” — Kate Alcott, New York Times bestselling author of The Dressmaker One of BookBub's Most-Anticipated Books of Summer 2017! The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Came Home turns the clock back one hundred years to a time when two young girls from Cottingley, Yorkshire, convinced the world that they had done the impossible and photographed fairies in their garden. Now, in her newest novel, international bestseller Hazel Gaynor reimagines their story. 1917… It was inexplicable, impossible, but it had to be true—didn’t it? When two young cousins, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright from Cottingley, England, claim to have photographed fairies at the bottom of the garden, their parents are astonished. But when one of the great novelists of the time, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, becomes convinced of the photographs’ authenticity, the girls become a national sensation, their discovery offering hope to those longing for something to believe in amid a world ravaged by war. Frances and Elsie will hide their secret for many decades. But Frances longs for the truth to be told. One hundred years later… When Olivia Kavanagh finds an old manuscript in her late grandfather’s bookshop she becomes fascinated by the story it tells of two young girls who mystified the world. But it is the discovery of an old photograph that leads her to realize how the fairy girls’ lives intertwine with hers, connecting past to present, and blurring her understanding of what is real and what is imagined. As she begins to understand why a nation once believed in fairies, can Olivia find a way to believe in herself?

Download or read book The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 written by Diana Gabaldon and published by Mariner Books. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Featuring guest-editor contributions by the author of the Outlander series, a latest annual edition compiles top-selected short works of science fiction and fantasy from the year 2019."--Provided by publisher.

Download or read book Year s Best Fantasy 2 written by David G. Hartwell and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 510 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Undreamed-Of Wonders From The Farthest Reaches Of Imagination In this second volume of the previous year's finest short fantastic fiction, acclaimed editor and anthologist David G. Hartwell showcases new works by stellar literary artists -- acknowledged masters of the genre and exceptionally talented newcomers alike. Astonishing worlds come alive in these pages -- realms of strange creatures and remarkable sorceries, as well as twisted shadow versions of our inhabited earthly plain. A bold and breathtaking compendium of tales -- including a new Earthsea story from the incomparable Ursula K. Le Guin -- Years's Best Fantasy 2 is the state-of-the-art of a unique and winning genre, offering unforgettable excursions into new realities wondrous, bizarre, enchanting...and terrifying.

Download or read book The Best Science Fiction of the Year written by Neil Clarke and published by Night Shade. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biological plague begins infecting artificial intelligence; a natural-born Earth woman seeking asylum on another planet finds a human society far different from her own; a food blogger’s posts chronicle a nationwide medical outbreak; trapped in a matchmaking game, a couple tries to escape from the only world they know; a janitor risks everything to rescue a “defective” tank-born baby he can raise as his own. For decades, science fiction has compelled us to imagine futures both inspiring and cautionary. Whether it’s a warning message from a survey ship, a harrowing journey to a new world, or the adventures of well-meaning AI, science fiction feeds the imagination and delivers a lens through which we can better understand ourselves and the world around us. With The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume One, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and thirty-one of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2015. Table of Contents: “Introduction: A State of the Short SF Field in 2015” by Neil Clarke “Today I Am Paul” by Martin Shoemaker “Calved” by Sam J. Miller “Three Bodies at Mitanni” by Seth Dickinson “The Smog Society” by Chen Quifan “In Blue Lily’s Wake” by Aliette de Bodard “Hello, Hello” by Seanan McGuire “Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfiang “Capitalism in the 22nd Century” by Geoff Ryman “Hold-Time Violations” by John Chu “Wild Honey” by Paul McAuley “So Much Cooking” by Naomi Kritzer “Bannerless” by Carrie Vaughn “Another Word for World” by Ann Leckie “The Cold Inequalities” by Yoon Ha Lee “Iron Pegasus” by Brenda Cooper “The Audience” by Sean McMullen “Empty” by Robert Reed “Gypsy” by Carter Scholz “Violation of the TrueNet Security Act” by Taiyo Fujii “Damage” by David D. Levine “The Tumbledowns of Cleopatra Abyss” by David Brin “No Placeholder for You, My Love” by Nick Wolven “Outsider” by An Owomeyla “The Gods Have Not Died in Vain” by Ken Liu “Cocoons” by Nancy Kress “Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World” by Caroline M. Yoachim “Two-Year Man” by Kelly Robson “Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer “Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan” by Ian McDonald “Meshed” by Rich Larson “A Murmuration” by Alastair Reynolds 2015 Recommended Reading List