Dystopian fiction- sometimes combined with, but distinct from apocalyptic literature - is the opposite: the portrayal of a setting that completely disagrees with the author's ethos. The critic August Nemo selected seven classic tales of dystopian scenarios. - The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster - The Answer by H. Beam Piper - The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel - The Empire of the Ants by H.G. Wells - In The Year 2889 by Jules Verne - The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers - Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky For more books with interesting themes, be sure to check the other books in this collection!
If the melt-down, flood, plague, the third World War, new Ice Age, Rapture, alien invasion, clamp-down, meteor, or something else entirely hit today, what would tomorrow look like? Some of the biggest names in YA and adult literature answer that very question in this short story anthology, each story exploring the lives of teen protagonists raised in catastrophe's wake-whether set in the days after the change, or decades far in the future. New York Times bestselling authors Gregory Maguire, Garth Nix, Susan Beth Pfeffer, Carrie Ryan, Beth Revis, and Jane Yolen are among the many popular and award-winning storytellers lending their talents to this original and spellbinding anthology.
Prometheus Award Winner for Best Novel: “Fans of SF as a vehicle for ideas will devour this intriguing debut.” —Publishers Weekly In the wake of complete economic collapse, a reborn civilization has arisen. It is one in which every individual is incorporated at birth, and spends many years trying to attain control over his or her own life by getting a majority of his or her own shares. Life extension has made life very long indeed. Now the incredible has happened: A billionaire businessman named Justin Cord, frozen in secret in the long-ago early twenty-first century, has been discovered and resurrected, given health and a vigorous younger body. Justin is the only unincorporated man in the world, a true stranger in this strange land. He survived because he’s tough and smart. And he cannot accept only part ownership of himself, even if that places him in conflict with a civilization that extends outside the solar system to the Oort Cloud . . . “The clash between today’s cultural values and those of a vividly imagined future has never been more compelling . . . The Kollin brothers’ debut captivates with unforgettable characters and an ingenious vision of the economic future.” —Booklist “A bright, stimulating work that deserves a wide readership.” —Gregory Benford, New York Times–bestselling author of Foundation’s Fear “Reminiscent of Heinlein—a good, old-fashioned, enormously appealing SF yarn.” —Robert J. Sawyer, Nebula Award–winning author of The Downloaded
"In an era of "post-cyberpunk" science fiction, Maughan is firmly cyberpunk - or maybe "cyberpunk++," a genre that captures all the grit and glory of technology with a higher degree of plausibility and respect for real computers and networks than the genre had in its glory days...Maughan has a keen eye for the fictional possibilities of technology, a good hand with the what if/ten seconds in the future mode of storytelling, and he's quite adept at filling his work with hyper-cool eyeball kicks. These stories are fun and thought-provoking, a great combination." - Cory Doctorow, author of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and Little Brother "In our hothouse present, where technology is little more than vapour, Tim Maughan catches those fleeting moments of possibility in stories that ought to have no shelf-life whatsoever - and which, regardless, linger in the mind. I don't know how he does this. I don't know whether he is very naive, or very clever. One thing I do know: these stories are very, very good." - Simon Ings, author of Hot Head, The Weight of Numbers and Dead Water "They used to say that Science Fiction was hard to define, but that you'd know it when you saw it. How then to best recommend a collection like Paintwork? A book of augmented realties, icy conceptual surfaces and a healthy dose of contemporary corporate paranoia. Is even a simple book blurb as innocent as it first appears? The best Science Fiction isn't a road map, it's a toolkit, and Paintwork is a virtual users guide to a new kind of fictional future. A place where it's fine to pretend life's all a game, just so long as you stay on the winning team. If Science Fiction is a toolkit, Paintwork is the missing users manual." - Tom Hunter, Director, the Arthur C. Clarke Award "Havana Augmented is the third short story in Tim Maughan's excellent Paintwork (2011), a collection that focuses on the meaning of artistry in a near-future cyberpunk landscape...(it) follows two streams of conflict. Paul and Kim battle with enormous robots which is, frankly, awesome. Mr. Maughan knows how to write an action sequence without letting it take over. The battles are short, streamlined, vicious and very, very fun...this is the crown jewel of an excellent collection. I'm a sucker for sports movies, especially when the game or match has some sort of Great Significance. Mr. Maughan tugs at my heartstrings with Havana Augmented - a giant robot smackdown with a country's future on the line." - Pornokitsch.com "I loved Paintwork. All three stories show a writer with a real gift for accelerating the world we know into a believable future, with a deft local touch that adds an extra something for us Bristol folk...(it's) a great read, that pinches a few ingredients from the SF greats and blends them with a unique flavour all of its own." - Guide2Bristol Augmented reality street artist 3Cube wants to break into the mainstream, and as one of the best in the graffiti mecca of Bristol he stands a real chance. Except that someone, some unseen rival, seems set on using even the most old-fashioned of methods to stop him from succeeding. John Smith was successful once, if only for a fleeting moment. Now the documentary film maker is broke and jobless, and finds himself putting his life on the line as one of the new-breed of paparazzi - snapping celebrity video gamers in virtual worlds. And on the sun-bleached streets of Havana two young Cubans find themselves locked in a fierce struggle with one of the world's most powerful organisations, as a seemingly innocent video game tournament becomes a fight for both personal and national pride. Paintwork is a collection of three stories from our imminent future by British science fiction author Tim Maughan, including the 2010 BSFA Short Fiction Award nominated 'Havana Augmented'
New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have been abandoned. The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes. There are no more police—instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior—instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested usually don't come back. Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren't always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it's hard for her to forget that people weren't always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. It's hard to forget that life in the United States used to be different. Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the military. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow. That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings...the only boy Ember has ever loved. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
WHAT IS THE STORY GRID? The Story Grid is a tool developed by editor Shawn Coyne to analyze stories and provide helpful editorial comments. It's like a CT Scan that takes a photo of the global story and tells the editor or writer what is working, what is not, and what must be done to make what works better and fix what's not. The Story Grid breaks down the component parts of stories to identify the problems. And finding the problems in a story is almost as difficult as the writing of the story itself (maybe even more difficult). The Story Grid is a tool with many applications: 1. It will tell a writer if a Story ?works? or ?doesn't work. 2. It pinpoints story problems but does not emotionally abuse the writer, revealing exactly where a Story (not the person creating the Story'the Story) has failed. 3. It will tell the writer the specific work necessary to fix that Story's problems. 4. It is a tool to re-envision and resuscitate a seemingly irredeemable pile of paper stuck in an attic drawer. 5. It is a tool that can inspire an original creation.
Unprofitables are banished to work camps to pay off their credit. Other tie-men and women look on apathetically. Fair is fair. Everyone knows you shouldn't use more credit than you are worth to the Company. They turn their attention to the next repackaged but highly coveted N-Corp product on the market, creatively advertised on the imager screens that adorn virtually every available flat surface. All the while, their mandatory cross-implants and wrist-worn "ICs" keep them focused on the endless cycle of work and consumption to which they are enslaved. May Fields—the CEO's daughter—would like to believe she is above all that. Head of N-Corp's marketing team, the young woman who has almost everything anyone could want spends her days dreaming up ingenious ways to make workers buy more of what they already have and don't need. Even before May discovers that the Company is headed for its first loss in thirty years, she is feeling the stirrings of dissatisfaction with the system that has given her everything she's ever wanted . . . except the freedom to be herself. When she is kidnapped by a member of the Protectorate—a secret order dating back to the American Revolution—May is suddenly faced with the frightening truth of what the Company's greed has done to our most basic human rights. Will she embrace who she is and join the battle to restore America's democratic freedom, or put her blinders back on and return to her safe and passionless life? More prediction than fiction, Blood Zero Sky is a riveting, nonstop, and suspenseful gaze into the looking glass, destined to rise with the zeitgeist of our times to become the anthem of a generation.
Welcome to the 7 Best Short Stories book series, were we present to you the best works of remarkable authors. This edition is dedicated to the british author Aldous Huxley. Aldous Huxley was an English writer and philosopher, widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962. Works selected for this book: - Uncle Spencer; - Little Mexican; - Hubert And Minnie; - Fard; - The Portrait; - Young Archimedes; - The Gioconda Smile.
