The Truth and Other Stories
The Truth and Other Stories

Author: Stanislaw Lem

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-09-14

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 0262366657

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Twelve stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, nine of them never before published in English. Of these twelve short stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, only three have previously appeared in English, making this the first "new" book of fiction by Lem since the late 1980s. The stories display the full range of Lem's intense curiosity about scientific ideas as well as his sardonic approach to human nature, presenting as multifarious a collection of mad scientists as any reader could wish for. Many of these stories feature artificial intelligences or artificial life forms, long a Lem preoccupation; some feature quite insane theories of cosmology or evolution. All are thought provoking and scathingly funny. Written from 1956 to 1993, the stories are arranged in chronological order. In the title story, "The Truth," a scientist in an insane asylum theorizes that the sun is alive; "The Journal" appears to be an account by an omnipotent being describing the creation of infinite universes--until, in a classic Lem twist, it turns out to be no such thing; in "An Enigma," beings debate whether offspring can be created without advanced degrees and design templates. Other stories feature a computer that can predict the future by 137 seconds, matter-destroying spores, a hunt in which the prey is a robot, and an electronic brain eager to go on the lam. These stories are peak Lem, exploring ideas and themes that resonate throughout his writing.

Slug and Other Stories
Slug and Other Stories

Author: Megan Milks

Publisher: Feminist Press at CUNY

Published: 2021-11-09

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 1952177855

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"Carefully considered, successful instances of experimental fiction" disrupt gender, genre, and identity in this deranged, otherworldly collection (Literary Hub). A woman metamorphoses into a giant slug; another quite literally eats her heart out; a wasp falls in love with an orchid; and hair starts sprouting from the walls. These stories slip and slide between genres—from video games to fan fiction, body horror to choose-your-own-adventure—as characters cycle through giddying changes in gender, physiology, species, and identity. Collapsing boundaries between bodies and forms, these fictions interrogate the visceral, gross, and absurd. “This book is fucking weird,” wrote Brit Mandelo in 2015. It’s only gotten weirder since. Slug and Other Stories is a revised and expanded edition of a contemporary cult classic. Finally back in print, this collection is a testament to the messy anti-logic of queer feelings by a revelatory new voice.

The First Person and Other Stories
The First Person and Other Stories

Author: Ali Smith

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2012-10-04

Total Pages: 139

ISBN-13: 0141900326

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A form-bending and endlessly inventive collection of short stories - from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED and WOMEN'S PRIZE-WINNING author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet 'A glorious collection that celebrates and subverts the short story form' Independent 'Hurrah for Ali Smith. The best short-story writers make it look as easy as making a cup of tea. Ali Smith is one of these... A bold and brilliant collection of stories by a writer unafraid to give it to us as it is' The Times A middle-aged woman conducts a poignant conversation with her gauche fourteen-year-old self. An innocent supermarket shopper finds in her trolley a foul-mouthed, insulting and beautiful child. Challenging the boundaries between fiction and reality, we see a narrator, 'Ali', as she drinks tea, phones a friend and muses on the relationship between the short story and a nymph. Innovative, sophisticated and intelligent, The First Person and Other Stories effortlessly appeals to our hearts, heads and funny bones in equal measure. One-of-a-kind Ali Smith and the short story are made for each other.

Other Stories and Other Stories
Other Stories and Other Stories

Author: Ali Smith

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2012-10-04

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 0141912804

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A vitally alive and ever-surprising collection of stories from the Booker Prize-shortlisted, Women's Prize-winning author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet 'Bold and sensitive. Smith's prose is a joy' Independent Individually lucid and luminous, these tales resonate subtly together. In examining the distances and connections between ourselves and others, expertly inching us closer to the bone, Ali Smith's storytelling has never seemed so necessary, so moving or so joyous. ***** 'Captures quiet epiphanies of the extraordinary in the mundane' Sunday Times 'These stories fizz with life' The Times Literary Supplement

How They Met and Other Stories
How They Met and Other Stories

Author: David Levithan

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Published: 2008-01-08

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 0375849424

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Just in time for Valentine’s Day comes a confection from David Levithan that is sure to have fans of Boy Meets Boy eager to devour it. Here are 18 stories, all about love, all kinds of love. From the aching for the one you pine for, to standing up and speaking up for the one you love, to pure joy and happiness, these love stories run the gamut of that emotion that at some point has turned every one of us inside out and upside down. What is love? With this original story collection, David Levithan proves that love is a many splendored thing, a varied, complicated, addictive, wonderful thing.

A River Runs through It and Other Stories
A River Runs through It and Other Stories

Author: Norman MacLean

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-05-03

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 022647223X

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The New York Times–bestselling classic set amid the mountains and streams of early twentieth-century Montana, “as beautiful as anything in Thoreau or Hemingway” (Chicago Tribune). When Norman Maclean sent the manuscript of A River Runs Through It and Other Stories to New York publishers, he received a slew of rejections. One editor, so the story goes, replied, “it has trees in it.” Today, the title novella is recognized as one of the great American tales of the twentieth century, and Maclean as one of the most beloved writers of our time. The finely distilled product of a long life of often surprising rapture—for fly-fishing, for the woods, for the interlocked beauty of life and art—A River Runs Through It has established itself as a classic of the American West filled with beautiful prose and understated emotional insights. Based on Maclean’s own experiences as a young man, the book’s two novellas and short story are set in the small towns and mountains of western Montana. It is a world populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, but also one rich in the pleasures of fly-fishing, logging, cribbage, and family. By turns raunchy and elegiac, these superb tales express, in Maclean’s own words, “a little of the love I have for the earth as it goes by.” “Maclean’s book—acerbic, laconic, deadpan—rings out of a rich American tradition that includes Mark Twain, Kin Hubbard, Richard Bissell, Jean Shepherd, and Nelson Algren.” —New York Times Book Review Includes a new foreword by Robert Redford, director of the Academy Award–winning film adaptation

The Hidden Girl and Other Stories
The Hidden Girl and Other Stories

Author: Ken Liu

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2020-02-25

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1982134054

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Includes stories featured in Pantheon—now an animated series on AMC+ “I know this is going to sound hyperbolic, but when I’m reading Ken Liu’s stories, I feel like I’m reading a once-in-a-generation talent. I’m in awe.” —Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author “Captivating.” —BuzzFeed “Extraordinary.” —The Washington Post “Brilliant.” —The Chicago Tribune With the release of The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, Ken Liu’s short fiction has resonated with a generation of readers. From stories about time-traveling assassins, to Black Mirror-esque tales of cryptocurrency and internet trolling, to heartbreaking narratives of parent-child relationships, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories is a far-reaching work that explores topical themes from the present and a visionary look at humanity’s future. This collection includes a selection of Liu’s speculative fiction stories over the past five years—seventeen of his best—plus a new novelette. In addition, it also features an excerpt from The Veiled Throne, the third book in Liu’s epic fantasy series The Dandelion Dynasty. Stories include: Ghost Days; Maxwell's Demon; The Reborn; Thoughts and Prayers; Byzantine Empathy; The Gods Will Not Be Chained; Staying Behind; Real Artists; The Gods Will Not Be Slain; Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer; The Gods Have Not Died in Vain; Memories of My Mother; Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit—Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts; Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard; A Chase Beyond the Storms (an excerpt from The Veiled Throne, Book 3 of the Dandelion Dynasty); The Hidden Girl; Seven Birthdays; The Message; Cutting

Eternity and Other Stories
Eternity and Other Stories

Author: Perseus

Publisher: Da Capo Press

Published: 2005-08-31

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 9781560256625

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Here are seven stories from a master of the art. Viktor Chemayev is the Philip Marlowe of Russian detectives, a sad-eyed, heavy drinking romantic who refuses to stay beat. In the title novella of this extraordinary collection, he goes head-to-head with an Irish assassin in the depths of a Moscow nightclub in an attempt to win back his true love, who has been sold to the Beelzebub-like king of the Moscow underworld... Lucius Shepard is known for his dark, unpredictable vision, and in this assemblage of some of his best writing he takes us from Moscow to Africa; from the mountains of Iraq, where Specialist Charlie N. Wilson encounters a very different sort of enemy, to Central America, where a bloody-handed colonel meets his doom via lizards. In these seven tales Shepard's imagination spans the globe and, like an American Gabriel Garcia Marquez, refuses to be restricted by mere reality.

The Long Past & Other Stories
The Long Past & Other Stories

Author: Ginn Hale

Publisher:

Published: 2017-10-03

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9781935560517

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1858 âe"Warring mages open up a vast inland sea that splits the United States in two. With the floodwaters come creatures from a long distant past. What seems like the End Times forges a new era of heroes and heroines who challenge tradition, law, and even death as they transform the old west into a new world.In the heart of dinosaur country a laconic trapper and a veteran mage risk treason to undertake a secret mission.A brilliant magician and her beautiful assistant light up stages with the latest automaton, but the secrets both of them are hiding test their trust in each other and pit them against one of the most powerful men in the world. At the wild edge of the Inland Sea, amidst crocodiles and triceratops, an impoverished young man and a Pinkerton Detective must join forces to outmaneuver a corrupt judge and his gunmen.

Skin and Other Stories
Skin and Other Stories

Author: Roald Dahl

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2001-09-27

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 014192893X

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HOW would you dispose of a murder weapon without causing suspicion? WHERE would you hide a diamond where no one else would think of looking? WHAT if you discovered the tattoo on your back was worth a million dollars? ELEVEN TALES FILLED WITH INTRIGUE AND SUSPENSE TO STARTLE AND SPELLBIND YOU.