A Different Kind of Datebook: Drawn from the pages of classic sf literature. here is a science fiction/fantasy event for every day of the year...and for quite a few days that AREN'T part of the year.
The Washington Post has called Gene Wolfe "the finest writer the science fiction world has yet produced." This volume, Castle of Days, joins together two of his rarest and most sought after works--Gene Wolfe's Book of Days and The Castle of the Otter--and add thirty-nine short essays collected here for the first time, to fashion a rich and engrossing architecture of wonder. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Fiction. Cross-Genre. "Nona Caspers gives us a refreshingly honest and poignant slice of truth in her BOOK OF DAYS. Observing cars, neighbors, ground squirrels, desire and death, BOOK OF DAYS is a contemporary take on Montaigne's famous ESSAYS, so alive that every page feels as if it's breathing"--Maxine Chernoff. "I like how she falls through the present into prehistory (of this or that specific thing) in a blink. Supported by a rhythm of the claws of love, a hand on the back of your head, the warmth inside of coldness of the daily fading world--an avalanche of quiet risk-taking, this book sings"--Eileen Myles. Nona Caspers is also the author of Heavier Than Air: Stories (University of Massachusetts Press), which won the Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction and was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. She's been awarded an NEA fellowship and Iowa Review Fiction Award along with other awards and is an Associate Professor at San Francisco State University.
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anathem, Reamde, and Cryptonomicon comes an exciting and thought-provoking science fiction epic—a grand story of annihilation and survival spanning five thousand years. What would happen if the world were ending? A catastrophic event renders the earth a ticking time bomb. In a feverish race against the inevitable, nations around the globe band together to devise an ambitious plan to ensure the survival of humanity far beyond our atmosphere, in outer space. But the complexities and unpredictability of human nature coupled with unforeseen challenges and dangers threaten the intrepid pioneers, until only a handful of survivors remain . . . Five thousand years later, their progeny—seven distinct races now three billion strong—embark on yet another audacious journey into the unknown . . . to an alien world utterly transformed by cataclysm and time: Earth. A writer of dazzling genius and imaginative vision, Neal Stephenson combines science, philosophy, technology, psychology, and literature in a magnificent work of speculative fiction that offers a portrait of a future that is both extraordinary and eerily recognizable. As he did in Anathem, Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde, Stephenson explores some of our biggest ideas and perplexing challenges in a breathtaking saga that is daring, engrossing, and altogether brilliant.
Arthur C. Clarke acquired his first science fiction magazine - a copy of Astounding Stories - in 1930, when he was 13. Immediately he became an avid reader and collector: and, soon enough, a would-be-writer. The rest is history. Now, in Astounding Days, he looks back over those impressed by him, discussing their scientific howlers, and their remarkable proportion of predictive bulls-eyes - and writing of his early life and career. Written with relaxed good humour, Astounding Days is full of fascinating comment and anecdote.
Drawn from original records, diaries and contemporary reports, The Edinburgh Book of Days contains a momentous, calamitous or intriguing event or fact for every day of the year, from the earliest periods of Edinburgh's history to the present. Among these are extracts about politics, crime, religion, education, sport and the arts; all topics that resonate in today's world. This informative and fascinating little book will enthral residents and visitors alike, revealing how the hopes and fears of our ancestors are not so far from our own.
Collects the comic personal essays of the author, including pieces on such topics as growing up as a faculty brat on the Williams College campus of the late 1950s, the role of truth in memoir, and her husband's colonoscopy appointment.