Dies the Fire
Dies the Fire

Author: S. M. Stirling

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2004-08-03

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 1101043911

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

S. M. Stirling presents his first Novel of the Change, the start of the New York Times bestselling postapocalyptic saga set in a world where all technology has been rendered useless. The Change occurred when an electrical storm centered over the island of Nantucket produced a blinding white flash that rendered all electronic devices and fuels inoperable—and plunged the world into a dark age humanity was unprepared to face... Michael Pound was flying over Idaho en route to the holiday home of his passengers when the plane’s engines inexplicably died, forcing a less than perfect landing in the wilderness. And as Michael leads his charges to safety, he begins to realize that the engine failure was not an isolated incident. Juniper McKenzie was singing and playing guitar in a pub when her small Oregon town was thrust into darkness. Now, taking refuge in her family’s cabin with her daughter and a growing circle of friends, Juniper is determined to create a farming community to benefit the survivors of this crisis. But even as people band together to help one another, others are building armies for conquest...

Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams
Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams

Author: Christopher Bolton

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2007-11-15

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1452913463

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Since the end of the Second World War—and particularly over the last decade—Japanese science fiction has strongly influenced global popular culture. Unlike American and British science fiction, its most popular examples have been visual—from Gojira (Godzilla) and Astro Boy in the 1950s and 1960s to the anime masterpieces Akira and Ghost in the Shell of the 1980s and 1990s—while little attention has been paid to a vibrant tradition of prose science fiction in Japan. Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams remedies this neglect with a rich exploration of the genre that connects prose science fiction to contemporary anime. Bringing together Western scholars and leading Japanese critics, this groundbreaking work traces the beginnings, evolution, and future direction of science fiction in Japan, its major schools and authors, cultural origins and relationship to its Western counterparts, the role of the genre in the formation of Japan’s national and political identity, and its unique fan culture. Covering a remarkable range of texts—from the 1930s fantastic detective fiction of Yumeno Kyûsaku to the cross-culturally produced and marketed film and video game franchise Final Fantasy—this book firmly establishes Japanese science fiction as a vital and exciting genre. Contributors: Hiroki Azuma; Hiroko Chiba, DePauw U; Naoki Chiba; William O. Gardner, Swarthmore College; Mari Kotani; Livia Monnet, U of Montreal; Miri Nakamura, Stanford U; Susan Napier, Tufts U; Sharalyn Orbaugh, U of British Columbia; Tamaki Saitô; Thomas Schnellbächer, Berlin Free U. Christopher Bolton is assistant professor of Japanese at Williams College. Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr. is professor of English at DePauw University. Takayuki Tatsumi is professor of English at Keio University.

Frankenstein Dreams
Frankenstein Dreams

Author: Michael Sims

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2017-09-05

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 1632860422

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From Mary Shelley to H.G. Wells, a collection of the best Victorian science fiction from Michael Sims, the editor of Dracula's Guest. Long before 1984, Star Wars, or The Hunger Games, Victorian authors imagined a future where new science and technologies reshaped the world and universe they knew. The great themes of modern science fiction showed up surprisingly early: space and time travel, dystopian societies, even dangerously independent machines, all inspiring the speculative fiction of the Victorian era. In Frankenstein Dreams, Michael Sims has gathered many of the very finest stories, some by classic writers such as Jules Verne, Mary Shelley, and H.G. Wells, but many that will surprise general readers. Dark visions of the human psyche emerge in Thomas Wentworth Higginson's "The Monarch of Dreams," while Mary E. Wilkins Freeman provides a glimpse of “the fifth dimension” in her provocative tale "The Hall Bedroom.' With contributions by Edgar Allan Poe, Alice Fuller, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, Arthur Conan Doyle, and many others, each introduced by Michael Sims, whose elegant introduction provides valuable literary and historical context, Frankenstein Dreams is a treasure trove of stories known and rediscovered.

Dark Dreams
Dark Dreams

Author: Brandon Massey

Publisher: Dafina Books

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 9780758207531

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A collection of short fiction explores the dark imaginations and experiences of the human mind in tales of horror and duspense by Zane, Tanarive Due, Stephen Barnes, Robert Fleming, and other African-American authors.

Seveneves
Seveneves

Author: Neal Stephenson

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2015-05-19

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 0062190415

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.

Book of Dreams: Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories
Book of Dreams: Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories

Author: Victor López

Publisher: Victor D. Lopez

Published: 2011-07-11

Total Pages: 107

ISBN-13: 1463691157

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What price would you pay to revisit a crossroad in your life when you had made a terrible, life altering mistake? Would you give up an unfulfilled life for the chance of virtual happiness in a computer-generated alternate reality? Would you sacrifice everything if you could attain absolute knowledge? If so, could you live with the knowledge you attained? It is said that no person is an island, but what if even the least among us is a god in his/her own right? If an alien visitor offered you a lifetime of health and the gift of telepathy in exchange for a small service, would you be quick to accept? And if consciousness utilizes only a small portion of our brain, what function does the larger, presumably unused portion actually serve? These are some of the questions explored in this collection of science fiction and speculative fiction short stories that probes the interrelationship between dreams and reality, the nature of reality itself, and the dangers attendant to the single-minded pursuit of wish fulfillment with its attendant unexpected and unwanted consequences. Most of the short stories published here were written and revised over a period of more than thirty years (1977- 2011) and, with the exception of "To Sleep, Perchance to Dream" have not been previously published. The author is an Associate Professor of Legal Studies at Hofstra University's Frank G. Zarb School of Business and has previously published seven non-fiction books through traditional publishers. His business law and legal environment textbooks have been used in colleges and universities throughout the United States since 1993. This is his first fiction collection.

A Dream of Wessex (Valancourt 20th Century Classics)
A Dream of Wessex (Valancourt 20th Century Classics)

Author: Christopher Priest

Publisher:

Published: 2016-02-02

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781943910236

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The western democracies are disintegrating, scarred by violence and gripped with fear of terrorist attacks. Trying to find solutions to today's problems, Julia Stretton and other specialists at the Wessex Project have created a virtual reality projection of a utopian future where all current issues have been resolved - how did they achieve it? But on entering Wessex, they lose all memory of their 'real' lives outside, and as they move back and forth the lines between dream and reality become obscured. When Julia's ex-lover, the sadistic Paul Mason, joins the project, he has a sinister plan to take the Wessex projection to a new and terrifying level . . . Christopher Priest's fifth novel, A Dream of Wessex (1977), is a classic of science fiction that will keep readers guessing until the startling, mind-bending conclusion. Priest's novels The Space Machine, The Affirmation, and The Separation are also available from Valancourt. '[An] excellent and intriguing novel ... the characters and their emotions are real, the concepts fascinating, and the sense of foreboding almost unbearable.' - Library Journal 'This fine novel about time-unravellers has hallucinatory powers ... Priest is a novelist of real distinction.' - The Times (London) 'Christopher Priest is one of our most gifted young writers of science fiction. I recommend A Dream of Wessex. I can best convey its quality by saying that I think not only H.G. Wells but Thomas Hardy himself would have enjoyed and approved of it.' - John Fowles, author of The Magus 'It is a strange novel, technically very assured in its shifts of time and handling of place-in-time, sketching in the edges of the dream with considerable vividness. A fine, exciting novel - SF if you want a label, but an enrichment not only of the sub-genre, but the whole genre too.' - The Guardian

Speculative Fiction for Dreamers
Speculative Fiction for Dreamers

Author: Alex Hernandez

Publisher: Mad Creek Books

Published: 2021-09-08

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9780814257982

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An array of tantalizing new works from some of the most exciting Latinx creators working in the speculative vein today, for teenagers and up.

Book of Dreams 2nd Edition: Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories
Book of Dreams 2nd Edition: Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction Short Stories

Author: Victor López

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2012-11-11

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 9781480295919

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This expanded Second Edition contains three new stories in addition to the original short stories that appeared in the first edition published in August of 2011. What really caused the catastrophic failure after the first full-scale test of the Large Hadron Collider? Motivated, ingenious terrorists are about to try their own field experiment to replicate the classified results of the test on a large scale using two suitcase nukes and a modified jetliner in an attack that, if successful, will eradicate all life on earth, destroy our corner of the universe and, in time, give birth to a new addition to the multiverse. If we could communicate with the other sentient, intelligent species with whom we share our planet, what vital lessons might we learn from them and they from us? In a not too distant future in which all human beings on earth are connected and integrated into a single neural net, what price might be exacted for one wishing to opt out? What price would you pay to revisit a crossroad in your life when you had made a terrible, life altering mistake? Would you give up an unfulfilled life for the chance of virtual happiness in an alternate reality? Would you sacrifice everything if you could attain absolute knowledge? If so, could you live with the knowledge you attained? It is said that no man is an island, but what if even the least among us is a god in his/her own right? If an alien visitor offered you a lifetime of health and the gift of telepathy for a small service, would you be quick to accept? If we purportedly use only a small fraction of our brain's capacity, what possible purpose does the apparently unused portion serve? Above are some of the questions raised in this collection of science fiction and speculative fiction short stories that explores the interrelationship between dreams and reality, the nature of reality itself, and the dangers attendant to the single-minded pursuit of wish fulfillment that all too often results in unexpected and unwanted consequences. The author is an Associate Professor of Legal Studies at Hofstra University's Frank G. Zarb School of Business and has previously published seven non-fiction books through traditional publishers. His business law and legal environment textbooks have been used in colleges and universities throughout the United States since 1993. This is his first book of short stories. For more information about the author's books, textbooks, scholarly articles and blogs, you can visit http: //www.victordlopez.com.

Of Pain and Ecstasy: Collected Poems
Of Pain and Ecstasy: Collected Poems

Author: Victor Lopez

Publisher: Victor D. Lopez

Published: 2011-07-18

Total Pages: 48

ISBN-13: 1463695853

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This collection of poems presents a unique perspective on enduring themes--love, existentialism, the darker side of life in an urban environment, loneliness, quiet heroism and the transcendent power of poetry to rebuild weary souls and teach lessons we may not want to learn. Although several of the poems in this collection have appeared in anthologies and literary magazines, most are published here for the first time and represent a selection of the author's free verse, blank verse, and sonnets from early adulthood through middle age (1977-2006). The author is an Associate Professor of Legal Studies in Business at Hofstra University's Frank G. Zarb School of Business and has previously published seven non-fiction books through traditional publishers. His business law and legal environment textbooks have been used in colleges and universities throughout the United States since 1993. This is his first poetry collection. For more information about the author's books, textbooks, scholarly articles and blogs, you can visit http: //www.victordlopez.com.