sci fi h-r

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Summary: Women write science fiction. They always have. Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1953-1957) offers, quite simply, some of the best science fiction ever written: 20 amazing pieces, most of which haven’t been reprinted for decades…but should have been. Whether you are a long-time fan or new to the genre, you are in for a treat. This collection of works—18 stories, 1 poem, 1 nonfiction piece—are a showcase, some of the best science fiction stories of the ’50s. These stories were selected not only as examples of great writing, but also because their characters are as believable, their themes just as relevant today, their contents just as fun to read, as when they were written almost three quarters of a century ago. Dig in. Enjoy these newly-rediscovered delicacies a few at a time…or binge them all at once!

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Summary: "In range alone, Richard Thomas is boundless. He is Lovecraft. He is Bradbury. He is Gaiman." —Chuck Palahniuk With a Foreword by Brian Evenson In this new collection, Richard Thomas has crafted fourteen stories that push the boundaries of dark fiction in an intoxicating, piercing blend of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Equally provocative and profound, each story is masterfully woven with transgressive themes that burrow beneath the skin.

• A poker game yields a strange prize that haunts one man, his game of chance now turned into a life-or-death coin flip.
• A set of twins find they have mysterious new powers when an asteroid crashes in a field near their house, and the decisions they make create an uneasy balance.
• A fantasy world is filled with one man’s desire to feel whole again, finally finding love, only to have the shocking truth of his life exposed in an appalling twist.
• A father and son work slave labor in a brave new world run by aliens and mount a rebellion that may end up freeing them all.
• A clown takes off his make-up in a gloomy basement to reveal something more horrifying under the white, tacky skin.

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Summary: Aric kan Ingan is heading for a rendezvous with Death, with a detour to Terra at pal Miles Sheffield’s insistence, in an attempt to take his mind off his upcoming obituary. Old prejudices long-buried and culture clashes aside, the planet offers a few things to test his newly-restored integrity, as well as his fidelity to Susan…such as the attention paid to a certain alien by Miles’ foster mother, an attractive but neglected wife. Leaving for Arcanis offers an escape, even if his arrival begins with his arrest and the quickest trial imaginable. The verdict? His former sentence is to be carried out. Immediately. A great deal has changed on Arcanis in the past fifteen years, however. Former best friend Eby now heads the Peace Force and is the True Arcanian Society’s right-hand man. Pallas, the baby-bride Aric left behind, is no longer a child. Inheriting her mother’s beauty as well as a touch of her deviousness, the Princess Royal has the power to save her cousin’s life, for which she expects a great deal more than his mere gratitude. Marrying Pallas means giving up hope of a future with Susan, but it will regain Aric the Throne of Arcanis and revenge against The True Arcanian Society, while freeing Pallas from Eby’s domination. Whatever the choice, someone will win and someone will lose, and the entire galaxy will be affected…but will it be worth it?

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Summary: JT Austin. Hero of Amargosa's liberation. One of the Children of Amargosa. Now a Navy pilot. Serving with his comrade, Mitsuko Yamato, aboard the Queen Maria Sophia, he is handed what should be a milk run: Retrieve Lt. Cmdr. Edward Windsor from his garrison on a remote – and smelly – planet as he has just become king of Bonaparte, the Compact's only planetwide monarchy. However, an unknown attacker disables the Sophie, boards the ship with killer mechs, and sends JT with the new king and his entourage fleeing their ship. He will have to talk fast to make a deal with the enemy Gelt, summon his mentor Suicide for help, and get the king to safety. He will also discover he has at least one traitor in his midst. He will also discover his surrogate mother has a secret that will shatter his world.

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Summary: The Earth has gone silent. John Mark Ellis and the crew of the Sanson are sent to investigate. When they arrive, they find vast alien machines known as Clusters in orbit. Fearing the worst, they land and discover that the once overcrowded, polluted Earth has become a paradise of sorts. The problem is over half the population is dead or missing and the planet's leaders don't seem to care. As Ellis works to unravel the mystery, sudden gravitational shifts from the galaxy's center indicate something even worse is in the offing. Can Ellis save the galaxy from the heirs of the new Earth?

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Summary: Give the Enemy Hell! At the ass-end of the galaxy, Allied Forces-including the 142nd Mobile Special Ops Team, better known as Daire's Devils-stand ready to defend the contested colony planet Demeter from military invasion and corporate exploitation. But when the Allied Forces are infiltrated by those determined to secure the top-secret designs of AeroCom's new prototype flagship, the Cromwell, the newest member of the Devils, Corporal Katrion Alexander, finds herself facing off against an unexpected menace, synthetic operatives indistinguishable from living beings. She and the Devils must neutralize this new threat, but how when the enemy wears a trusted face?

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Summary: Adventures among the stars need a ship to get you there. Stories Rule Press presents Space Opera Digest 2022: Have Ship, Will Travel Space Opera heroes and heroines explore the stars and discover cool new places in ships which range from beat-up rust-buckets to sleek technologically advanced craft that are the envy of the galaxy. Space ships are quintessential for the adventures and challenges our favourite characters face. Come and explore over 400 pages of worlds of wonder and the ships our heroes fly with Stories Rule Press' 2022 edition of Space Opera Digest. Space Opera Digest 2022: Have Ship, Will Travel is the second volume in a quarterly collection of genre fiction anthologies presented by Stories Rule Press. "Sole Survivor" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch "Captain" by Stephen Sottong "Big Top" by Sonia Orin Lyris "Cycle Three" by Stephanie Mylchreest "Star Cruise" by Ron Collins "Watch of the Starsleepers" by Christopher D. Schmitz "Tome Raiders" by Eric Del Carlo "The Passenger" by Eve Morton "An Ordinary World" by J. L. Royce "Insanity is Infectious" by Cameron Cooper "Achemar" by Jasmine Luck "Moby Dick's Doors" by Michèle Laframboise "Learning Curve" by Neil Williams "Exotic Matters" by Phil Giunta "An icub on Mars" by Barbara G. Tarn "Of Hedgehogs and Humans" by Rob Nisbet "Smugglers Blues" by Blaze Ward "Altered Skin" by Sara C. Walker "An Unexpected Taste of Home" by Terry Mixon "Symphony" by Douglas Smith

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Summary: This time, the universe puts the cat in catastrophe. Plucked from her home on Earth and ending up aboard a strange spaceship in an even stranger universe, Lem and the misfit crew of the Teapot have more than enough trouble on their hands… and then they receive an urgent last-minute call to save a race of cat-people from certain destruction. Stuck with a disaster-platypus of a project manager and an entire race of people seemingly determined to thwart their own rescue, the Teapot’s crew face the impossible job of herding cats and helping evacuate the planet before it’s blown to smithereens. Can Lem and the gang avert disaster and save this race of infuriating cat-people? Perfect for fans of wacky and imaginative sci-fi stories, this satirical space opera is a ridiculous adventure that will delight readers of John Scalzi’s take on Fuzzy Nation or TJ Berry’s Space Unicorn Blues.

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Summary: Aric kan Ingan is an Exile... Stripped of title, wealth, and citizenship for treason against the Arcanian Empire, a crime of which he is innocent. For a decade, he’s wandered the Emeraunt Galaxy, haunted by fear of instant death, while earning barely enough to survive, performing chores no self-respecting citizen would touch. Destitute and addicted to the two most powerful illegal substances in the galaxy, he finds only one path left open: He enlists as a guard for a Terran mining colony. From his point of view, he’s now hit rock-bottom. Life among aliens is bad enough, but life with Terrans is near-unbearable for the prejudiced former prince whose pride is currently wallowing in the mud…until Aric meets two people who become a special part of his life. Susan Moran is the company physician, a woman with secrets of her own. Miles Sheffield is his former mistress’ brother, a young, brash, wet-behind-the-ears Terran, who is as shocked as Aric when he becomes the Exile’s best friend, especially since their first meeting ended, not with a handshake, but with a fist to the jaw. With Susan and Miles, Aric will experience friendship, passion, and grief, and eventually make a decision affecting the future of the entire galaxy as he unknowingly takes another step in the ancient prophecy of the GodChosen.

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Summary: Bobby Gene is a man who stands out even among his people. Guided by the knowledge of his heritage as a backwoods shaman and more perceptive than many, he's grown to be a valuable asset to those he knows. While he isn't surprised to be the first to know when the woods around him begin to show clues that something isn't right, he doesn't expect just how much these omens and signs will prove to foretell something far more sinister to come. Soon strange dreams and inexplicable encounters have him questioning everything he knows- and then the people who live in his woodland Appalachian community begin to disappear. It's his job to protect and guide the others, what will he do when he's the only thing between them and the end of life as they know it?

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Summary: What do you do if you’re guilty of a crime, but not the one for which you’ve been convicted? It’s simple: You keep as low a profile as possible and hope for clemency. That’s extremely difficult if you are Aric kan Ingan, once the Emeraunt Galaxy’s Prince of the Realm, and now beneath the lowest rung of Society’s Ladder. Under a sentence of Civil Death, the former Prince Tanist to the throne of Arcanis finds himself experiencing firsthand how the dregs of humanity live, while making major adjustments to his attitude as well as life-style. In an effort to stay alive, Aric is forced to work at tasks no self-respecting (or law-abiding) citizen would touch …while he avoids the Space Guard who have a right to kill him on sight. Aric’s personal morality as well as the vows he’s taken in hopes of being allowed to return to Arcanis will be severely tested as he begins the first steps in the journey fulfilling the rest of the ancient prophecy given to Riven kan Ingan three millennia before. The Twilight of the GodChosen has begun.

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Summary: Can they catch hold of happiness before it floats away? Space station school teacher Ada Solomon spends her free time drinking coffee with her best friend and people watching. When she catches sight of a gorgeous stranger Ada is immediately intrigued, and once they meet a flirtation quickly grows. If only they could move past friendship... Vivienne Lambert is looking forward to a quiet life on Belco-Psyche station. She misses Paris, but not her old life as a crime syndicate lawyer. An attractive new friend saves her from loneliness, but her secrets stop her from pursuing her desire... Fly away for the holidays with this short, romantic read with plenty of spice!

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Summary: Tangents & Tachyons is Scott's second anthology - six sci fi and sci-fantasy shorts that run the gamut from time travel to hopepunk and retro spec fic: Eventide: Tanner Black awakes to find himself in his own study, staring out the window at the end of the Universe. But who brought him there, and why? Chinatown: Deryn lives in an old San Francisco department store with his girlfriend Gracie, and scrapes by with his talent as a dreamcaster for the Chinese overlords. But what if a dream could change the world? Across the Transom: What if someone or something took over your body on an urgent mission to save your world? Pareidolia: Simon's not like other college kids. His mind can rearrange random patterns to reveal the images lurking inside. But where did his strange gift come from? And what if there are others like him out there too? Lamplighter: Fen has a crush on his friend Lewin, who's in a competing guild. But when the world goes dark, only a little illumination can save it. And only Fen, Lewin and their friend Alissa can light the spark. A Liminal Sky short. Prolepsis: Sean is the closeted twenty-five-year-old editor of an 80's sci-fi 'zine called Prolepsis. When an unabashedly queer story arrives from a mysterious writer, it blows open Sean's closet door, and offers him the chance to change the world - and the future. Plus two flash fiction stories – The System and The Frog Prince, never before published. This is the first time all of these stories have all been collected in one place.

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Summary: Sometimes, life is completely unfair. Spoiled teenager Jenny Halpen's parents were against her going on a cruise, but her doting uncle didn't see it that way. He thought it a fine graduation gift for his favorite (and only) niece. Unfortunately, before Jenny has a chance to enjoy the voyage, the Cassandra collides with a meteor shower, and her escape pod is separated from the others. Landing on an uninhabited world might not be so bad if Jenny's pod-mates were human, but they're not. They're poodles...all three of them...and not just your garden-variety poodles, either. They're the telepathic Royal Family of Canaris, and they're of the opinion that Jenny's now their servant, existing only to protect and serve them. Robinson Crusoe had it easy!

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Summary: The year is 1877. Russians have invaded the Pacific Northwest and are advancing into California. New weapons have proven ineffective or dangerously unstable and the one man who can help has disappeared into Apache Country, hunting ghosts. A healer and a former sheriff lead a band into the heart of the invasion to determine what makes the Russian forces so unstoppable while a young inventor attempts to unleash the power of the lightning wolves.

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Summary: An act of desperation by young magician Brandon accidentally snatches Scott Hathaway from our world. Struggling to adapt to his new life, Scott becomes ensnared in dark local politics. He realizes he can use the knowledge he brought from his world to save his new friends, but at what cost? The first in a series. A story about an engineer who gets accidentally transported to a medieval type world where magic is real. But all is not as it seems!

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Summary: Journalist Will Corwin has returned from his ordeal as a captive of the hybrid alien Warlord, Nod Korvus. But even as he attempts to settle back into his life and career, he finds the experience won’t let go of him. His mind becomes increasingly fractured by the trauma, to the point that he’s no longer even sure what is real and what isn’t. Dr. Amelia Warren wants to help him heal, but to do so means that she needs to call in a professional, which Will both resists as well as resents. Can she get through to him, before he does irreparable damage to himself and their relationship? When Will glimpses a path toward healing, it’s by finishing the last work of Father Damien Morgan, the priest who befriended Will, and who Nod Korvus brutally murdered, as a way of punishing him. Will wants to complete the school Father Morgan was building, but the Church has cancelled the project. Will decides to revive the project, calling upon his family resources for assistance. And when help is offered, it means turning his life upside down. Can Will build the school without abandoning the rest of his responsibilities? And, if he does, will it provide the healing he so desperately needs? And what of Amelia, and his stepson, Jonah? Must he leave them behind for the long months that building the school will take? What form will his healing take, and will there be something left of his life when it is done? And what new dangers lurk in the village of Burden? This is Burden of the Stars, the third book in Broken Stars, the steamy romantic sci-fi series by Chad Grayson.

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Summary: The year is 1876, Sheriff Ramon Morales of Socorro, New Mexico meets a beguiling woman named Fatemeh Karimi of Persia, escaping oppression in her homeland. When an ancient lifeform called Legion comes to Earth, they are pulled into a series of events that will change the history of the world as we know it. In their journeys, Ramon and Fatemeh encounter mad inventors, dangerous outlaws and pirates. Their resources are Ramon's fast draw and Fatemeh's uncanny ability to communicate with owls. The question is, will that be enough to save them when a fleet of dirigibles from Czarist Russia invades the United States?

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Summary: Tucker has spent his entire life as an interstellar trash man. But ever since his mother died, he’s been alone, and certainly lonely. So when he discovers the derelict ship he scooped up has an occupant—a beautiful young man named Ronan—Tucker is thrilled. Ronan is royalty and running from his tyrannical mother, determined to keep a powerful object out of her hands. But when he strikes a deal with the adorable Tucker, he wonders if it’s time to stop running.

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Summary: Once upon a time, it was a tough world for a young princess. What happens to the world when the princess decides to get even? Aeryn Stonebreaker is the Princess of Shadows, second in line to the throne of the Light, Shadows, and Dark. The singsong her nursemaids give her is, “Gimlé is wide and bleak, Aeryn is small and weak.” It’s a hard life on Gimlé, a strange world with a red sun that does not move in the sky. Generations before, Aeryn’s warrior-king ancestor, Arthur the Hammer, unified the land and established a detailed Code of governance and behavior. But while Aeryn is a child, obedience to Arthur’s Code is fraying and the kingdom is ripped apart by rebellion and war. She grows up amid the ebb and flow of fighting and the losses it causes. What is the fate of a young girl in a patriarchal world where a princess is nothing more than a token on the game boards of powerful men? However, this is a princess who stops playing by the rules and picks up her own weapons. What happens then?