A breathtaking alien chase across the Galaxy, finally centering on a non-descript boarding home in Sacramento. Jalak, a xenophobic psychopath has left 12 destroyed worlds in his wake. Our only salva... more »

Farkas is notable for his complete lack of eyes: his face is smooth skin where they should be, but he perceives the world by a method he calls "blindsight." He senses objects by non-visual clues mis... more »

The second in a series of stories that eventually became the Arthur C. Clarke nominated novel, Alien Influences. The other stories are "Dancers Like Children," and "Glass Walls."

The Handmaid's Tale meets the Gulf War in this dystopic near-future novelette involving fetal-brain-tissue transplants, Alzheimer's, and capital punishment, set in Halifax, Nova Scotia. [Locus Recom... more »

The Gobi desert reveals a truth about Tyrannosaurus Rex and, in the face of an advancing storm, two rival paleontologists find their theories, and their relationship, put to the test. ... more »

In the dead of winter, a man who lives on a street vent notices that there's a bus just up the block. What it's waiting for, he can't tell. But even in his alcohol-addled brain, he knows there's som... more »

All he wanted to do was send a traditional love letter to the woman he adored. Some traditions die hard, but they die nonetheless.

Roger knew he was not equipped to satisfy Mrs. Thuringer's desires. Yet he also knew that certain robos were. Since he was advertised as the domestic robo who could learn to do anything, no doubt th... more »

In a world much like our own, the existence of Heaven and Hell are objectively proven. Indeed, the souls in Hell can be seen, and angels occasionally come to Earth, typically causing a mixture of mi... more »

Powered by a revolutionary, laser-driven stardrive, the first interstellar spaceship would reach the double planet that circled Barnard's Star in a mere 20 years. Some of the world's finest scientis... more »

In the time between the Collapse and the Cleansing after the Company had constructed the coastal shields, lawbreakers were dyed special colors and banished to the wasteland to wander as marked paria... more »

Helen had many reasons to fear and hate Jupiter's harsh atmosphere, but nevertheless came to study the deep storms. All of her fears are realized when a personal tragedy occurs and she must choose b... more »

There's nothing worse than when a family of traditional values begins to dissolve, except perhaps when the members of the family begin to dissolve literally, one by one. The future doesn't look prom... more »

In a near future where everyone lives in a wireless-direct-mind-link, networked, sensory-enhanced world, two eighth-graders struggle to pass an exam for which using outside information sources is fo... more »

Titus Oates, a member of Robert Falcon Scott's doomed South Polar expedition, wandered out into the snow, knowing that he was near death and had become a drag on the other members of the expedition,... more »

The third in a series of short stories that eventually became the Arthur C. Clarke nominated novel, Alien Influences. The other two stories in the series are "Dancers Like Children," and "Alien Infl... more »

A singer with a crippled voice turns to xenobiology, and discovers something wondrous on a routine survey mission--only to learn that this first contact may be his last. [Honorable Mention: The Year... more »

In a future when people commonly use teleportation to travel instantly to any point in the world, a sale at a department store might draw bargain hunters from all over the planet ... followed by rep... more »

When a dear friend is struck with a degenerative disease, you would expect their life to end, but Mary wouldn't let that happen to her and, through sheer will, she achieved a measure of electronic i... more »

Do the laws of physics protect the universe against reality-altering time travelers and paradoxes? Or is that responsibility left to individual physicists?

Elspeth's world is upended when her rich husband dies, leaving her and the rest of his harem of nearly-identical wives on their own.

Jack the Ripper was dead. Or so everyone believed. Certainly a simple dredger working the Thames never thought that a commission to recover a few objects from the bottom of the river might reintrodu... more »

The hate-filled day-to-day life of a Klan wizard is disrupted when impossible musical instruments begin turning up in his fields and his house, and even his family seems to be falling under the spel... more »

The first in a series of stories that eventually became the Arthur C. Clarke nominated novel, Alien Influences. The other stories are "Alien Influences," and "Glass Walls."

Someone is stealing J. Reed Brasher's memories. The doctors don't seem to care; Brasher is old, and old people often forget. But Brasher knows that the loss is actual theft and he decides to prove i... more »