I began reading science fiction when I was 8 years old and "borrowed" my father’s library books until, in defense, he got me my own library card. Not only have I spent decades reading SF, I’ve written it as well. As a veteran reader and writer with plenty of kill marks on my fuselage, I'm literally married to the SF mob (Grandmaster Robert Silverberg, is my spouse). I can both walk the walk and talk the talk. And after writing 9 SF novels including a Star Trek Book and reading uncounted SF and F tales, I still think science fiction and fantasy can be a literature of ideas illuminating the human condition.
I wrote
That Unfortunate Problem with Grandmother's Head and Other Stories
All of these stories are superb but my favorite here is "The Last Garden," in which a woman with mother issues finds a surprising solution to them via hardware. Runnerup: "Arlington," with its brilliant use of time travel leavened by a nice dash of romance.
Jack Skillingstead is a cult writer who keeps a fine focus on the human condition, its pathos, comedy, kindness, and cruelty which he captures in surreal and satirical situations in the near and far future. I love his mordant humor, his playful imagination, and the crazy compounding situations he drops his characters into. Odd twists and unexpected endings. Very funny use of sentient hardware,
Characters who are damaged and find healing in unexpected places, ways, and times. His notes on the background of these stories and generous essay about writing make this much more than a short story collection: the reader will gain insight into the writer and his process.
What does it mean to be human in a universe of shifting, sometimes terrifying realities? Eighteen stories from Jack Skillingstead's second decade of publishing feature intense and surprising explorations of who we are, who we wish to be, and who we can't be.
In "The Whole Mess" a genius math professor solves a multiverse equation only to find himself pursued by ancient Masters across the many iterations of his could-have-been lives. "Straconia" gives us a Kafkaesque world where all the lost things go, including people who must first find themselves before they can find a way back home. "Tribute" looks…
Oh, the delicious snark of it all. Murderbot may—or may not—have a human heart, but what it does have is attitude with a capital A.
System Collapse focuses on the further adventures of the cyberbot security unit that has hacked itself free from dangerous behavioral controls and named itself Murderbot. The gender-free bot is suffering from PTSD resulting in memory lapses and odd behavior that endangers not only Murderbot but the humans they're protecting from being killed/enslaved by evil Corporate raiders and/or contaminated by deadly alien biotech.
Some of the funniest moments come when human characters try to get touchy-feely with Murderbot, much to their horror. Honestly, Murderbot would rather just watch soap operas with buddy/significant other, ART, the AI ship they live on. It helps to have read the previous 6 books to know who all the characters are and their histories.
The million-copy, New York Times bestselling Murderbot series is back in another full-length novel adventure!
Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.
Everyone's favorite lethal SecUnit is back.
Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free…
All My Sins Remembered is a deeply felt, moving story of what happens to Otto McGavin, a well-meaning Anglo-Buddhist who joins the intergalactic Confederacion at age 22 to travel off Earth and help protect the rights of humans and nonhumans, is trained to become an agent of the Confederacion, and loses his soul in the process.
First published in 1977, this is a searing near-future tale that should be required reading for anyone considering a career in the Secret Service.
Grandmaster science fiction writer Joe Haldeman is renowned in the field for his decades of brilliant stories and books. Awarded the Hugo and Nebula, he is the author of the Forever War trilogy, The Hemingway Hoax, 1968, and many others.
His work often features scathing treatments of warfare and the brutal idiocy of military bureaucracy, based on his firsthand experience as a soldier in the Vietnam War.
1977 Avon Books MASS MARKET PAPERBACK, 4th printing. Joe Haldeman (The Forever War). Once Otto McGavin was a kind and gentle soul; then he was recruited by the all-powerful Confederación. An ultra secretive, government-linked organization, the Confederación’s stated mission of protecting threatened life, both human and alien, throughout the galaxy greatly appeals to the Anglo-Buddhist McGavin as he eagerly prepares to embark on a career of diplomacy and selfless works. But Otto’s new masters have other plans for the idealistic young recruit. Through a process of immersion therapy and hypnosis, and by encasing him in temporary bodies of plastic flesh,…
What happens when Charlie Fitzer, a former journalist and divorcee down on his luck inherits his great-uncle's evil empire?
Hugo Award-winner John Scalzi (Redshirts, Old Man's War) had me at his knowing depiction of cats and their ways of communicating. His other characters aren't bad, either, including the viewpoint character who receives an unexpected and highly daunting inheritance, and most especially Matilda Morrison, a woman of extreme agency. Known for his humorous take on various literary genres, Scalzi here provides action that is laugh-out-loud funny,
It's worth the price of admission just to read his dolphin scenes or the peculiar behavior of mourners at his uncle's funeral, but there's much much more including a clever satirical treatment of deep-state private clubs belonged to by so-called masters of the universe. Light, funny, heart-warming, and inventive.
Locus and Hugo Award-winning author John Scalzi brings us a turbo-charged tale of a family business with a difference - as Charlie discovers when he inherits it. This one comes with a hidden headquarters, minions, talking cats and James Bond-like supervillain rivals.
'Starter Villain establishes Scalzi as SF's leading humourist' - SFX
Warning: supervillain in training. Risk of world domination.
Inheriting his late uncle's business proves complicated. It's also way more dangerous than Charlie could ever have imagined. Because his uncle had kept his supervillain status a secret - until now.
Divorced and emotionally dependent on his cat, Charlie wasn't…
The title story of this brilliant collection is a very funny alien invasion story told from the point of view of a woman who is convinced that the invasion is all about her. The other stories are similarly quirky and delightful.
The late Carol Emshwiller was a groundbreaking visionary writer who began publishing her funny, intriguing, unusual work after she was 30 and had to pry writing time away from the demands of her growing family.
When necessary, she would empty out the playpen in her living room, get into it with her typewriter, and work on her fiction while her preschool children enjoyed the freedom of the apartment. She was known for avant-garde approach, unreliable narrators, quirky humor, and a liberal, feminist outlook.
Recipient of the Nebula and the Philip K. Dick Award. The late Ursula K. LeGuin called her "a major fabulist, a marvelous magical realist, one of the strongest, most complex, most consistently feminist voices in fiction".
If you enjoy your science fiction and dark fantasy with a slice of satire, mordant humor, and snark, these stories are for you. Politicians possessed by demons? Check. Family relations complicated by cybernetics and memory removal? Check. Small alien creatures longing to exploit humankind for fun and profit? Check. And much more. This collection includes short fiction I've written over three decades. Entertaining, irreverent, and funny.
Unlike the typical tales of a flawless fighting unit, this story follows Commander Kami Trenn and her ragtag squad of mixed-race space marines.
Dog Squad fights a mysterious adversary whose presence remains shrouded in secrecy. The fate of the universe hangs in the balance, but will they be able to make enough of a difference?
Can they hope to uncover the enemy’s plans for galactic dominance before the Alliance falls? Maybe. If they can stop fighting each other.
Across the void formed by two galactic spiral arms, vast forces face each other.
The tenuous Alliance, sixty civilizations united only by fear of invasion, prepare to resist the encroachment of their as-yet unseen enemy, known only as the Creeps.
The Void has become a battleground. Three thousand light years across, and populated by a scattering of ten thousand ‘dark’ worlds, it is the Alliance’s last chance to protect their way of life. Self-destructive, robotic drones pour across the Void in ever-increasing numbers, testing the Alliance fleets to breaking point.
