Strange Gifts

Strange Gifts
Author: Robert Silverberg
Publisher:
Total Pages: 200
Release: 1975
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Each story preceded by 1-2 paragraphs of commentary.

How Much for Just the Planet?

How Much for Just the Planet?
Author: John M. Ford
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2000-09-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0743419871

A thrilling Star Trek: The Original Series adventure featuring Captain James T. Kirk and the USS Enterprise in a strange battle for dilithium crystals against the Klingons. Dilithium. In crystalline form, the most valuable mineral in the galaxy. It powers the Federation’s starships...and the Klingon Empire’s battlecruisers. Now on a small, out-of-the-way planet named Direidi, the greatest fortune in dilithium crystals ever seen has been found. Under the terms of the Organian Peace Treaty, the planet will go to the side best able to develop the planet and its resourses. Each side will contest the prize with the prime of its fleet. For the Federation—Captain James T. Kirk and the Starship Enterprise. For the Klingons—Captain Kaden vestai-Oparai and the Fire Blossom. Only the Direidians are writing their own script for this contest—script that propels the crew of the Starship Enterprise into their strangest adventure yet!

Sundiver

Sundiver
Author: David Brin
Publisher: Spectra
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2010-07-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 030757525X

“The Uplift books are as compulsive reading as anything ever published in the genre.”—The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction In all the universe, no species has ever reached for the stars without the guidance of a patron—except perhaps mankind. Did some mysterious race begin the uplift of humanity aeons ago? And if so, why did they abandon us? Circling the sun, under the caverns of Mercury, Expedition Sundiver prepares for the most momentous voyage in our history. A journey into the boiling inferno of the sun . . . to seek our destiny in the cosmic order of life. David Brin's Uplift novels are among the most thrilling and extraordinary science fiction ever written. Sundiver, Startide Rising, and The Uplift War—a New York Times bestseller—together make up one of the most beloved sagas of all time. Brin's tales are set in a future universe in which no species can reach sentience without being “uplifted” by a patron race. But the greatest mystery of all remains unsolved. . . . “Superb”—Science Fiction Times

The Big Time

The Big Time
Author: Fritz Leiber
Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2023-06-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

At the time of the release of this ebook edition of The Big Time, it remains the only Hugo Award–winning work in the public domain. That makes it a very special treasure indeed! The Big Time tells the tale of a group of servicemembers who work in facilities isolated from regular space-time. They’re involved in a war conducted by two shadowy groups that spans time itself, with all of humanity as pawns on an ever-changing historical battlefield. It explores a fascinating range of themes including time travel, the purpose of war, isolation, and love in the face of it all.

The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature

The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature
Author: Edward James
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2012-01-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1107493730

Fantasy is a creation of the Enlightenment, and the recognition that excitement and wonder can be found in imagining impossible things. From the ghost stories of the Gothic to the zombies and vampires of twenty-first-century popular literature, from Mrs Radcliffe to Ms Rowling, the fantastic has been popular with readers. Since Tolkien and his many imitators, however, it has become a major publishing phenomenon. In this volume, critics and authors of fantasy look at its history since the Enlightenment, introduce readers to some of the different codes for the reading and understanding of fantasy, and examine some of the many varieties and subgenres of fantasy; from magical realism at the more literary end of the genre, to paranormal romance at the more popular end. The book is edited by the same pair who produced The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (winner of a Hugo Award in 2005).

The Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards

The Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards
Author: Howard DeVore
Publisher:
Total Pages: 354
Release: 1998
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

Science fiction fans have voted for the Hugo Awards for best science fiction almost every year since 1953. Science fiction professionals have presented the Nebula Awards to their peers since 1965. In all this time, lists of winners have been widely available, but the losers have usually been ignored. In 1970 long-time fan Howard DeVore started publishing a complete listing of Hugo and Nebula awards, including the stories that were nominated but did not win. The fact that stories were nominated implied that they had considerable merit. Mr. DeVore felt that a complete listing would let fans compare them. The International Fantasy Awards may have inspired the Hugos, so he added them. DeVore brought out new editions year by year, publishing and distributing them himself with the aid of a number of devoted science fiction fans. By 1998 the task had grown to the point where Mr. DeVore happily relinquished the job to Advent. This edition includes introductory and historical essays explaining how each award got started and how nominees and winners are chosen, plus commentary in the yearly listings.

Blackout

Blackout
Author: Connie Willis
Publisher: Spectra
Total Pages: 514
Release: 2010-09-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0345519833

Oxford in 2060 is a chaotic place, with scores of time-traveling historians being sent into the past. Michael Davies is prepping to go to Pearl Harbor. Merope Ward is coping with a bunch of bratty 1940 evacuees and trying to talk her thesis adviser into letting her go to VE-Day. Polly Churchill’s next assignment will be as a shopgirl in the middle of London’s Blitz. But now the time-travel lab is suddenly canceling assignments and switching around everyone’s schedules. And when Michael, Merope, and Polly finally get to World War II, things just get worse. For there they face air raids, blackouts, and dive-bombing Stukas—to say nothing of a growing feeling that not only their assignments but the war and history itself are spiraling out of control. Because suddenly the once-reliable mechanisms of time travel are showing significant glitches, and our heroes are beginning to question their most firmly held belief: that no historian can possibly change the past.