The Last Novelist (or A Dead Lizard in the Yard)

The Last Novelist (or A Dead Lizard in the Yard)
Author: Matthew Kressel
Publisher: Tor Books
Total Pages: 28
Release: 2017-03-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 076539569X

"The Last Novelist (or A Dead Lizard in the Yard)" by Matthew Kressel is a science fiction story about a dying writer who is trying to finish one final novel on the distant planet he settles on for his demise. His encounter with a young girl triggers a last burst of creativity. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Best Science Fiction of the Year

The Best Science Fiction of the Year
Author: Neil Clarke
Publisher: Start Publishing LLC
Total Pages: 788
Release: 2018-04-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1597806196

As Earth dies, an architect is commissioned to remote build a monument on Mars from the remains of a failed colony; a man who has transferred his consciousness into a humanoid robot discovers he’s missing thirty percent of his memories, and tries to discover why; bored with life in the underground colony of an alien world, a few risk life inside one of the “whales” floating in the planet’s atmosphere; an apprentice librarian searching through centuries of SETI messages from alien civilizations makes an ominous discovery; a ship in crisis pulls a veteran multibot out from storage with an unusual assignment: pest control; the dead are given a second shot at life, in exchange for a five-year term in a zombie military program. For decades, science fiction has compelled us to imagine futures both inspiring and cautionary. Whether it’s a warning message from a survey ship, a harrowing journey to a new world, or the adventures of well-meaning AI, science fiction inspires the imagination and delivers a lens through which we can view ourselves and the world around us. With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Three, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and twenty-seven of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2017. Table of Contents Introduction: The State of Short SF Field in 2017 A Series of Steaks by Vina Jie-Min Prasad Holdfast by Alastair Reynolds Every Hour of Light and Dark by Nancy Kress The Last Novelist, or a Dead Lizard in the Yard by Matthew Kressel Shikasta by Vandana Singh Wind Will Rove by Sarah Pinsker Focus by Gord Sellar The Martian Obelisk by Linda Nagata Shadows of Eternity by Gregory Benford The Worldless by Indrapramit Das Regarding the Robot Raccoons Attached to the Hull of My Ship by Rachel Jones and Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali Belly Up by Maggie Clark Uncanny Valley by Greg Egan We Who Live in the Heart by Kelly Robson A Catalogue of Sunlight at the End of the World by A.C. Wise Meridian by Karin Lowachee The Tale of the Alcubierre Horse by Kathleen Ann Goonan Extracurricular Activities by Yoon Ha Lee In Everlasting Wisdom by Aliette de Bodard The Last Boat-Builder in Ballyvoloon by Finbarr O’Reilly The Speed of Belief by Robert Reed Death on Mars by Madeline Ashby An Evening with Severyn Grimes by Rich Larson ZeroS by Peter Watts The Secret Life of Bots by Suzanne Palmer Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance by Tobias S. Buckell Permissions Recommended Reading

Lizard Music

Lizard Music
Author: Daniel Pinkwater
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2017-08-15
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1681371847

An ALA Notable Book Kids ages 9-12 will “delight in [the] oddness” of this Home Alone-style tale set in the 1970s—from a prolific children’s author who captures “a magic that’s not like anyone else’s” (Neil Gaiman). With Victor’s parents out of town, he is free to investigate the mysterious lizard musicians who have recently appeared on TV . . . Things Victor loves: pizza with anchovies, grape soda, B movies aired at midnight, the evening news. And with his parents off at a resort and his older sister shirking her babysitting duties, Victor has plenty of time to indulge himself and to try a few things he’s been curious about. Exploring the nearby city of Hogboro, he runs into a curious character known as the Chicken Man (a reference to his companion, an intelligent hen named Claudia who lives under his hat). The Chicken Man speaks brilliant nonsense, but he seems to be hip to the lizard musicians (real lizards, not men in lizard suits) who’ve begun appearing on Victor’s television after the broadcast of the late-late movie. Are the lizards from outer space? From “other space”? Together Victor and the Chicken Man, guided by the able Claudia, journey to the lizards’ floating island, a strange and fantastic place that operates with an inspired logic of its own.

Now We Paint Worlds

Now We Paint Worlds
Author: Matthew Kressel
Publisher: Tor Books
Total Pages: 35
Release: 2021-07-14
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250823420

Matthew Kressel's "Now We Paint Worlds" is a space operatic Tor.com Original short story. Orna, a representative of a universe-wide trade union, undergoes a drastic change in perspective while investigating the disappearance of three planets and their inhabitants on a newly terraformed world. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Bone Garden

The Bone Garden
Author: Tess Gerritsen
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2007-09-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0345502221

Unknown bones, untold secrets, and unsolved crimes from the distant past cast ominous shadows on the present in the dazzling new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen. Present day: Julia Hamill has made a horrifying discovery on the grounds of her new home in rural Massachusetts: a skull buried in the rocky soil–human, female, and, according to the trained eye of Boston medical examiner Maura Isles, scarred with the unmistakable marks of murder. But whoever this nameless woman was, and whatever befell her, is knowledge lost to another time. Boston, 1830: In order to pay for his education, Norris Marshall, a talented but penniless student at Boston Medical College, has joined the ranks of local “resurrectionists”–those who plunder graveyards and harvest the dead for sale on the black market. Yet even this ghoulish commerce pales beside the shocking murder of a nurse found mutilated on the university hospital grounds. And when a distinguished doctor meets the same grisly fate, Norris finds that trafficking in the illicit cadaver trade has made him a prime suspect. To prove his innocence, Norris must track down the only witness to have glimpsed the killer: Rose Connolly, a beautiful seamstress from the Boston slums who fears she may be the next victim. Joined by a sardonic, keenly intelligent young man named Oliver Wendell Holmes, Norris and Rose comb the city–from its grim cemeteries and autopsy suites to its glittering mansions and centers of Brahmin power–on the trail of a maniacal fiend who lurks where least expected . . . and who waits for his next lethal opportunity. With unflagging suspense and pitch-perfect period detail, The Bone Garden deftly interweaves the thrilling narratives of its nineteenth- and twenty-first century protagonists, tracing the dark mystery at its heart across time and place to a finale as ingeniously conceived as it is shocking. Bold, bloody, and brilliant, this is Tess Gerritsen’s finest achievement to date. This ebook edition contains a special preview of Tess Gerritsen’s I Know a Secret. "The story, which digs up a dark Boston of times long past, entices readers to keep turning pages long after their bedtimes."—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

Lizard

Lizard
Author: Banana Yoshimoto
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 195
Release: 1996-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0671532766

Six short stories by a Japanese woman writer known for her unusual themes. In Blood and Water, a woman abandons the religious commune where she was raised, goes to the big city and finds another idol of worship, a charismatic lover. The story looks at the connection between spiritual and romantic fervor. By the author of Kitchen.

Mucho Mojo

Mucho Mojo
Author: Joe R. Lansdale
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2010-10-27
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307776484

Mucho Mojo is the basis for the second season of the new Sundance TV series Hap and Leonard. Hap and Leonard return in this incredible, mad-dash thriller, loaded with crack addicts, a serial killer, and a body count. Leonard is still nursing the injuries he sustained in the duo's last wild undertaking when he learns that his Uncle Chester has passed. Hap is of course going to be there for his best friend, and when the two are cleaning up Uncle Chester's dilapidated house, they uncover a dark little secret beneath the house's rotting floor boards—a small skeleton buried in a trunk. Hap wants to call the police. Leonard, being a black man in east Texas, persuades him this is not a good idea, and together they set out to clear Chester's name on their own. The only things standing in their way is a houseful of felons, a vicious killer, and possibly themselves.

Lot Lizards

Lot Lizards
Author: Ray Garton
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2022-08-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

A “lot lizard” is a female hooker who works a highway truck stop as her territory. When trucker Bill Ketter looks for a little relaxation and release, he discovers, too late, that he has bitten off more than he can chew. In fact, his lot lizard is the one who does the biting—she is a vampire, one of a number who move from one truck stop to the next under the watchful and vicious eyes of the repulsive Carsey Brothers. Against his will, Bill becomes one of the undead. He follows the brothers and their cargo to another stop where he meets his ex‑wife and children, and Bill finds himself battling the vampires and their age‑old leader for the life of his teenage son. Garton has created another small masterpiece, contemporary adult horror at its most gruesome and loaded with extra doses of sex and gore. The confined setting creates a perfect claustrophobic stage for the story and the hellaciously quick pace never lets the action slow down.

The Best Science Fiction of the Year

The Best Science Fiction of the Year
Author: Neil Clarke
Publisher: Night Shade
Total Pages: 616
Release: 2016-06-07
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781597808545

A biological plague begins infecting artificial intelligence; a natural-born Earth woman seeking asylum on another planet finds a human society far different from her own; a food blogger’s posts chronicle a nationwide medical outbreak; trapped in a matchmaking game, a couple tries to escape from the only world they know; a janitor risks everything to rescue a “defective” tank-born baby he can raise as his own. For decades, science fiction has compelled us to imagine futures both inspiring and cautionary. Whether it’s a warning message from a survey ship, a harrowing journey to a new world, or the adventures of well-meaning AI, science fiction feeds the imagination and delivers a lens through which we can better understand ourselves and the world around us. With The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume One, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and thirty-one of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2015. Table of Contents: “Introduction: A State of the Short SF Field in 2015” by Neil Clarke “Today I Am Paul” by Martin Shoemaker “Calved” by Sam J. Miller “Three Bodies at Mitanni” by Seth Dickinson “The Smog Society” by Chen Quifan “In Blue Lily’s Wake” by Aliette de Bodard “Hello, Hello” by Seanan McGuire “Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfiang “Capitalism in the 22nd Century” by Geoff Ryman “Hold-Time Violations” by John Chu “Wild Honey” by Paul McAuley “So Much Cooking” by Naomi Kritzer “Bannerless” by Carrie Vaughn “Another Word for World” by Ann Leckie “The Cold Inequalities” by Yoon Ha Lee “Iron Pegasus” by Brenda Cooper “The Audience” by Sean McMullen “Empty” by Robert Reed “Gypsy” by Carter Scholz “Violation of the TrueNet Security Act” by Taiyo Fujii “Damage” by David D. Levine “The Tumbledowns of Cleopatra Abyss” by David Brin “No Placeholder for You, My Love” by Nick Wolven “Outsider” by An Owomeyla “The Gods Have Not Died in Vain” by Ken Liu “Cocoons” by Nancy Kress “Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World” by Caroline M. Yoachim “Two-Year Man” by Kelly Robson “Cat Pictures Please” by Naomi Kritzer “Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan” by Ian McDonald “Meshed” by Rich Larson “A Murmuration” by Alastair Reynolds 2015 Recommended Reading List

The Dying Detective

The Dying Detective
Author: Leif GW Persson
Publisher: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2017-05-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307907643

***WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION'S INTERNATIONAL DAGGER 2017*** ***WINNER OF THE DANISH ACADEMY OF CRIME WRITERS' PALLE ROSENKRANTZ PRIZE (Best Crime Novel 2012)*** ***WINNER OF THE FINNISH ACADEMY OF CRIME WRITERS' AWARD (Best Crime Novel 2012)*** ***WINNER OF THE GLASS KEY (Best Scandinavian Crime Novel 2011)*** ***WINNER OF THE SWEDISH ACADEMY OF CRIME WRITERS' AWARD (Best Crime Novel of the Year 2010)*** LARS MARTIN JOHANSSON is a living legend. Cunning and perceptive, always one step ahead, he was known in the National Criminal Police as “the man who could see around corners.” But now Johansson is retired, living in the country, his police days behind him. Or so he thinks. After suffering a stroke, Johansson finds himself in the hospital. Tests show heart problems as well. And the only thing that can save him from despair is his doctor’s mention of an unsolved murder case from years before. The victim: an innocent nine-year-old girl. Johansson is determined to solve the case, no matter his condition. With the help of his assistant, Matilda, an amateur detective, and Max, an orphan with a personal stake in the case, he launches an informal investigation from his hospital bed. Racing against time, he uncovers a web of connections that links sex tourism to a dead opera singer and a self-made millionaire. And as Johansson draws closer to solving the crime, he finds that he will have to confront not just a mystery but his own mortality as well.