Search Worlds Without End

Hugo-winning Novelette

In this time travel tale that takes place during the Cuban Missile Crisis, 12 year-old Ray stumbles upon an android from the future which has been sent back to 1962 to change the course of our history. What he asks Ray to help him do will shock you, in this gripping story of impossible choices.

This story was originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1999, and later anthologized in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection (2000), The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction (2005) [aka The Mammoth Book of The Best of The Best New SF (2008)], The Secret History of Science Fiction (2009), and collected in Strange But Not a Stranger (2002) and Masters of Science Fiction: James Patrick Kelly (2016).

Read or listen to this story online for free at Clarkesworld Magazine.

Hugo- and Sturgeon-nominated Novella

Bernardo has gone and his intelligent house misses him desperately. Designed to meet all her master's needs, she is his cook, maid, secretary, lover, and secret refuge from the world. Now she struggles to cope with his loss. On the edge of madness, she is saved by the arrival of a damaged young girl, who will teach her what it means to be human.

This story was originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2003. It can also be found in the anthologies in Science Fiction: The Best of 2003, edited by Karen Haberr and Jonathan Strahan, and Future Fiction: New Dimensions in International Science Fiction (2018), edited by Bill Campbell and Francesco Verso. The story is included in the collection The Wreck of the Godspeed and Other Stories (2008).

Listen to the author read this story at his blog: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

NOTE: CONTAINS BRIEF SCENES OF EXPLICIT SEXUALITY.

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1996 and was reprinted in Lightspeed, February 2011. It can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 2 (1997), edited by David G. Hartwell, Skylife: Space Habitats in Story and Science (2000), edited by Gregory Benford and George Zebrowski, and Lightspeed: Year One (2011), edited by John Joseph Adams. The story is included in the collection Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories (1997).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Nebula-winning and Hugo-nominated Novella

Simplicity ain't what it used to be.

The tiny planet of Morobe's Pea has been sold, and the new owner has a few ideas. He has renamed it Walden, and voluntary simplicity is now the rule. It will become a rural paradise for everyone who embraces Thoreau's philosophy. But the previous tenants have their own ideas. And they are willing to set themselves on fire to defend them...

This story has been anthologized in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third Annual Collection (2006) and Nebula Awards Showcase 2008, and collected in The Wreck of the Godspeed and Other Stories.

Read this story online for free at the author's website.

Tiptree-nominated Novelette

What is love? A profound and life-changing emotion, or a heady brew of neurochemicals washing through your brain? Two young medical students take a break from their studies to enjoy a night out at a neuromance palace, where for a mere $40 you can fall deeply in love and out again in a single carefree evening. Here's a romantic comedy about sales techniques, square-dancing, and hormones gone wild.

This story was first published in Asimov's Science Fiction in June 1993, anthologized in Flying Cups and Saucers: Gender Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy (1998), and later collected in Strange But Not a Stranger (2002).

I share a house with Crazy Me. We get along, except when he sneaks out of the house to pretend to be me. If only it weren't quite so true.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Or listen to the author read the story at his blog: Part 1, Part 2

Sturgeon Award nominated short story.

Jack is having an affair with Suzanne. He invites her to lunch to tell her that he's leaving his wife so that they can be together. But just before Suzanne arrives, a stranger approaches Jack and asks for help - a stranger whom no one can see but Jack.

Dancing with the Chairs originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, March 1989. It is included in the collection Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories (1997).

When the Singularity arrives and computers possess superhuman intelligence, will there be an ecstatic merging of machine and mind--or an instantaneous techno-apocalypse? Will there be the enslavement of humanity or "the Rapture of the Nerds"? The post-human future is here in its wildest science-fictional imaginings and intriguing scientific speculations.

This far-reaching anthology traces the path of the Singularity, an era when advances in technology will totally transform human reality. It travels to the alien far-future of H. G. Wells (Mind at the End of Its Tether), to the almost human near-future of Ray Kurzweil (The Singularity Is Near), from Elizabeth Bear's fusion of woman, machine, God, and shark ("The Inevitable Heat Death of the Universe"), to Isaac Asimov's evolution of ineffable logic ("The Last Question"). As intelligence both figuratively (and possibly literally) explodes, science-fiction authors and futurists have dared to peek over the edge of the event horizon. Join them there.

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Digital Rapture - essay by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel
• The Last Question - [Multivac] (1956) - short story by Isaac Asimov
• The Flesh (1929) - essay by J. D. Bernal
• Day Million (1966) - short story by Frederik Pohl
• Thought and Action (1935) - short fiction by Olaf Stapledon
• The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era (1993) - essay by Vernor Vinge
• Hive Mind Man (2012) - novelette by Eileen Gunn and Rudy Rucker
• Sunken Gardens - [Shaper/Mechanist] (1984) - short story by Bruce Sterling
• The Six Epochs (2005) - essay by Ray Kurzweil
• Crystal Nights (2008) - novelette by Greg Egan
• Firewall (2008) - novelette by David D. Levine
• The Cookie Monster (2003) - novella by Vernor Vinge
• Cracklegrackle - [Natural History] (2009) - novelette by Justina Robson
• Nightfall - [Macx Family] (2003) - novelette by Charles Stross
• Coelacanths (2002) - novelette by Robert Reed
• The Great Awakening - [Thought Experiments] (2008) - essay by Rudy Rucker
• True Names (2008) - novella by Cory Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum
• The Server and the Dragon (2010) - short story by Hannu Rajaniemi
• The Inevitable Heat Death of the Universe (2006) - short story by Elizabeth Bear

Nebula-nominated Short Story

Crispin has been following Lisa around since she was a child, only no one can see him but her. She hopes she's isn't crazy but she can't be sure. And of course, the dead people who talk to her are no help at all.

This story was originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2007.

Listen to a podcast of this story at StarshipSofa.

Sturgeon Award nominated novelette.

In this charming romantic comedy, a divorced single mom decides to re-enter the dating scene via an ad in the personals section of her local paper. Among the many men who answer the ad is the mysterious Gardiner, who writes poems, breeds daylilies, and has the unsettling ability to know exactly the right thing to say to win a woman's heart. What is his secret?

Faith originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, June 1989. It is included in the collection Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories (1997).

If it is true that the test of a first-rate mind is its ability to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time, then we live in a century when it takes a first-rate mind just to get through the day. We have unprecedented access to information; cognitive dissonance is a banner headline in our morning papers and radiates silently from our computer screens. Slipstream, poised between literature and popular culture, embraces the dissonance.

These ambitious stories of visionary strangeness defy the conventions of science fiction. Tales by Michael Chabon, Karen Joy Fowler, Jonathan Lethem, Carol Emshwiller, George Saunders, and others pull the reader into a vivid dreamspace and embrace the knowledge that life today is increasingly surreal.

Contents:

• Al - (1972) - short story by Carol Emshwiller
• The Little Magic Shop - (1987) - short story by Bruce Sterling
• The Healer - (1998) - short story by Aimee Bender
• The Specialist's Hat - (1998) - short story by Kelly Link
• Light and the Sufferer - (1995) - novelette by Jonathan Lethem
• Sea Oak - (1998) - novelette by George Saunders
• Exhibit H: Torn Pages Discovered in the Vest Pocket of an Unidentified Tourist - (1998) - short story by Jeff VanderMeer
• Hell Is the Absence of God - (2001) - novelette by Ted Chiang
• Lieserl - (1990) - short story by Karen Joy Fowler
• Bright Morning - (2002) - novelette by Jeffrey Ford
• Biographical Notes to "A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-Planes" by Benjamin Rosenbaum - (2004) - novelette by Benjamin Rosenbaum
• The God of Dark Laughter - (2001) - short story by Michael Chabon
• The Rose in Twelve Petals - (2002) - short story by Theodora Goss
• The Lions Are Asleep This Night - (1986) - novelette by Howard Waldrop
• You Have Never Been Here - (2006) - short story by M. Rickert

It was real... It was a dream.

Freedom Beach was a tropical paradise of games, drugs and decadence... Freedom Beach was a surreal gulag ruthlessly guarded by sinister living statues.

The guests included Faust, the Marx Brothers, Aristophanes, Raymond Chandler and the Brontes... The prisoners were all strangers from Shaun Reed's past.

Shaun was a deluded amnesiac who had been voluntarily committed... Shaun was a brainwashed dissident genius being tortured by the Dreamers.

The Dreamers were benevolent aliens who wanted to heal... The Dreamers were evil conquerors and would destroy anyone who learned the truth... Lies... Truth... Lies... Truth of the dream...

Or the lies of Freedom Beach.

This novelette originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, January 1984. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection (1985).

Phillip Wing is the architect of one of the Seven New Wonders of the World: the Glass Cloud. But construction has fallen behind schedule, costs have skyrocketed, and the project is suddenly in danger of being canceled. The mysterious alien Messengers step in to save the Glass Cloud but at a terrible cost to Wing and his wife, Daisy.

This novelette originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, June 1987. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifth Annual Collection (1988), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Strange But Not a Stranger (2002).

The mission: to survey the galaxy and beyond. An endless stream of probes and starships heading out into the universe, surveying, cataloguing, assaying. Forever. And on board those ships, the intrepid explorers who give it all meaning.

The full story can be read for free at Tor.com.

Sturgeon Award nominated short story.

Mike has it all: a loving wife, a bright son, a steady job, and a house on a lake. Then why does he feel as though he had locked himself in and thrown away the key? And what is the meaning of the disturbing dream that haunts him night after night, the one in which he is revealed to be a coward? In a horrifying moment that shatters his tranquil life, his courage will be put to the ultimate test.

Heroics originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, November 1987. It is included in the collection Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories (1997).

Locus Award-winning and Hugo-, Nebula-, and Sturgeon-nominated Short Story

In this emotional tale of family secrets set in 2038, Jen has been estranged from her father, a Shakespearian actor, ever since he got divorced from her mother years and years ago. But when her mother dies, Jen is astonished to discover that she has left her ex-husband a fortune in her will. Jen tries to confront her father, but first she must get past the robot that cares for him.

This story was originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1997. The story can be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection (1998), edited by Gardner Dozois, Year's Best SF 3 (1998), edited by David G. Hartwell, Nebula Awards 33 (1999), edited by Connie Willis and Robots (2005), edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collections Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories (1997) and Masters of Science Fiction: James Patrick Kelly (2016).

Read the full story for free at the Baen Free Library.

The tourist shops of Prague sell dozens of items commemorating Franz Kafka. You can drink a latte in the Café Kafka, add sugar to it from a packet with Kafka's face on it, and then light your cigarette from a box of Kafka matches.

Franz Kafka died in obscurity in 1924, publishing only a handful of bizarre stories in little-known literary magazines. Yet today he persists in our collective imaginations. Even those who have never read any of Kafka's fiction describe their tribulations with the Department of Motor Vehicles as being Kafkaesque.

Kafkaesque explores the fiction of generations of authors inspired by Kafka's work. These dystopic, comedic, and ironic tales include T. C. Boyle's roadside garage that is a never-ending trial, Philip Roth's alternate history in which Kafka immigrates to America to date his aunt, Jorge Luis Borges's labyrinthine public lottery that redefines reality, Carol Emshwiller's testimony by the first female to earn the right to call herself a "man," and Paul Di Filippo's unfamiliar Kafka -- journalist by day, costumed crime-fighter by night.

Also included is Kafka's classic story "The Hunger Artist," appearing both in a brand-new translation and in an illustrated version by legendary cartoonist R. Crumb (Fritz the Cat). Additionally, each author discusses Kafka's writing, its relevance, its personal influence, and Kafka's enduring legacy.

Table of Contents

• Kafkaesque: Stories Inspired by Franz Kafka - interior artwork by John Coulthart
• Stories After Kafka - essay by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel
• Kafka Chronology - essay
• A Hunger Artist - short story by Franz Kafka (trans. of Ein Hungerkünstler 1924)
• On the Translation of 'A Hunger Artist' - essay by John Kessel
• Introduction to The Drowned Giant - essay by J. G. Ballard
• The Drowned Giant (1964) - short story by J. G. Ballard
• Introduction to The Cockroach Hat - essay by Terry Bisson
• The Cockroach Hat (2010) - short story by Terry Bisson
• Introduction to Hymenoptera - essay by Michael Blumlein
• Hymenoptera (1993) - short story by Michael Blumlein
• Introduction to The Lottery in Babylon - essay by Jorge Luis Borges
• The Lottery in Babylon (1998) - short story by Jorge Luis Borges (trans. of La lotería en Babilonia 1941)
• Introduction to The Big Garage - (2005) - essay by T. Coraghessan Boyle
• The Big Garage (1981) - short story by T. Coraghessan Boyle
• Introduction to The Jackdaw's Last Case - essay by Paul Di Filippo
• The Jackdaw's Last Case (1997) - short story by Paul Di Filippo
• Introduction to Report to the Men's Club - essay by Carol Emshwiller
• Report to the Men's Club (2002) - short story by Carol Emshwiller
• Introduction to Bright Morning - essay by Jeffrey Ford
• Bright Morning (2002) - novelette by Jeffrey Ford
• Introduction to The Rapid Advance of Sorrow - essay by Theodora Goss
• The Rapid Advance of Sorrow (2002) - short story by Theodora Goss
• Introduction to Stable Strategies for Middle Management - essay by Eileen Gunn
• Stable Strategies for Middle Management (1988) - short story by Eileen Gunn
• Introduction to The Handler - (1976) - essay by Damon Knight
• The Handler (1960) - short story by Damon Knight
• Introduction to Receding Horizon - essay by Jonathan Lethem
• Receding Horizon (1995) - short story by Jonathan Lethem and Carter Scholz
• Introduction to A Hunger Artist - essay by David Mairowitz
• A Hunger Artist - short story by Robert Crumb and David Mairowitz
• Introduction to "I Always Wanted You to Admire My Fasting"; or, Looking at Kafka - essay by Philip Roth
• "I Always Wanted You to Admire My Fasting"; or, Looking at Kafka (1969) - short story by Philip Roth
• Introduction to The 57th Franz Kafka - essay by Rudy Rucker
• The 57th Franz Kafka (1982) - short story by Rudy Rucker
• Introduction to The Amount to Carry - essay by Carter Scholz
• The Amount to Carry (1998) - novelette by Carter Scholz
• Introduction to Kafka in Brontëland - essay by Tamar Yellin
• Kafka in Brontëland (2002) - short story by Tamar Yellin

Rehearsals Are Now Underway for The Antic Tour of Interspecies Marvels A Scofflaw Circus! Dogs & Cats & Humans As You've Never Seen Them!

The circus is in town, and on the planet Boon, that's big, potentially riotous news. The delicate, decaying political balance maintained by the cloned human grands at the expense of the uplifted dog and cat populations is in danger of toppling under the influence of mysterious forces both outer and inner. When Gio Barbaro - clone descendant of one of Boon's ancient leaders, junior Senator, known friend to dogs and secret iconoclast - is recruited by the ringmaster cat, Scratch, he's knowingly going against everything his family and class believes in. The question, though, is what Gio believes in.

Tiptree- and Sturgeon-nominated Novelette

Imagine a race of marsupial-like aliens who have not two, but three sexes: father, birth-mother, and nurture-mother. The difficulties of married life are further complicated by adding another partner, but this culture has worked out its own unique solution. The arrival of a new race of space-faring aliens, however, will change everything.

This story was first published in Asimov's Science Fiction in June 1998, later collected in Isaac Asimov's Mother's Day (2000), Strange But Not a Stranger (2002), Infinity Plus: The Anthology (2007) and Masters of Science Fiction: James Patrick Kelly (2016).

Listen to the author read the story at his blog: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2004. The story can also be found in the anthologies:

• Best Short Novels: 2005 edited by Jonathan Strahan
• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Second Annual Collection (2005), edited by Gardner Dozois
• Nebula Awards Showcase 2007, edited by Mike Resnick
• Not One of Us: Stories of Aliens on Earth (2018), edited by Neil Clarke

It is included in the collections The Wreck of the Godspeed and Other Stories (2008) and Masters of Science Fiction: James Patrick Kelly (2016).

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, December 2013.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Nebula-nominated and Asimov's Readers' Poll-winning Novella

More about the strange Cage family from the stories "Solstice" and "Chillon". Now comes Peter, Wynne's son, who is going to be 12 years old forever, or at least as long as Wynne keeps paying to have him twanked. With his robot playmate Comrade, Peter is growing up in a world where virtual reality is commonplace and where people can have themselves genetically altered into dinosaurs, bears or a three-quarters scale replica of the Statue of Liberty.

This story was originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1990, and anthologized in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighth Annual Collection (1991), Best New SF 5 (1991), Supernovæ (1993), Modern Classic Short Novels of Science Fiction (1994), The Mammoth Book of Contemporary SF Masters (1994), Visions of Wonder (1996), The Best of the Best Volume 2: 20 Years of the Best Short Science Fiction Novels (2007), Cyberpunk: Stories of Hardware, Software, Wetware, Revolution and Evolution (2013), and collected in Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories (1997).

Nebula-nominated Novella

Mysterious aliens have landed on Earth, but nobody can figure out what they want. Enter Liz Cobble, a frustrated professor of sapientology who finds herself swept up in a madcap romantic adventure with an eccentric billionaire and an architect who designs flying buildings.

This story was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September 1999, self-published by the authors in 2011, and included in The Collected Kessel (2012).

This novelette originally appeared in Clarkesworld, Issue 121, October 2016. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection (2017), edited by Gardner Dozois.

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Hugo-, Nebula-, and SF Chronicle-nominated Short Story

In a hard-edged cyberpunk future, a courier is has stolen a load of the most dangerous, most dazzling drug ever invented and is smuggling it into New York City. Pursued by a hired hit woman disguised as a young girl and a federally-appointed vigilante, he must find his way through the mean streets of Manhattan to his lair. He is ruthless, amoral, and a rat. Not just figuratively, but literally: a two-foot-long, walking, talking rat. Hearing is believing.

This story was first published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1986, collected in Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories (1997), and anthologized in Future on Fire (1991), The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990 (1993), Masterpieces: The Best Science Fiction of the Century (2001), and The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Volume 2 (2014). It is included in the collection Masters of Science Fiction: James Patrick Kelly (2016).

Cyberpunk is dead. The revolution has been co-opted by half-assed heroes, overclocked CGI, and tricked-out shades. Once radical, cyberpunk is now nothing more than a brand.

Time to stop flipping the channel.

These sixteen extreme stories reveal a government ninja routed by a bicycle repairman, the inventor of digitized paper hijacked by his college crush, a dead boy trapped in a warped storybook paradise, and the queen of England attacked with the deadliest of forbidden technology: a working modem. You'll meet Manfred Macx, renegade meme-broker, Red Sonja, virtual reality sex-goddess, and Felix, humble sys-admin and post-apocalyptic hero.

Editors James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel (Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology) have united cyberpunk visionaries William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Pat Cadigan with the new post-cyberpunk vanguard, including Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross, and Jonathan Lethem. Including a canon-establishing introduction and excerpts from a hotly contested online debate, Rewired is the first anthology to define and capture the crackling excitement of the post-cyberpunks.

From the grittiness of Mirrorshades to the Singularity and beyond, it's time to revive the revolution.

Table of Contents:

• Hacking Cyberpunk - essay by John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly
• Kessel-Sterling Correspondence - essay by John Kessel and Bruce Sterling
• Bicycle Repairman - (1996) - novelette by Bruce Sterling
• Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland - (1996) - shortstory by Gwyneth Jones
• How We Got In Town and Out Again - (1996) - novelette by Jonathan Lethem
• Yeyuka - (1997) - shortstory by Greg Egan
• The Final Remake of The Return of Little Latin Larry - (1997) - novella by Pat Cadigan
• Thirteen Views of a Cardboard City - (1997) - shortstory by William Gibson
• The Wedding Album - (1999) - novella by David Marusek
• Daddy's World - (1999) - novelette by Walter Jon Williams
• The Dog Said Bow-Wow - (2001) - shortstory by Michael Swanwick
• Lobsters - (2001) - novelette by Charles Stross
• What's Up, Tiger Lily? - (2003) - novelette by Paul Di Filippo
• The Voluntary State - (2004) - novelette by Christopher Rowe
• Two Dreams on Trains - (2005) - shortstory by Elizabeth Bear
• The Calorie Man - (2005) - novelette by Paolo Bacigalupi
• Search Engine - (2005) - novelette by Mary Rosenblum
• When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth - (2006) - novelette by Cory Doctorow

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, June 1984. The story can also be found in the anthology Sacred Visions (1991) edited by Michael Cassutt and Andrew M. Greeley. It is included in the collection Masters of Science Fiction: James Patrick Kelly (2016).

Stonehenge is possibly the most mystical place on Earth. Its call has echoed through the ages and will continue as long as the stones continue to stand. The drug artist Tony Cage is almost as obsessed with Stonehenge as he is with his offspring Wynne, whom he had cloned from his own cells but then tweaked her sex chromosome from XY to XX. Is she his daughter or something entirely different? Tony will find the answer at Stonehenge on the Solstice Day.

This short story originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, June 1985. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Third Annual Collection (1986), edited by Gardner Dozois, and Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology (1986), edited by Bruce Sterling. The story is included in the collection Masters of Science Fiction: James Patrick Kelly (2016).

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, April-May 2014, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, January 2018. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Nine (2015), edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015, edited by Rich Horton, and The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection (2015), edited by Gardner Dozois.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

This short story originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, #80 May 2013. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2014, edtied by Rich Horton, and Clarkesworld: Year Seven (2015), edited by Sean Wallace and Neil Clarke.

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, June 1991. The story can also be found in the anthology Nebula Awards 27 (1993), edited by James Morrow. It is included in the collection Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories (1997).

Fiction is stranger than reality especially when explored through the imagination of multiple-Hugo winner James Patrick Kelly. Consider a lad learning to "duck and cover" in the bomb shelter era, who discovers that he is the only chance Earth has to avert a nuclear holocaust--if only he can bring himself to commit an unspeakable act. The twelve-year-old's chances of success are very long indeed. Or what about a pair of hard-working coed medical students taking a break from the study grind to look for neuroromance? How do they end up with a lion-tamer and a banana salesman? Picking one of the Greek muses for a one-night stand can be hazardous--especially when you disobey her. And what is the greatest architect of his generation to do when mysterious aliens try to hire him to build a tomb for a goddess? Imagine a time traveler forced on a one-way trip millions of years into the future to find all she cared about--friends, family, civilization--undone? Mix contemporary fantasy with far out science fiction with cold horror with warm humanity with lovestories with candy artists and top with an alien chicken that doesn't like fruitcake. In this collection of fifteen stories, including one previously unpublished, enter the strange but oddly familiar worlds of James Patrick Kelly

Table of Contents

• Introduction (Strange But Not a Stranger) - essay by Connie Willis
• 10¹⁶ to 1 (1999) - novelette
• Lovestory (1998) - novelette
• Feel the Zaz (2000) - novelette
• Unique Visitors (2001) - short story
• The Prisoner of Chillon (1986) - novelette
• Candy Art - short story
• The Propagation of Light in a Vacuum (1990) - short story
• Hubris (2002) - short story
• Glass Cloud (1987) - novelette
• Proof of the Existence of God - short story
• The Cruelest Month (1983) - short story
• Chemistry (1993) - novelette
• The Pyramid of Amirah (2002) - short story
• Fruitcake Theory (1998) - short story
• Undone (2001) - novelette
• Afterword (Strange But Not a Stranger) - essay

Hugo-nominated Short Story

The last man on Earth is depressed, and the robots charged with his care are at a loss as to how to shake him out of it. They concoct an elaborate scheme to have Christmas in May. After all, at the end of history, who cares if the dates are a little off?

This story was originally published by Sci Fiction, May 26, 2004, later anthologized in Science Fiction: The Best of 2004 (2005) and Season of Wonder (2012), and collected in The Wreck of the Godspeed and Other Stories (2008).

Read this story online for free at the Sci Fiction archive.

Talisha is shocked when she finds mechdream pills in the bottom of her husband's underwear drawer. Designed to create a unique virtual reality based on his wildest fantasies, they will allow him to plumb the depths of his pleasure centers. The only problem is, he's spending the rent money building his virtual paradise. Just what are her husband's deepest desires? Talisha isn't sure she wants to know.

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, April-May 2004. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 10 (2005), edited by David G. Hartwll and Kathryn Cramer.

This novelette originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2005, and was reprinted on infinity plus, August 2007. The story can also be found in the anthologies Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2006 Edition, edited by Rich Horton, and Year's Best SF 11 (2006), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Kramer. The story is included in the collection The Wreck of the Godspeed and Other Stories (2008).

Read the full story for free at infinity plus.

This novelette originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, June 1986. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fourth Annual Collection (1987), edited by Gardner Dozois, Best SF of the Year #16 (1987), edited by Terry Carr. The story is included in the collection Strange But Not a Stranger (2002).

This short story originally appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, #84 September 2013. It is also included in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Eight (2014), edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection (2014), edited by Gardner Dozois and Clarkesworld: Year Seven (2015), edited by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace.

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Hugo and Nebula Award-winner James Patrick Kelly may offer the "Promise of Space," but he delivers so much more. The sixteen stories included in this collection demonstrate the versatility of the author as a visionary and science fiction as a genre. Exploring Directed Intelligence, space opera, and shared sensory perception, he paints vivid pictures of startling futures and fantastic landscapes. And while Kelly pushes the boundaries of technology, his focus remains always on character, giving these speculative tales of loyalty and betrayal, love and desire, the human touch.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Sheila Williams
• The Promise of Space (2013) - short story
• The Chimp of the Popes (2014) - novelette
• Crazy Me (2011) - short story
• Yukui! (2018) - short story
• Don't Stop (2007) - short story
• Surprise Party (2008) - short story
• Oneness: A Triptych (2015) - short story
• Happy Ending 2.0 (2011) - short story
• Declaration (2012) - novelette
• The Biggest (2012) - short story
• Miss Nobody Never Was (2013) - short story
• Someday (2014) - short story
• The Rose Witch (2014) - novelette
• One Sister, Two Sisters, Three (2016) - novelette
• Soulcatcher (2013) - short story
• The Last Judgment (2012) - novella
• An Afterword: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? - essay

Exploring an alternate history of science fiction, this ingenious anthology showcases eighteen brilliant authors leading the way to a new literature of the future. These award-winning stories defy trends, cross genres, and prove that great fiction cannot be categorized.

Two strangely detached astronauts orbit Earth while a third world war rages on. A primatologist's lover suspects her of obsession with one of her simian charges. The horrors of trench warfare dovetail with the theoretical workings of black holes. A dissolving marriage and bitter custody dispute are overshadowed by the arrival of time travelers. An astonishing invention that records the sense of touch is far too dangerous for Thomas Edison to reveal.

Contents:

• Angouleme - (1971) - short story by Thomas M. Disch
• The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas - (1973) - short story by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Ladies and Gentlemen, This Is Your Crisis - (1976) - short story by Kate Wilhelm
• Descent of Man - (1977) - short story by T. C. Boyle
• Human Moments in World War III - (1983) - short story by Don DeLillo
• Homelanding - (1989) - short story by Margaret Atwood
• The Nine Billion Names of God - (1984) - short story by Carter Scholz
• Interlocking Pieces - (1984) - short story by Molly Gloss
• Salvador - (1984) - short story by Lucius Shepard
• Schwarzschild Radius - (1987) - short story by Connie Willis
• Buddha Nostril Bird - (1990) - novelette by John Kessel
• The Ziggurat - (1995) - novella by Gene Wolfe
• The Hardened Criminals - (1996) - novelette by Jonathan Lethem
• Standing Room Only - (1997) - short story by Karen Joy Fowler
• 10¹⁶ to 1 - (1999) - novelette by James Patrick Kelly
• 93990 - (2000) - short story by George Saunders
• The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance - (2003) - novelette by Michael Chabon
• Frankenstein's Daughter - (2003) - short story by Maureen F. McHugh
• The Wizard of West Orange - (2007) - novelette by Steven Millhauser

For thirty years James Patrick Kelly has been writing award-nominated and -winning short fiction, and these thirteen stories of his recent work are of the high quality and cutting style that is synonymous with him.

• In Nebula-winner "Burn" a supposedly idyllic world comes to grip with environment responsibility and environmental terrorists, coupled with the personal decisions that are never clear or easy.
• In "Men Are Trouble," nominated for the Nebula award, "devils" have eliminated men from Earth and "seed" woman for procreation; the story revolves around the search for a missing person and the discovery of an underground that is seeking to reestablish the "way things were."
• In the Hugo nominated "The Best Christmas Ever" mechanicals must keep the last man on Earth happy, and do so by throwing him the best, and possibly last, Christmas ever.
• In the Hugo-nominated, morality tale "Bernardo's House" we meet a high-tech house and artificial woman, controlled by an AI, pining away awaiting the return of Bernardo -- that is, until someone does visit.
• A HAL-like interstellar ship and a colorful group of pilgrims seek new worlds to explore in "The Wreck of the Godspeed," but is the ship's AI acting a bit strange? Is the AI going insane, or is something unique happening?
• The man who killed the last mammoth; will he be remembered as the hero, with "Luck"?
• To what extent will TV programs of the future go to get ratings? Ask the sentient "The Leila Torn Show."
• In "The Dark Side of Town" the problems and temptations of a happy virtual reality versus a dismal real life are examined.
• What would like be like if one had to pass a test before one could become a "Mother"?
• A colony ship's captain is behaving weirdly on "Dividing the Sustain," and the ship needs a fully functional captain. Where is he, and how will he make his appearance?
• The Garden of Eden story is retold from the serpent's view, in "Serpent." What hath God wrought?
• Where is "The Edge of Nowhere" and what is past nowhere?
• The Ice is Singing" in harmony? Does it sing to you?

This collection of Kelly's recent work provides the reader with new insights into the human psyche, as well as some of the best speculative SF fiction available.

Table of Contents

• Foreword: Think Like Jim Kelly - essay by Bob Eggleton
• The Wreck of the Godspeed (2004) - novella
• The Best Christmas Ever (2004) - short story
• Men Are Trouble (2004) - novelette
• Luck (2002) - novelette
• The Dark Side of Town (2004) - short story
• The Leila Torn Show (2006) - short story
• Mother (2003) - short story
• Dividing the Sustain (2007) - novelette
• The Edge of Nowhere (2005) - novelette
• The Ice Is Singing (2003) - short story
• Serpent (2004) - short story
• Bernardo's House (2003) - novelette
• Burn (2005) - novella

Hugo- and SF Chronicle-Award winning, Nebula- and HOMer-nominated Novelette

Intelligent dinosaurs from outer space offer humanity the chance to use their transporter technology to join the galactic culture, but at a terrible price. When a routine transport goes wrong, one man must face the consequences of becoming too much like an alien.

This story was originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1995, and later anthologized in Year's Best SF (1996), The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirteenth Annual Collection (1996), The Best New Science Fiction: 9th Annual Collection (1996), Nebula Awards 31 (1997), The Hard SF Renaissance (2002), The Savage Humanists (2008), The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction (2010), and collected in Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories (1997) and Masters of Science Fiction: James Patrick Kelly (2016).

This first major retrospective collects Kelly's finest short fiction from a 20-year career and includes a dazzling array of work, from hard science fiction and Twilight Zone-inspired fantasies to stark futuristic horror. The grim fable "Pogrom" presents a near-futuristic scenario in which internecine warfare has broken out between the aging boomer generation and a youthful dispossessed proletariat who must support them. The landmark novella "Mr. Boy" is the wildly inventive tale of a genetically stunted 12-year-old who literally lives inside his mother, who has turned herself into a three-quarter-scale model of the Statue of Liberty. "The First Law of Thermodynamics" is a remarkable evocation of the psychedelic sixties-the time of Vietnam, Kent State, and acid rock-in which, like that era itself, nothing is what it appears to be. The now-famous title story, "Think Like a Dinosaur," is a tale of a transporter beam maintained by aliens, through which humanity can visit the stars.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - essay by John Kessel
• Think Like a Dinosaur - (1995) - novelette
• Heroics - (1987) - short story by James Patrick Kelly
• Pogrom - (1991) - short story
• Faith - (1989) - novelette
• Big Guy - (1994) - short story
• Dancing with the Chairs - (1989) - short story
• Rat - (1986) - short story
• The First Law of Thermodynamics - (1996) - short story
• Breakaway, Backdown - (1996) - short story
• Standing in Line with Mister Jimmy - (1991) - novelette
• Crow - (1984) - short story
• Monsters - (1992) - novelette
• Itsy Bitsy Spider - (1997) - short story
• Mr. Boy - (1990) - novella

Hugo-, Nebula-, and Sturgeon-nominated Novelette

A revolutionary young woman and her sentient spaceship have the technology to travel through time. In the aftermath of a space battle they are hurled 20 million years into their future and stranded there. When they find that civilization has all but vanished, they set out to learn why.

This story was originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2001. It was later anthologized in Science Fiction: The Best of 2001 (2002), Year's Best SF 7 (2002), The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection (2002), The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 15th Annual Collection (2002), Nebula Awards Showcase 2003, The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction (2006), and collected in Strange But Not a Stranger (2002) and Masters of Science Fiction: James Patrick Kelly (2016).

An AI car is caught between its ruthless employer and the people she hurt...

Originally published on 26 July 2023, read it for free at Tor.com

Rebelling against her fashion-drug designer father, freelance journalist and troubled clone Wynne Cage covers a data-heist that places her in the rank of a thief. To make matters more complicated, Wynne must also confront the forces of a world with unlimited bio-technological advantages.

Heroines is a collection of 4 stories and 4 poems by author James Patrick Kelly.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Heroines) - essay
• The Cruelest Month - (1983) - short story
• Lepidopteran - (1988) - poem
• Crow - (1984) - short story
• Turning into Animals - (1989) - poem
• The Last - (1985) - short story
• Afterlife - (1989) - poem
• Faith - (1989) - novelette
• Spellbound - poem

This short story originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, June 1988. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixth Annual Collection (1989), edited by Gardner Dozois.

This short story originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, January 1991. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Ninth Annual Collection (1992), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories (1997).

Nebula-nominated Short Story

Mariska thwarts her domineering mother's plans to explore the stars together by going into deep hibernation, only to find her mother waiting for her when she awakens three years later.

Mariska's story continues in "Plus or Minus".

This story was originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2009. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Four (2010), edited by Jonathan Strahan and Nebula Awards Showcase 2011, edited by Kevin J. Anderson. It is included in the collection Masters of Science Fiction: James Patrick Kelly (2016).

Listen to the author read the story at his blog: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Hugo- and Nebula-nominated Novelette

In "Going Deep", Mariska thwarted her domineering mother's plans to explore the stars together by going into deep hibernation, only to find her mother waiting for her when she awakened three years later.

In this sequel story, Mariska jumps ship and joins the sanitation crew of an "asteroid bucket" to further the feud.

This story was first published in Asimov's Science Fiction, December 2010, and later anthologized in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Five (2011).

Listen to a podcast of this story at Escape Pod, or read this story in Escape Pod's Soundproof 9 story collection (PDF).

What you're holding in your hands is part of a science fiction revolution. James Patrick Kelly is much more than an award-winning author. He's an SF visionary. His writing has redefined the cyberpunk genre, with a uniquely edgy, outré style. This book is a literal treasure trove of Kelly's most memorable stories and novellas. Here you'll see classic science fiction blended with New Age technology--and an unparalleled understanding of human psychology.

"Think Like a Dinosaur" takes us on a troubling, sometimes terrifying interstellar journey, as we track a young woman's transformation into an alien life-form, with some unexpected results. "The Last Judgment" is a startlingly original meld of noir and cyberpunk, as a tough private eye gets embroiled in a world dominated by a race of robots. Kelly also adds some murderous extra-terrestrials to the mix. In "Ten To The Sixteenth To One," it's 1962, and a young science fiction fan is shoring up his mundane world with comic books and pulp magazines--until he's visited by a creature that will alter the fate of the human race. "Daemon" is a piece of first-person fiction, in which Kelly himself is the lead character, attending a book signing and confronted by a fan from Hell. In "Going Deep," Kelly explores teen-age rebellion in outer space, with a compelling, complex, and cloned heroine whose talent for mind-melds makes texting look antiquated. "Mr. Boy" is Peter Cage, who's been surgically altered to remain forever young. Ever wish you were twelve years old again? Eternal youth isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Unplug your mobile devices and plug into James Patrick Kelly's vision of our future. Your head will never be the same again.

James Patrick Kelly has won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards; his fiction has been translated into twenty-two languages. He writes a column on the internet for Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and is on the faculty of the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction by Robert Reed
• Think Like a Dinosaur - (1995)
• Crow - (1984)
• St Theresa of the Aliens - (1984)
• Rat - (1986)
• Daemon - (1987)
• Lovestory - (1998)
• Itsy Bitsy Spider - (1997)
• 10¹⁶ to 1 - (1999)
• Feel the Zaz - (2000)
• Undone - (2001)
• The Pyramid of Amirah - (2002)
• Men Are Trouble - (2004)
• The Wreck of the Godspeed - (2004)
• The Last Judgment - (2012)
• Going Deep - (2009)
• Death Therapy - (1978)
• Homo Neuter - (1981)
• The Biggest - (2012)
• Solstice - (1985)
• Afterword by John Pelan

The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Selected by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America®. The Nebula Awards Showcase volumes have been published annually since 1966, reprinting the winning and nominated stories in the Nebula Awards, voted on by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The editors selected by SFWA's anthology committee (chaired by Mike Resnick) are John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly, both highly acclaimed not only for their own award-winning fiction but also as coeditors of three anthologies: Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology, Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology, and The Secret History of Science Fiction. Stories and excerpts by Harlan Ellison™, Kij Johnson, Chris Barzak, Eric James Stone, Rachel Swirsky, Geoff Landis, Shweta Narayan, Adam Troy-Castro, James Tiptree Jr., Aliette de Bodard, Amal El-Mohtar, Kendall Evans and Samantha Henderson, Howard Hendrix, Ann K. Schwader, Connie Willis, Terry Pratchett, and more.

Table of Contents:

• In Which Your Editors Consider the Nebula Awards of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow - essay by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel
• Ponies - (2010) - shortstory by Kij Johnson
• The Sultan of the Clouds - shortfiction by Geoffrey A. Landis
• Map of Seventeen - (2010) - novelette by Christopher Barzak
• And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side - (1972) - shortstory by James Tiptree, Jr.
• In the Astronaut Asylum - (2009) - poem by Samantha Henderson and Kendall Evans
• Pishaach - (2010) - shortfiction by Shweta Narayan
• Excerpt from Blackout/All Clear - [Blackout (Connie Willis)] - shortfiction by Connie Willis
• Bumbershoot - poem by Howard V. Hendrix
• Arvies - shortfiction by Adam-Troy Castro
• How Interesting: a Tiny Man - (2010) - shortfiction by Harlan Ellison
• The Jaguar House, in Shadow - (2010) - novelette by Aliette de Bodard
• The Green Book - (2010) - shortstory by Amal El-Mohtar
• That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made - (2010) - novelette by Eric James Stone
• Excerpt From I Shall Wear Midnight - shortfiction by Terry Pratchett
• To Theia - (2009) - poem by Ann K. Schwader
• The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window - (2010) - novella by Rachel Swirsky
• 2011 Nebula Awards Nominees and Honorees - essay by uncredited
• Past Nebula Winners - essay by uncredited
• About the Cover (Nebula Awards Showcase 2012) - essay by uncredited
• About the Editors (Nebula Awards Showcase 2012) - essay by uncredited

James Patrick Kelly is known for finding the future unnervingly nearby, and he enters with his deep empathy and dry humor at the ready. A longtime favorite of SF readers is at the top of his game here. In the title story, a college acid trip becomes a window into an unexpected and apparently unavoidable future. In "Itsy Bitsy Spider" a disappointed woman's robotic girlhood takes her by the hand and leads her back to the destiny that eluded her. Two short plays render alien invasion terrifyingly mundane and death annoyingly impermanent. "The Best Christmas Ever" is celebrated by sims and droids instead of the usual jolly elves. Our Outspoken Interview and a bibliography round out this long-awaited new collection.

Contents:

• 1 - Someone Else's Problem - short story
• 9 - Itsy Bitsy Spider - (1997) - short story
• 25 - "Encounter with a Gadget Guy" - interview of James Patrick Kelly - interview by Terry Bisson
• 39 - The First Law of Thermodynamics - (1996) - short story
• 67 - Donut Hole - short story
• 75 - Who Owns Cyberpunk? - (2013) - essay
• 93 - The Best Christmas Ever - (2004) - short story