Showing results for "Science" in Science Fiction & Fantasy

Known as ‘The Father of Science Fiction’, Herbert George Wells’ writing career spanned over 60 years. He was a writer of novels, short stories, nonfiction books and articles. As a young man, Wells won a scholarship to the Normal School of Science in London, sparking his infamous vocation as a science fiction writer. Introduced by film director and H. G. Wells fanboy Eli Roth, this collection features unabridged recordings of the novels performed by Hugh Bonneville, Jason Isaacs, Sophie Okonedo, David Tennant and Alexander Vlahos.

The best science fiction scrutinizes our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Neil Clarke has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year's writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome "sensawunda" that the genre has to offer.

For many billions of years, humans - having conquered the curse of aging - spread throughout the entire Milky Way. They are able to live all their dreams, but to their great disappointment, no other intelligent species has ever been encountered. Now, humanity itself is on the brink of extinction because the universe is dying a protracted yet inevitable death. 

THE DEAD WEEP. THE DEAD RUN. THE DEAD HUNT. Humanity survived the first Weeping Plague only because a storm grounded flights and trapped ships in Ireland's harbours. The apocalypse was quarantined—for now. One breach could mean extinction. Luck did not save the world, it just bought it time. On the Aran Islands, Samantha Prendergast has the boat, the skill and the nerve to slip through the blockade and escape Ireland's doom—but her partner refuses to abandon others. After witnessing the savage fall of Galway City, Samantha knows what the spreading sound of weeping means.

Long before movies like Minority Report and The Matrix, the world's writers have been recording the future as it might exist - and as it turns out, they were right. This bizarre anthology collects the most stunning predictions and imagined inventions here for the first time. Visions of Tomorrow includes "The Land Iron Clads" by H. G. Wells, who described a military tank in 1903 - long before it was ever a possibility; "The Yesterday House" by Fritz Leiber, who wrote about cloned humans; and more.

In the 'fantasy' universe of the phenomenally bestselling Discworld series, everything runs on magic and common sense. The world is flat and million-to-one chances happen nine times out of ten. Our world seems different - it runs on rules, often rather strange ones. Science is our way of finding...

In an alternate America, JFK survived—and didn’t just win the Space Race. He never stopped. Now it’s 1972, and JFK’s ever-expanding space empire is ripping holes in space-time itself—erasing people, places, and entire histories from existence. The only ones who might be able to stop him? Nancy Kranick (Emmy nominee Natasha Lyonne), a former moon nurse lying low in Hoboken, New Jersey… and Richard Nixon, tangled in a conspiracy so bizarre it stretches from the Moon to a Shakey’s Pizza to a parallel-universe Watergate.

One elven village, saved. One...business rival, found? It seems a restaurant named the Bear's Lounge (complete with bear-themed decor) has opened in the capital, muscling in on Yuna's brand! Yuna heads straight to the capital to investigate this copybear—and promptly gets pulled into a school festival with Fina, Shuri, and Noa. Can the Bloody Bear never know a moment's peace?

In this final installment of Apocalypse Regression, Nick refuses to let history repeat itself with the destruction of earth. This time, he plans to end the threat once and for all by waging war against millions of dragonkin, thousands of dragons, and the Dragon Emperor, a being capable of destroying worlds. If Nick fails, both Earth and the Black Witch’s world will fall, consumed by the same dragon led annihilation. Nick’s final strategy hinges on acquiring artifacts that will eliminate the dragon’s innate advantages.

The gods don't play dice with the universe; they play Board & Conquest. Wepwawet, young god of wolves and scouts, is given a task to prove himself worthy of becoming a major god: form a new pantheon with other junior deities, manage a young civilization on a newborn world, and train mortal Champions to resist an inevitable Titan Incursion. Being saddled with an ice-covered barbarian village besieged from all sides isn’t ideal, but it's now his duty to transform this ragtag bunch of misfits into the most formidable force the world of Elphion has ever seen.

Joe has done the impossible: designing a ritual that uses all five of his core class skills, etching the final design into his body, mana, and soul. Now he only needs one last push to make the synthetic enhancement permanent. But replacing his shattered channels came at a price. First, a tribulation that pits his hunger for power against the stability he created—failure means the next attempt will be a hundred times harder.

People are growing ill; eyes changing color, burning up with a fever so fierce that it causes them to go crazy, attacking those around them, spreading the infection like wildfire. People are trying to escape the unknown sickness, but there is nowhere to run… nowhere to hide… The only chance for the survival of the human race is to stay and fight. However, they're unaware of what they're fighting. What they're up against is much greater than anything they could ever imagine. This is just the beginning... Could this be the end of humanity?

Forty years ago, Walt Kelly's comic strip character Pogo famously intoned: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Now, as the evidence for climate change becomes overwhelming, we learn the hard reality behind that witticism. The possible destruction, and certain transformation, of the ecosphere has been brought about by our own activities. What will our new world look like? How will we - can we - adapt? The clash of a rapidly changing environment with earth's self-styled ruling species, humans, provides ample creative fodder for this riveting anthology of original science fiction.

In a city of sunshine and secrets, the shadows belong to the animals. In a solar-powered future, humans live in luxury, served by unseen Little Helpers – artificially enhanced animals who maintain their perfect green cities. The animals’ number one rule: ‘do not bother the humans’. Yet...

When an EMP wipes out power, Renee must protect her daughter and their wildlife preserve from strangers, unrest, and the growing fear that the collapse has begun. Survival means guarding family, land, and trust before the quiet countryside becomes their prison.

The last thing Sabhana expected was a resistance to magic. Her village is content and more than willing to bend at the knee to the wrong men—not her though. Since she was a child, her grandfather told her she would be the one to unearth lost magic and hidden dragons, and she believed him. It was the whole reason she surfed the shifting desert… But that was then. Now Sabhana is twenty-seven and her grandfather, her guiding star, is dead. A year has passed since the shifting desert put up her sandy wall to save Sabhana, though Sabhana doesn't see it that way, not yet.

Science is always telling stories. Whether in the creation myths of evolution or the Big Bang, or in the eureka moments of science history, narrative just as much as metaphor is a key tool in the scientist's surprisingly literary toolkit. In this unique anthology, authors have collaborated with leading scientists, to bounce literary, human narratives against purely theoretical ones, alloying together real stories with abstract ones, to produce truly extraordinary results.

Drew Hallas was an ordinary warehouse worker. Then he woke up naked on a ritual altar in another world and accidentally absorbed four centuries of spatial magic that was meant for someone else. Now he can fold space, teleport, and reshape the landscape with a thought — and the power is growing every day.

Ethan is a ranger, sworn to protect his walled settlement from the dangers of his ravaged wasteland planet. One night, a mysterious light thunders overhead and Ethan investigates, discovering a crashed spacecraft and two soldiers from a moon base he didn’t even know existed. Captain Salus and Commander Kurren have risked everything to find a Planetsider to help save their people. Ethan needs them to answer questions that have haunted him all his life – what happened to his world and why?

The relationship between sleep and storytelling is an ancient one. For centuries sleep has provided writers with a magical ingredient, a passage of time during which great changes miraculously occur, an Orpheus-like voyage through the subconscious daubed with the fantastic. But over the last 10 years, our scientific understanding of sleep has been revolutionised. No longer is sleep viewed as a time of simple rest and recuperation. Instead it is proving to be an intensely dynamic period of brain activity.