Literary Science Fiction

‘Ted Chiang is one of the most exciting writers in science fiction . . . These parables are filled with hope and humanism.’ – The Daily Telegraph From the acclaimed author of Stories of Your Life and Others – the basis for the Academy Award-winning film Arrival – comes a groundbreaking...

In this Very Short Introduction, David Seed doesn't offer a history of science fiction, but instead attempts to tie examples of science fiction to different historical moments, in order to demonstrate how science fiction has evolved over time, especially the emergence of science fiction as a popular genre in the 20th century. Seed looks not only at literature, but also at drama and poetry, as well as film. Examining recurrent themes in science fiction, he looks at voyages into space, the concept of the alien and alternative social identities....

Science fiction and fantasy comprise some of the great works of the human imagination—and some of the most abhorrent. This is your Politically Incorrect Guide® to a literary tradition that is a key to understanding the modern world.

Four sci-fi short stories where you'll find good computers, people who regret their past, and an explanation for something you're familiar with.

Watch out - the Earth just fell into a dark sun's orbit! Or maybe you'd rather visit a theme park called Hell? These are just two of the strange and unnerving tales you'll find in this collection of great science fiction and fantasy stories.

First contact with a mysterious race of aliens reveals an unusual request; a family's pet dog comes to grips with the newly bestowed gift of human-like intelligence; a poet, in danger and alone on a distant world, makes unlikely allies; hundreds of years in the future, a famous hermit lives in the sea above the now-underwater Harvard University; former friends navigate unsteady peace between human refugees and the technologically superior race that saved them; in a future where human life can be infinitely extended through cybertronic rebirth, one woman declines immortality. 

The bastard offspring of They Live and The Day the Earth Stood Still, as told by Jean Paul Sartre. Shape-changing aliens may have landed on the White House lawn and subsequently integrated into human society, but humanity is still full of self-centered and self-absorbed individuals. Laura's just scraping by on her art teacher's salary. Donald, a best-selling author and UFOlogist who provided counseling to abductees, has tried to distance himself from the saucer landings.

The best of the year's science fiction and fantasy stories as selected by the multiple award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan. Distant worlds, time travel, epic adventure, unseen wonders, and much more! The best, most original and brightest science fiction and fantasy stories from around the globe from the past 12 months are brought together in one collection by multiple award winning editor Jonathan Strahan.

Keeping up-to-date with the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge science fiction requires sifting through countless magazines, e-zines, websites, blogs, original anthologies, single-author collections, and more - a task accomplishable by only the most determined and voracious readers. For everyone else, Night Shade Books is proud to introduce the latest volume of The Best Science Fiction of the Year, collecting the finest that the genre has to offer, from the biggest names in the field to the most exciting new writers.

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 3, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 27 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2017. 

Incredible Science Fiction: Amazing Tales from the 50's and Beyond, Volume Two collates a collection of some of the very best science-fiction stories published in the '50s together. All these stories (with the exception of The Anatomy of Fear) are now in the public domain and were original published in various science-fiction magazines that were very popular in the 1950s. This is a lovingly curated collection of some of the very best stories published during this time. This collection includes a further story from the Hugo Award-nominated Rog Phillips.

A colony survives among the icy rings of a planet, hiding from alien robots determined to destroy them … at a remote site on the edge of the Arctic Circle, a group of scientists, engineers, and physicians gather to gamble humanity’s future on one last-ditch experiment … a man who can’t feel pain has been bioengineered to be a killing machine, but he refuses to give in to his fate … a man is contacted by three future versions of himself, each trying to save their world from destruction. 

With The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Six, award-winning editor Neil Clarke provides a year-in-review and 33 of the best stories published by both new and established authors in 2020. 

Science fiction is a portal that opens doors onto futures too rich and strange to imagine. Fantasy takes us through doorways of magic and wonder. For more than a decade award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan has sifted through tens of thousands of stories to select the best, the most interesting, the most engaging science fiction and fantasy to thrill and delight readers. 

Whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without capitalism, we are producing speculative fiction. Organizers and activists envision and try to create such worlds all the time. Walidah Imarisha and adrienne maree brown have brought 20 of them together in the first anthology of short stories to explore the connections between radical speculative fiction and movements for social change.

“We speak of a mother’s love, but we forget her power.” Civilization has come to the alien, sunless planet its inhabitants call Eden. Just a few generations ago, the planet’s five hundred inhabitants huddled together in the light and warmth of the Forest’s lantern trees, afraid to...

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by the acclaimed comedian and actor Kevin Eldon (star of It's Kevin, Alan Partidge, Big Train, Brass Eye and Hot Fuzz) supported by Bettrys Jones, Joe Jameson and Rory Alexander. This definitive recording includes an introduction by...

Jonathan Strahan, the award-winning and much lauded editor of many of genre's best known anthologies, is back with his 11th volume in this fascinating series, featuring the best science fiction and fantasy. With established names and new talent, this diverse and ground-breaking collection will take the listener to the outer reaches of space and the inner realms of humanity with stories of fantastical worlds and worlds that may still come to pass.

Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author and guest editor Rebecca Roanhorse and series editor John Joseph Adams select twenty pieces that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year and explore the ever-expanding and changing world of SFF today. Today’s readers...

After a stunning victory at the Merc Guild shipyard of Golara, the leaders of the Four Horsemen mercenary units of Earth have decided it’s time to take back the colonies the Merc Guild has captured, and the Horsemen split up to liberate them. While the Merc Guild still has humanity outnumbered, Alexis Cromwell, the leader of the Winged Hussars, has incorporated the ships captured in Golara into her fleet, and she hopes the Humans can achieve local superiority across four systems with her new battleships and her Egleesius cruisers.