CHAPTER I THE United Schools Club, or the Schools United as it is sometimes called, has so large a membership that the subscriptions, though low, are able to provide a club-house in the West End that has a good…Read more
SF & Fantasy
SELECTION FROM
Three (Legends of the Duskwalker Series #1)
Jay Posey
They separated, and Cass half-stumbled her way into the hidden room, with Wren trailing close behind. Inside, the small interior space was packed with the delicate machinery of a chemist: vials, thin flexiglass tubes, pristine stainless surfaces. An overhead…Read more
SELECTION FROM
Seeds of Earth
Michael Cobley
It was a contract survey ship called Segmenter that found the planet Darien while studying the perilous gulfs of the Huvuun Deepzone. Through tangled swirls and curtains of interstellar dust and debris, Segmenter had painstakingly (and clandestinely) plotted and…Read more
SELECTION FROM
Queen of the Dark Things: A Novel
C. Robert Cargill
AN EXCERPT FROM THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE BY MARTIN MACK The air was thick, muggy, and dank with downtown sweat. If you were paying attention, you could feel something in the air. But like a sudden summer storm, few saw it…Read more
INTRODUCTION: A BLUEPRINT FOR BETTER DREAMS Ed Finn and Kathryn Cramer WELCOME TO PROJECT HIEROGLYPH, founded by Neal Stephenson and produced by Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination. Our purpose here is to rekindle grand technological ambitions…Read more
The Hairy Hog biker bar stood on an acre and a half of scrub brush, right off Highway 40. The beer was cold, the pool table fixed and the juke box jinxed to play two-for-one Lynyrd Skynyrd. Not that we'd…Read more
SELECTION FROM
The Book Eaters
Sunyi Dean
SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO “What do you fear, lady?” he asked. “A cage,” she said. “To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.” —J. R.…Read more
SELECTION FROM
The Book Eaters
Sunyi Dean
PRESENT DAY But where did the book eaters come from? There is no evidence to suggest they are a mutant strain of evolution at work, and humanity took thousands of years to develop paper-making technology. The book eaters themselves tell…Read more
SELECTION FROM
Ninefox Gambit (Machineries of Empire Series #1)
Yoon Ha Lee
The room Cheris was provided with was decorated with vases filled with the bones of small animals wired into the shapes of flowers. Cheris was wondering just what else the Nirai did when he got bored, but she knew…Read more