Андромеда Романо-Лакс0.0 2029: In Japan, a historically mono-cultural nation, childbirth rates are at a critical low and the elderly are living increasingly long lives. This population crisis has precipitated a mass immigration of foreign medical workers from all over Asia—as well as the development of refined artificial intelligence to step in where humans fall short. In Tokyo, Angelica Navarro, a Filipina nurse who has been working in Japan for the last five years, is the caretaker for Sayoko Itou, an intensely private woman about to turn 100 years old. Angelica is a dedicated nurse, working night and day to keep her paperwork in order, obey the strict labor laws for foreign nationals, study for her ongoing proficiency exams, and most of all keep her demanding client happy. But one day Sayoko receives a present from her son: a cutting-edge robot caretaker that will educate itself to anticipate Sayoko’s every need. Angelica wonders if she is about to be forced out of her much-needed job by an inanimate object—one with a preternatural ability to uncover the most deeply buried secrets of the humans around it. While Angelica is fighting back against the AI with all of her resources, Sayoko is becoming more and more attached to the machine. The old woman is hiding many secrets of her own—and maybe now she’s too old to want to keep them anymore.
Rachel Hartman3.0 In the medieval kingdom of Goredd, women are expected to be ladies, men are their protectors, and dragons get to be whomever they want. Tess, stubbornly, is a troublemaker. You can't make a scene at your sister's wedding and break a relative's nose with one punch (no matter how pompous he is) and not suffer the consequences. As her family plans to send her to a nunnery, Tess yanks on her boots and sets out on a journey across the Southlands, alone and pretending to be a boy.
Where Tess is headed is a mystery, even to her. So when she runs into an old friend, it's a stroke of luck. This friend is a quigutl--a subspecies of dragon--who gives her both a purpose and protection on the road. But Tess is guarding a troubling secret. Her tumultuous past is a heavy burden to carry, and the memories she's tried to forget threaten to expose her to the world in more ways than one.
Дэвид Демчук0.0 Three neighboring villages on the Ukrainian/Romanian border are the final refuge for the last of the mythical creatures of Eastern Europe. Now, on the eve of the war that may eradicate their kind—and with the ruthless Night Police descending upon their sanctuary—they tell their stories and confront their destinies.
Cherie Dimaline4.0 In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America's Indigenous people, and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow, and dreams, means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a fifteen-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones and take refuge from the "recruiters" who seek them out to bring them to the marrow-stealing "factories."
Джефф Райман0.0 Geoff Ryman writes about the other and leaves us dissected in the process. His stories are set in recognizable places—London, Cambodia, tomorrow—and feature men and women caught in recognizable situations (or technologies) and not sure which way to turn. They, we, should obviously choose what's right. But what if that's difficult? What will we do? What we should, or . . . ?
Paradise Tales builds on the success of his most recent novel, The King's Last Song, and on the three Cambodian stories included here, "The Last Ten Years of the Hero Kai," "Blocked," and the exceedingly-popular "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter." Paradise Tales includes stories selected from the many periods of Ryman’s career including “Birth Days,” “Omnisexual,” “The Film-makers of Mars,” and a new story, “K is for Kosovo (or, Massimo’s Career).”
To complement this first full-length short story collection, Small Beer Press is reprinting Ryman's backlist: Was, The Child Garden, and a book of four novellas, The Unconquered Countries, with new introductions to continue to build the readership of one of the most fascinating writers exploring the edges of being, gender, science, and fiction.
Geoff Ryman is the author of the novels The King's Last Song, The Child Garden, Air (a Clarke and Tiptree Award winner), and The Unconquered Country (a World Fantasy Award winner). Canadian by birth, he has lived in Cambodia and Brazil and now teaches creative writing at the University of Manchester in England.
Кэтрин Остин0.0 It's the middle of the twenty-first century and the elite children of New Middletown are lined up to receive a treatment that turns them into obedient, well-mannered citizens. Maxwell Connors, a fifteen-year-old prankster, misfit and graffiti artist, observes the changes with growing concern, especially when his younger sister, Ally, is targeted. Max and his best friend, Dallas, escape the treatment, but must pretend to be "zombies" while they watch their freedoms and hopes decay. When Max's family decides to take Dallas with them into the unknown world beyond New Middletown's borders, Max's creativity becomes an unexpected bonus rather than a liability.
Гай Гэвриел Кей4.3 Двадцать лет назад закончилась очередная война между Империей Катай и державой тагуров. Были подписаны мирные соглашения, обе стороны обменялись богатыми дарами, а одна из дочерей Сына Неба стала женой императора Тагура. Но что до этого сотне тысяч павших воинов обеих армий, тела которых остались лежать на берегах затерянного в горах на границе обеих империй озера Куала Нор? Сто тысяч не нашедших покоя без достойного погребения душ, одержимых скорбью, яростью и тоской... Прославленный катайский генерал Шень Гао считал эту бойню бессмысленной. И вот, после его смерти, второй сын генерала Тай, дабы почтить память отца, удаляется в добровольное двухлетнее отшельничество на поле давней битвы, дабы предать земле останки погибших — и своих, и чужих. За свой труд он не ждет ни благодарностей, ни почестей, ни наград. Но так уж устроен мир под сенью девяти небес: в самый неожиданный момент он может поднести тебе дары или отраву в драгоценной чаше...
Пол Гленнон0.0 With its spirit of adventure, Bookweirder courts new readers and keeps Malcolm and Norman's devoted fans captivated.
Norman Jespers-Vilnius is stuck in the sleepy British countryside with his parents and ultra-irritating sister. Things couldn't be duller — until Norman finds himself in the middle of the adventure story he discovered in the house's dusty library. Soon Norman is making strange new allies and stranger new enemies as struggles to rescue his best friend Malcolm the Prince of Stoats from another book gone wrong. Can Norman save Malcolm and steer the novel back on track? Can he hide his adventures in bookweird from his suspicious mother and the meddlesome Fuchs? Before we find out, we follow Norman on a chilling trip to 19th-century Paris, a fiery medieval adventure and, finally, a mission to discover the family secret at the heart of bookweird.
А.М. Делламоника0.0 Indigo Springs is a sleepy town where things seem pretty normal . . . until Astrid's father dies and she moves into his house. She discovers that for many years her father had been accessing the magic that flowed, literally, in a blue stream beneath the earth, leaking into his house. When she starts to use the liquid "vitagua" to enchant everyday items, the results seem innocent enough: a "'chanted" watch becomes a charm that means you're always in the right place at the right time; a "'chanted" pendant enables the wearer to convince anyone of anything . . .
But as events in Indigo Springs unfold and the true potential of vitagua is revealed, Astrid and her friends unwittingly embark on a journey fraught with power, change, and a future too devastating to contemplate. Friends become enemies and enemies become friends as Astrid discovers secrets from her shrouded childhood that will lead her to a destiny stranger than she could have imagined . . .
Hiromi Goto0.0 Melanie Tamaki is human—but her parents aren’t. They are from Half World, a Limbo between our world and the afterlife, and her father is still there. When her mother disappears, Melanie must follow her to Half World—and neither of them may return alive.
Эндрю Дэвидсон4.0 Семьсот лет назад при загадочных обстоятельствах погиб молодой наемник, похитивший из уединенного монастыря красавицу монахиню… Средневековая легенда? Нет. Реальное преступление, которое самым причудливым образом переплетается с событиями дня сегодняшнего. Знаменитого актера, снимающегося в эротических фильмах, настигает странное видение: люди в средневековой одежде пускают в него горящие стрелы. От неожиданности и ужаса он теряет управление машиной и едва не гибнет в автокатастрофе. Вскоре в больницу к нему приходит таинственная женщина — Марианн Энджел, и она утверждает, что является… реинкарнацией той самой монахини. Марианн уверяет — он умрет, если не узнает, что же все-таки произошло тогда, семьсот лет назад…
Кори Доктороу3.9 "Младшие братья" - против всемогущего Старшего Брата. Семнадцатилетний хакер и его команда - против Системы. Они - короли Сети, они уверены, что могут все.
Но Система следит за каждым из нас...
И каждый из нас в одночасье может попасть в ее когти.
Свобода давно уже стала мифом. Люди - пешки в Большой игре правительств и спецслужб.
И каждому, кто хочет нанести Системе ответный удар, надо быть не только отчаянно смелым, но и очень, очень умным...
Nalo Hopkinson0.0 First it's her mother's missing gold brooch. Then, a blue and white dish she hasn't seen in years. Followed by an entire grove of cashew trees.
When objects begin appearing out of nowhere, Calamity knows that the special gift she has not felt since childhood has returned-her ability to find lost things. Calamity, a woman as contrary as the tides around her Caribbean island home, is confronting two of life's biggest dramas. First is the death of her father, who raised her alone until a pregnant Calamity rejected him when she was sixteen years old. The second drama: she's starting menopause. Now when she has a hot flash and feels a tingling in her hands, she knows it's a lost object calling to her.
Then she finds something unexpected: a four-year-old boy washes up on the shore, his dreadlocked hair matted with shells. Calamity decides to take the orphaned child into her care, which brings unexpected upheaval into her life and further strains her relationship with her adult daughter. Fostering this child will force her to confront all the memories of her own childhood-and the disappearance of her mother so many years before.
Джоан Пру0.0 “Stan,” I said, and I said it kind of loud so of course he had to look up. “Tomorrow morning: 8:37. The red van with the out-of-state plates? You go head to head. You lose. You die.” After freakishly foretelling the death of a friend, Luke Hunter becomes big news in Stokum, his rank little pinprick of a hometown. Terrified, but pretending not to be, Luke holds everyone—the local media, his buddy Fang, the Polish widow next door—at arm’s length as he lurches through a personal minefield studded with previously unconsidered existential ponderings, Christian fundamentalists, a missing teen’s frantic mother, and a dream girl who isn’t his.
Hormonal and funny, exhilarating and wise, Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet slyly explores the need to belong, the isolation of youth, and the powerful brew of fear and truth, music and noise, that plays inside us all.
Mark Frutkin0.0 1682 Cremona, Italy. With manservant, insolent dwarf Omero, priest Fabrizio Cambiati, a priest climbs town clocktower to await the return of a comet after 76 years. His telescope sees commedia dell’arte players in town square and a Jesuit in a carriage. 1758 same Jesuit Michele Archenti is a Devil’s Advocate to judge sainthood of same Fabrizio 76 years later!
Холли Филлипс0.0 “The essential Holly Phillips story begins like this: In a world that felt too little, there lived a girl who saw too much.”—Sean Stewart
In the Palace of Repose is a collection of nine such stories, ranging from the delightfully fantastic "In the Palace of Repose," to the delicately horrific "One of the Hungry Ones," to the hauntingly literary "The Other Grace." Here indeed are young women, and young men, who have seen too much, and who have been abandoned to wrestle alone with the strange, the wonderful, the terrifying. Some triumph, some tragically fail. Most struggle on beyond the boundaries of their stories, carrying their wonders and horrors into their lives, into their worlds-worlds, and lives, startlingly like our own.
Geoff Ryman3.0 As pervasive technology ensures the rapid spread of pop culture and information access, few corners of the planet remain untouched. One of those few is Kizuldah, Karzistan - a tiny rice-farming village, predominantly Chinese Buddhist but with a strong Muslim presence, among whom sharply intelligent though illiterate Mae Chung, a self-styled fashion expert guiding the village women in dress, make-up and hairstyling, is an informal leader.
When the UN decides to test the radical new technology Air, Mae is boiling laundry and chatting with elderly Mrs Tung. The massive surge of Air energy swamps them, and when the test is finished, Mrs Tung is dead, and Mae has absorbed her 90 years of memories. Rocked by the unexpected deaths and disorientation, the UN delays fully implementing Air, but Mae sees at once that her way of life is ending. Half-mad, struggling with information overload, the resentment of much of the village, and a complex family situation, she works fiercely to learn what she needs to ride the tiger of change.
Cory Doctorow5.0 Free. In the title tale, narrator James 14 returns home with Mama to 1898 village when his father Les, time-traveller Ambassador to aliens, vanishes from 1975 jet-pack city. When the "mothaship" takes the anointed few into the brave new world, those left behind are angry. "0wnz0red" asks - what happens when hackers hack the human body?
1 Craphound
2 A place so foreign
3 All day sucker
4 To market, to market
5 Return to Pleasure Island
6 Shadow of the mothaship
7 Home again, home again
8 The super man and the bugout
9 Ownz0red
Nalo Hopkinson0.0 A new collection of short stories from Hopkinson, including "Greedy Choke Puppy," which Africana.com called "a cleverly crafted West Indian story featuring the appearance of both the soucouyant (vampire) & lagahoo (werewolf)," "Ganger (Ball Lightning)," praised by the Washington Post Book World as written in "prose [that] is vivid & immediate," this collection reveals Hopkinson's breadth & accomplishments as a storyteller.
Margaret Sweatman0.0 When Alice Lay Down with Peter, Margaret Sweatman's third novel, is an entirely original history of the Canadian Prairies from the early years of buffalo hunting and rebellion through to 1970. Blondie, the wry narrator, recounts the story of four feisty women: her mother, Alice; Blondie herself; her stunningly beautiful daughter, Helen; and her artist granddaughter, Dianna. In her 109 years, Blondie has seen it all, from the hanging of Louis Riel to Helen's death in the Spanish Civil War.
Assorted husbands, a banker, a monk, a communist, and several ghosts also make appearances, lending this marvellous literary confection set in Southern Manitoba's Red River Valley a magical, eccentric atmosphere. Recurring floods and lightning bolts at the moment of conception add to the rollicking mix, which Sweatman narrates with rare skill and humour: "Eli looked at the corn as a Zen Buddhist would examine a screwdriver." She delights in the way words flood their banks and find new channels through the flatlands: "My mother's laughter, those nine months, came from the place where happiness and a nearly intolerable ache live together." The beauty of her language never wavers. It is consistently inventive and, with the strong story, lifts this novel to another level. Highly recommended. --Mark Frutkin
Шон Стюарт0.0 Galveston had been baptized twice. Once by water in the fall of 1990. Again by magic during Mardi Gras, 2004. Creatures were born of survivors’ joy and sufferers’ pain: scorpions the size of dogs, the Crying Clown, the Widow who ate her victims. And the island of Galveston would forever be divided—between the real city and a Galveston locked in a constant Carnival, an endless Mardi Gras.
Now it is twenty years later. The Mardi Gras continues. The revellers dance on, the singing never stops, and of the thousands who wander in, only a handful ever return to the real world…
On this particular night, Sloane Gardner wanders in. In part, to see her stepfather, Momus, the leader of the carnival city. In part, to save her mother. “I just can’t stand to see her die,” she says. But her choice of words is unfortunate. Momus, with his twisted sense of humor, makes sure she misses everything. For four days Sloane is swallowed in dance, in song—blinded by Mardi Gras. And what happens to the people on the other side while she is gone can never be changed…
