Introduction: The Killing of Worlds (Succession #2) The immortal Emperor can grant a form of eternal life-after-death, creating an elite known as the Risen, and so has ruled the eighty worlds unchallenged for sixteen hundred years. The only thing he fears are the Rix, machine-augmented humans who worship AI compound minds. They are dedicated to replacing his prolonged rule with an eternal cybernetic dynasty of their own. Brilliant tactician Captain Laurent Zai of the Imperial Frigate Lynx faces a suicidView Details>

Introduction: Deep within Russia, would-renowned scientist Pyotor Shapirov lies in a coma. Locked within his brain rests the key to the greatest scientific advance in the world's history. Only one scientist can hope to locate this secret&mdashDr. Albert Jonas Morrison, an American. Morrison's mission: to be miniaturized to molecular size along with a team of four Soviet scientists, travel in a specially designed submarine to the dying Shapirov's brain, and tap the secrets held there. Morrison and hisView Details>

Introduction: DOOMED PLANET They called him 'Crazy Rik' - but only he knew that the planet was doomed with all its people. The only key to the vital information that could save it was locked in the subconscious memory of this strange, child-minded man...a memory obliterated by a psychic probe!View Details>

Introduction: Contents: · I Just Make Them Up, See! · Rejection Slips · Profession · The Feeling of Power · The Dying Night · I’m in Marsport Without Hilda · The Gentle Vultures · All the Troubles of the World · Spell My Name with an S · The Last Question · The Ugly Little Boy [“Lastborn”]View Details>

Introduction: Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection by Isaac Asimov, Orson Scott Card (Introduction) Gold is the final and crowning achievement of the fifty-year career of science fiction's transcendent genius, the world-famous author who defined the field of science fiction for its practitioners, its millions of readers, and the world at large. The first section contains stories that range from the humorous to the profound, at the heart of which is the title story, "Gold," a moving and View Details>

Introduction: Inferno (Isaac Asimov's Caliban #2) When a key politician is murdered, suspicion falls on Caliban...the only robot without guilt or conscience, with no need to obey or respect humanity... a robot without the Three Laws.But the stakes go deeper than one man's life. Caliban is challenging long-held ideas of a robot's place in society. Will he lead his New Law robots in a rebellion that threatens all of humanity?View Details>

Introduction: Pebble in the Sky (Galactic Empire #3) One moment Joseph Schwartz is a happily retired tailor in Chicago, 1949. The next he's a helpless stranger on Earth during the heyday of the first Galactic Empire. Earth, as he soon learns, is a backwater, just a "pebble in the sky", despised by all the other 200 million planets of the Empire because its people dare to claim it's the original home of man. And Earth is poor, with great areas of radioactivity ruining much of its soil—so poView Details>

Introduction: Perelandra (Space Trilogy #2) The second novel in Lewis's science fiction trilogy tells of Dr Ransom's voyage to the planet of Perelandra (Venus). Dr Ransom is sent by the Elida to Perelandra (Venus) to battle against evil incarnate and preserve a second Eden from the evil forces present in the possessed body of his enemy, Weston. Through these works, Lewis explores issues of good and evil, and his remarkable and vividly imaginative descriptions of other worlds cements hiView Details>

Introduction: Clementine (The Clockwork Century #1.1) Maria Isabella Boyd’s success as a Confederate spy has made her too famous for further espionage work, and now her employment options are slim. Exiled, widowed, and on the brink of poverty…she reluctantly goes to work for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in Chicago. Adding insult to injury, her first big assignment is commissioned by the Union Army. In short, a federally sponsored transport dirigible is being violently pursued across the RockiView Details>

Introduction: The Inexplicables (The Clockwork Century #4) Rector “Wreck ’em” Sherman was orphaned as a toddler in the Blight of 1863, but that was years ago. Wreck has grown up, and on his eighteenth birthday, he’ll be cast out out of the orphanage. And Wreck’s problems aren’t merely about finding a home. He’s been quietly breaking the cardinal rule of any good drug dealer and dipping into his own supply of the sap he sells. He’s also pretty sure he’s being haunted by the ghost of a kid he used to knowView Details>