Maxima Library

And on the Eighth Day God Created Beer.

Beer is what separates humans from animals… unless you have too much.

Seriously, anthropologists, archeologists, and sociologists seem to think that when humans first emerged on earth as human, they possessed fire, language, a sense of spirituality, and beer.

Within these pages are quirky, silly, and downright strange stories sure to delight and entertain the ardent beer lover by authors such as Brenda Clough, Irene Radford, Mark J. Ferrari, Shannon Page, Nancy Jane Moore, Frog and Esther Jones, G. David Nordley, and many more!

15 all-new stories of tomorrow from 15 of the best sci-fi writers of today

The challenge and lure of space exploration has long been fertile ground for some of the finest science fiction stories. Here, fifteen of the best chroniclers of the day after tomorrow present unique tales of space stations both in our own solar system and far beyond.

This neat little theme anthology contains a satisfying mixture of old hands’ and newcomers’ stories. In the opener, Timothy Zahn’s “The Battle of Space Fort Jefferson,” a space fort that is crumbling into disrepair as an unpopular tourist destination wins its first battle—finally—though only by means of the vagaries of decaying equipment. In Jean Rabe’s “Auriga’s Streetcar,” a gem of a piece, an old “spacer” finds herself on the way to a distant star in the belly of an even older space observatory towed by unknown aliens. Robert J. Sawyer’s “Mikeys” relates the work of those who go almost to the target and the unexpected event that brings them to the forefront. The closer, Gregory Benford’s “Station Spaces,” is a doozy about what happens when human merges with machine, and the building of human habitation on Luna. Despite, or possibly as a result of, a literally (i.e., spacially) limited topic, these stories cover a lot of ground.

The future holds endless possibilities…

Here are 16 intriguing visions of tomorrow

Features stories by: Esther M. Friesner

Brenda Cooper

Kevin J. Anderson

P. R. Frost

Mike Resnick and James Patrick Kelly

Lisanne Norman

Dean Wesley Smith

Irene Radford

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

And more

For all of those who thought that by now that they'd be driving along the skyways in their own personal jet car, who assumed that humans would have established bases on the Moon and Mars, or that diseases would have been conqured, the aging process slowed to a crawl, and war eliminated along with social injustice-here are 16 stories of futures that might someday be reality.