Maxima Library

Najnowszy almanach fantastyki

Kroki w nieznane

prezentuje szesnaście różnorodnych opowiadań autorów z Australii, Argentyny, Rosji, Stanów Zjednoczonych, Ukrainy i Wielkiej Brytanii. Wśród nich nowa krew, niedawne debiutantki (McCarron, Swirsky) oraz autorzy rozwijający skrzydła (Bacigalupi, Kosmatka, Ostapenko). Są też stare wygi, z niemałym dorobkiem, których tekstów nie było nam dane posmakować dotychczas (Brown, Kaługin) lub spotykaliśmy się z ich twórczością okazjonalnie (Kessel, szczególnie Waldrop). Oczywiście są także wielkie nazwiska (Egan, Kress, Silverberg, czy Willis), a oprócz tego pisarze

wyjątkowi,

za sprawą wyobraźni (Ballantyne), poetyckiego stylu (McDonald), czy prozy o niesamowitym klimacie (Nielsen)…

Lightspeed

(

www.lightspeedmagazine.com

) is the critically-acclaimed, online science fiction magazine edited by bestselling anthologist John Joseph Adams. Lightspeed publishes all types of science fiction, from near-future, sociological soft sf, to far-future, star-spanning hard sf, and anything and everything in between. Each month, Lightspeed features a mix of originals and reprints, from a variety of authors—from the bestsellers and award-winners you already know to the best new voices you haven't heard of yet. Now, in Lightspeed: Year One, you will find all of the fiction published in Lightspeed's first year, from new stories such as Nebula Award finalists, Vylar Kaftan’s “I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno” and “Arvies” by Adam-Troy Castro, and Carrie Vaughn’s Hugo Award-nominee “Amaryllis,” to classic reprints by Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, and more.

Paul Carlson, a brilliant young scientist, is summoned from his laboratory job to the remote Indonesian island of Flores to collect DNA samples from the ancient bones of a strange, new species of tool user unearthed by an archaeological dig. The questions the find raises seem to cast doubt on the very foundations of modern science, which has proven the world to be only 5,800 years old, but before Paul can fully grapple with the implications of his find, the dig is violently shut down by paramilitaries.

Paul flees with two of his friends, yet within days one has vanished and the other is murdered in an attack that costs Paul an eye, and very nearly his life. Back in America, Paul tries to resume the comfortable life he left behind, but he can’t cast the questions raised by the dig from his mind. Paul begins to piece together a puzzle which seems to threaten the very fabric of society, but world’s governments and Martial Johnston, the eccentric billionaire who financed Paul’s dig, will stop at nothing to silence him.

This stunning first novel from Nebula Award and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award finalist Ted Kosmatka is a riveting tale of science cut loose from ethics. Set in an amoral future where genetically engineered monstrosities fight each other to the death in an Olympic event, The Games envisions a harrowing world that may arrive sooner than you think.

Silas Williams is the brilliant geneticist in charge of preparing the U.S. entry into the Olympic Gladiator competition, an internationally sanctioned bloodsport with only one rule: no human DNA is permitted in the design of the entrants. Silas lives and breathes genetics; his designs have led the United States to the gold in every previous event. But the other countries are catching up. Now, desperate for an edge in the upcoming Games, Silas's boss engages an experimental supercomputer to design the genetic code for a gladiator that cannot be beaten.

The result is a highly specialized killing machine, its genome never before seen on earth. Not even Silas, with all his genius and experience, can understand the horror he had a hand in making. And no one, he fears, can anticipate the consequences of entrusting the act of creation to a computer's cold logic.

Now Silas races to understand what the computer has wrought, aided by a beautiful xenobiologist, Vidonia João. Yet as the fast-growing gladiator demonstrates preternatural strength, speed, and - most disquietingly - intelligence, Silas and Vidonia find their scientific curiosity giving way to a most unexpected emotion: sheer terror.

The very best short SF fiction of any given year as recommended and nominated by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America: the best novella, novelette and short story. Here you will find the cream of the crop of science fiction and fantasy - startling ideas, the intricate construction of new worlds and mind-bending experimental writing. This anthology includes not only the Nebula Award-winning works in each short-form category, but also all the nominees in the novelette and short story categories. Here you will find colourful fantasy, outstanding speculative fiction, steampunk, edgy writing on the fringes of the mainstream and uncompromisingly hard SF in stories set in the distant past, an off-kilter present day, the far future or some times in between.

An alternative history story about a world where the Creation has sound scientific proof.