Maxima Library

Our new story from Greg Egan is a stand-alone tale that follows on the events of “Luminous” (September 1995). It’s also the first story we’ve seen from Greg since “Oracle” appeared in our July 2000 issue. The author tells us, though, that “after spending a few years away from writing, trying to assist some of the asylum seekers that Australia imprisons in remote detention centers, I recently completed my seventh SF novel, Incandescence, which is due to be published by Gollancz in the UK in May 2008.” We hope that this return to writing means we’ll soon be seeing more of his brilliant fiction.

The long-awaited new novel from Hugo Award-winning writer Greg Egan! The Amalgam spans nearly the entire galaxy, and is composed of innumerable beings from a wild variety of races, some human, some near-human, and some entirely other. The one place that they cannot go is the bulge, the bright, hot center of the galaxy. There dwell the Aloof, who for millions of years have deflected any and all attempts to communicate with or visit them. So, when Rakesh is offered an opportunity to travel within their sphere, in search of a lost race, he cannot turn it down!

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)…

One million years from now. It’s a span of time so huge that it's hard for the mind to grasp. Even within science fiction, to conjure up a convincing portrait of what humanity might be like in such a remote future calls for writers with rare breadth of vision. Fortunately, Dozois and Dann have found them.

Includes longer stories set in “One Million A.D.” by:

Robert Reed

Robert Silverberg

Nancy Kress

Alastair Reynolds

Greg Egan

Cyberpunk is dead

The revolution has been co-opted by half-assed heroes, overclocked CGI, and tricked-out sunglasses. Once radical, cyberpunk is nothing more than a brand.

Time to stop flipping the channel

These sixteen extreme stories reveal a government ninja routed by a bicycle repairman, the inventor of digitized paper hijacked by his college crush, a dead boy trapped in a warped storybook paradise, and the Queen of England attacked with the deadliest of forbidden technology: a working modem. You'll meet Manfred Macx, renegade meme-broker, Red Sonja, virtual reality sex-goddess, and Felix, humble sysadmin and post-apocalyptic hero.

Editors James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel (Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology) have united cyberpunk visionaries William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Pat Cadigan with the new post-cyberpunk vanguard including Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross, and Jonathan Lethem. Including a canon-establishing introduction and excerpts from a hotly-contested online debate, Rewired is the first anthology to define and capture the crackling excitement of the post-cyberpunks.

From the grittiness of Mirrorshades to the Singularity and beyond, it's time to revive the revolution.

Are you ready?

In

Schild’s Ladder

, humanity has transcended both death and Earth, and discovered its home world is nearly unique as a cradle of life. As it spreads throughout the galaxy, humanity enjoys an almost utopian existence — until a scientist accidentally creates an impenetrable, steadily expanding vacuum that devours star systems and threatens the entire universe with destruction.

Tchicaya is a Yielder, member of the faction that believes this "novo-vacuum" deserves study. The opposing Preservationists — among them Mariama, his first love — seek to save worlds and destroy the novo-vacuum. Discord heats to terrorist violence; then enmities and alliances are turned upside-down by a discovery that may mean the novo-vacuum is, instead, a new and very different universe — and one which may contain life.

Nine-year-old Prabir Suresh lives alone with his baby sister, Madhusree, and his biologist parents on a tropical Indonesian isle. Teranesia is so small and remote, it's not on the maps, and its strange native species of butterfly remained undiscovered until the 21st century. Prabir never wants to leave, but war forces him to flee with Madhusree. He believes he has saved his sister-until she returns to Indonesia, a grad student seeking to carry on their parents' forgotten work, pursuing reports of strange new plant and animal species. Prabir follows, to discover birds and orchids even stranger than the butterflies: mutants that are evidence of frightfully sped-up evolutionary changes with no discernable cause.

Greg Egan has received the Hugo Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He was widely considered the best SF author of the '90s, and one publication (Science Fiction Weekly) has named him "perhaps the most important SF writer in the world"-high praise, but not unjustified. For evidence, check out not only Teranesia, but works like Diaspora, Distress, and Quarantine.

The vast and mysterious universe is explored in this reprint anthology from award-winning editor and anthologist Neil Clarke (Clarkesworld magazine, The Best Science Fiction of the Year).

The urge to explore and discover is a natural and universal one, and the edge of the unknown is expanded with each passing year as scientific advancements inch us closer and closer to the outer reaches of our solar system and the galaxies beyond them.

Generations of writers have explored these new frontiers and the endless possibilities they present in great detail. With galaxy-spanning adventures of discovery and adventure, from generations ships to warp drives, exploring new worlds to first contacts, science fiction writers have given readers increasingly new and alien ways to look out into our broad and sprawling universe.

The Final Frontier delivers stories from across this literary spectrum, a reminder that the universe is far large and brimming with possibilities than we could ever imagine, as hard as we may try.

[Contains tables.]

Greg Egan’s last three stories for Asimov’s, “Cocoon” (May 1994); “Luminous” (September 1995); and “Tap” (November 1995), have all made the Hugo award’s final ballot. The paperback edition of Mr. Egan’s near-future novel, Distress, and the hard-cover edition of his far-future novel, Diaspora, have just been released by HarperPrism.

The multiple Locus Award-winning annual collection of the year’s best science fiction stories.

In the new millennium, what secrets lay beyond the far reaches of the universe? What mysteries belie the truths we once held to be self-evident? The world of science fiction has long been a porthole into the realities of tomorrow, blurring the line between life and art. Now, in The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection, the very best SF authors explore ideas of a new world. This venerable collection brings together award-winning authors and masters of the field. With an extensive recommended reading guide and a summation of the year in science fiction, this annual compilation has become the definitive must-read anthology for all science fiction fans and readers interested in breaking into the genre.

Nasim is a young computer scientist, hoping to work on the Human Connectome Project: a plan to map every neural connection in the human brain. But funding for the project is cancelled, and Nasim ends up devoting her career to Zendegi, a computerised virtual world used by millions of people. Fifteen years later, a revived Connectome Project has published a map of the brain. Zendegi is facing fierce competition from its rivals, and Nasim decides to exploit the map to fill the virtual world with better Proxies: the bit-players that bring its crowd scenes to life. As controversy rages over the nature and rights of the Proxies, a friend with terminal cancer begs Nasim to make a Proxy of him, so some part of him will survive to help raise his orphaned son. But Zendegi is about to become a battlefield…