Eileen Gunn

Stable Strategies and Others

"Stories from Eileen Gunn are always a cause for celebration. Where will she lead us? 'Up the Fire Road' to a slightly alternate world. Into steampunk's heart. Never where we might expect."--

Questionable practices

Wry, dark humor burnishes visionary SF in these often prophetic, sometimes troubling, but always fascinating tales that combine and masterfully conflate the disparate worlds of corporate tech and literary art. “After the Thaw” is a hi-tech take on an ancient idea: immortality. “Terrible Trudy on the Lam” based on actual events, is a modern fable about a zoo escape, a private eye, a vaudeville act and keeping your mouth shut. “Night Shift at NanoGobblers,” written for a NASA website, is about asteroid-altering AIs and their world-weary earthbound handlers. “Transitions” deals with jet lag when your flight is decades late. Gunn’s long-awaited third collection is rounded out by incisive and affectionate portraits of her SF colleagues, mentors, and friends, beginning with Ursula Le Guin. All illuminated of course by our artfully intimate interview.

Night Shift

Wry, dark humor burnishes visionary SF in these often prophetic, sometimes troubling, but always fascinating tales that combine and masterfully conflate the disparate worlds of corporate tech and literary art. "After the Thaw" is a hi-tech take on an ancient idea: immortality. "Terrible Trudy on the Lam" based on actual events, is a modern fable about a zoo escape, a private eye, a vaudeville act and keeping your mouth shut. "Night Shift at NanoGobblers," written for a NASA website, is about asteroid-altering AIs and their world-weary earthbound handlers. "Transitions" deals with jet lag when your flight is decades late. Gunn's long-awaited third collection is rounded out by incisive and affectionate portraits of her SF colleagues, mentors, and friends, beginning with Ursula Le Guin. All illuminated of course by our artfully intimate interview.

James Sallis

Yoon Ha Lee

J. M. Sidorova

Jane Yolen

James Morrow

Elizabeth Bourne

Robert Reed

Brian Francis Slattery

Geoff Ryman

Barry N. Malzberg

Harry Turtledove

Scott Bradfield

David Marusek

Jennifer Marie Brissett

Don D'Ammassa

Deepak Unnikrishnan

Paul Witcover

Paul La Farge

J. S. Breukelaar

Lisa Mason

Deji Bryce Olukotun

Richard Bowes

Matthew Hughes

Ron Goulart

Ted White

Michael Kandel

Ray Vukcevich

Ruth Nestvold

Jay Russell

Stephanie Feldman

K. G. Anderson

Becca Caccavo

Eric James Fullilove

Leslie Howle

Janis Ian

Heather Lindsley

Marry Anne Mohanraj

Marguerite Reed

Madeleine E. Robins

TS Vale

Leo Vladimirsky

N. Lee Wood

Thomas Kaufsek

Michael Libling

In this diverse and vigorous mix of stories by newcomers and luminaries, writers offer their takes on what life might hold for us in the next few years. The resulting visions of war, oppression, and daily struggle are sometimes humorous, sometimes terrifying (and occasionally both), but always thought-provoking.

45 Visions of What Lies Ahead

Welcome to Dystopia

Margo Lanagan

Chris Roberson

Jeffrey Ford

Michael Swanwick

Cherie Priest

Christopher Barzak

Nick Mamatas

Cat Rambo

Sean McMullen

Margaret Ronald

This collection of unabridged, spectacular steampunk speculations includes several classics of the genre. These tales will sweep you away with their amazing automata, daring dirigibles, grinding gears, and scintillating steam as days long gone are infused with tech. In “Smoke City,” by Christopher Barzak, a woman comes to terms with the loss of her family to the child labor mills of the city. A doctor tries to cope with a strange plague terrorizing the citizens of London in Jeffrey Ford’s “Dr. Lash Remembers.” In “Machine Maid,” by Margo Lanagan, a sexually repressed wife gets revenge on her husband through a robot maid. Friedrich Engels strives to spread class revolution as a labor organizer for factory cyborg matchstick girls in Arbeitskraft, by Nick Mamatas. In “Ninety Thousand Horses,” by Sean McMullen, an acclaimed mathematician, with a murky past, is forced to spy for an industrialist prior to becoming Britain’s foremost rocket expert during World War II. An orphan boy builds an automaton, in an aging scientist’s laboratory, that becomes more than an idle companion in Cherie Priest’s “Tanglefoot (A Clockwork Century Story).” In “Clockwork Fairies,” by Cat Rambo, an English aristocrat courts a woman who would rather spend her time in a laboratory than at high society balls. At Chicago’s Columbian Exposition, in 1893, an Algerian bodyguard crosses paths with a disoriented naked man in Chris Roberson’s “Edison’s Frankenstein.”. In “A Serpent in the Gears,” by Margaret Ronald, a dirigible journeys to an isolated land and discovers people and animals merged with machine parts. Radio Jones finds a way to listen in on the Naked Brains, who rule the world, while Rudy the Red fights against the oppressors in “Zeppelin City,” by Michael Swanwick& Eileen Gunn.

Steampunk Specs

Kim Stanley Robinson

Madeline Ashby

Ramez Naam

Vandana Singh

Karl Schroeder

Steven Barnes

Jim Bell

Clark A. Miller

Roland Lehoucq

Carter Scholz

Sara Imari Walker

Lawrence Dritsas

Linda T. Elkins-Tanton

Emma Frow

Andrew D. Maynard

Steve Ruff

William K. Storey

G. Pascal Zachary

A Collection of Space Futures

Visions, Ventures, Escape Velocities

Trains that go to unexpected places. A steampunk quartet. Stories that shake the tree. Stories that question normal practices.

Stories

Questionable Practices

This collection of tightly crafted, highly imaginative short stories employs surrealist, satirical, and fantastical devices to explore politics, class, and gender. From creatively homicidal bioengineering to counter the stresses of climbing the corporate ladder, to a woman who loses a sock at the laundromat and finds she’s missing a bit of her soul, these science-fiction gems showcase an award-winning writer’s compelling vision of the universe. Computer pioneers, cross-country skiers, and aliens figure into these literary stories that challenge the boundaries of imagination with quirky, anti-establishment characters and visionary technological extrapolation.

Will Radio Jones's invention save the day? Can Amelia Spindizzy outfly all competition and outsmart the brains in jars? At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A Tor.Com Original

Zeppelin City

Eileen Gunn

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