Brief but possible improbabilities...

Goddesses & Other Stories

Linda Nagata

Ten science fiction stories by Linda Nagata, including the Nebula Award winning novella “Goddesses.” This collection brings together for the first time Nagata’s short fiction, originally published in Analog Science Fiction & Fact, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, More Amazing Stories, and SciFi.com.

Table of Contents:

Spectral Expectations (Analog 1987)
Career Decision (Analog 1988)
In the Tide (Analog 1989)
Small Victories (Analog 1993)
Liberator (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 1993)
Old Mother (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 1995)
The Bird Catcher’s Children (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 1997)
Hooks, Nets, and Time (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 1997)
The Flood (More Amazing Stories 1998)
Goddesses (Sci-Fi.com 2000)

Free Sample Story: “Spectral Expectations ”

ISBN: 978-1-93719-705-6

DRM-free formats: EPUB, MOBI/Kindle

Publication Date: January 3, 2012

Buy now: $3.95

Pet Noir

(SF/Mystery)

Pati Nagle

Can a lowly gumpaw hope for love with a girl who rides in a jewel-encrusted carrier?

Feline investigator Leon, with opposable thumbs and the ability to talk, is possibly the most dangerous cat in the galaxy. Indentured to the Security department of Gamma Station until the cost of his creation is paid off, Leon alternates between harassing his human partner/roommate Devin and fighting sleazoid criminals, yet still finds time to flirt with the lovely Leila, an exotic Burmese who lives in the swankiest level of the station. Will he win her heart, and more important — will he win his freedom?

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Angel on the Beach

Jay Caselberg

Collected short stories including new, previously unpublished tales.

Registration (required for ebook purchase) allows you continuing future access to your ebook purchase.

DRM-Free formats: PDF, EPUB, .lit, .lrc, Mobi, .prc

Table of Contents

Free sample story: Iridescence

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Junkie

Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

Before you seize an opportunity, you have to recognize it...

Illustration by Laurie Harden.

This story was published in the July/August issue of Analog magazine. The hero of our story: interplanetary garbage man Matty Gurkow.

Willies

Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

Evolutionary adaptations don't always perform in expected ways.

The Birds of Isla Mujeres

Steven Popkes

The Great Caruso

Steven Popkes

Old habits die hard.

Read More...

Bread and Circus

Steven Popkes

Ball managers get no respect.

Read more...

The Indecorous Rescue of Clarinda Merwin

Or, Reader, I Laid My Eggs in Him

Brenda W. Clough

A Regency maiden, a caddish suitor, and an innovative rescue!

Another Perfect Day

Steven Popkes

Everybody is anybody they can ever be. At least, in Miami.

Holding Pattern

Steven Popkes

Read More...

Holiday Station

Judith Tarr

If the Stationmaster hadn't got pregnant when he did...

ET Spam

Chris Dolley

Ever wondered what might happen if you replied to one of those Nigerian 419 emails? This is the SF version.

Mules

Madeleine E. Robins

“How does it feel to live forever,” she asked...

LADeDeDa

Ursula K. Le Guin & Vonda N. McIntyre

First published in the science journal Nature. Be the first to order your copy of RithChek™!

A Modest Proposal...

...for the Perfection of Nature

Vonda N. McIntyre

Human beings live in a perfect world...

La Vie en Ronde

Madeleine E. Robins

As she spiraled farther and farther from the life she knew, Vivey found herself in a place she could never have imagined.

Cowards Die

A Tragicomedy in Several Fits

Judith Tarr

Marco just wants a piece of the action.

Homesteading

Nancy Jane Moore

In reviewing this story on The Fix, Lyndon Perry said, ”The new dynamic is not the byproduct of the typical male way of warriorship. But, then, as the clan discovers, Isabel is not your typical warrior.“

Abelard’ Kiss

Madeleine E. Robins

A story about two woman and a lip.

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  There are things that people would rather not know—but is knowledge ever all bad?

Any Mother's Son was originally published in the May 2000 issue of Analog Science Fiction and is another in series of loosely related time travel stories.

Chronologically, it takes place some years after Heroes and continues the dialogue about the effects of present actions on future events. As one character notes, “You can only edit the present.” The story also delves into the question of how much responsibility one soul has for another.

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

This story has a peculiar history. My agent, unknown to me, first offered it to Penthouse Publications. My first intimation of this was when I got a note from the editor of that publication telling me that he thought the story was smart and savvy and sophisticated and that he really wanted to publish it, but I'd have to cut a thousand words or so and put the now implicit sex "above the sheets." (In other words, cut story to add "steam.")  "No, fargin' way," I replied. If I'd wanted the sex above the sheets that's where I woulda put it. The story was published in Analog Science Fiction magazine. Then Cecilia Tan bought it for her anthology Sex Crime, and while she offered me the option to elevate the sexual content she added, "But I understand if you think that would change the focus of the story." (Cecilia, I love you.)

Epilogue: I got a piece of fan mail from the story's appearance in Analog. "I'm still thinking about it three weeks later," the reader said. "It was erotic in a wholesome sort of way." Been my motto ever since.

by Laura Anne Gilman

A previously-unpublished story set in a future where things are different ... and some essential truths remain. 

by Madeleine E. Robins 

The last thing Zenia wanted was a room-mate.  Especially one that wasn't human.

"The Cretaceous Border" 

An SF "if" about what you might find right in your own backyard.

"The Cretaceous Border" has just come out in the Susurrus Press anthology Neverlands and Otherwheres,  along with 12 other excellent stories.  Buy the collection on line here.

 by Sarah Zettel 

Be careful what you wish for.  Very careful...

A TextonPhone title.

The DEFIANT Disaster

Kate Daniel

What happens if a flipped coin comes up tails instead of heads? What happens if an airplane lost over the Pacific Ocean zigs left instead of right? In this alternate history, one of the most famous lost pilots in history, Amelia Earhart, manages to find land and goes on to write a very different chapter in the history of human flight.

This story was first published in By Any Other Fame, DAW Books, Jan. 1994

Departures

Laura Anne Gilman

I wrote two versions of this story.  The straight mystery version was published as “Dispossession” in the anthology Spooks.

This was the story as it was originally born, however…. It takes place in the same SF universe as“Blow Job Red.”

... of Communication Among the Unkin

by Sarah Zettel

This has always been one of my favorite stories, but then, I love a good argument...

Featured on AnthologyBuilder

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

This story was my second sale to Analog magazine. Stan almost didn't buy it because he thought it was a spoof -- I'd gotten the length of my eclipse wrong. Important safety tip: don't accept facts about astronomy from an anthropology major.

Writing and publishing Eclipse was like walking onstage, telling a joke and getting a good laugh. I was hooked on writing humorous SF.  

FluffIII was meant to be a normal ordinary catprint...

Misprint

Vonda N. McIntyre

by Vonda N. McIntyre, illustrated by Ursula K. Le Guin.

First publication: A Book View Café Bonus.

The faux-encyclopedia article that inspired the Nebula-award winning novel The Moon and the Sun.

by Rebecca Lickiss

This is a short story that first appeared in the October 1999 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact.

by Kate Daniel

by Madeleine E. Robins 

The law of unintended consequences, as applied to Mad Scientists...