Mostrando resultados por Editor "Phoenix Books" en Ciencia Ficción y Fantasía

Fascinating “What If?” stories from Hugo and Nebula award-winning masters of alternate history! What would the world be like if Teddy Roosevelt had fought in World War I? If the space race started during World War II? If Joseph McCarthy had been elected President? These and other questions are answered in this collection of alternate histories. As these stories suggest, the world as we know it might have turned out different than it is today, if only one minor—or major—change had occurred in history.

In the world of Pern, there are few things more important than the ability to sing and write songs. But when Piemur's voice changes, he is given a new task. Pern is in danger once again, and Piemur is assigned a bold mission to the Southern Hold. He must learn the Oldtimers' secret and help Pern rediscover its lost heritage.

Ready for a story? Here's a selection of some of the finest science fiction shorts of recent years, including stories from Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, William Gibson, Robert Sheckley, Terry Bisson, Avram Davidson, and Philip K. Dick.

Ecosystems always exist in fragile balance, but imagine a planet that is sentient! On icy Petaybee, the planet itself seems to be orchestrating its own evolution - but the planet is also rich in exploitable resources, and the ruthless company Integral is poised to take advantage. Yana, an ex-company soldier with strong ties to the native Petaybeans - and the planet itself - tries to mediate with the company, but it isn't enough.

In an alternate frontier where America is ruled by folk magic and mysterious charms, hexes, and potions, a man like Alvin Miller is an extraordinary person. The seventh son of a seventh son, Miller is a "Maker," with the power to create a new future for America. But first, he must defeat his ancient enemy, the "Unmaker," who threatens to destroy not just Alvin's work—but intends to destroy him. The "Unmaker" will stop at nothing until he achieves his dark goals.

In Mars, Ben Bova gives us a compelling look at the possibility of life on another planet, and the mystery that surrounds its discovery. The very name of the mysterious Red Planet brings to mind images dramatic and dangerous - and both are accurate, as an international team of 25 astronauts discover when they land there for the first manned expedition.

Killashandra, one of the most gifted singers on Ballybran, is drawn like a magnet to the song of crystal. In order to work with crystal, singers are infected with a symbiotic life form that heals them and gives them near eternal life—but slowly destroys their memories. Since crystal singing brings Killashandra ecstasy, she doesn't mind the initial small annoyances of memory loss. What she hadn't counted on was the loneliness she felt when her heart still remembered what her mind had forgotten—the names of her friends and lovers.

The huge Manhattan Dome hovers high in the smog. Beneath it, the city lies deserted, its buildings haunted, hollow shells. Years ago it was closed by the government in response to insidious crime and pollution. Now it is open only 2 months out of the year as a sort of morbid recreational park, and its only residents are the poor and downtrodden...

A huge space station on the fringes of human space, SSS-900 is controlled by the brain of Simeon, a shellperson who relieves his daily monotony by replaying computer simulations of great battles. When a battered, jury-rigged ship appears to threaten the station, they rescue the people who are fleeing from the vicious Kolnari pirates. As the Kolnari take over the station, the stationers and the Bethelites from the rescued ship must devise ways to work together to fight the invaders. Will Simeon become the only thing standing between ruthless alien pirates and total destruction?

Six-time Hugo Award winner Bova likes to tell big stories in a small way. This approach both helps and hurts in this collection of stories, excerpts and outtakes from his "Grand Tour" novels (Saturn, etc.), which explore the colonization of the solar system. Despite his vast subject, Bova focuses tightly on the heroes and villains whose striving makes up his future history. While some characters are standards of the SF genre (megalomaniac capitalist, lone-wolf entrepreneur, love object caught between them), Bova imbues each with Homeric virtues and flaws.

Learn the truth behind the mask of Hollywood in these 10 bizarre tales of dreams and dream weavers, movies and movie-makers, by some of the most respected fantasy writers of our time.

One of the most renowned and respected literary artists in the field of science fiction, Robert Silverberg transports us once again to a spectacular, deftly conceived world in transition and propels us on a remarkable odyssey of survival and self-discovery.

Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Shelley's wife Mary, who was then only nineteen, all agreed to each compose ghost stories. Mary Shelley's story came to her during a restive night: "I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion." The result of her vision, which she later published as a full length novel, became the most famous and compelling horror story of all time.

For President Spencer Jefferson Lee—the great-great-grandson of both Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee—it's politics as usual. On one side, the lily-white Senate wants quid pro quo; on the other, the all black House has an agenda of its own. But whatever their differences, the powers-that-be agree on one thing: Utter separations between the races is the key to peace and prosperity. To love someone of the opposite race is to court disaster; to act on that love is to become officially nonexistent.

On February 12, 1809, Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury. His theory of Natural Selection, as detailed in The Origin of Species, is one of the most debated in history. Darwin's Radio puts Natural Selection on trial, examining how the discovery of concealed remains in a mass grave in Russia forced top scientists to question everything they believed about human origins.

From Anne McCaffrey comes a collection of captivating short stories that focuses on everything from spaceship adventure and shifting time-storms to ghosts and romance. The title story, set in the world of the Dragonriders of Pern series, tells of Aramina, a teenage girl who hears dragons and is relentlessly pursued for her ability. Aramina's mother fears losing her daughter completely to the life of a dragonrider, but McCaffrey has another fate in mind for her young heroine.

This is the classic story of the young Theseus - Prince of Troizen, King of Eleusis and Athens, slayer of the Minotaur. Mary Renault's powerful novel captures the modern imagination by weaving myth, legend, history, and fiction into the story of a young hero's search for his destiny, or moira. If you like The King Must Die, try The Bull from the Sea.

From the 18th century into the early years of the 19th, Americans—traveling to find new homes and new lands—crossed the Appalachian Mountains and moved across the Northwest Territory, spreading west to the banks of the great river. But in this alternate frontier America, the men and women use lore and folk-magic to settle the continent. When Alvin arrives in Hatrack River to take up his apprenticeship with Makepeace Smith and learn to be a blacksmith, he finds that nothing is as he expected. This would-be maker is on his own and the work of the Unmaker is close at hand.

The sole survivor of a noble ruling family, Lessa is an outcast—a strong young woman who has never stopped dreaming of revenge for her murdered parents. Everything changes when she meets a queen dragon. The bond they share will be deep and last forever. It will protect them when, for the first time in centuries, Lessa's world is threatened by Thread, an evil substance that falls like rain and destroys everything it touches. Dragons and their Riders once protected the planet from Thread, but there are very few of them. Now Lessa must risk her life, and her dragon, to save her world.

What would the world be like if the space race started during World War II? If Teddy Roosevelt had fought in World War I? If Joseph McCarthy had been elected President? Those and other questions are answered in these nine stories of alternate histories, when the world as we know it might have turned out different than it is today, if only one minor (or major) change had occurred in history.