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eBook Category: Science Fiction/Fantasy
eBook Description: What is BAZOZZ ZZZ DZZ? The answer--a collection of bizarre, disturbing, out of this world short stories written by one of the most influential SF writers of the last forty years. Stories where the hero doesn't always get the girl! This collection of stories first appeared in the classic American and British SF magazines of the 60's and 70's--the Golden Age of SF.

eBook Publisher: Golden Apple, Wallasey, Published: UK, 2003
Fictionwise Release Date: June 2004

7 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [157 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [174 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [135 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [493 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [154 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [247 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [198 KB] , hiebook (KML) [389 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [228 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [126 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [157 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [209 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [205 KB]
Words: 45887
Reading time: 131-183 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Martin Almond, though heretofore no deep thinker, knew he had every reason for panic and could not understand his own cool.

He was lying flat on a soft-tyred trolley, which was being wheeled at a smart clip down a long, white corridor. Overhead, lighting ports whipped past every six seconds. Estimating they were ten metres apart, he began to work out his speed over the ground.

This intellectual gambit was sidetracked by the arrival of a white-coated midriff, level with his right ear and he tried to twist his head to check it out. But only his eyes were still answering efferent nerve signal and short of pushing them out on stalks, he was stuck with peripheral vision.

Pat on cue, the trolley took a hard right hand turn with hardly a check in pace and a five degree tilt on its spring suspension. As it stabilised, he carried an eidetic image on his retina--a chin to navel shot. Female, very trim, elegant neck above a mandarin collar, aureole of fine, ash-blonde hair at the nape. The name-tag on the left breast pocket, disturbed by curve, was hard to read. Technician P. W.--something, a longish name that he had not had time to read off, beginning with M or maybe W.

A hand crossed his fixed line of vision. Supple, capable fingers. An electrum band at the wrist. He felt a soothing touch as she resettled his head in its stall.

Recall began to crowd him. He remembered he had been looking at a girl on a flyover walkway when his shuttle had dipped its hood into the oncoming flight lane, ten metres below.

Looking at patellae on the catwalks was supposed to be an index that life still lurked in the centre of the biological heap. This was support evidence for the opposition. That lack of attention to the console might well have finished him off. He must have missed the signal from the power pack, which gave a twenty second margin to stub the button for fail safe.

From then on, there was only confusion. A sharp pain down in the right shin. A shifting pattern of faces, as though seen from the bottom of a well. Then a blank, until now.

Well, that was okay. His sedated mind comfortably accepted the situation. Hospitalised. Damage patched up. That was fine. Somebody would have notified the office, picking up the detail from his identity strip. He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, the set was crystal clear, he was in a small, well-appointed room, predominantly pale blue with a heavy scent of frangipane and a scion of the shrub itself, dangling its salver flowers over the sides of a pagoda-shaped, stainless steel tub.

First reaction was a return to near panic, which triggered off a smart tingle in his left thigh and was succeeded by tranquillising calm.

Every man is deeply-programmed to think well of himself; but he had recognised that this milieu was outside his social rating. As a General Duties Minor Professional Grade, he ought to have been admitted to a common ward with the hoi polloi. His medicare card would cover that. This plushy treatment would set him back a year's credits. He would be paying it off for the next decade.

Alarm at the thought had been a non-starter, but cold prudence was out of its trap. He sat up, shoved back the neat covers and swung his legs out of bed.