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26
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Necronauts [MultiFormat]
by Terry Bisson
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Having recently gone blind, Ray seemed in no condition to serve as illustrator for an expedition. However, the researchers were traveling into the realm of death itself, where one does not need eyes to see. (Published: 1993)
Words: 10415 - Reading Time: 29-41 min.
Category: Fantasy
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41 Reader Ratings:
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27
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New Celebrations: The Adventures of Anthony Villiers [MultiFormat]
by Alexei Panshin
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Many books have been hailed as "in the tradition of" The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Not this one. It came first. It may, however, be something of a precursor. A space-operatic comedy of manners and meditation on life, a cheerful noir thriller, New Celebrations contains the first three, and so far only, novels about the enigmatic Anthony Villiers, a young man who trails both a mysterious past and a six-foot furred toad companion whose papers are not in order. From a space-station gambling ... more info>> (Published: 1968)
Words: 131526 - Reading Time: 375-526 min.
Category: Science Fiction
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54 Reader Ratings:
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28
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No Enemy But Time [MultiFormat]
by Michael Bishop
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John Monegal, a.k.a. Joshua Kampa, is torn between two worlds--the Early Pleistocene Africa of his dreams and the twentieth-century reality of his waking life. These worlds are transposed when a government experiment sends him over a million years back in time. Here, John builds a new life as part of a tribe of protohumans. But the reality of early Africa is much more challenging than his fantasies. With the landscape, the species, and John himself evolving, he reaches a temporal crossroads wher... more info>> (Published: 1982) Nebula Award(R) Winner
Words: 124000 - Reading Time: 354-496 min.
Category: Science Fiction
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42 Reader Ratings:
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29
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Radiant Green Star [MultiFormat]
by Lucius Shepard
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When Philip was a very young boy, his mother set him on a mythic course in life, to grow up in exile as a circus performer touring the backwaters of Viet Nam, to slay his evil father, and to win a fantastic inheritance. However, as he studies his legacy with the help of the stoic manager Vang Ky, falls in love with Vang's niece, and contemplates the odd soliloquies of an ancient, disfigured war veteran, he begins to perceive that his life and mission are not what they appear. (Published: 2000) Locus Poll Award Winner, Hugo Award Nominee, Nebula Award(R) Nominee, Sturgeon Award Nominee, Nebula Award(R) Finalist, Asimov's Reader's Choice Award Nominee
Words: 24974 - Reading Time: 71-99 min.
Category: Science Fiction
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191 Reader Ratings:
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30
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Shiva and Other Stories [MultiFormat]
by Barry N. Malzberg
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Twenty-two tales by a mythologist for the new millennium, Shiva and Other Stories brings together some of Malzberg's finest work from the 80s and the 90s, including many stories featured in major Year's Best anthologies. From pragmatists like Huey "Kingfish" Long, who plays human nature like a pat-hand of cards to win the presidency and then deal with a punk named Adolf Hitler, to soulless bureaucrats, to a long parade of recalcitrant dreamers who tragically attempt to impose fantasy on unyieldi... more info>> (Published: 2001)
Words: 58000 - Reading Time: 165-232 min.
Category: Science Fiction
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13 Reader Ratings:
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31
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Soldiers of Paradise [Starbridge Chronicles 1] [MultiFormat]
by Paul Park
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Where the seasons last for generations, hard winter makes for hard religion. The worlds of the solar system are the hells through which all souls must incarnate on their journey to Paradise; all, that is, but the Starbridges, nobles who serve to enforce the "divine will." In the lowest slums of the city-state of Charn, a Starbridge doctor and a drunken prince defy the law to bring medicine to the poor and hear the story-music of the refugee Antinomials, a wild people who shun words, infidels pre... more info>> (Published: 1987) Locus Poll Award Nominee, Arthur C. Clarke Award Nominee
Words: 115539 - Reading Time: 330-462 min.
Category: Science Fiction
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14 Reader Ratings:
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32
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Sugar Rain [Starbridge Chronicles 2] [MultiFormat]
by Paul Park
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The second book in the Starbridge Chronicles, Sugar Rain relates the stories of Thanakar and Charity Starbridge during the revolution that ended the first book in the series, Soldiers of Paradise. The generations-long winter has drawn to a close, and with it the power of the tyrannical Starbridge theocracy that maintained order during the years of hunger. But a cruelly pragmatic priest has set the stage for a new faith, and even those who defy him seem fated to play out roles that will inevitabl... more info>> (Published: 1989) Locus Poll Award Nominee
Words: 125637 - Reading Time: 358-502 min.
Category: Science Fiction
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6 Reader Ratings:
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33
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Suldrun's Garden [Lyonesse Book 1] [MultiFormat]
by Jack Vance
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A monument of fantastic literature to stand beside such classics as Dune and The Lord of the Rings, Lyonesse evokes the Elder Isles, a land of pre-Arthurian myth now lost beneath the Atlantic, where powerful sorcerers, aloof faeries, stalwart champions, and nobles eccentric, magnanimous, and cruel pursue intrigue among their separate worlds. In this first book of the trilogy, Suldrun's Garden, Prince Aillas of Troicinet is betrayed on his first diplomatic voyage and cast into the sea. Before he ... more info>> (Published: 1983)
Words: 155000 - Reading Time: 442-620 min.
Category: Fantasy
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126 Reader Ratings:
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34
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The Cult of Loving Kindness [Starbridge Chronicles 3] [MultiFormat]
by Paul Park
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In the third and final book of the Starbridge Chronicles, more than two generations have passed since the events of Sugar Rain, and barren tundra has given way to fecund, steamy jungle at the height of summer. Deep in the forest, a twin boy and girl grow up among a strange race of philosophers, oblivious to the outside world, where the secular regime is now as fanatical and orthodox as the old religious one. When their home is invaded, the pair take flight. Among the new faith called The Cult of... more info>> (Published: 1991)
Words: 99538 - Reading Time: 284-398 min.
Category: Science Fiction/Fantasy
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4 Reader Ratings:
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35
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The Dandelion Girl [MultiFormat]
by Robert F. Young
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While his wife is away, a man meets a beautiful girl in the country who pretends to be from the future. Day after day, they return to the same idyllic spot to chat, and he soon finds himself enamored. However, being committed to his marriage, he's resigned to the loss of his new love and what she represents. Or is he?... (Published: 1961)
Words: 5500 - Reading Time: 15-22 min.
Category: Science Fiction
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107 Reader Ratings:
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36
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The Engines of the Night [MultiFormat]
by Barry N. Malzberg
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Aspiring science fiction writers, take heed! If you want to understand where the field has been and where it's going--if you want a career--you need this book. In The Engines of the Night, Malzberg reviews his own ambivalent relationship with science fiction up to 1980 and gauges its past and future potentials. Would science fiction have been better off without Hugo Gernsback and the pulp-literature stigma with which he cursed it? What are the seminal works of science fiction? Can science fictio... more info>> (Published: 1984) Hugo Award Nominee, Locus Poll Award Winner
Words: 64592 - Reading Time: 184-258 min.
Category: General Nonfiction
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16 Reader Ratings:
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37
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The Glass Flower [MultiFormat]
by George R.R. Martin
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It's been a lifetime and more since Cyrain has been challenged in the game of mind. When the cyborg arrives, she senses a worthy and dangerous opponent--one that's been dead for 800 years... (Published: 1986)
Words: 16208 - Reading Time: 46-64 min.
Category: Science Fiction/Fantasy
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25 Reader Ratings:
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38
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The Green Pearl [Lyonesse Book 2] [MultiFormat]
by Jack Vance
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In this second volume of the Lyonesse trilogy, The Green Pearl, King Aillas of Troicinet defends the peace of the Elder Isles against both the Ska marauders who once enslaved him and the wicked King Casmir. While organizing the unruly barons in the frontiers of his land, Aillas goes out of his way to capture the lovely Ska noblewoman who once stung him with her disregard. When he gets separated from his men, his dream of forcing the lady's recognition becomes the toil of dragging an obstreperous... more info>> (Published: 1985)
Words: 148595 - Reading Time: 424-594 min.
Category: Fantasy
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70 Reader Ratings:
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39
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The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr [MultiFormat]
by George R.R. Martin
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Tired and bloody from her battle with the Seven, Sharra stumbles through the gate onto a pristine planet, the kingdom and prison of a solitary singer doomed to await Sharra's arrival... (Published: 1976)
Words: 7250 - Reading Time: 20-29 min.
Category: Fantasy
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23 Reader Ratings:
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40
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The Vampire Tapestry [MultiFormat]
by Suzy McKee Charnas
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Hailed by Stephen King as "scary and suspenseful" and "unputdownable," and by Peter Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn, as "The best vampire novel I have ever read," The Vampire Tapestry examines the classic monster as a biological, rather than supernatural, predator who awakens from hibernation every few decades needing to relearn human culture. After years of secret effort, the self-styled Edward Weyland has become a respected anthropology professor and director of a sleep research lab. With r... more info>> (Published: 1980)
Words: 90000 - Reading Time: 257-360 min.
Category: Horror
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65 Reader Ratings:
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41
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Unicorn Mountain [MultiFormat]
by Michael Bishop
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Unicorns roam the uplands of Libby Quarrels' mountain ranch. When Libby takes the AIDS-afflicted Bo Gavin out of exile in Atlanta to live with her in Colorado, she sees no connection between his disease and the fantastic secret she guards. But it so happens the unicorns suffer from a plague of their own, and the alternate world that touches the high country has unleashed magic sinister as well as marvelous. While Libby's Indian ranch hand Sam is stalked by his wife's headless ghost, his estrange... more info>> (Published: 1988)
Words: 156000 - Reading Time: 445-624 min.
Category: Fantasy
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22 Reader Ratings:
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42
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Unicorn Tapestry [MultiFormat]
by Suzy McKee Charnas
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Dr. Floria Landauer's newest patient, Edward Weyland, suffers from the delusion that he's a vampire, not the undead variety but a predator that's co-evolved with humans to drink their blood. This idea has threatened his career as an anthropologist, and he needs a bill of good health to resume his position. However, as Weyland describes his "fantasy," Floria suspects she's being handed the truth dressed up as a lie, and the therapy becomes a fascinating contest of wills where trust and respect vi... more info>> (Published: 1980) Locus Poll Award Nominee, World Fantasy Award Nominee, Nebula Award(R) Winner
Words: 23295 - Reading Time: 66-93 min.
Category: Fantasy/Horror
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73 Reader Ratings:
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43
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What Bleak Land [MultiFormat]
by Robert F. Young
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During the Great Depression, a vagrant makes an extended stay with a struggling family, and wins their hearts with his lessons in decency and generosity. But the wanderer is learning as well as teaching, in ways that the young son of the family comes to understand through a profound and unsettling discovery. (Published: 1987)
Words: 8000 - Reading Time: 22-32 min.
Category: Science Fiction
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97 Reader Ratings:
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