Author: Gregory Benford
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472103424
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 17
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Book Description
Craftsman and amateur astronomer Geoffrey Carlisle from Ely discovers that the moon is fractionally ahead of its usual elliptical orbit. He becomes instantaneously well-known for his unique observation. Using Carlisle's findings, astronomy experts discover that each star circling the moon has been slightly warped. Yet after some time, as Professor Wright from Cambridge University had predicted, the warped stars return to their rightful places, suggesting that the world is an information-ordered one, like an analogue program acting out. What then, are the actual repercussions of a computational error in reality?
Author: Greg Egan
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472103440
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 34
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Book Description
Far in the distant, post-human future, the Cater-Zimmermann community set out to refute the theory that the universe is created exclusively for mankind by cloning themselves a thousand times over and sending each copy to a different star within the galaxy. One of the copies of Cater-Zimmermann, Paolo Venetti, arrives at Orpheus; a water-world inhabited by floating mats that perform as a Turing machine.
Author: Harlan Ellison
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472103459
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 48
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Book Description
"The Region Between" first appeared in Galaxy back in 1970. It had originally been commissioned as one of a set of stories by different authors who all used a common starting point as set out in the story's prologue, written by Keith Laumer. Ellison's contribution was a longer work than one usually expects from him, but it nevertheless sustains its bombardment of ideas and feelings throughout. What's more, Ellison created a story that demanded a different format to allow for full expression. The result was a typesetter's nightmare but, as you will see, the experience now only makes this story all the more fascinating, it actually takes you into the story itself. Mike Ashley
Author: Alastair Reynolds
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472103467
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 35
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Book Description
When Sora's swallowship is taken out by a swarm during the war she is rescued by Merlin, a legendary man who has allegedly discovered a super-weapon built by the Way creators; a gun so powerful it I said to have stopped the previous war. Sora is sceptical, though, for Merlin has been missing for ten thousand years, yet he has not aged a day. As the current war between aliens and humans intensifies, the need to find this weapon becomes unquestionably urgent. They must find the gun before the enemy does and incinerates them. Can their quest to save humanity and end the war be achieved with Merlin's gun?
Author: Pat Cadigan
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472103432
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 56
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Book Description
'Death in the Promised Land' explores the potential dangers of becoming too closely involved in virtual reality. Parts of the story were later reworked into the novel Tea from an Empty Cup (1988), which had a sequel in Dervish is Digital (2001), both excellent examples of merging cyberpunk with the detective genre.
Author: Michael Marshall Smith
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472102770
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 67
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Book Description
What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night - Michael Marshall Smith For Michael Marshall Smith, this was one of those stories that dropped straight into his head, but the problem was that he didn't want it: "It wasn't an idea I liked. It was clearly some part of my brain serving up a notion simply because it could, and because it knew it could frighten me with it. "It did frighten me, and so I did what I always do when that happens - which is write it down, in the hope it will go away." Respects - Ramsey Campbell "'Respects' was suggested by a local incident in which a car thief in his early teens killed himself while fleeing the police," recalls Campbell. "A lamp standard at the site of his demise is still decorated with flowers years after the incident, and the tributes on the obituaries page of one Wallasey newspaper were at least as grotesque as the ones I've invented - the romanticisation of a petty criminal. Cold to Touch - Simon Strantzas "Stories often find their origins in unexpected ways," Strantzas reveals. "I was inspired in this case by a photograph of a Zen garden I once used as my computer's desktop background. "There was something there in the coldness of the photograph, something that brought to mind the barren vistas of the Canadian Arctic, which ended up being the perfect setting for my tale of tested faith." The Reunion - Nicholas Royle "'The Reunion' is based on actual events," reveals the author, "but the story only really came into focus for me when I was invited to contribute to Ellen Datlow's Poe anthology. "Poe is brilliant. I was at a conference recently where a teacher revealed that she had read Poe's 'The Black Cat' to a lecture theatre full of schoolchildren. She switched off all the lights and used a torch to read by. A number of parents lodged complaints, which she took as a measure of the event's success. My tale is inspired by a different Poe story." Granny's Grinning - Robert Shearman "I love Christmas," says Shearman. "Always have done, and always a bit too passionately. The intensity with which I loved Christmas was delightful when I was eight years old, slightly unusual by the time I was eighteen, and increasingly disturbing thereafter. "I was the last one to grow up. It suddenly dawned on me one year, looking into the faces of my parents, and of my sister, that they were all older, and fatter, and less and less festive. And that they were trying so hard to keep me happy each Christmas, pretending they wanted all those presents I'd bought, all those sausage rolls and Quality Street chocs. That what I was trying to do, each December, was somehow reach back into the past and resurrect a time that was dead, that was long dead. "I still love Christmas. But now I recognize - as I still make them perform party games, as I still make them open their gifts and smile and say thank you - that they're zombies now. All of them, zombies. I'll never get my childhood back again, not really, or the innocence of that family get-together. So I'll make do with the dead, and pretend. "This is a story all about that." In The Garden - Rosalie Parker "'In the Garden' was written after I challenged myself to write a horror story about gardening," explains the author. "It emerged more quickly and easily than anything I've ever written. I think of it more as a prose poem than a story."
Author: Jon E. Lewis
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 147210210X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 111
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Book Description
Everyone loves a good conspiracy. From the Jonestown massacre and the Philadelphia experiment to Nazi gold and the moon landing, there are umpteen conspiracy theories that even the least sceptical of us can recall and discuss at length. Entire libraries have been furnished and internet forums filled with this cultural phenomenon in which complex threads are weaved together to explain seismic events in our recent history. Indeed, there are few things more captivating than a well-research, convincing argument that flies in the face of perceived knowledge. So follow Jon E. Lewis down the rabbit hole and look at our political system from a different perspective. Controversies include: - Bar Codes - Can it really be that these codes apparently indicate 666; the mark of the devil and his coming cashless economy? - The Bilderberg Group - An annual polite discussion on current affairs or a forum in which policy with worldwide implications is shaped? - Bohemian Grove - To some, this is a private camping site dubbed 'the greatest men's party on earth', while other's regard it as opportunity to win friends in high places and to secure jobs or contracts. What really goes on at Bohemian Grove when the elite gather? - Bush-Bin Laden Connection - Is it possible that George W. Bush made errors of judgement pre 9/11 because of his family's ties to the Bin Laden's? Is it possible that 9/11 could have been prevented? - Cancer - Is there a cancer cure which is being suppressed by pharmaceutical companies and the medical establishments to keep their multibillion-dollar industry thriving? - Club of Rome - Is it true that the Club of Rome wish to use war, disease and famine as the main ways to eliminate "useless eaters"? - Jonestown - Was this a mass suicide, or was it mass murder intended to cover-up mind-control experiments? - 1969 Moon Landing Hoax - Were all the Apollo landings an astronomical hoax? - Nazi Gold - Did US authorities turn a blind eye to $3 million stolen by its own troops? - Philadelphia Experiment - Did the US Navy cover up invisibility experiments which went hideously wrong? - Ronald Reagan - Did George Bush seek to assassinate Ronald Reagan? - The Royal Institute of International Affairs- To what extent do they influence world agendas? - Star Gate - What is the truth behind the CIA's psi-operations in the 1970s?
Author: Alastair Reynolds
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472104692
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 44
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Book Description
This story is not part of the Revelation Space series. It was developed from notes for an unwritten novel and maybe one day that novel will be completed, for we need to know the fate of the Earth. This story presents one of the more unusual apocalyptic ideas.
Author: Barrie Roberts
Publisher: C & R Crime
ISBN: 1472100808
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 25
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Book Description
Gossip and rumours begin to circulate in the press concerning Sir Andrew Lewis and the Addleton Barrow. Some claim that the Addleton Barrow has been the subject of evil legends as long as anyone can recall; other sources declare that after Sir Lewis opened the barrow in the village of Addleton, a disease struck the village. Sir Andrew Lewis is a victim of lesions of the skin, headaches, fainting spells, hair loss and eventually his mind is affected, too. Doctors Stamford and Greedom state his condition as an unknown, obscure, tropical disease picked up during his work abroad, and neither doctor is able to save the famous archaeologist from death. Holmes and Watson set out to get to the bottom of the rumours that swirl around this village and it's Black Barrow.
Author: Jon E. Lewis
Publisher: Robinson
ISBN: 1472102096
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 57
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Book Description
Alien Abduction Some 2,740 US citizens claim to have been abducted by aliens each day. That's an incredible 2% of a population of 300 million. Surely statistically some of these cases must bear truths? Area 51 It is rumoured that Area 51 houses the UFO disc found at Roswell, as well as other crashed alien spaceships. What is the truth? The Babylonian Brotherhood Twelve-foot lizards from the planet Draco have colonized Earth and seek world domination. Crop Circles Made by intelligent beings from elsewhere, or earth-bound pranksters? Face on Mars Was the image of a humanoid face 1.5 miles long by 1 mile wide purposefully constructed or is it simply an accidental resemblance? Hollow Earth The Earth is hollow and houses a surreptitious advanced civilisation. Majestic 12 Evidence found about a group of military officials, scientists and intelligence officials set up in 1962 to study alien technology. Legitimate or bogus? Men in Black Mysterious figures who seek to conceal UFO identity. They appear at a witness's house after a sighting and remove all physical evidence before threatening the witness to remain silent. Are they really government agents? Nazi Moon Base During the Second World War the Germans sent a successful mission to the moon, made a lunar station and built an underground base in Antarctica for space exploration research. Project Bluebook Since December 1969 there has been no official US government body actively investigating UFO sightings. But what about unofficially? Rendlesham Forest Did an alien spacecraft land at Rendlesham Forest in 1980? Roswell In 1947 an extra-terrestrial spacecraft with alien occupants landed in New Mexico. Allegedly, this event was covered up by the US military, but why? Shag Harbour In October 1967 an unidentified flying object was seen floating on the waters of Shag Harbour. Even following thorough investigation, no explanation has ever been given for this.
