Name: City
Rating: 4.08 (18967 reviews)
Author: Clifford D. Simak

Nightfall

★ 4.06

Isaac Asimov

In 1941, Astounding Science Fiction magazine published a short story by a little-known writer named Isaac Asimov. The story was called "Nightfall", and many years later it has long been recognized as a classic, its author a legend. Now, the Grand Master of Science Fiction teams with Robert Silverberg, one of the field's top award-winning authors, to explore and expand an apocalyptic tale that is more spellbinding today than ever before -- Nightfall: The Novel.

Imagine living on a planet with six suns that never experiences darkness. Imagine never having seen the stars. Then, one by one the suns start to set, gradually leading into darkness for the first time ever. Kalgash is a world on the edge of chaos, torn between the madness of religious fanaticism and the unyielding rationalism of scientists. Lurking beneath it all is a collective, instinctual fear of the Darkness. For Kalgash knows only the perpetual light of day; to its inhabitants, a gathering twilight portends unspeakable horror. And only a handful of people on the planet are prepared to face the truth, their six suns are setting all at once for the first time in over two thousand years, signaling the end of civilization as it explodes in the awesome splendor of Nightfall.

Encompassing the psychology of disaster, the tenacity of the human spirit, and, ultimately, the regenerative power of hope, Nightfall is a tale rich in character and suspense that only the unique collaboration of Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg could create.

So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy

★ 4.00

Nalo Hopkinson

So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy is an anthology of original new stories by leading African, Asian, South Asian and Aboriginal authors, as well as North American and British writers of color.

Stories of imagined futures abound in Western writing. Writer and editor Nalo Hopkinson notes that the science fiction/fantasy genre “speaks so much about the experience of being alienated but contains so little writing by alienated people themselves.” It’s an oversight that Hopkinson and Mehan aim to correct with this anthology.

The book depicts imagined futures from the perspectives of writers associated with what might loosely be termed the “third world.” It includes stories that are bold, imaginative, edgy; stories that are centered in the worlds of the “developing” nations; stories that dare to dream what we might develop into.

The wealth of postcolonial literature has included many who have written insightfully about their pasts and presents. With So Long Been Dreaming they creatively address their futures.

Contributors include: Opal Palmer Adisa, Tobias Buckell, Wayde Compton, Hiromi Goto, Andrea Hairston, Tamai Kobayashi, Karin Lowachee, devorah major, Carole McDonnell, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Eden Robinson, Nisi Shawl, Vandana Singh, Sheree Renee Thomas and Greg Van Eekhout.

Nalo Hopkinson is the internationally-acclaimed author of Brown Girl in the Ring, Skin Folk, and Salt Roads. Her books have been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Tiptree, and Philip K. Dick Awards; Skin Folk won a World Fantasy Award and the Sunburst Award. Born in Jamaica, Nalo moved to Canada when she was sixteen. She lives in Toronto.

Uppinder Mehan is a scholar of science fiction and postcolonial literature. A South Asian Canadian, he currently lives in Boston and teaches at Emerson College.

Shadow & Claw

★ 4.04

Gene Wolfe

The Shadow of the Torturer is the tale of young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession -- showing mercy toward his victim.

The Claw of the Conciliator continues the saga of Severian, banished from his home, as he undertakes a mythic quest to discover the awesome power of an ancient relic, and learn the truth about his hidden destiny.

The Book of the New Sun is unanimously acclaimed as Gene Wolfe's most remarkable work, hailed as "a masterpiece of science fantasy comparable in importance to the major works of Tolkien and Lewis" by Publishers Weekly, and "one of the most ambitious works of speculative fiction in the twentieth century" by The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Shadow & Claw brings together the first two books of the tetralogy in one volume.

The Martian Chronicles

★ 4.16

Ray Bradbury

The strange and wonderful tale of man’s experiences on Mars, filled with intense images and astonishing visions. Now part of the Voyager Classics collection.

The Martian Chronicles tells the story of humanity’s repeated attempts to colonize the red planet. The first men were few. Most succumbed to a disease they called the Great Loneliness when they saw their home planet dwindle to the size of a fist. They felt they had never been born. Those few that survived found no welcome on Mars. The shape-changing Martians thought they were native lunatics and duly locked them up.

But more rockets arrived from Earth, and more, piercing the hallucinations projected by the Martians. People brought their old prejudices with them – and their desires and fantasies, tainted dreams. These were soon inhabited by the strange native beings, with their caged flowers and birds of flame.

Contents:
Rocket Summer
Ylla
The Summer Night
The Earth Men
The Taxpayer
The Third Expedition
-And the Moon Be Still As Bright
The Settlers
The Green Morning
The Locusts
Night Meeting
The Shore
Interim
The Musicians
Way in the Middle of the Air
The Naming of Names
Usher II
The Old Ones
The Martian
The Luggage Store
The Off Season
The Watchers
The Silent Towns
The Long Years
There Will Come Soft Rains
The Million Year Picnic

Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick

★ 4.26

Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick was a master of science fiction, but he was also a writer whose work transcended genre to examine the nature of reality and what it means to be human. A writer of great complexity and subtle humor, his work belongs on the shelf of great twentieth-century literature, next to Kafka and Vonnegut. Collected here are twenty-one of Dick's most dazzling and resonant stories, which span his entire career and show a world-class writer working at the peak of his powers.

In "The Days of Perky Pat," people spend their time playing with dolls who manage to live an idyllic life no longer available to the Earth's real inhabitants. "Adjustment Team" looks at the fate of a man who by mistake has stepped out of his own time. In "Autofac," one community must battle benign machines to take back control of their lives. And in "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon," we follow the story of one man whose very reality may be nothing more than a nightmare. The collection also includes such classic stories as "The Minority Report," the basis for the Steven Spielberg movie, and "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," the basis for the film Total Recall. Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick is a magnificent distillation of one of American literature's most searching imaginations.

» Introduction by Jonathan Lethem
1. Beyond Lies the Wub (wikipedia)
2. Roog (wikipedia)
3. Paycheck (wikipedia, imdb)
4. Second Variety (wikipedia, imdb)
5. Imposter (wikipedia)
6. The King of the Elves (wikipedia, imdb)
7. Adjustment Team (wikipedia, imdb)
8. Foster, You're Dead! (wikipedia)
9. Upon the Dull Earth (wikipedia)
10. Autofac (wikipedia)
11. The Minority Report (wikipedia, imdb)
12. The Days of Perky Pat (wikipedia)
13. Precious Artifact
14. A Game of Unchance
15. We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (wikipedia, imdb)
16. Faith of Our Fathers (wikipedia)
17. The Electric Ant (wikipedia)
18. A Little Something for Us Tempunauts (wikipedia)
19. The Exit Door Leads In (wikipedia)
20. Rautavaara's Case (wikipedia)
21. I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (wikipedia)

Pilgrimage: The Book of the People

★ 4.29

Zenna Henderson

255 page mass market paperback science fiction masterpiece.

I, Robot

★ 4.21

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov's I, Robot launches readers on an adventure into a not-so-distant future where man and machine , struggle to redefinelife, love, and consciousness—and where the stakes are nothing less than survival. Filled with unforgettable characters, mind-bending speculation, and nonstop action, I, Robot is a powerful reading experience from one of the master storytellers of our time.

I, ROBOT

They mustn't harm a human being, they must obey human orders, and they must protect their own existence...but only so long as that doesn't violate rules one and two. With these Three Laws of Robotics, humanity embarked on perhaps its greatest adventure: the invention of the first positronic man. It was a bold new era of evolution that would open up enormous possibilities—and unforeseen risks. For the scientists who invented the earliest robots weren't content that their creations should ' remain programmed helpers, companions, and semisentient worker-machines. And soon the robots themselves; aware of their own intelligence, power, and humanity, aren't either.

As humans and robots struggle to survive together—and sometimes against each other—on earth and in space, the future of both hangs in the balance. Human men and women confront robots gone mad, telepathic robots, robot politicians, and vast robotic intelligences that may already secretly control the world. And both are asking the same questions: What is human? And is humanity obsolete?

In l, Robot Isaac Asimov changes forever our perception of robots, and human beings and updates the timeless myth of man's dream to play god. with all its rewards—and terrors.
--front flap

The Illustrated Man

★ 4.13

Ray Bradbury

That The Illustrated Man has remained in print since being published in 1951 is fair testimony to the universal appeal of Ray Bradbury's work. Only his second collection (the first was Dark Carnival, later reworked into The October Country), it is a marvelous, if mostly dark, quilt of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. In an ingenious framework to open and close the book, Bradbury presents himself as a nameless narrator who meets the Illustrated Man--a wanderer whose entire body is a living canvas of exotic tattoos. What's even more remarkable, and increasingly disturbing, is that the illustrations are themselves magically alive, and each proceeds to unfold its own story, such as "The Veldt," wherein rowdy children take a game of virtual reality way over the edge. Or "Kaleidoscope," a heartbreaking portrait of stranded astronauts about to reenter our atmosphere--without the benefit of a spaceship. Or "Zero Hour," in which invading aliens have discovered a most logical ally--our own children. Even though most were written in the 1940s and 1950s, these 18 classic stories will be just as chillingly effective 50 years from now. --Stanley Wiater

Contents:

· Prologue: The Illustrated Man · ss *
· The Veldt [“The World the Children Made”] · ss The Saturday Evening Post Sep 23 ’50
· Kaleidoscope · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Oct ’49
· The Other Foot · ss New Story Magazine Mar ’51
· The Highway [as by Leonard Spalding] · ss Copy Spr ’50
· The Man · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Feb ’49
· The Long Rain [“Death-by-Rain”] · ss Planet Stories Sum ’50
· The Rocket Man · ss Maclean’s Mar 1 ’51
· The Fire Balloons [“‘In This Sign...’”] · ss Imagination Apr ’51
· The Last Night of the World · ss Esquire Feb ’51
· The Exiles [“The Mad Wizards of Mars”] · ss Maclean’s Sep 15 ’49; F&SF Win ’50
· No Particular Night or Morning · ss *
· The Fox and the Forest [“To the Future”] · ss Colliers May 13 ’50
· The Visitor · ss Startling Stories Nov ’48
· The Concrete Mixer · ss Thrilling Wonder Stories Apr ’49
· Marionettes, Inc. [Marionettes, Inc.] · ss Startling Stories Mar ’49
· The City [“Purpose”] · ss Startling Stories Jul ’50
· Zero Hour · ss Planet Stories Fll ’47
· The Rocket [“Outcast of the Stars”] · ss Super Science Stories Mar ’50
· Epilogue · aw *

City

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