Name: Foundation’s Friends
Rating: 4.19 (3671 reviews)
Author: Martin H. Greenberg

The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, Volume 1: Beyond Lies the Wub

★ 4.17

Philip K. Dick

Volume 1/5. Includes stories from 1952-1955:

- Stability
- Roog
- The Little Movement
- Beyond Lies the Wub
- The Gun
- The Skull
- The Defenders
- Mr. Spaceship
- Piper in the Woods
- The Infinites
- The Preserving Machine
- Expendable
- The Variable Man
- The Indefatigable Frog
- The Crystal Crypt
- The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford
- The Builder
- Meddler
- Paycheck
- The Great C
- Out in the Garden
- The King of the Elves
- Colony
- Prize Ship
- Nanny

Other editions of this volume have the same list of stories, and were published under these titles:
- The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford,
- Paycheck and Other Classic Stories,
- The King of the Elves (+1 extra story).

Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution

★ 3.34

Ann VanderMeer

27 fiction, 4 non-fiction entries imagine technology in Victorian era and philosophize on influences. Intro, bios, notes.
Fiction
“Harry and Marlowe and the Talisman of the Cult of Egil” by Carrie Vaughn
“Addison Howell and the Clockroach” by Cherie Priest
“On Wooden Wings” by Paolo Chikiamco
“Sir Ranulph Wykeham-Rackham” by Lev Grossman
“The Heart Is the Matter” by Malissa Kent
“Mother Is a Machine” by Catherynne M. Valente
“Possession” by Ben Peek
“Beatrice” by Karin Tidbeck
“Arbeitskraft” by Nick Mamatas
“Study, for Solo Piano” by Genevieve Valentine
“Beside Calais” by Samantha Henderson
“An Exhortation to Young Writers (Advice Tendered by Poor Mojo’s Giant Squid)” by David Erik Nelson, Morgan Johnson, and Fritz Swanson
“A Handful of Rice” by Vandana Singh
“Fixing Hanover” by Jeff VanderMeer
“Salvage” by Margaret Ronald
“Urban Drift” by Andrew Knighton
“Ascension” by Leow Hui Min Annabeth
“Nowhere Fast” by Christopher Rowe
“The Effluent Engine” by N. K. Jemisin
“To Follow the Waves” by Amal El-Mohtar
“Captain Bells & the Sovereign State of Discordia” by JY Yang
“The Seventh Expression of the Robot General” by Jeffrey Ford
“The Stoker Memorandum” by Lavie Tidhar
“Smoke City” by Christopher Barzak
“Goggles (c.1910)” by Caitlín R. Kiernan
“Peace in Our Time” by Garth Nix
“White Fungus” by Bruce Sterling

Nonfiction
“Winding Down the House: Towards a Steampunk Without Steam” by Amal El-Mohtar
“Steampunk Shapes Our Future” by Margaret Killjoy
“From Airships of Imagination to Feet on the Ground” by Jaymee Goh
“The (R)Evolution of Steampunk” by Austin Sirkin

The Road to Dune

★ 3.89

Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert's Dune is widely known as the science fiction equivalent of The Lord of the Rings. Now The Road to Dune is a companion work comparable to The Silmarillion, shedding light on and following the remarkable development of the bestselling science fiction novel of all time.

In this fascinating volume, the world's millions of Dune fans can read--at long last--the unpublished chapters and scenes from Dune and Dune Messiah. The Road to Dune also includes some of the original correspondence between Frank Herbert and famed editor John W. Campbell, Jr., along with other correspondence during Herbert's years-long struggle to get his innovative work published, and the article "They Stopped the Moving Sands," Herbert's original inspiration for Dune.

The Road to Dune also features newly discovered papers and manuscripts of Frank Herbert, and Spice Planet, an original novel by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, based on a detailed outline left by Frank Herbert.

The Road to Dune is a treasure trove of essays, articles, and fiction that every reader of Dune will want to add to their shelf.

Virtual Unrealities: The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester

★ 3.96

Alfred Bester

Alfred Bester took science fiction into hyperdrive, endowing it with a wit, speed, and narrative inventiveness that have inspired two generations of writers. And nowhere is Bester funnier, speedier, or more audacious than in these seventeen short stories—two of them previously unpublished—that have now been brought together in a single volume for the first time.

Read about the sweet-natured young man whose phenomenal good luck turns out to be disastrous for the rest of humanity. Find out why tourists are flocking to a hellish little town in a post-nuclear Kansas. Meet a warlock who practices on Park Avenue and whose potions comply with the Pure Food and Drug Act. Make a deal with the Devil—but not without calling your agent. Dazzling, effervescent, sexy, and sardonic, Virtual Unrealities is a historic collection from one of science fiction's true pathbreakers.

CONTENTS:
Disappearing Act
Oddy and Id
Star Light, Star Bright (1953)
5,271,009 (1954)
Fondly Fahrenheit (1954)
Hobson's Choice (1952)
Of Time and Third Avenue (1952)
Time is the Traitor (1953)
The Men Who Murdered Mohammed (1958)
The Pi Man (1959)
They Don't Make Life Like They Used To (1963)
Will You Wait? (1959)
The Flowered Thundermug (1964)
Adam and No Eve (1941)
And 3 1/2 to Go
Galatea Galante (1979)
The Devil Without Glasses

Vacuum Diagrams

★ 4.07

Stephen Baxter

"And everywhere the Humans went, they found life..."
This dazzling future history, winner of the 2000 Philip K. Dick Award, is the most ambitious and exciting since Asimov's classic Foundation saga. It tells the story of Humankind - all the way to the end of the Universe itself.

Here, in luminous and vivid narratives spanning five million years, are the first Poole wormholes spanning the solar system; the conquest of Human planets by Squeem; GUTships that outrace light; the back-time invasion of the Qax; the mystery and legacy of the Xeelee, and their artifacts as large as small galaxies; photino birds and Dark Matter; and the Ring, where Ghost, Human, and Xeelee contemplate the awesome end of Time.

Eve (1997)
The Sun-People (1993)
The Logic Pool (1994)
Gossamer (1995)
Cilia-of-Gold (1994)
Lieserl (1993)
Pilot (1993)
The Xeelee Flower (1987)
More Than Time or Distance (1988)
The Switch (1990)
Blue Shift (1989)
The Quagma Datum (1989)
Planck Zero (1992)
The Gödel Sunflowers (1992)
Vacuum Diagrams (1990)
Stowaway (1991)
The Tyranny of Heaven (1990)
Hero (1995)
Secret History (1991)
Shell (1987)
The Eighth Room (1989)
The Baryonic Lords (1991)
Eve (1997)

Risen

★ 4

Guillermo del Toro

What has been awakened is unbound. The Boy is getting his first taste of freedom. As their comrades fall, fear threatens to consume the survivors in part four of The Boy in the Iron Box.

Liev’s get his men out of this ancient stone prison, take their chances with the wolves, and descend the summit at first light. But in this snowbound hell, there’s soon to be a frightening new twist to survival.

From Academy Award–winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro comes Risen, part four of The Boy in the Iron Box, a blood-chilling series of short stories about an ancient secret that was never meant to be unleashed, featuring exclusive interior artwork. Each can be read or listened to in one breathless sitting.

Stranger Things Happen

★ 3.83

Kelly Link

This first collection by award-winning author Kelly Link takes fairy tales and cautionary tales, dictators and extraterrestrials, amnesiacs and honeymooners, revenants and readers alike, on a voyage into new, strange, and wonderful territory. The girl detective must go to the underworld to solve the case of the tap-dancing bank robbers. A librarian falls in love with a girl whose father collects artificial noses. A dead man posts letters home to his estranged wife. Two women named Louise begin a series of consecutive love affairs with a string of cellists. A newly married couple become participants in an apocalyptic beauty pageant. Sexy blond aliens invade New York City. A young girl learns how to make herself disappear.

These eleven extraordinary stories are quirky, spooky, and smart. They all have happy endings. Every story contains a secret prize. Each story was written especially for you.

Stories from Stranger Things Happen have won the Nebula, Tiptree, and World Fantasy Award. Stranger Things Happen was a Salon Book of the Year, one of the Village Voice's 25 Favorite Books of 2001, and was nominated for the Firecracker Alternative Book Award.

Contents:
- Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1998)
- Water Off a Black Dog's Back (1995)
- The Specialist's Hat (1998)
- Flying Lessons (1995)
- Travels with the Snow Queen (1996/1997)
- Vanishing Act (1996)
- Survivor's Ball, or, The Donner Party (1998)
- Shoe and Marriage (2000)
- Most of My Friends Are Two-Thirds Water (2001)
- Louise's Ghost (2001)
- The Girl Detective (1999)

Cover painting by Shelley Jackson

Miles in Love

★ 4.53

Lois McMaster Bujold

Omnibus with two complete novels and a novella in one large volume. This collection shows Miles and Ekaterin meeting (Komarr), getting to know each other as Miles tries to court her (A Civil Campaign), and the wedding (Winterfair Gifts), and, of course, Miles dealing with assorted family relationships. Miles deals with political problems along the way plus recounts the loves of his life to Ekaterin. ...none of them would marry him; they all went on to lead successful lives--so unlike her life on Komarr. The last on his list was Rian: "And what does she do now?" ... "Now, She's an empress" ... "Can I take a number and get in line?" ... "The next number up", he breathed, "is one".

Contents:
Komarr: Miles Vorkosigan is sent to Komarr, a planet that could be a garden with a thousand more years of terraforming; or an uninhabitable wasteland, if the terraforming project fails. The solar mirror vital to the project has been shatteredby a ship hurtling off course, and Miles Vorkossigan has been sent to find out if it was an accident, or sabotage. Miles uncovers a plot that could exile him from Barrayar forever - and discovers an unexpected ally, one with wounds as deep and honor as beleaguered as his own.

A Civil Campaign: On Komarr, Miles met the beautiful Vor widow Ekaterin Vorsoisson, who has no intention of getting married after the heartbreak and betrayal of her first experience. But Miles has a cunning plan to change her mind. Unfortunately his clone-brother Mark and his cousin Ivan have cunning plans of their own, and the three-way collision of cunning plans threatens to undo Miles' brilliant romantic strategy.

"Winterfair Gifts": Miles and Ekaterin make elaborate preparations for their wedding. But Miles has an enemy who is plotting to turn the romantic ceremony into a festival of death.

Foundation’s Friends

More in Foundation (Publication Order) Series

Foundation

The Foundation Trilogy

Foundation and Empire

Second Foundation

Foundation’s Edge

Foundation and Earth

Prelude to Foundation

Forward the Foundation