Half a blink after the smoke from the cigarette smoldering in the ashtray had curled into a hoary question mark and froze in perpetual query as if to ask, “What next, Dick?” Dick turned his head ever so slowly toward the kitchen.
Read MoreThe Thing in the Refrigerator That Could Stop TimeMaxwell Sanders pressed the phone closer to his ear as if that would somehow bring comprehension. “Did you say trolls?”
“Yes, Max.” With her words, he could picture Amalia’s rigid posture.
He ran a hand over his scalp. “I can’t redo the aluminum plant blueprints because your foreman believes in fairytales.”
Read MoreHorizontal RainLifting the stopper from the vial to his nose, Penn inhaled slowly. Against the neutral backdrop of his ship’s cleanroom, he picked out aromas of quince, elderberry, and bright Martian soil that hinted of blood, with undercurrents of cinnamon and Zeta Epsilon’s fragrantly sweet longgrass.
Read MoreScenting the DarkThe earth is rich in textures and smells. It hurtles by, your clawed hands scrabbling at earth, stones and tree roots, your prey’s odours hooked into your nostrils, pulling you along with fragrant fingers of meat and blood and ordure.
Read MoreThe Killing StreetsMaster told us that the earth was hollow, and that we lived on the inside of it, clinging to the top of the crust. Below us was another world, a world inside the world, a glowing bright sun of a place. What Master called the summerlands.
Read MoreGhost Technology from the Sun
This 2009 reprint by the late Eugie Foster is one that feels eerily prescient.
Citizens change their identities based on the masks they are mandated to wear. But one person longs to be their true self. Eugie's story is an incisive, devastating look at society and its control of self-identity.
Read MoreSinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast