Вершина цивилизации

The very best short SF fiction of any given year as recommended and nominated by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America: the best novella, novelette and short story. Here you will find the cream of the crop of science fiction and fantasy - startling ideas, the intricate construction of new worlds and mind-bending experimental writing. This anthology includes not only the Nebula Award-winning works in each short-form category, but also all the nominees in the novelette and short story categories. Here you will find colourful fantasy, outstanding speculative fiction, steampunk, edgy writing on the fringes of the mainstream and uncompromisingly hard SF in stories set in the distant past, an off-kilter present day, the far future or some times in between.

From legendary editor Ellen Datlow, collects the best of the last thirty years of science fiction and fantasy stories about cats from an all-star list of contributors.

Когда вы откроете эту книгу, казненный палач вернется, чтобы закончить начатое… Смотрительница заброшенного маяка окажет вам прием, который вы не сможете забыть… И даже если вам удастся вернуться из этого города — вы никогда не станете прежним… Ведь от собственного страха никуда не спрятаться.

Более 20 авторов — от всемирно известного Дэвида Моррелла, создателя легендарного Рэмбо, и Марка Морриса, автора романов о Хеллбое и Докторе Кто, до Ричарда Кристиана Мэтесона, одного из самых успешных сценаристов Голливуда, и непревзойденного Кристофера Фаулера, которого по праву называют одним из отцов интеллектуального триллера.

Более 20 произведений — от фэнтези до настоящего хоррора!

Более 20 ваших самых страшных кошмаров, скрывающихся в заброшенных домах, темных аллеях и поздних телефонных звонках…

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 where he must decide whether the past or the future will be his present.

LITERARY AWARDS: Nebula Award for Best Novel (1982), British Science Fiction Association Award Nominee for Best Novel (1983), John W. Campbell Memorial Award Nominee for Best Science Fiction Novel (1983).

Now back in print—a powerful science fiction masterwork from the Nebula Award-winning author of .

Ancient of Days

WHomo habilis

From these dramatic speculations, Michael Bishop creates a complex story spanning several years in the late 1980s and intertwining the lives of many fascinating and/or exasperating characters, including…

RuthClaire Loyd

Paul LoydAncient of Days

Brian Nollinger

Dwight “Happy” McElroy

A. P. Blair

and , the living human fossil whom RuthClaire has named and dared to take into her home.

Over the course of , these characters and others work out their loves and conflicts across a variety of backdrops—from rural Georgia to the bistros and back alleys of Atlanta, all the way to the forests and caves of antique Montaraz, an enigmatic island under the dictatorial sway of “Baby Doc” Duvalier of Haiti.

A rare combination of science fiction, noir mystery, and comedy of manners, will involve and challenge you as have few other novels.

Michael Bishop è senz’altro uno degli autori più completi e maturi della fantascienza degli anni settanta-ottanta, come testimoniano opere ricche di forza narrativa e di brillanti ritratti di culture aliene quali e . Qui lo vediamo all’opera nella descrizione di un’altra società di un futuro non molto lontano, costituita da «anziani» che si riuniscono in matrimoni di gruppo sponsorizzati dal governo. Il loro mondo e le loro strutture sociali sono affascinanti, ma sono proprio i personaggi, ognuno un essere umano magnificamente dipinto, che cattureranno la vostra attenzione e la vostra simpatia.