Modern Science Fiction

In the modern world, life lessons are not always as black and white as who wins a race between a tortoise and a hare. Modern Day Fables features eleven lessons for us adults, we who face challenges that present a palette of grays in which the morals are often more gritty, trampled on, hard fought, hard won, and not always glorious. In these eleven fables, travel the subterranean world of lessons not oft told because they are challenging to the status quo, and championing of the individual who stands alone amid the world around us. Decide what you think, who wins and who loses, who stands ...

Steinbeck's first posthumously published work, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights is a reinterpretation of tales from Malory's Morte d'Arthur. In this highly successful attempt to render Malory into Modern English, Steinbeck recreated the rhythm and tone of the original Middle English.

Following the framework of a tale within a tale, Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, which features the subtitle The Modern Prometheus follows the scientific - and at times horrific - exploits of Victor Frankenstein. Victor studied alchemy in college, and after a mere two years he figures out that he can put human body pieces back together and restore the entire corpse to life.

Fresh from an involuntary crash course in the Stranger Arts, I've a new mystery on my plate: the inexplicable reappearance of a particularly fantastic magickal species. Which is great, don't get me wrong. Rescuing magickal beasts is what we do around here. But the Dappledok Pup hasn't been seen since the seventeen hundreds; so how did we find one, alive and kicking, over two hundred years later? And this beast has a talent for sniffing out treasure, no less. Happenstance? Maybe not.

From genetic engineering to the eternal complications of family, from fear of the future to the cruel world of the English boarding school, Haddon showcases masterfully how we are subject to the same elemental forces that obsessed the Greeks. Whether describing Laika the Soviet space-dog on her fateful orbit, or St Anthony wrestling with loneliness in the desert, his astonishing powers of observation are at their height when illuminating the thin line between human and animal.

Four years ago, somebody pinched perhaps the most valuable book in existence. Merlin’s personal grimoire. And the price they’re offering for its return is the kind we can’t refuse, so it’s Ves and Jay on the case. Except that there aren’t any clues. Seriously, not even a little one. Nothing’s going to solve this case but a Vesper-patented Crazy Plan, and it had better be a good one, for complications are sprouting like daisies. At least it’s a straightforward mission. There’s no earthly way this one’s going to turn my entire life upside down... right?

It’s all very well deciding to build the means to save British magick. Top marks for ambitious goals! ...But there are one or two obstacles in the way. For one, said means does not yet exist, and it’ll take a genius to sort that one out. Luckily, we’ve got one of those. We call him Orlando. For another, nothing at all can be built without materials, and no common-or-garden commodities will do. It’s got to be silver. The impossibly rare, virtually extinct kind. This one’s on me, Val and Jay.

It is the final years of the 18th century, but a world which few would recognise. The people of Europe shelter in small islands of safety, havens from the enchanted wilderness - the strange boundless forests people call the Tumble. It is across this demon-haunted landscape that the low-born officer Taliesin must lead his men, caught up in the deadliest of intrigues while fighting wars for a noble class which despises him. With vicious murderers from the worst gutters in the Realm marching behind him, and the forces of the most powerful nations of the mainland arrayed against him, the odds ...

When a woman with perfect memory sets out to solve a riddle, the threads she tugs on could bring a whole city crashing down. The God-King who made her is at risk, and his other servants will do anything to stop her. To become the God-King's Amanuensis, Manet had to master all seven perfections, developing her body and mind to the peak of human performance. She remembers everything that has happened to her, in absolute clarity, a gift that will surely drive her mad.

Ember Wright hates high heels, steep staircases, and having to cook for herself. She lives mostly on instant noodles and old western novels. She sometimes chats with dead people. Newly-promoted to Associate Investigator, Ember is sent undercover on her first assignment to rural North Dakota. Mages and changelings have been living in harmony, hidden in plain sight among humans for centuries. But now a shadow is upsetting the balance.

La clarividencia de Julio Verne ha inspirado a medio mundo y Heinrich Himmler no iba a ser menos. Obsesionado con la clave secreta que contiene uno de sus escritos lanzará todo su poder para conseguir descifrar los misterios ocultos en una novela de Verne: "Viaje al centro de la Tierra". Arqueólogos, soldados y aventureros se lanzan en una frenética búsqueda en el centro de la tierra para encontrar la solución definitiva a la guerra y al dominio de la raza humana.

Narrated by Joseph Tabler, Science Fiction Stories of the Future from the Past consists of the following works: “The Automatic Maid of All Work” by M. L. Campbell; “Ely’s Automatic Housemaid” by Elizabeth W. Bellamy; “Mr. Meek—Musketeer” by Clifford D. Simak; “Mr. Meek Plays Polo” by Clifford D. Simak; “In the Year Ten Thousand” by William Harben; “Service with a Smile” by Charles L. Fontenay; “Family Tree” by Charles L. Fontenay; and “Glow Worm” by Harlan Ellison. All stories are in the public domain.

As an agent of the Society for Magickal Heritage, I, Cordelia Vesper, have an important job: rescue endangered creatures, artefacts, books and spells wherever they are to be found. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to keep British magick alive. So we rescued a valuable book from a long-lost library, only it proved to be unusually... chatty. And it's got a foul mouth, too. What manner of weird magick is this? Somebody else thinks it's pretty interesting, too. Ancestria Magicka, they call themselves. Brand new. Big trouble.

Have you ever had a feeling that you’re not in control of your own body? Have you ever done something and immediately after wondered why you did it? You’re not the only one. People all through recorded time have had that feeling. What if you truly were not in control? What if another being was slowly taking control of you and your life? FNH Audio presents an unabridged reading of The Horla, a weird mystery story by Guy de Maupassant.

It has been 10 years since the police had charged him with the murder of his wife - an accusation that almost destroyed Jason’s life before finally being declared innocent. Now, all he wants is to retire and disappear into oblivion. Jason liked his plan, and it should have worked. Then, a strangely dressed man blew up his plan and sent him to training - warlock training.

Python is a drifter, a vampire living his eternal life on the road and liking it that way. Beholden to nothing and certainly to no one. But such a lifestyle doesn’t come without creating enemies. Most notably, a pesky vampire hunter he cant seem to shake. When he stumbles upon a seemingly abandoned cabin the woods, Python sees the perfect escape and a place to hide.

Rumour’s got a lot to say for itself, and the message is clear: the regulator’s ready. You know. The magickal regulator. The bright and shiny thing with which we, Team Improbable, propose to restore magick to a fading Britain. Somebody’s got to test it, and that somebody is us. Which means wading into the depths of a long-dead realm that nobody’s entered in centuries. And I may have had some practice at that, but this time it’s different. This time, somebody’s still home. And they really aren’t happy about trespassers. Looks like disaster’s on the agenda. Again.

Stranded far from home, and unable to return, I am in bigger trouble than ever. I know I say that a lot, but this time it's really true. Not that there aren’t advantages to my particular predicament. If one must put up with a dangerous degree of magickal potency, one is duty-bound to… put it to use, no? Certainly nothing insane, irresponsible and potentially life-threatening. As if. But we'll need every possible advantage in the Hyndorin Mountains. For there, hidden behind layers of secrets, could be the answers we are looking for.

Things have been quiet at the Society lately. Too quiet. It couldn’t possibly last. When a griffin appeared in the Yorkshire skies, it could only mean bad news. There’s only one place in Britain it could have come from and that’s the lost kingdom of Farringale. It’s a dire warning, and there’s worse to come. Turns out we aren’t the only people with an interest in the age-old city of the trolls. Farringale lies under attack—and these people will stop at nothing to take control of its treasures. It’s time for a showdown—the deathly serious kind.

Mysterious happenings to a small handicapped boy in a little Somerset village, way back in the 1930s, suddenly repeat themselves in the 21st Century. At the first event the villagers kept quiet about what they thought was either hallucination, witchcraft or a little boy’s mischief. They suspected, quite rightly, that they wouldn’t be believed. However, silence turns out to be impossible in the present media and online culture, with the result that the lives of two families are disrupted and changed forever.