Showing results by author "James Patrick Kelly" in All Categories

She is the clone of a famed space explorer, but Mariska Volochkova rejects her mother and her heritage and wants no part of interstellar adventure. Although she is genetically engineered to hibernate through the interminable decades of space travel, Mariska's home is a habitat on the moon, and there she intends to stay. But the sweep of interplanetary politics and an affair with a Martian catches Mariska up in a conspiracy to commit a bold theft that will alter the future of space colonization.

Modern gods and goddesses, remote, revered - and like the pantheon of heroes and heroines of ancient myth - possessing great power tempered with flaws. Now, find within this anthology great tales by gifted and award-winning authors who move superheroes from the four-color panels of comic books to the fantastic pages of fiction, stories that will remind anyone who ever wanted to wear a cape or don a cowl of the extraordinary powers of the imagination!

This novelette won the Hugo award in 1996 and has been hailed by many as a science-fiction classic. Intelligent dinosaurs from outer space offer humanity the chance to use their transporter technology to join the galactic culture, but at a terrible price. When a routine transport goes wrong, one man must face the consequences of becoming too much like an alien.

From Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, here are the best stories of 2002, written by four of the most respected writers of our day: Robert Silverberg, James Patrick Kelly, Ian Watson, and Gregory Benford. Also try The Best of Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine and The Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine 2002.

StoryPod 1.0 brings you 13 mind-bending stories from Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author James Patrick Kelly! Kelly not only narrates each story, he adds exclusive commentary that takes you inside his creative process.

James Patrick Kelly, the author of Planet of Whispers and the co-author, with John Kessel, of Freedom Beach has been nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo awards for his short fiction. This is a fable about a dissatisfied architect who travels "up-time" and changes shape to design a temple for a goddess.

In a hard-edged cyberpunk future, a courier is has stolen a load of the most dangerous, most dazzling drug ever invented and is smuggling it into New York City. Pursued by a hired hit woman disguised as a young girl and a federally-appointed vigilante, he must find his way through the mean streets of Manhattan to his lair. He is ruthless, amoral, and a rat. Not just figuratively, but literally: a two-foot-long, walking, talking rat. Hearing is believing.

Bernardo has gone and his intelligent house misses him desperately. Designed to meet all her master's needs, she is his cook, maid, secretary, lover, and secret refuge from the world. Now she struggles to cope with his loss. On the edge of madness, she is saved by the arrival of a damaged young girl, who will teach her what it means to be human.

He's a simple man, trying to live a simple life. He works at a dry cleaner and lives by himself. He doesn't have any friends and doesn't dare to reach out to others because there's a monster inside of him, a bloody-minded creature he's fighting a losing battle to control. He prays to God for help knowing that, unless his prayers are answered very soon, he will go on a killing spree. A taut tale of suspense and the fantastic, that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very last sentence.

Talisha is shocked when she finds mechdream pills in the bottom of her husband's underwear drawer. Designed to create a unique virtual reality based on his wildest fantasies, they will allow him to plumb the depths of his pleasure centers. The only problem is, he's spending the rent money building his virtual paradise. Just what are her husband's deepest desires? Talisha isn't sure she wants to know.

In this charming romantic comedy, a divorced single mom decides to re-enter the dating scene via an ad in the personals section of her local paper. Among the many men who answer the ad is the mysterious Gardiner, who writes poems, breeds daylilies, and has the unsettling ability to know exactly the right thing to say to win a woman's heart. What is his secret?

StoryPod 2.0 brings you 13 classic stories from Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author James Patrick Kelly! Kelly not only narrates each story, he adds exclusive commentary that takes you inside his creative process. The theme of StoryPod 2.0 is stories about aliens and outer space. And it includes a real treat: the complete, Nebula Award-winning novella, "Burn". But the classic stories don't stop there.

What is love? A profound and life-changing emotion, or a heady brew of neurochemicals washing through your brain? Two young medical students take a break from their studies to enjoy a night out at a neuromance palace, where for a mere $40 you can fall deeply in love and out again in a single carefree evening. Here's a romantic comedy about sales techniques, square-dancing, and hormones gone wild.

Where did all the people go? In a bizarre outpost perched on top of a mountain, the survivors of some cyber-cataclysm ponder the fate of humanity. Although all their needs are taken care of, their memories have been so compromised that they question their very reality. When one of them begins a project that will change everything, the mysterious keepers arrive to restore order.

It's Christmas and one of the aliens wants to go shopping at the mall to get in the proper holiday spirit. The trouble is, he doesn't know an elf from an elephant. Here's a wacky Yule story about intelligence, diversity, and too many tins of fruitcake.

You live on a lake and it's Christmas. You go skating and you happen upon a man frozen under the ice. Who is he? No, don't ask! You're in a horror story.

As humankind's first starship accelerates past the speed of light, an astronaut wakes up and finds that he is all alone. The crew is gone, the sensors give no readings, and he is trapped. Alone? Not quite. His imaginary wife keeps him company and helps him keep a tenuous hold on his sanity.

Imagine a race of marsupial-like aliens who have not two, but three sexes: father, birth-mother, and nurture-mother. The difficulties of married life are further complicated by adding another partner, but this culture has worked out its own unique solution. The arrival of a new race of space-faring aliens, however, will change everything.

Stonehenge is possibly the most mystical place on Earth. Its call has echoed through the ages and will continue as long as the stones continue to stand. The drug artist Tony Cage is almost as obsessed with Stonehenge as he is with his offspring Wynne, whom he had cloned from his own cells but then tweaked her sex chromosome from XY to XX. Is she his daughter or something entirely different? Tony will find the answer at Stonehenge on the Solstice Day.

Rebelling against her fashion-drug designer father, freelance journalist and troubled clone Wynne Cage covers a data-heist that places her in the rank of a thief. To make matters more complicated, Wynne must also confront the forces of a world with unlimited bio-technological advantages.