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This short story originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September-October 2010. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 16 (2011), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.

This short story originally appeared in Playboy, February 1997. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 3 (1998), edited by David G. Hartwell. The story is included in the collection In the Upper Room: And Other Likely Stories (2005).

Any Day Now is truly a literary tour de force. It is a poignant excursion into the last days of the Beats and the emerging radicalized culture of the sixties from Kentucky to New York City and daringly unique. This road movie of a novel, which begins as a fifties coming-of-age story and ends in an isolated hippy commune under threat of revolution, provides a transcendent commentary on America then and now.

Hugo, Nebula and Sturgeon Award winning short story. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, August 1990. The story has been reprinted many times. Among others, It can be found in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighth Annual Collection (1991), edited by Gardner Dozois, Nebula Awards 26 (1992), edited by James Morrow, Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias (1994), edited by Kim Stanley Robinson. The story has been collected in Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories (1993).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed Magazine, or listen to the podcast at Drabblecast.

From the gentle fantasies that include the wry title story--winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards--to ecological allegories; a horrific novelette about experimental excursions into the realm of death; and a first-contact mini-epic, this anthology showcases the wide range of Bisson's powerful talent. In every piece, Bisson's characters are just as absurd as their fantastic landscape, yet thoroughly ordinary, recognizable, and authentic. His pack of scientists, artists, rednecks, insurance salesmen, astronauts, truck drivers, owlish British gentlemen, and others will stay with you like your best friends and quirkiest relations.

Table of Contents:

• Bears Discover Fire - (1990)
• The Two Janets - (1990)
• They're Made Out of Meat - (1991)
• Over Flat Mountain - (1990)
• Press Ann - (1991)
• The Coon Suit - (1991)
• George - (1993)
• Next - (1992)
• Necronauts - (1993)
• Are There Any Questions? - (1992)
• Two Guys from the Future - (1992)
• The Toxic Donut - (1993)
• Canción Autentica de Old Earth - (1992)
• Partial People - (1993)
• Carl's Lawn & Garden - (1992)
• The Message - (1993)
• England Underway - (1993)
• By Permit Only - (1993)
• The Shadow Knows - (1993)
• Afterword - essay by Terry Bisson

This short story originally appaered in the anthology Golden Age SF: Tales of a Bygone Future (2006) edited by Eric T. Reynolds. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 12 (2012), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is included in the collection TVA Baby and Other Stories (2011).

Lou has a magic box. It makes people do things they normally wouldn't. And Lou likes to watch.

Terry Bisson's 1990 short story "Bears Discover Fire" won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards, and his all-dialogue story "They're Made Out of Meat" is one of the most widely-reprinted SF stories of the last several decades. He has published several volumes of short fiction, including Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories. His novels include Talking Man, Fire on the Mountain, Voyage to the Red Planet, Pirates of the Universe, and The Pickup Artist.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

This short story originally appeared on Sci Fiction, August 15, 2001. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 7 (2002), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is included in the collection TVA Baby and Other Stories (2011).

Hugo Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1994. The story is included in the collection In the Upper Room: And Other Likely Stories (2000).

Would you sacrifice humanity to save the planet Earth? Cole is an obscure professor at an undistinguished community college -- a man without a future. Lee is a Chinese political refugee with a Texas accent -- a man without a past. They share a tiny office, a taste for Edward Abbey (and Jack Daniels), and an awesome destiny.

For the most fateful decision in human history is theirs to make. One fateful Friday night, Cole and Lee join hands (literally) and embark on a journey to retrieve a formula that will change, or end, human history. A journey through Time.

Along the way, they are witness to all the horror and all the glory of our tomorrows--from the cannibal seals of the next Ice Age to the final campfire under a dying sun; from the seductions of 30th century Paris to the pleasures of a dinner party a hundred million years in the future.

They even find time to meet man's best friend, as well as his most indifferent enemy. It's a billion-year leap -- a long weekend that stretches all the way from Friday night to the End of Time.

This novella can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-First Annual Collection (2004), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collection Greetings (2005).

WFA, Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novelette. It first appeared in Omni, July 1993. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Seventh Annual Collection (1994), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling and Nebula Awards 29 (1995), edited by Pamela Sargent. It is included in the collection Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories (1993).

Read the full story for free at Infinity Plus.

It's 1959 in socialist Virginia. The Deep South is an independent black nation called Nova Africa. The second Mars expedition is about to touch down on the red planet and a pregnant scientist is climbing the Blue Ridge in search of her great grandfather, a teenage slave who fought with John Brown in Harriet Tubman's guerrilla army. Long unavailable in English, this bold novel tells the tale of what might have happened if John Brown's raid on Harper's ferry had succeeded - and the Civil War had been started by the abolitionists, not the slave owners.

This novella originally appeared in four parts on Sci Fiction. It can also be found in the anthology Best Short Novels: 2004, edited by Jonathan Strahan. It can also be found in the collection Greetings (2005).

This short story originally appeared on Sci Fiction, October 2, 2002. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 8 (2003), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is included in the collection Greetings (2005).

This novelette originally appeared in Playboy, April 1996. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 2 (1997), edited by David G. Hartwell. The story is inlcuded in the collection In the Upper Room: And Other Likely Stories (2000).

In the Upper Room and Other Likely Stories is the new collection of sixteen fantastic, ironic tales by Terry Bisson. Terry Bisson uses the fantastic genres as do Kurt Vonnegut or Harlan Ellison, and like them, he is one of the strikingly original voices in short fiction today, with an audience that transcends genre. "Particularly delightful," said The Christian Science Monitor of his first collection. Bisson writes entertaining and moving stories in a strong and unique voice. They are sharp, witty, subversive, and stylish. For instance:

An Office Romance: a story of the private lives of icons on a computer desktop.

First Fire: a scientist discovers a way to date burning flame's and tries it on one in an ancient temple, with astonishing results.

Macs: clones of murderous criminals, with no human rights, are sent to be the property of their victims' families.

From the author of "Bears Discover Fire," one of the most anthologized American short stories of the last decade, this is a collection of stories that originally appeared in sources as diverse as Asimov's SF, Playboy, Southern Exposure, and Crank! They are clever, slick, memorable, occasionally profound, and always surprising.

Table of Contents:

• In the Upper Room - (1996) - novelette
• There Are No Dead - (1995) - shortstory
• The Edge of the Universe - (1996) - novelette
• The Joe Show - (1994) - novelette
• macs - (1999) - shortstory
• Tell Them They Are All Full of Shit and They Should Fuck Off - (1994) - shortstory
• The Player - (1997) - shortstory
• An Office Romance - (1997) - shortstory
• 10:07:24 - (1995) - shortstory
• First Fire - (1998) - shortstory by Terry Bisson
• Get Me to the Church on Time - (1998) - novella
• Smoother - (1999) - shortstory
• Incident at Oak Ridge - (1998) - novelette
• Dead Man's Curve - (1994) - shortstory
• He Loved Lucy - (2000) - shortstory
• Not This Virginia - (1999) - shortstory

Locus Award winning and Hugo, Nebula and Sturgeon Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October-November 1999. The story can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 5 (2000), edited by David G. Hartwell, the Nebula Awards Showcase 2002, edited by Kim Stanley Robinson and The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: 60th Anniversary Anthology (2002), edited by Gordon van Gelder. It has been collected in In the Upper Room and Other Likely Stories (2000).

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Playboy, July 1993. The story can aslo be found in the collection Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories (1993).

A child writes a series of one-way e-mails to his parents from the game room on a cruise ship. Pirates board and occupy the ship with the child obviously not understanding the concepts of death and the ramification of other abuse from the pirates. He seems to believe that at the end of "Pirate Week" things will revert to normal.

This short story originally appeared in Subterranean, Issue #7. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 13 (2007), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is included in the collection TVA Baby and Other Stories (2011).

Here come the Peteys! Vacuum jellyfish the size of small moons, they drift through our solar system like messengers from another universe. Some worship them, others study them, and still others hunt them for their skins, which are more valuable than gold or even oil on the ruined, depleted Earth.

Gunther is a hunter. He knows the rules. He knows the risks. He knows the rewards. What he doesn't know, is that he's being hunted too.

Hugo Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, August 1991. The story is included in the collection Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories (1993).

Sturgeon Award nominated short story. It originally appeared on Sci Fiction, January 28, 2004. The story can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 10 (2005), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer and The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Second Annual Collection (2005), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in the collection Greetings (2005).

Delighted by the world he dreamed into existence, Talking Man, a godlike immortal, takes up residence in his creation as a Kentucky mechanic, but Dgene, Talking Man's dream-sister, tries to terminate the dream...

When Sam Gregory wakes up to find he has turned into a big cockroach, he is understandably dismayed. Luckily, the condition appears to be a little contagious.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

There are too many books! Too much music, too much art. The job of the Bureau of Arts and Entertainment is to collect and destroy the old, so as to make room for the new.

Hank Shapiro is a dedicated BAE agent. Dependable. Uncorruptible. Pitiless.

Until he meets the girl in the bluebird sweater and bends the rules just once. And finds himself on a wild chase through the fleemarkets [sic] of America, from the towering landfills of New York City to the drive-thru crematoriums of Las Vegas.

There is also a talking dog.

Hugo Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, September 1993. The story is included in the collection Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories (1993).

This short story originally appeared in Omni, January 1995. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirteenth Annual Collection (1996), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection In the Upper Room: And Other Likely Stories (2000).

Nebula Award nominated short story. It first appeared in Omni, April 1991. It can also be found in the anthology Nebula Awards 27 (1993) and the collection Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories (1993).

Read the full story for free at the author's website.

How many guys carry a parasail in their carry-on? And how many guys carry a key for every kind of car in their carry-on? Just one, and he's a TVA baby, and he sure knows a lake from a river.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

This timely collection of short stories leaves nothing in popular culture unscathed--from meetings with Somali pirates and a theory that Paypal is a criminal enterprise to an eerie reimagining of the 9/11 events and a visitor from Atlantis's search for a burger and fries. Additional stories include faux FAQs originally written for Britain's Science magazine and a seductive fantasy piece for Playboy. Opening with a harrowing, high-speed ride through the Upper South and ending with a desperate quest to find Darwin's doomsday machine in New Orleans, readers will delight in these clever stories that present current issues in a fresh new light.

Table of Contents:

• TVA Baby - (2009) - short story
• Private Eye - (2008) - short story
• Pirates of the Somali Coast - (2007) - short story
• The Stamp - (2008) - short story
• Catch 'Em in the Act - (2008) - short story
• A Special Day - (2011) - short fiction
• BYOB FAQ - (2007) - short story
• Captain Ordinary - (2008) - short story
• Farewell Atlantis - (2009) - short story
• Corona FAQ - (2011) - short fiction
• Billy and the Circus Girl - (2006) - short story
• Brother Can You Spare a Dime? - (2006)
• Charlie's Angels - (2001) - short story
• Author's Afterword - (2011) - essay

This short story originally appeared in Omni, August 1992. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection (1993), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collection Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories (1993).

The depression has meant that a mission to Mars has been shelved for 20 years. But then Markham, head of Pellucida Films, cons two of the original Mars spacemen out of retirement and promises them their dream of setting foot on the Red Planet.

Thanks to "bluegene", life is long. But out Route 42 near Goshen, it's also kind of dull. Just the thing to encourage an expedition into the only actual other universe, the place where... but that would be telling.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Kemen of pasTreyn is the ruler of one of the tiny kingdoms of Treyn that are strung like beads on the path of the bottom of the wyrldwall. He has no queen, but is haunted by the memory of Noese, a magnificent woman who rose from the sea, taught him to love and disappeared again.

Twenty years after the end of the "Galaxy Quest" television series, the cast members are mistaken for real space explorers by a group of aliens, and are whisked off into outer space to save them from obliteration.

Forty years after the classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter Miller returns to a world struggling to transcend a terrifying legacy of darkness, as one man undertakes an odyssey of adventure and discovery that promises to alter the destiny of humankind . . . .

Isolated in Leibowitz Abbey, Brother Blacktooth St. George suffers a crisis of faith, torn between his vows and his Nomad upbringing, between the Holy Virgin and visions of the Wild Horse Woman of his people. At the brink of disgrace and expulsion from his order, the young monk is championed by a powerful cardinal who has plans for him. Blacktooth sets out on a journey across a landscape still scarred by the long-ago Flame Deluge, a land divided by nature, politics, and war. He will find horrors and wonders, sins of the flesh . . . and love. As he encounters and reencounters a beautiful but forbidden mutant named Ædrea, he begins to wonder: is a she-devil, the Holy Mother, or the Wild Horse Woman herself?

Sardonic and merciless, this satire of the entire apocalyptic enterprise provides a humorous and timely interpretation of the bestselling Left Behind series--the adventures of those "left behind" to battle the Anti-Christ after all Born-Again Christians have ascended into heaven. From predatory preachers and goth lingerie to Indian casinos and "art cars" at Burning Man, this religious spoof deftly pairs the personal with the fictional. Featuring an extensive author interview and biography, this contemporary parody also includes the unique one-act drama, Special Relativity, which asks the question: When Paul Robeson, J. Edgar Hoover, and Albert Einstein are raised from the dead at an anti-Bush rally, which one wears the dress?

Table of Contents:

• The Left Left Behind: "Let Their People Go!" - (2008)
• Special Relativity - (2006)
• "Fried Green Tomatoes" - (2009) - interview of Terry Bisson by T. B. Calhoun
• Bibliography

Now you can get Terry Bisson's three Wilson Wu novelettes in one place, including the Hugo-nominated "Get Me to the Church on Time". Wilson's been a rock musician, an engineer, and a pastry chef; he graduated law school and passed the bar on the first try. Drawn into adventure by his friend Irv, another lawyer with a talent for stumbling on strange phenomena, Wilson crunches the numbers. Together they find a junkyard dedicated to Volvos that conceals a rift in the space-time continuum, and a beaded seat cushion in a vacant lot that heralds the premature collapse of the universe. And when an airport baggage claim works like clockwork...? Check out the math (Bisson has scrupulously illustrated the stories with formulas, all of which have been reviewed for "elegance" by famed mathematician Rudy Rucker), and discover for yourself that NUMBERS DON'T LIE.

Table of Contents:

• The Hole in the Hole - (1994) - novelette
• The Edge of the Universe - (1996) - novelette
• Get Me to the Church on Time - (1998) - novella
• Author's Afterword - (2001) - essay

This novelette originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, February 1994, and was reprinted in Clarkesworld, June 2015. The story can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twelth Annual Collection (1995), edited by Gardner Dozois, and The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF (2009), edited by Mike Ashley. It is included in the collection Numbers Don't Lie (2001).

Read the full story for free at Clarkesworld.

Hugo Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, May 1998. The story is included in the collections In the Upper Room: And Other Likely Stories (2000) and Numbers Don't Lie (2001).