Showing results by publisher "audible originals" in Science Fiction

In Rip-Off!, 13 of today’s best and most honored writers of speculative fiction face a challenge even they would be hard-pressed to conceive: Pick your favorite opening line from a classic piece of fiction (or even non-fiction) - then use it as the first sentence of an entirely original short story.

On the world of Dematr, the Emperor and his legions rule over the lands on the eastern side of the Sea of Bakre, and the Great Guilds rule over the Emperor and his subjects. The Mechanics Guild, whose members claim they came from the stars, controls technology far beyond that of the swords and sailing ships of the common people, while the Mage Guild wields strange powers. Jules, an orphan, has fought her way up to become an officer in training with the Emperor’s fleet. But her life is shattered when a Mage prophesizes that her bloodline will one day overthrow the Great Guilds.

On the lost colony planet of Croatoan, the job of the police force is to keep the peace, even if it means turning a blind eye to all varieties of crimes. DCI Lutero Cade knows how to play the game – but when it comes to murder, he is more than willing to rock the boat. Now, with a serial killer on the loose, Cade knows he’s about to do a whole lot of boat rocking.

Aubrey St. James is in trouble. She's locked in a cell at a government black site. She doesn't know where that site is or how the hell she got there. But she knows that it has something to do with the stranger she rescued from the river. Someone - or some thing - called Johnny.

Six months ago, the world ended. The Baugh Contagion swept across the planet. Its victims were left twitching, adrenalized cannibals that quickly became know as Junkies. Civilization crumbled as people created isolated safe havens to hide from the infected... and the possibly infected. Now, as society nears a tipping point, lives will intersect and intertwine across two days in a desolate city.

In a futuristic world where predictive software can map out the lives of every living person and their descendants, Naomi Prynne is on trial. The charge: endangerment by way of a pregnancy. Thirteen jurors will determine whether Naomi is allowed to carry the pregnancy to term, but the jurors are also all plaintiffs, the software having predicted how Naomi Prynne’s child will affect each of them in life-changing ways.

It’s a story you may think you know - an aging baseball coach is challenged by the very boy he took in and raised. But in this near future world, "smart” houses talk and listen, and - privy as they are to the secret life of the household - family life gets interesting. Creepy and funny, unsettling and entertaining, this is a story that stands on its own even as it proves the perfect follow up to Gish Jen’s critically acclaimed novel The Resisters.

As a high school sophomore, Aiden Kelly's biggest problems should be his failing grades, his abusive father, being a self-proclaimed loner, or getting pummeled by the football team. Instead, Aiden's number one dilemma is a guy named Tony, a senior who seems to know all sorts of things that should be impossible to know. Oh, and he may also be a sociopath. So, you know: No. Big. Deal.

A former mercenary turned blind priest, Ash is running from his amoral past - a victim of a power-hungry corporation, Titanus, which used him for mysterious experiments, discarding him when he lost his sight. Through its experimentation, Titanus unwittingly created a dark mirror world called Shade, a place where no human can survive - except for Ash. By opening a rift, Ash can escape into Shade. While attempting to implement a global teleportation system, Titanus makes a grave error and opens several dangerous rifts, which threaten to tear the planet apart.

Written for audio format, this collection of six science fiction stories draw on themes of arrival, discovery and destination. Commissioned especially for Audible, and narrated by outstanding performers, these stories evoke the traditional storytelling of West African Jali as the unknown and distant are brought to life for audiences.

In the Bangalore, India, of the 2070s, a young woman who is internet-famous enters an empty police station and tells the virtual assistant that her life is in danger. When she disappears out of her own apartment, it's up to Police Sub-Inspector Ferron and her partner to determine whether a crime has even been committed. In a world of enhanced tech and extreme interconnectedness, can someone truly disappear?

You wake up floating. Not in the air, but horizontally in a coffin-sized chamber filled with blue gelatinous fluid. You do not remember what this is. You do not remember why you are here. You do not remember who you are.

Bobby N. Kowen is living his life to the fullest. He’s making friends, he’s learning new things all the time, he’s falling in love, he’s having adventures. He’s doing more in a single week than most of us experience in a lifetime. But that’s the thing. That one week is all that Bobby has. Birth to death...in just seven days. Bobby’s life is truly a race against time. No one who meets him will ever be the same. And they will each wonder: Do we live too long to really appreciate how precious life is?

It is a simple question that is as profound as any we can ask: “Who am I?” Dr. Vikram Anthony is that rare person who believes the answer is relatively simple. I am my work; I am my skill; I am my mind. It is only when the noted surgeon faces his own mortality that the answer gets more complex. And the opportunity for a new life–a decidedly different life–opens a world of possibilities he’d never imagined.

Annie has always had high hopes for her future. But the reality of her life just isn’t measuring up. She loves her fiancé, Greg–doesn’t she? She’s going to get her degree and open her own business–won’t she? Then, a strange old woman shows up outside her house, and she seems to know a lot about Annie. An awful lot. Annie could tell the old woman to get lost. Yet there’s something about her Annie just can’t shake. And what she learns could change her life forever–but is it the life she envisioned?

Henry and Nomi are thrilled to find out they’re going to be parents. There is so much to think about, so many decisions they’ll need to make, about feeding schedules and childcare and schools. But there’s one decision they never would have imagined facing, and even considering the choice is a minefield of emotions and experiences and expectations. After all, the only thing that hangs in the balance is the course of their child’s life.

Bob Johansson acaba de vender sua empresa de software por uma pequena fortuna e está ansioso por uma vida tranquila. O primeiro item de sua lista de tarefas: gastar! Ele então se inscreve para ter sua cabeça preservada criogenicamente quando morrer. Pouco tempo depois, é atropelado, morre e acorda 117 anos depois para descobrir que sua mente será enviada para uma sonda espacial senciente com capacidade de replicação. Bob e seus clones estão em uma missão para encontrar novos lares para a humanidade e corajosamente ir aonde nenhum Bob jamais esteve.

A window is but a piece of glass through which we view the world outside. It is not meant to distort. It is not intended to do anything but show us things as they are. At Oxford, though, there is a very particular window that reveals a very particular view. It is a view that defies all laws of nature and science. And when a detective is called in to investigate, he is startled to find that view opens a window into his own life–and a mystery he has never been able to solve.

He’s one of America’s most brilliant neuroscientists. He’s also Black and dying of cancer. But he has a plan—a brain transfer. He’ll put his gifted mind into the body of Sammy Sturgeon, a White high school football star who was on the rise until a touchdown collision left him brain-dead. He convinces his co-conspirator, Dr. Dino Battaglia, to help him with the forbidden procedure. Douglass wakes up in Sammy’s White, athletic body, with his new family and legions of fans weeping at his miraculous recovery.

Ser una nave espacial inteligente debería de ser más divertido, sin embargo, después de dispersarse por el espacio durante casi un siglo, Bob y sus clones simplemente no pueden evitar meterse en problemas. Los Bobs han creado suficientes colonias para que la humanidad no se extinga, pero las disputas políticas tienen el mal hábito de persistir a pesar de todo; y las sondas brasileñas aún siguen intentando acabar con la competencia. No conforme, los Bobs han elegido pelear contra una especie más antigua y más poderosa, con un apetito voraz y muy poca paciencia.