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This anthology, with an introduction by Robert Silverberg, offers a sweeping survey of robots as depicted throughout literature. Since the Iliad—in which we are shown golden statues built by Hephaestus “with minds and wisdoms”—humans have been fascinated by the idea of artificial life. From the Argonautica to the medieval Jewish legend of the Golem and Ambrose Bierce’s tale of a chess-playing robot, the idea of what robots are—and who creates them—can be drastically different.

Nearly 100,000 years after first contact with the machines that dominate the universe, only a few hundred humans survive. Trapped on Snowglade, a barren world near the center of the galaxy, Killeen and his child, Toby, of the Bishop Tribe, are primitive scavengers, homeless and hunted by the ruling “mechs”. Then suddenly, a strange cosmic entity – neither organic nor cybernetic or living matter – reaches out from a black hole to speak with Killeen.

It is 2076: Lancer, Earth’s first starship, is on a mission to find interstellar civilizations. Although astronaut Nigel Walmsley’s experiences with alien encounters make him the expert, no one believes Nigel’s theory that machines are the dominant intelligent beings left in the galaxy and that their purpose is to annihilate all organic life. Then the explorers discover once-living planets where only machines remain – and ruined worlds where fugitive survivors must evade omnipresent and lethally advanced A.I. warships.

Matt Helm has been assigned to impersonate a newlywed oilman, Horace Cody, who has been dabbling in arms dealing. Something tells Matt that the Mexican will not last long … and he is more right than he knows!

"Jeder Tag ist Bonus". Mit Mitte Fünfzig bekommt Stefan Schwarz Krebs. Besser gesagt, der Krebs bekommt ihn. Denn Schwarz ist erfahren im Umgang mit existentiellen Verwerfungen: "Wenn das Schicksal zuschlägt, schlage ich zurück!" Wie eine "Marie Kondo der Seele" beginnt er, sein Leben aufzuräumen. Von all dem erzählt Stefan Schwarz mit seinem einzigartigen Humor, in dem eine ganze Lebensphilosophie steckt. Ruhig, tief und mit wohltuender Selbstironie blickt er auf sein Dasein.

Der Kumi-Ori ist ein widerlich autoritärer Kellerkönig, gemein und hinterlistig. Die Familie Hogelmann weiß ein Lied davon zu singen. Seine empörten Untertanen haben ihn von seinem wackligen Königsthron gestürzt und nun sitzt er da auf dem Küchentisch und bittet die Hogelmanns um politisches Asyl. Da kommt es in der sechsköpfigen Familie zu einem Riesenkrach und es muss eine Menge passieren, ehe wieder Ruhe und Frieden einkehren.

Released one year after the publication of The King in Yellow - a milestone of supernaturalfiction - Robert W. Chambers’ title story of this short-story collection isconsidered one of his finest weird tales. It is followed by a series ofromantic art nouveau stories. Chambers’ love of natural scenery, symbolicanimal figures, and ghostly imagery are on full display as he weaves hischaracters through these otherworldly tales.

Der Pumuckl ist da! Jetzt mit stimmungsvoll-lustigen Abenteuern zur Sommerzeit. Da kommen Klein und Groß vor Lachen ganz schön ins Schwitzen...

It’s 1937. Poland is about to catch fire. In the boxing ring, Jakub Szapiro commands respect, revered as a hero by the Jewish community. Outside, he instills fear as he muscles through Warsaw as enforcer for a powerful crime lord. Murder and intimidation have their rewards. He revels in luxury, spends lavishly, and indulges in all the pleasures that barbarity offers. For a man battling to be king of the underworld, life is good. Especially when it’s a frightening time to be alive.

The Mindaru are dead, or so exiled Earthman John Bandicut and his alien companions believe, after their intervention to save the Orion Nebula and surrounding worlds. But now a part of this ancient and malicious AI colony is swarming toward the present from its birthplace deep in the past. Their opening: a temporal disturbance in the starstream, a hyperspatial thoroughfare used by myriad civilizations. The disturbance emanates from the planetary defenses of nearby Karellia, whose people know nothing of the starstream or the galaxy-threatening Mindaru.

Die Universität von Imre ist weithin bekannt für ihre Gelehrsamkeit. Die besten Köpfe zieht sie an, die Rätsel der Wissenschaft, des Handwerks und der Alchemie zu entschlüsseln. Aber tief unter dem lebendigen Treiben in ihren Hallen erstreckt sich ein Netz verlassener Räume und alter Gänge. Im Herz dieses höhlenartigen Labyrinths lebt das Mädchen Auri. Das "Unterding" ist ihr Zuhause. Die kalte trügerische Rationalität der Menschen, die über ihr leben, hat sie hinter sich gelassen und dringt tief in das Geheimnis der Dinge ein.

A nation is exiled from itself to prison; a nation is re-awakened through the storytelling of its origins; understand Indonesia through Pramoedya’s booksIn 1981, a new company, Hasta Mitra, founded by three men just released from over a decade in prison, published a novel written in a prison...

Ein neuer Fall für Eisbär Murphy. Der arme Direktor Siegmann! Seine Gurke wurde geklaut – ausgerechnet jetzt, wo der neue Gurkenkönig gewählt wird. Wer steckt dahinter? Vielleicht die Sportlehrerin, die nur Gemüse knabbert? Eisbär Murphy und Elster Pinkie sind dem Gurkenschurken schnell auf der Spur... Ein neuer Minikrimi für die Kleinsten – von vielen Sprecherinnen und Sprechern gelesen und mit Geräuschen, Musik und dem vertrauten Titelsong inszeniert.

A hundred years before Ender's Game, humans thought they were alone in the galaxy. Humanity was slowly making their way out from Earth to the planets and asteroids of the Solar System, exploring and mining and founding colonies. The mining ship El Cavador is far out from Earth, in the deeps of...

Shakespeare, Our Contemporary is a provocative, original study of the major plays of Shakespeare. More than that, it is one of the few critical works to have strongly influenced theatrical productions.

Evoking Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, this is a story of interlocking tales from a group of steamboat passengers traveling down the Mississippi toward New Orleans. Aboard the Fidèle can be found all manner of con men, from those selling stock in failing companies and herbal cure-all "medicines" to those who are raising money for supposed charitable organizations and those who simply ask for money outright.

Wer hat Lust, Nils Karlsson in seiner mauselochkleinen Wohnung zu besuchen...

There is no one better qualified to tell us about the failures of the American financial system and the grotesque abuses that have taken place in recent years than John C. Bogle, founder and former chief executive of the Vanguard mutual-fund group. This legendary mutual-fund pioneer has witnessed firsthand the innermost workings of the financial industry for more than 50 years and has set the standards for sound investment strategies and stewardship.

The colony world Adirondack and Silvern fell to the Troft forces almost without a struggle. Outnumbered and on the defensive, Earth made a desperate decision. It would attack the aliens not from space, but on the ground - with forces the Trofts did not even suspect. Thus were created the cobras, a guerrilla force whose weapons were surgically implanted, invisible to the unsuspecting eye, yet undeniably deadly.

Fairytales are a universal part of childhood. No matter what time or what place you grew up, you have at one point or another heard that classic phrase “once upon a time.” They are usually the first stories we ever hear or read. These types of tales set us up to understand the art of stories and storytelling, and they are certainly worth revisiting. Here in The Blue Fairy Book, the first of Andrew Lang’s beloved collections of classic fairy stories, you will return to the tales you already know.