ReAnimus Press new releases [2020]

[andrewburt]

Introducing, from ReAnimus Press: CREATING SHORT FICTION by Damon Knight

https://ReAnimus.com/1548
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N9JGSYU

The classic guide to writing short fiction -- Revised & Expanded 3rd ed.

"What Knight doesn't know about writing the short story cannot be put into expository prose anyway." --Algis Budrys

"Damon Knight is one of the preeminent teachers of writing in this country. Creating Short Fiction should be considered essential for all beginning writers... not to mention a few others, who've forgotten the invaluable information it contains." --Lucius Shepard

Distilled from decades of teaching and practice, Creating Short Fiction offers no-nonsense advice on structure, pacing, dialogue, getting ideas, and much more. It includes examples and exercises that have proved their extraordinary effectiveness in classrooms and workshops everywhere. Creating Short Fiction is a timeless classic that brims with priceless advice for anyone interested in writing short stories.

Damon Knight, a SFWA Grand Master, founder of SFWA, author of dozens of well-regarded books and long-time writing teacher, founded the Milford Writers' Workshop that was the basis for the renowned writers' workshops such as Clarion and Critters.

"To those who hunger to be writers I commend this book without reservation." --Harlan Ellison

Lots more new books from ReAnimus Press - see the list at www.reanimus.com/new

[andrewburt]

New from ReAnimus Press: SCIENTISTS AND SCOUNDRELS by Robert Silverberg

https://ReAnimus.com/1618
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VF6GV5Q

As if history and nature had not provided wonders enough, through the ages humans themselves have contrived more marvels to deceive one another. Sometimes they have concocted evidence when none was available to prove pet theories; sometimes their intention has been to impress or defraud; sometimes they have acted merely for sport.

Robert Silverberg tells the stories of a baker's dozen of these scientific hoaxers in a lively, good-humored book that ranges through time and across continents. Here are perpetual-motion machines and space rockets, men on the moon and serpents in the sea. The rogues' gallery is a varied one: Dr. Mesmer, who cast his hypnotic spell on eighteenth-century Paris; Charles Dawson, whose Piltdown Man challenged evolution; Dr. Cook, with his tale of "discovering" the North Pole; and many others.

These are fascinating stories and more than just entertainment. The author explains the scientific background against which the hoaxes appeared and the detective work that led to their exposure. The schemers teach us to be alert, to challenge the evidence, and to appreciate the healthy skepticism that characterizes the scientific method.

Fantasy & Science Fiction Grandmaster Robert Silverberg brings the personalities, science, and events of these amazing frauds to vivid and relevant life.

Lots more new books from ReAnimus Press - see the list at www.reanimus.com/new

[andrewburt]

Introducing, from ReAnimus Press: CONQUERORS FROM THE DARKNESS by Robert Silverberg

https://ReAnimus.com/1585 (available in both ebook and paperback)
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077RBFGQN

A thousand years in the future, the earth has been conquered by an alien race and covered by a single sea. Dovirr Stargan, who is disgusted with the servility of his life on the floating city of Vythain, longs to become one of the Sea-Lords, who roam the sea as powerful protectors of the cities. Dovirr gets his wish, but the return of the alien race brings unexpected and critically dangerous crises to his new life as he learns the real, sometimes terrible, significance of power.

Lots more new books from ReAnimus Press - see the list at www.reanimus.com/new

[andrewburt]

New from ReAnimus Press: TRANSCENDENTAL - THE TRILOGY by James Gunn

https://ReAnimus.com/1666 (available in both ebook and paperback)
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084CY58ZJ

The Transcendental Machine trilogy in one volume!

Like many trilogies, the Transcendental trilogy may best be viewed as one continuous story--so here they are!

Riley, a veteran of interstellar war, is one of many beings from many different worlds aboard a ship on a pilgrimage that spans the galaxy. However, he is not journeying to achieve transcendence, a vague mystical concept that has drawn everyone else on the ship to this journey into the unknown at the far edge of the galaxy. His mission is to find and kill the prophet who is reputed to help others transcend. While their ship speeds through space, the voyage is marred by violence and betrayal, making it clear that some of the ship's passengers are not the spiritual seekers they claim to be.

Like the pilgrims in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a number of those on the starship share their unique stories. But as tensions rise, Riley realizes that the ship is less like the Canterbury Tales and more like a harrowing, deadly ship of fools. When he becomes friendly with a mysterious passenger named Asha, he thinks she's someone he can trust. However, like so many others on the ship, Asha is more than she appears. Uncovering her secrets could be the key to Riley's personal quest, or make him question everything he thought he knew about Transcendentalism and his mission to stop it.

James Gunn's Transcendental Machine trilogy is a space adventure filled with excitement and intrigue that explores the nature of what unifies all beings.

TRANSCENDENTAL is a Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book

"Jim Gunn doesn't publish a new novel very often, but when he does it's a whopper. Transcendental is his best yet, and in it he demonstrates his possession of one of the most finely developed skills at world-building (and at aliens-creating to populate those worlds) in science fiction today. Read it!"
--Frederik Pohl, bestselling author of Gateway

"James Gunn, after a long, stellar career in science fiction, is a master of the narrative art--as he shows in this Chaucerian pilgrimage through the galactic future."
--Robert Silverberg, bestselling author of Lord Valentine's Castle


Lots more new books from ReAnimus Press - see the list at www.reanimus.com/new

[andrewburt]

New from ReAnimus Press: PROBE by Edward M. Lerner

https://ReAnimus.com/1667 (available in both ebook and paperback)
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085PS6M7K

What if First Contact doesn't come the way we expect it--or with the sort of aliens we expect? When both sides have secrets within secrets to keep, how is anyone supposed to know the truth--or live long enough to tell it? Will it turn out to be the greatest discovery of all time... or the biggest hoax?

Bob Hanson, the chief scientist of a major aerospace corporation, has made an incredible discovery: a wrecked alien spacecraft adrift in the Asteroid Belt. The evidence is compelling--video images from the Prospector space probe he himself had created. The military enthusiastically embraces an investigation of the extraterrestrials, remarkably indifferent to the inconsistencies that begin to appear.

Undeterred, Hanson keeps digging... and finds much more than he had ever bargained for. Soon on the lam, he, and everyone to whom he turns, is hunted. Before long only one conclusion remains unassailable--that his mysterious opponents play for keeps. Are aliens manipulating events on Earth? Did unscrupulous corporate executives invent the aliens in search of giga-buck government contracts? Has the Pentagon fabricated an alien menace for its own purposes?

Or is the truth something really unimaginable?

About the Author



Author of fifteen SF novels (five of them collaborations with Larry Niven) and dozens of shorter works, Edward M. Lerner won the inaugural Canopus Award for fiction "honoring excellence in interstellar writing." His stories have also been nominated for Locus, Prometheus, and Hugo awards.

"Edward M. Lerner is the quintessential Analog writer, combining well-researched scientific and technological speculation with compelling characters and thought-provoking plots."
-- Analog Science Fiction and Fact

"Here's an author you definitely need to check out."
-- Asimov's Science Fiction

"Leave it to Edward M. Lerner to take a notion, run with it, squeeze every ramification out of it, and put it altogether in an irresistible page-turner."
-- Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Red Planet Blues

[andrewburt]

New from ReAnimus Press: MOONSTRUCK by Edward M. Lerner

https://ReAnimus.com/1668 (available in both ebook and paperback [$14.99, 338 pages])
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085Q135Z3

Will our first contact with aliens be the dawn of a new tomorrow--or the last act in human history?

The moon has suddenly acquired its own satellite: a two-mile-across starship that represents a hitherto unsuspected Galactic Commonwealth. The F'thk, a vaguely centaur-like member species for whom Earth's ecology is hospitable, have been sent to evaluate humanity for prospective membership. The F'thk are overtly friendly but very private: "Information is a trade good."

As Earth's scientists struggle to understand their secretive appraisers, odd inconsistencies emerge. As troubling as those anomalies is the re-emergence of a bit of insanity humanity thought it had outgrown: Cold War and nuclear saber-rattling. The Galactics' arrival may signify the start of a glorious new era, or it may presage the cataclysmic end of human civilization. Which outcome do the aliens really desire ...

And what will they do if humanity refuses to play its assigned role?

About the Author

Author of fifteen SF novels (five of them collaborations with Larry Niven) and dozens of shorter works, Edward M. Lerner won the inaugural Canopus Award for fiction "honoring excellence in interstellar writing." His stories have also been nominated for Locus, Prometheus, and Hugo awards.

"MOONSTRUCK fizzes with ideas and surprises. Classic science fiction with 21st Century appeal."
-- David Brin, Winner of Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards for best novel Author of the Uplift series

"Edward M. Lerner is the quintessential Analog writer, combining well-researched scientific and technological speculation with compelling characters and thought-provoking plots."
-- Analog Science Fiction and Fact

Lots more new books from ReAnimus Press - see the list at www.reanimus.com/new

[andrewburt]

New from ReAnimus Press: PILGRIMS TO TRANSCENDENCE by James Gunn

https://ReAnimus.com/1647 (available in both ebook and paperback)
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B084D688DT

A space opera in ten parts...

An expanded version of the pilgrims' tales in the first book in the Transcendental Machine trilogy... PILGRIMS is a set of related stories about how the pilgrims in TRANSCENDENTAL gathered at Terminal waiting for the beginning of their epic journey. They were published sequentially in ASIMOV'S, and include an essay on "Space Opera and the Quest for Transcendence" and conclude with an essay on the post-human.

Riley, a veteran of interstellar war, is one of many beings from many different worlds aboard a ship on a pilgrimage that spans the galaxy. However, he is not journeying to achieve transcendence, a vague mystical concept that has drawn everyone else on the ship to this journey into the unknown at the far edge of the galaxy. His mission is to find and kill the prophet who is reputed to help others transcend. While their ship speeds through space, the voyage is marred by violence and betrayal, making it clear that some of the ship's passengers are not the spiritual seekers they claim to be.

PILGRIMS TO TRANSCENDENCE expands on the unique back stories of the pilgrims.

Praise for TRANSCENDENTAL



James Gunn's TRANSCENDENTAL is a space adventure filled with excitement and intrigue that explores the nature of what unifies all beings.

TRANSCENDENTAL was a Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2013

"Jim Gunn doesn't publish a new novel very often, but when he does it's a whopper. Transcendental is his best yet, and in it he demonstrates his possession of one of the most finely developed skills at world-building (and at aliens-creating to populate those worlds) in science fiction today. Read it!"
--Frederik Pohl, bestselling author of Gateway

"James Gunn, after a long, stellar career in science fiction, is a master of the narrative art--as he shows in this Chaucerian pilgrimage through the galactic future."
--Robert Silverberg, bestselling author of Lord Valentine's Castle

"equals or tops his earlier landmark, earning, I think, a permanent rank in the extended canon of our genre. It is wise, exciting, clever, surprising, hip and au courant (or perhaps timeless is a better word). Its technical craftsmanship is subtle and awe-inspiring."
--Paul di Filippo, Locus

Lots more new books from ReAnimus Press - see the list at www.reanimus.com/new

[andrewburt]

Introducing, from ReAnimus Press: BLOOM by Wil McCarthy

https://ReAnimus.com/1145 (available in both ebook and paperback)
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006PV826W

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

Mycora: technogenic life. Fast-reproducing, fast-mutating, and endlessly voracious. In the year 2106, these microscopic machine/creatures have escaped their creators to populate the inner solar system with a wild, deadly ecology all their own, pushing the tattered remnants of humanity out into the cold and dark of the outer planets. Even huddled beneath the ice of Jupiter's moons, protected by a defensive system known as the Immunity, survivors face the constant risk of mycospores finding their way to the warmth and brightness inside the habitats, resulting in a calamitous "bloom."

But the human race still has a trick or two up its sleeves; in a ship specially designed to penetrate the deadly Mycosystem, seven astronauts are about to embark on mankind's boldest venture yet--the perilous journey home to infected Earth!

Yet it is in these remote conditions, against a virtually omnipotent foe, that we discover how human nature plays the greatest role in humanity's future.

Reviews



"Tense, dynamic, intelligent... terrifyingly vivid"
--David Brin

"An ingenious yarn with challenging ideas, well-handled technical details, and plenty of twists and turns."
--Kirkus Reviews

[andrewburt]

New from ReAnimus Press: STAR BRIDGE by James Gunn and Jack Williamson

https://ReAnimus.com/1635 (available in both ebook and paperback)
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B089RR2GXS

The galaxy's inhabited planets are held together by the repressive Eron Company, the apparent holder of the secret to faster-than-light travel through the Tubes, the network linking the scattered worlds together. Mysterious parties have hired the adventurer Horn to assassinate the company's general manager, Garth Kohlnar. The subject of a massive manhunt, he encounters Wendre Kohlnar, the general manager's daughter and possible heir to the empire.

Escaping through a transdimensional Tube, Horn finds himself on the planet Eron, a world consumed by the Eron Company. There he encounters a corrupt aristocracy, a brewing power struggle, a covert revolution, and the mystery of who actually knows the secret of the Tubes.

With an Afterword by James Gunn describing the history of the book.

James Gunn writes: I had no idea that Star Bridge had any claims to classic status until writer Ed Bryant showed up in Missoula, Montana, where the Science Fiction Research Association met in 1976. Ed had just attended a convention in Washington and he told an audience that a novel named Star Bridge had turned him into a science fiction writer, and he added, turning to Jack and me in the audience, "I'm not sure I thanked you." A month later I was having breakfast in New York City with John Brunner and Samuel R. Delany, and I mentioned the incident. Delany said, "The same thing happened to me." And we put Delany's comment on the cover of the Berkeley reprint that Jonas reviewed. Since then Bryant wrote, in an introduction to volume #4 of The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson: "I think I was about twelve, probably in the sixth grade, when the TAB Book Club delivered a paperback of Star Bridge by Jack Williamson and James E. Gunn. To this day, I refuse to understand why this novel is not accorded the same classic status as The Stars My Destination or The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress."

PRAISE FOR STAR BRIDGE

"...reads more like a collaboration between Heinlein and Asimov. The concept is pure, classic science fiction. A vast empire spans the galaxy, controlled from the planet Eron which alone holds the secret to faster-than-light travel."
--Gerald Jonas, science fiction critic for the New York Times

[andrewburt]

New from ReAnimus Press: THIS FORTRESS WORLD by James Gunn

https://ReAnimus.com/1636 (available in both ebook and paperback)
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08C1JMH4R

SFWA Grand Master James Gunn's This Fortress World takes place in the far future of our galaxy, when countless civilizations have risen and fallen, leaving only their marvelous scientific achievements as legacy to those worlds which have now fallen into a new Dark Age. On the planet Brancusi, William Dane, an acolyte monk in the all-powerful Church, comes into possession of a crystal pebble dropped in the offering plate, a stolen treasure believed to hold untold secrets of mankind's past. There are powerful men who will stop at nothing, including murder, to recover this ancient artifact. Ignorant of the outside world, who can Dane find to help, and who should be trusted with the pebble's secrets?

Lots more new books from ReAnimus Press - see the list at www.reanimus.com/new

[andrewburt]

New from ReAnimus Press: THE IMMORTALS by James Gunn

https://ReAnimus.com/1638 (available in both ebook and paperback)
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08D25NZ7Q

The next release from the James Gunn Library project from ReAnimus Press, releasing all of Jim's books.

What is the price of immortality? For nomad Marshall Cartwright, the price is knowing that he will never grow old. That he will never contract a disease, an infection, or even a cold. That because he will never die, he must surrender the right to live. For Dr. Russell Pearce, the price is eternal suspicion. He appreciates what synthesizing the elixir vitae from the Immortal's genetic makeup could mean for humankind. He also fears what will happen should Cartwright's miraculous blood fall into the wrong hands. For the wealthy and powerful, no price is too great. Immortality is now a fact rather than a dream. But the only way to achieve it is to own it exclusively. And that means hunting down and caging the elusive Cartwright, or one of his offspring. The Immortals is James Gunn's masterpiece about a human fountain of youth, made into a TV movie and TV series. All-new material accompanies this updated edition, including an introduction from renowned science-fiction writer Greg Bear, a preface from Gunn himself, and "Elixir," Gunn's new short story that introduced Dr. Pearce to another Immortal.

Lots more new books from ReAnimus Press - see the list at www.reanimus.com/new

[andrewburt]

New from ReAnimus Press: THE NEW ATLANTIS by Robert Silverberg, Ursula K. Le Guin, James Tiptree, Jr., Gene Wolfe

https://ReAnimus.com/1626 (available in both ebook and paperback [$14.99, 228 pages])
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08FGJ9879

Three short novels by three of science fiction's greatest writers -- Ursula K. Le Guin, James Tiptree, Jr., and Gene Wolfe, edited by Robert Silverberg.

The New Atlantis, by Ursula K. Le Guin: In a dark near-future, global warming and a ruined ecology is causing the continents to sink into the oceans just as the towers of Atlantis re-emerge above the sea. Locus award winner and Hugo finalist.

Silhouette, by Gene Wolfe, and A Momentary Taste of Being, by James Tiptree, Jr., present two different masterpieces on a similar theme: A deep-space colony exploration ship approaches their target planet, where they must investigate whether or not it's hospitable enough to signal Earth to send more colonists. Things are not as they seem... Nebula / Locus award finalist stories.

Three of science fiction's most gifted writers--winners of Hugos, Nebulas, and a National Book Award--unleash their imaginations to present startling glimpses of humanity's future on Earth and in space. Blended into that future are age-old mysteries of the human psyche, mythicized fragments of the past, and the eternal question of biological purpose.

In "Silhouette" Gene Wolfe creates a self-contained world, an immense starship on a multi-generational mission to assure continuation of the race by colonizing the stars. It is a world, devised and constructed through man's technical genius, that comes to be threatened by the primitive superstitions and petty jealousies carried into space by the very technicians who serve in science's most ambitious project. The salvation of the mission and of the hundreds of lives bound to it comes to depend on a curious interplay of technology and occult human abilities.

Ursula Le Guin remains earthbound, but on a "brave, new world" where a bureaucratic tyranny proves less and less able to cope with supplying the needs of a burgeoning population. A subtle irony pervades her story, "The New Atlantis." Even as government strives to assure permanence of control, geologic upheavals awaken a haunting racial memory of antediluvian civilizations and grandeur long buried beneath the seas.

James Tiptree, Jr., confronts a disciplined space crew with humanity's first encounter with a wholly alien life form. Here again the survival of the human race depends on successful location of a new planet where mankind can establish its society with renewed vigor. But out of the questions of how to survive any threat that may be posed by an unknown life form arises a more central question: Is it intended that humanity survive?

Lots more new books from ReAnimus Press - see the list at www.reanimus.com/new

[JSWolf]

Is there any chance the Le Guin story can be replaced with a better author?

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Is there any chance the Le Guin story can be replaced with a better author?

You'd have to negotiate with Robert Silverberg, the Editor. And more than likely with LeGuin's heirs (or literary agent), in addition to Gene Wolfe's heirs. You'd probably have to deal with this new publisher, too.

Better to just read the story. If you don't like it, you can always tear out those pages from your ebook and be done with it.

Here's the original cover:

[andrewburt]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Is there any chance the Le Guin story can be replaced with a better author?

It's one of her first outings, we'll have to see if anything becomes of her.

And in the same theme of Bob's 3-short-novel anthologies, we've just republished this one too:

THE DAY THE SUN STOOD STILL by Robert Silverberg, Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson

https://ReAnimus.com/1630 (available in both ebook and paperback)
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08FTDS1MN

Three short novels by science fiction legends--Poul Anderson, Gordon R. Dickson, Robert Silverberg--all inspired by the same theme: What kind of world might exist where the basis of faith is replaced by certain knowledge? What if God proved He exists by stopping the Earth from spinning for 24 hours?

Faith wasn't enough. Maybe it should have been, but it wasn't. And when science didn't find any reason to suppose the world was more than atoms and chance, humanity started slipping back into chaos. The world needed a sign--scientific proof, the only sign it could accept--that God lived. Then suddenly, as in biblical times, the sign was there: "...for a day and a night... the earth moved not around the Sun, neither did it rotate."

What happened the day the sun stood still?

Three outstanding science-fiction authors explore that theme, probing the reaction of modern man when confronted with a miracle, in three entirely different but equally absorbing stories, never before published: A Chapter of Revelation by Poul Anderson; Thomas the Proclaimer by Robert Silverberg; and Things Which Are Caesar's by Gordon R. Dickson. In doing so, they answer the question posed by science-fiction master Lester del Rey in his foreword: What kind of world might exist where the basis of faith is replaced by certain knowledge?

Lots more new books from ReAnimus Press - see the list at www.reanimus.com/new