Fantasy Adventure Short Stories

Un male incurabile colpisce la giovane e bella Berenice, destinata ad un lento declino fisico e spirituale...

When it comes to big dreams and schemes, young Chuck Lambert would give Walter Mitty a run for his money. In fact, Chuck’s biggest dream of all is really out of this world. Because he’s got his eyes on a prize in the sky. Chuck wants to buy a planet of his own.... Madman Murphy, the King of Planetary Realtors, is more than happy to oblige. He’s got a whole galaxy of planets for sale. All Chuck needs is money . . . and a lot of it. Eleven years later, saving every penny he can scrape up, Chuck’s dream comes true. He takes possession and takes off for Planet 19453X...

Wrongfully accused, Spar has been condemned to suffer the brutality of the guards and the conditions on Devil’s Island. But they haven’t broken his will, and now, escaping, he has one mission in life: revenge. Spar’s out to kill the man who put him into the devil’s hands. But he’ll have to take on a gallery of rogues who are as treacherous as the waters of the Caribbean.

That is Fanner Marston’s mantra—his reason for being—and while he knows a little about the first and a lot about the second, he may well be on the verge of learning everything there is to know about the third. Power. He may, in fact, be about to uncover the key to gaining absolute control over the entire universe. The only problem is, Fanner is certifiably insane.... His starship has crash-landed, and he’s the sole survivor, which doesn’t matter to him.

When a boat drifts into a New England port with all its crew dead, only a shipboard statue knows what took place. Can a boy carved from wood reveal the secret? Can a love-struck apprentice find the girl of his dreams by following a weathervane with a figure of Saint Crispin, patron saint of shoemakers? After a lifetime of making statues of the wealthy and powerful, what will the Italian sculptor Zorelli do when he is hired not by a human, but a ghost?

Three teens are marooned on a what they presume is a mysterious tropical island. Casey and Mike have made their way through the creature-filled jungle to a glass city where they hope to find help for Jack, their abducted friend. Once in the city, they learn shocking news that will change their lives forever, and getting Jack back will be anything but easy.

Two thousand years ago, scientists experimenting on particles found at the center of the galaxy unleashed a powerful energy that split the galaxy in two, destroying many planets in the process. Now, as people have forgotten the terrible events that took place, with only a handful of scientists watching the source of the barrier, a young female space pilot finds herself caught up in interesting times when the singularity starts reacting for the first time since it appeared.

Find out what happens when a Mars Expedition unwittingly recruits a psychopath among its crew on a one-way trip to the red planet. Emil Lance loosened the tight tie around his neck. He knew that he was about to feed himself to a pack of hungry wolves. A room full of terrified, angry, and grieving family members awaited him. Instead of turning away, instead of letting someone else handle it like any sane man would, he let his conscience get the better of him.

Laundrygate: Strange Stories About the Future is an unusual collection of short stories about the unimagined consequences of technology and the creation of new realities. Tery Spataro dreams up these wild, surreal tales and envisions the outcomes brought about by technological change and human curiosity, and imagines post-humanist worlds. The four heroines of Laundrygate experience many themes and challenges caused by these otherworldly environments.

In a 1978 interview, Phillip K. Dick said "I've always had this funny feeling about reality. It just seems very feeble to me sometimes. It doesn't seem to have the substantiality that it's suppose to have." Fortunately for us, Dick translated his feelings about reality into some of the greatest science fiction writing of all time. This collection features five stories from early in his career, when he found his voice as a writer.

Bertram Bile wasn’t always like this. At primary school, he had friends, kind teachers, and great grades. But everything changed when he started his new school. His parents split up, his dad went missing, and his mum lost her job. Now he’s bullied by his classmate Angus and his evil geography teacher, Miss Petrenko. His dad had been Miss Petrenko’s first love, but she never forgave him for dumping her for Bertram’s mum when they were kids themselves.

Mentre l'orda di non morti dilaga nella città, all’interno della stazione della metropolitana solo pochi esseri umani riescono a sopravvivere, sempre alla disperata ricerca di provviste. Tra questi c’è il Cacciatore assieme ad Alice, la sua piccola figlia di otto anni, e alla bella Gilda. Ma le sorprese, i pericoli e la morte non si fanno attendere, neanche per loro.

The Japanese military has turned the once-thriving Chinese city of Nencheng into a reeking pile of blood and ash. And now the Japanese Rising Sun threatens to scorch the ancient - and oil-rich - Kingdom of the Silver Lake. Can the Chinese survive the onslaught? Do they have a prayer? The answer is about to fall out of the sky. He is The Falcon Killer.

The human instinct for survival is strong, especially when the circumstances are dire. When five women and two men return to Earth as part of a disjointed and meager population, with the intent of completing a barely conceivable mission of reestablishing themselves on the surface and repopulating the planet, dire is an understatement.

During a routine oil delivery to the capital planet, a massive starship manned by a skeleton crew mysteriously breaks down. Now the youngest, least experienced crew member, his captain, and his conspiracist of a crew mate seek survival and answers while trying to avoid looming threats on the ship.

After days of his nameless mate being in some sort of coma, Gyyx can't take it anymore. Eliana gave him the key to make her better, but he didn't feel right, and after all the testing Ciyrs has put her through, he knows it's time to test the theory, but he still feels weird about it. He takes her home and hopes his touch will bring her back to life. He can't go on without knowing who she is, or what she suffered in the hands of the Klimnu. But when she wakes up, will Gyyx be able to convince her he isn't taking advantage of her or like the ones who kept her prisoner?

The Traitor Ullie is dead, but that doesn't seem to have stopped the threat of the Klimnu that hangs over the Denynso. The discovery of a mysterious rock tunnel and the realization that it might have been an integral part of Ullie's traitorous assistance of the Klimnu sends the entire clan into a flurry of action. Now fully mated to Ty and completely devoted to living her life as part of this clan and this planet, Samira dedicates herself to uncovering the mystery of the tunnel.

Zuri can't believe she let herself fall into the arms of the arrogant jerk who thinks that she is too big to be respected. Now that she's slept with Ero in the heat of the moment, she knows she can't stay on Uoria any longer. The combination of the Klimnu attack, the insulting jokes, and the fact that she can't stop thinking about the beautiful warrior and wishing she was back in his arms is enough to make her run, and she does, right back to Earth. Is this the end of Ero and Zuri?

Duck Biscuit and his feathery crew are the best cargo shippers in the galaxy, but it's not for his abundance of professionalism. When Biscuit's current freight is stolen, he and the crew of the Platypus must track the thieves into the darkest regions of the Milky Way. Little does Duck realize that the fate of the galaxy depends on his success.

The prison ship should have been dead when the final failsafe Tristan 08 awoke. But Xander, the Evolved leopard spy, had no intention of dying that day. That chance meeting would throw two civilizations into conflict across the stars in these four stories: "Twilight Rising", "Windfall", "Overburdened", and "Earthed".