Robot Fiction

He sought to flee his tragic past, but when Thomas Usher hears a clockwork voice on the phone, and sees ever-more disturbing visions in a derelict warehouse, Usher realises that he has to return home - for the sake of his own sanity. Meanwhile, a deadly figure from Usher's past threatens to undermine the very fabric of reality. Gary McMahon’s short fiction has appeared in numerous acclaimed magazines and anthologies in the UK and US and has been reprinted in yearly “Best of” collections.

It is 2050. The USA has just been sold to the highest bidders. Detective Pete Shah is a Memory Association Specialist with the NYPD - he reads the last thoughts of murder victims. When he himself is arrested for murder, though, the secrets he brings to light threaten to bring the city to its knees. No one here gets out alive.

The two magicians came to take Vegas. Now it’s taking them back. When two college freshmen decide to use Spring Break making magic on the gambling tables of Las Vegas, little do they imagine that Vegas harbours a dark magical secret of its own…the whole place is run by magic, and an undead Harry Houdini is in charge. Matt Forbeck has worked full-time on fiction and games since 1989. His work has been published in at least a dozen different languages.

Marvo is a stage magician. His magic is real. Marvo grows up without knowing his parents, without knowing his heritage, without knowing much about life. The magicians have always been with us, since the beginning of civilisation. They fill our heads with the mist, keeping us from witnessing the stark reality of existence. But are things so bad that Marvo will bring it down on all of us, forever? Marvo begins to understand those around him, and his place in the world; he discovers that his remarkable powers can be put to good, or to evil.

Thomas Usher has a terrible gift. Following a car crash in which his wife and daughter are killed, he can see the recently departed, and it's not usually a pretty sight. When he is called to investigate the violent death of the daughter of a prominent local gangster, Usher's world is torn apart once more. For the barriers between this world and the next are not as immutable as once he believed.

The planet had fallen off the map. Lost on an unknown and forgotten planet, scientist Karl Allman discovers himself hunted by an ancient race. The descendants of earlier colonists have reverted to a savage tribal culture of sacrifice, pillage and violence. When Karl falls in love with an outcast girl, he has only one goal: Escape. But escape is a distant dream on this nightmare planet.

Botanica is an island, but almost all of the island is taken up by the Tree. Lillah has come of age and is now ready to leave her community and walk the tree for five years, learning all Botanica has to teach her. Can Lillah keep the huge secret she has been entrusted with, or will she have to resort to breaking the oldest taboo on Botanica?

A serial killer stalks Chicago. A gorgeous cop is on his trail. And someone else is watching, someone who will decide who lives...and who dies. The Angel of Death for Chicago makes sure all his souls meet a fitting end. But when a gruesome serial killer strikes, the Angel must make a startling choice. He falls in love with the cop on the killer's trail, and has to choose between divinity and humanity. But to do that he must face the biggest terror of all - who he really is.

It will take more than angels and demons to stop him. Reporter Spencer Finch is embroiled in the hunt for a missing book, encountering along the way cat burglars and mobsters, hackers and mysterious monks. At the same time, he's trying to make sense of the legacy left to him by his late grandfather, a chest of what appear to be pulp magazines from the golden age of fantasy fiction.

Eliot Lazar lavora per una compagnia che produce e vende spinner, gli androidi, simulacri di esseri umani creati a servizio degli heartbeat, gli uomini. La sua fortuna - o sfortuna - è quella di innamorarsi di una spinner modello C-900, Iris Matsuo: nella Los Angeles di fine XXI secolo le relazioni tra heartbeat e spinner, lasciate spesso impunite dalla legge, rappresentano un'offesa sociale, un crimine morale da perseguire. Eliot e Iris decidono allora di trasferirsi nell'isola artificiale di Avernus, una sorta di Stato pirata dove tali pregiudizi non esistono.

The Story of Ben and Button is a children’s book about a friendship between a boy and a robot dog. Ben loves dogs but he is allergic to them, and he can’t have one. He claims that dog is another word for happiness. To cheer him up, his parents decide to buy him a white Pomeranian robodog with a red emergency button in the middle of his chest. Ben names the dog Button and he is as loyal as a real dog. Button claims a pillow as his territory and covers it with artificial hair, he keeps quiet when Ben studies and he helps a neighbourhood cat.

Ich bin Egon und das ist mein Forschertagebuch. Hier darf nur reinhören, wer Forscher ist. Oder wer einer werden will. Aber sonst keiner... Ganz begeistert schrauben Egon und sein bester Freund Jojo an ihrem Super-Roboter herum. Damit gewinnen sie die Wette gegen Ben bestimmt! Doch natürlich geht einiges schief und der wild gewordene Roboter büxt aus. Wie fangen sie den bloß wieder ein? Mit diesem ganz speziellen Alleskönner-Roboter ist lustiges Chaos garantiert! Die spannende Lesung mit vielen Geräuschen wird gesprochen von T. Bunke.

Having achived so much, Marius don Hellespont was finding life just a little boring. But now something, or maybe someone, has stopped the dead from, well, dying. So wouldn’t you know it, it’s up to Marius, incorrigible sidekick Gerd, and Gerd’s not-dead-enough Granny, to journey across the continent and put the marching dead back in the afterlife, where they belong.

Ted Hall is worried. He's been sleepwalking, and his somnambulant travels appear to coincide with murders by the notorious Hang Wire Killer. Meanwhile, the circus has come to town, but the Celtic dancers are taking their pagan act a little too seriously, the manager of the Olde Worlde Funfair has started talking to his vintage machines, and the new acrobat's frequent absences are causing tension among the performers. Out in the city there are other new arrivals - immortals searching for an ancient power - a primal evil which, if unopposed, could destroy the world!

When the lucky survivors of the world’s most infamous maritime disaster were plucked out of the freezing ocean by the passenger steamship Carpathia, they thought their problems were over. But something is sleeping in the darkest recesses of their rescue ship. Something old. Something hungry.

Sam, a stranger to the world of the Fae, finds an unexpected offer from one of the Elemental Court’s most enigmatic Lords turns out to be far more than he bargained for. Meanwhile, Max, an Arbiter of the Split Worlds Treaty, is getting closer to uncovering who is behind the murder of the Bath Chapter. Can he stay true to his sworn duty without being destroyed by his own master, whose insanity threatens to unravel them all?

Shale is dying. A vast, chaotic, monster-bearing storm known only as the Roil is expanding, consuming the land. The last humans are fighting back with ever more bizarre new machines, but the Roil seems unstoppable. Whole cities have been consumed – where once there were twelve, now only four remain. It’s up to a decadent wastrel, a four thousand year-old man, and a young woman bent on revenge, to try to save their city – and the world.

Four years after the horrific events in Leadville, a young visitor from England, Victoria Dawes, sets into motion a series of events that will lead Cora and herself out into the New Mexico desert. They are in pursuit of Anaba, a Navajo witch bent on taking revenge for the atrocities committed against her people.

Meet Sam Thornton, collecter of souls. The souls of the damned, to be precise. Because of his efforts to avert the Apocalypse, Sam Thornton has been given a second chance: provided he can stick to the straight-and-narrow. Which sounds all well and good, but when the soul that Sam is sent to collect goes missing, he finds himself on a path leading straight to Hell.

Altapasaeda, capital of the Castoval, is about to be besieged by its own king - and where else would luckless, somewhat reformed thief Easie Damasco be but trapped within the city's walls? Faced with a war they can't win and a populace too busy fighting amongst itself to even try, the Castovalian defenders are left with one desperate option. Far in the northern lands of Shoan, rebels have set up the young prince Malekrin as a figurehead in their own quest to throw off the king's tyrannical rule. One way or another, the prince must be persuaded to join forces.