Eight science fiction stories by a master of the genre.

The planets Earth and Vulcan experience a mysterious first contact in this fascinating Star Trek novel featuring the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Years before the formal first contact between Earth and another planet’s inhabitants, a Vulcan space vessel crash landed in the South Pacific, forcing humanity to decide whether to offer the hand of friendship, or the fist of war. Complicating matters is a second visitation: a group of people from two hundred years in the future, who serve on a starship called Enterprise. Discover the astonishing truth about this heretofore unknown first contact and the nightmares that plague Admiral James T. Kirk. Dreams of his dead comrades, of his earliest days aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, and of a forgotten past in which he somehow changed the course of history and destroyed the Federation before it began.

A twisted relationship between two couples reaches a terrible climax in this novel by the New York Times-bestselling author of Machines Like Me. Colin and Mary are lovers on holiday in Italy, their relationship becoming increasingly problematic as they become increasingly alienated from one and other. They move from place to place in this foreign land but seemingly without aim or purpose, seemingly bored and without attachment. Then they meet a man named Robert and his disabled wife, Caroline. Colin and Mary seem happy for the diversion—happy to meet another couple that takes their focus off of each other for a while. But things become strange when they attempt to leave: Robert and Caroline insist that they stay with them for a while longer. While Mary and Colin do rediscover an erotic attraction to each other during this time, they also find that their relationship with Robert and Caroline is taking a dreadful and horrific turn, in this “fine novel” by the Booker Prize-winning author of Saturday and On Chesil Beach (New Statesman). “McEwan perfectly captures the thrill of travel when one is divorced from familiar surroundings and the chance of something unusual and out-of-character seems possible. Of course, this being a McEwan fiction, the possibility is a brutal truth about how people find love in extreme ways.”—The Daily Beast

The Hugo Award-winning author offers fifteen tales ranging from contemporary fantasy and off-beat romance to science fiction and horror.

A Bank Street Best Book of 2021 A Galaxy of Sea Stars is Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo’s second middle-grade novel—a heartwarming story about family, loyalty, and the hard choices we face in the name of friendship. Sometimes, the truth isn’t easy to see. Sometimes, you have to look below the surface to find it. Eleven-year-old Izzy feels as though her whole world is shifting, and she doesn’t like it. She wants her dad to act like he did before he was deployed to Afghanistan. She wants her mom to live with them at the marina where they’ve moved instead of spending all her time on Block Island. Most of all, she wants Piper, Zelda, and herself—the Sea Stars—to stay best friends, as they start sixth grade in a new school. Everything changes when Izzy’s father invites his former interpreter’s family, including eleven-year-old Sitara, to move into the marina’s upstairs apartment. Izzy doesn’t know what to make of Sitara—with her hijab and refusal to eat cafeteria food—and her presence disrupts the Sea Stars. But in Sitara Izzy finds someone brave, someone daring, someone who isn’t as afraid as Izzy is to use her voice and speak up for herself. As Izzy and Sitara grow closer, Izzy must make a choice: stay in her comfort zone and risk betraying her new friend, or speak up and lose the Sea Stars forever.

Hundreds of years in the future, Earthmen have moved out into the galaxy of inhabited worlds, only to find that space travelers from Earth are second-class citizens or worse on most of the planets they visit. Joseph Farber, an artist, is part of an Earth colony among the alien Cian on the planet Weinunnach. He is deeply moved by the rituals of the Cian¾and by the captivating Liraun, a humanoid Cian. With love between races forbidden, Faber allows himself to be genetically altered so that he and Liraun may marry and interbreed. But the couple soon discovers that the fundamental differences between their very modes of being may lead to tragedy and, perhaps, ultimate revelation. Dozois is known for his beautiful evocation of setting and emotional intensity within a truly alien and often austere vision of the future. He is a science fiction master of the first order¾a fact fully on display in this outstanding collection. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). "Lyric, haunting, heartbreaking¾this is science fiction at its best."¾George R.R. Martin "My generation of writers has produced relatively few authentic masters. . .Gardner Dozois is one of them."¾William Gibson