Artificial intelligence in 100 stories. To ready us for the inevitable, here are 100 of the best short stories ever written--most of them by humans--about robots and artificial minds. Read them while you can, learn from them, and make your preparations... From 1837 through to the present day, from Charles Dickens to Cory Doctorow, this collection contains the most diverse collection of robots ever assembled. Anthropomorphic robots, invertebrate AIs, thuggish metal lumps and wisps of manufactured intelligence so delicate if you blinked you might miss them. The literature of robots and artificial intelligence is so wildly diverse, in both tone and intent, that our stories form six...

As a historian in the bleak, climate-ravaged twenty-third century, it's Zoe's job to record and archive the past, not to recreate it. But when she comes across the diaries of Harry and Michelle, who lived two hundred years ago, she becomes fascinated by the minutiae of their lives and decides to write a novel about them, filling in the gaps with her own imaginings. Harry and Michelle meet just after the Brexit referendum when Harry's car breaks down outside a small town in Norfolk. Despite their different backgrounds, and Michelle having voted Leave while Harry voted Remain, they are drawn to each other and begin a relationship. From her long perspective, the way Zoe sees their world is...

These 14 stories contain, among other things, robots, alien planets, genetic manipulation and virtual reality, but their centre focuses on individuals rather than technology, and how they deal with love and loneliness, authenticity, reality and what it really means to be human. Literary Awards: Edge Hill Short Story Prize (2009).

George Simling has grown up in the city-state of Illyria, an enclave of logic and reason founded as a refuge from the Reaction, a wave of religious fundamentalism that swept away the nations of the twenty-first century. Yet to George, Illyria’s militant rationalism is as stifling as the faith-based superstition that dominates the world outside its walls. For George has fallen in love with Lucy. A prostitute. A robot. She might be a machine, but the semblance of life is perfect. To the city authorities, robot sentience is a malfunction, curable by erasing and resetting silicon minds. But George knows that Lucy is something more. His only alternative is to flee Illyria, taking Lucy...

A thought-provoking collection of contemporary short stories from the winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award 2013. Chris Beckett’s thought-provoking and wide-ranging collection of contemporary short stories is a joy to read, rich in detail and texture. From stories about first love, to a man who discovers a labyrinth beneath his house, to an angel left alone at the end of the universe, Beckett displays both incredible range and extraordinary subtlety as a writer. Every story is a world unto itself – each one beautifully realized and brilliantly imagined.

Переступать эту черту настрого запрещено, ведь она разделяет законный виртуальный мир и почти нелегальный физический. © Chris Beckett. The Perimeter. Piccadilly Circus. 2005. Дилогия впервые опубликована в журнале «Asimov's SF» в 2005 г. Перевод впервые опубликован в журнале «Если», 2007 № 02.

В этом причудливом мире каждое живое существо имеет три пары конечностей и два сердца, деревья дышат и согревают атмосферу, цветы и камни светятся, хотя в небесах нет ни солнца, ни луны, а рай тропического леса окружает со всех сторон кольцо нетающих снегов. И здесь живут люди, называющие себя просто «Семья». Все они — потомки двух землян, Адама и Евы поневоле, более ста пятидесяти лет назад назвавших эту чужую, сумрачную планету Эдемом. Они верят, что настанет день, когда Земля вспомнит о своих детях. И тогда с неба спустятся летающие лодки, чтобы перевезти всех — и живых, и мертвых — под ласковый теплый свет ослепительно-яркой желтой звезды. Но в любом обществе, даже самом...

A marooned outpost of humanity struggles to survive on a startlingly alien world: science fiction as it ought to be from British science fiction's great white hope. You live in Eden.You are a member of the Family, one of 532 descendants of Angela and Tommy. You shelter beneath the light and warmth of the Forest's lantern trees, hunting woollybuck and harvesting tree candy. Beyond the forest lie the treeless mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. The Oldest among you recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross between worlds. One day, the Oldest say, they...

We speak of a mother's love, but we forget her power. Power over life. Power to give and to withhold. Generations after the breakup of the human family of Eden, the Johnfolk emphasise knowledge and innovation, the Davidfolk tradition and cohesion. But both have built hierarchical societies sustained by violence and dominated by men - and both claim to be the favoured children of a long-dead woman from Earth that all Eden knows as Gela, the mother of them all. When Starlight Brooking meets a handsome and powerful man from across Worldpool, she believes he will offer an outlet for her ambition and energy. But she has no idea that she will be a stand-in for Gela herself and wear Gela's ring on...

On the alien, sunless planet they call Eden, the 532 members of the Family shelter beneath the light and warmth of the Forest's lantern trees. Beyond the Forest lie the mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. The Oldest among the Family recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross the stars. These ships brought us here, the Oldest say - and the Family must only wait for the travelers to return. But young John Redlantern will break the laws of Eden, shatter the Family and change history. He will abandon the old ways, venture into the Dark... and discover the truth...