検索キーワード： ナレーター "Stephen Mendel" すべてのカテゴリー

I earn my living as a writer. In other words, as a magician, shaman, metaphorist. By chant and incantation—and with the active collaboration of my clients, the readers—I create images, characters, alternate realities in other minds. It is an ancient, venerable profession. All tribes have had storytellers, who wove legends round the campfire. My specialty involves epics not about long ago, but times and places yet to come.

Jason let the flimsy message slip from his fingers, fluttering in the gentle, centrifugal pseudo-gravity of the station apartment. Coriolis force—or perhaps the soft breeze from the wall vents—caused it to drift past the edge of the table and land on the floor of the small dining nook.

This section, “Contact,” is devoted to that special, often maligned sub-genre of SF, the think piece. Once upon a time, such tales comprised nearly all of science fiction. An author would ask, “What if?” or “If this goes on?” and head off from there, working out what might result from a given premise.

We survived the transition to a new millennium…when the great digital clock of the common era squeaked, groaned and finally clicked a new digit upon the thousand-year slot. To all the planets and stars, rocks and trees, it was just another day. But none of them love celebrating milestones at the drop of a metaphor. We humans do.

I know, things taste better fresh, not packaged. They say hamburger clogs your arteries and hurts the rain forests. We should eat like our Stone Age ancestors, who dug roots, got plenty of exercise, and always stayed a little hungry. So they say. Still, I balked when my wife served me termites. “Come on honey, try one. They’re delicious.”

“...So you want to talk about flying saucers? I was afraid of that." This happens every damn time I’m blackmailed into babysitting you insomniacs, while Talkback Larry escapes to Bimini for a badly needed rest. I’m supposed to field call-in questions about astronomy and outer space for two weeks. You know, black holes and comets? But it seems we always have to spend the first night wrangling over puta UFOs.

In all of history, no organized system of thought has changed humanity as much as science. It's offspring technologies have brought unrivaled power and wealth to our lives, as well as unprecedented danger. Answers to countless questions that mystified our ancestors are now freely available to all.

You think you’re going to get me, don’t you? Well, you’ve got another thing coming, ‘cause I’m ready for you. That’s why there’s a forged card in my wallet saying my blood group is AB Negative, and a MedicAlert tag warning that I’m allergic to penicillin, aspirin, and phenylalanine. Another one states that I’m a practicing, devout Christian Scientist. All these tricks ought to slow you down when the time comes, as it’s sure to, sometime soon.

On planets, they say, water always runs downhill…Serena had no way of knowing if it was true. She had never been on a planet. Not in the brief million or so years she had been aware. Neither had any of her acquaintances. The very idea was ridiculous. Very few Grand Voyageurs ever got a chance to see a planet. And yet, even among them, the ancient truisms were still told.

It annoyed Io’s best friend to give birth to a four-kilo cylinder of tightly wound, medium grade, placental solvent filters. For five long months Perseph had kept to a diet free of sugar, sniff, or tobac—well, almost free. The final ten weeks she’d spent waddling around in the Bedouin drapery fashion decreed for pieceworkers this year. And all that for maybe two thousand dollars’ worth of industrial sieves little better than a fabricow might produce!

Black. As deep as night is black between the stars. Deeper than that. Night isn’t really black, but a solemn, utter shade of red. As black, then, as Tenembro Nought, which drinks all color, texture, substance from around it, giving back only its awful depth of presence.

Since the days of Olaf Stapledon, science fiction has been attracted to cosmic themes. The three stories in this section are about the shape, nature and fate of the universe...or universes...reflecting recent concepts which would have been thought scientifically absurd only a decade ago.

It is, fundamentally, a question of balance. Minoru reminded himself as he left the air-flyer and set foot on the island that would be his home for many months. Keeping his stance wide and footsteps close to the ground, he moved cautiously in the insistent, heavy pull of Genji. Balance is vital when exploring a new world.

Physicians swear a Hippocratic Oath whose central vow is “Do no harm.” I wonder—how many other professions might do well to set that goal above all others?

Hands, those strong hands holding her down upon the tabletop...in her pain and confusion, they reminded her of those tentacled sea creatures of fabled days which ola-chan had described when she was little, whose habit it was to drag unfortunate mariners down to a watery doom.

Detectives Barry Gilbert and Joe Lombardo return after their highly praised debut, Cold Comfort. This time the two are plunged into Toronto's Chinatown district where they are called to investigate the death of Edgar Lau, a man whose history and connections take the detectives on a ride across continents and cultures, deep into the story of one family's struggle to survive against terrible odds

When a music mogul is found strangled to death in his apartment, there's little that would give seasoned professionals Barry Gilbert and Joe Lombardo reason to pause, but this is no ordinary murder victim. Glen Boyd, the sly music producer whom even Gilbert once threatened to kill after the man nearly destroyed his venerable marriage, seems to have a shopping list of enemies a mile long.

In the midst of a February cold snap and the political maneuverings of a new government that threatens the jobs of good officers including his young partner, Detective Barry Gilbert of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force Homicide Squad is called to investigate the murder of Cheryl Latham, the stepdaughter of a prominent government official. Cheryl, her body frozen, is found on a snow-swept pier at the harbor with a bullet in her chest. Autopsy reveals a bizarre clue - Cheryl froze to death first and was shot later.

A man, hanging from a tree at the edge of the forest that surrounds Dockerty, Newry County, has been shot with arrows, two of which pin his belly to the tree trunk. Orwell Brennan, Dockerty’s chief of police, questions the validity of it being a hunting accident when a sergeant tells him it’s been ruled a murder. He also tells the chief that the investigation is now in the hands of Metro Homicide and outside his concern.

Are all rules broken when it comes to playing a game? Washed ashore a South Carolina beach, Lois Steinberg learns her shelter, an old plantation house, was scheduled to host a "Catch Me" game convention. When the cook is the first one found murdered, the game environment instantly morphs into a terrifying evening reminiscent of "And Then There Were None".