Discover the fascinating and terrifying story of Earth's most devastating mass extinction in The Great Dying: Earth's Most Catastrophic Mass Extinction. This in-depth exploration delves into the Permian-Triassic extinction event, which occurred 252 million years ago, wiping out 96% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial life. Learn about the powerful volcanic eruptions of the Siberian Traps, global warming, ocean acidification, and anoxia that caused this unparalleled ecological collapse. Perfect for readers interested in paleontology, mass extinctions, climate change, and Earth's geological history, this book unravels the mysteries behind the Great Dying and its profound impact on life’s evolution, offering vital insights into modern-day environmental challenges and resilience. Get ready to dive into the past and uncover how life rebounded after the greatest catastrophe in Earth's history.

For more than a century, Mars has been at the center of debates about humanity’s place in the cosmos. Focusing on perceptions of the red planet in scientific works and science fiction, Dying Planet analyzes the ways Mars has served as a screen onto which humankind has projected both its hopes for the future and its fears of ecological devastation on Earth. Robert Markley draws on planetary astronomy, the history and cultural study of science, science fiction, literary and cultural criticism, ecology, and astrobiology to offer a cross-disciplinary investigation of the cultural and scientific dynamics that have kept Mars on front pages since the 1800s. Markley interweaves chapters on science and science fiction, enabling him to illuminate each arena and to explore the ways their concerns overlap and influence one another. He tracks all the major scientific developments, from observations through primitive telescopes in the seventeenth century to data returned by the rovers that landed on Mars in 2004. Markley describes how major science fiction writers—H. G. Wells, Kim Stanley Robinson, Philip K. Dick, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and Judith Merril—responded to new theories and new controversies. He also considers representations of Mars in film, on the radio, and in the popular press. In its comprehensive study of both science and science fiction, Dying Planet reveals how changing conceptions of Mars have had crucial consequences for understanding ecology on Earth.

Twenty-five years ago the causes and consequences of global warming began to concern Science Fiction author J. Chandler Nash. He never imagined that he would live to see the catastrophic results beginning to play out in his lifetime: radical weather, devastating fires of global consequence, food shortages, rapid planetary deforestation, and accelerating rates of extinctions. Far greater than any science fiction scenario, it is this unimaginable threat largely unaddressed by world governments that prompted him to write The Dying Planet. Set in the not too distant future, a monumental catastrophe looms over planet Earth unknown to its few surviving inhabitants. All technology and social order has long since vanished in a world devastated by severe drought and unpredictable killer storms. Three isolated groups, remnants of a tattered humanity, try to make a life for themselves while struggling against lawless predators and a fiercely hostile climate. Scout Clayton Smith, settles his tiny wandering band by a shrinking lake in the Sierras. Tensions mount as they build a new order for themselves, until they are suddenly confronted by a threat that would rob them of their resources, their freedom, and their lives. Little by little they pull together to persevere, but they are never entirely free of the evil that stalks them. A young drifter, Vince Corning, finally finds his place in a small river community, and meets the love of his life, the beautiful Carmen. Held together by the iron fist of Carmens stepfather, Skeeter Jones, the community persists in a quest for resources that spares no one. Jones, who holds a bitter grudge against Corning, goes head to head with him in a struggle that lands Vince on the wrong side of the law. After losing a horrific battle to defend the last of their black gold, two ex-roughnecks, Gardner Wells and Carter Singleton, are reduced to a miserable life as sneak thieves in order to fend off starvation on the parched tundra of the far north. Only their wits can save them. Against the background of a life and death struggle facing the survivors, a saga of love, loss, and life renewed plays out beyond all odds. Will they survive what a global system, long forgotten and drastically out of balance, has in store for them?

Resources running low, the population exploding, the planet is in danger: are we masters of our own destruction, or have we been invaded by aliens bent on mass extinction? Is this a pattern across the entire universe, or just our small sector of cosmic life? This new title in our successful Gothic Fantasy Short Stories series explores the theme of a dying planet, written by a fabulous mix of classic, ancient and brand new writing, with contemporary authors from all over the world. For the first time we’ve made a conscious effort to reach beyond our usual submissions seeking broader voices. This book offers a glorious mix of American, British, Canadian, Italian, Indian, Spanish and Chinese writers with contributions from Barton Aikman, V.K. Blackwell, Steve Carr, Brandon Crilly, AnaMaria Curtis, Kate Dollarhyde, Megan Dorei, Stephanie Ellis, Anita Ensal, E.E. King, Michael Kortes, Raymond Little, Ken Liu, Thana Niveau, John B. Rosenman, Sydney Rossman-Reich, Elizabeth Rubio, Zach Shephard, Shikhandin, Alex Shvartsman, Kristal Stittle, Rebecca E. Treasure, Francesco Verso, and Marian Womack. These sit alongside classic stories by authors such as Clark Ashton Smith, Stanley G. Weinbaum, H.G. Wells and more, as well as stretching back much further, to the Norse Eddas and Sagas, and an Ancient Egyptian Myth on the death of humankind.

“Diverse and remarkable speculations on futures so remote as to be all but beyond conjecture” by Brian Aldiss, Poul Anderson, Robert Silverberg, and more (Kirkus Reviews). It is the essence of science fiction to chart the possibilities of the future, but it takes the hand of a master to capture the farthest reaches of time—futures almost unimaginably distant. The Furthest Horizon collects seventeen of the most inventive and audacious visions of the future by many acclaimed writers, including: Brian Aldiss * Poul Anderson * Avram Davidson * Joe Haldeman * Alexander Jablokov * Paul J. McAuley * Ian McDonald * Michael Moorcock * Frederik Pohl * Robert Reed * Keith Roberts * Robert Silverberg * Cordwainer Smith * James Tiptree, Jr. * Jack Vance * Walter Jon Williams * Gene Wolfe “A variety of authors, writing styles and topics are included in this entertaining anthology, and Dozois provides insightful notes before each story.” —Science Fiction Weekly “Editor Dozois’ latest theme anthology presents 17 stories, many of them classics, set in a future so far from now that memories of today’s humans have been lost by our descendants . . . another feather for his cap.” —Booklist

The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction in Literature is a useful reference to the broad and burgeoning field of science fiction literature. Science fiction literature has gained immensely in critical respect and attention, while maintaining a broad readership. However, despite the fact that it is a rapidly changing field, contemporary science fiction literature also maintains a strong sense of its connections to science fiction of the past, which makes a historical reference of this sort particularly valuable as a tool for understanding science fiction literature as it now exists and as it has evolved over the years. The Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction in Literature covers the history of science fiction in literature through a chronology, an introductory essay, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries including significant people; themes; critical issues; and the most significant genres that have formed science fiction literature. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about this subject.

A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man. On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all. On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands. Praise for Dan Simmons and Hyperion “Dan Simmons has brilliantly conceptualized a future 700 years distant. In sheer scope and complexity it matches, and perhaps even surpasses, those of Isaac Asimov and James Blish.”—The Washington Post Book World “An unfailingly inventive narrative . . . generously conceived and stylistically sure-handed.”—The New York Times Book Review “Simmons’s own genius transforms space opera into a new kind of poetry.”—The Denver Post “An essential part of any science fiction collection.”—Booklist

The Evolution of Horror in the Twenty-First Century examines the intimate connections between the horror genre and its audience’s experience of being in the world at a particular historical and cultural moment. This book not only provides frameworks with which to understand contemporary horror, but it also speaks to the changes wrought by technological development in creation, production, and distribution, as well as the ways in which those who are traditionally underrepresented positively within the genre- women, LGBTQ+, indigenous, and BAME communities - are finally being seen and finding space to speak.

Nearly twenty years ago Robert Silverberg began writing a monthly column of opinion and commentary, for Galileo Magazine, Amazing Stories, and then for Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. Now he has chosen the liveliest and most relevant of his hundreds of magazine columns for the present collection. They constitute a vivid chronicle of events both in science fiction and the world in general over the past two decades. Robert Silverberg is one of the great veterans of fantasy and science fiction. During the course of a career that has now stretched across more than forty years, he has written dozens of novels and hundreds of short stories, many of them considered classics of the genre. He has won more major award nominations than any other writer in his field, and no less than nine Hugo and Nebula awards, the key s-f/fantasy trophies. His books have been translated into some eighteen languages and his short stories have appeared in every science-fiction and fantasy magazine in the world, as well as in Omni, Playboy, and Penthouse.