From Nebula and Hugo Award–nominated Carolyn Ives Gilman comes Dark Orbit, a compelling novel featuring alien contact, mystery, and murder. Reports of a strange, new habitable planet have reached the Twenty Planets of human civilization. When a team of scientists is assembled to investigate this world, exoethnologist Sara Callicot is recruited to keep an eye on an unstable crewmate. Thora was once a member of the interplanetary elite, but since her prophetic delusions helped mobilize a revolt on Orem, she's been banished to the farthest reaches of space, because of the risk that her very presence could revive unrest. Upon arrival, the team finds an extraordinary crystalline planet, laden with dark matter. Then a crew member is murdered and Thora mysteriously disappears. Thought to be uninhabited, the planet is in fact home to a blind, sentient species whose members navigate their world with a bizarre vocabulary and extrasensory perceptions. Lost in the deep crevasses of the planet among these people, Thora must battle her demons and learn to comprehend the native inhabitants in order to find her crewmates and warn them of an impending danger. But her most difficult task may lie in persuading the crew that some powers lie beyond the boundaries of science.

This book gathers the papers of the PUDCAD Universal Design Practice Conference: Game + Design Education, organized by Istanbul Technical University and held online on June 24-26, 2020. The conference represented one of the key events of the Practicing Universal Design Principles in Design Education through a CAD-Based Game (PUDCAD) project, which developed a design game on a CAD-based platform, enabling students and designers to learn about universal design principles and develop accessible and innovative design ideas. As such, the PUDCAD project met one of the foremost goals of the European Commission, making sure the inclusion and efficient accessibility for people with disabilities into everyday life. The main topics of the conference include: universal design and education, universal design and user experience, game and design studies, gamification, virtual reality experiment, e-learning in design, and playful spaces and interfaces. The contributions, which were selected by means of a rigorous international peer-review process, highlight numerous exciting ideas that will spur novel research directions and foster multidisciplinary collaboration among different specialists.

After a horrific accident strikes a space station, an engineering officer must use all available tools--a timer, utility kit, and his wits--to survive an attack from the deadliest creature known to man. Collects issues #1-#4 of the thrilling and claustrophobic Aliens story: Dead Orbit, penned by Orc Stain creator James Stokoe!

Librarians who work with readers will find this well-loved guide to be a treasure trove of information. With descriptive annotations of thousands of genre titles mapped by genre and subgenre, this is the readers' advisor's go-to reference. Next to author, genre is the characteristic that readers use most to select reading material and the most trustworthy consideration for finding books readers will enjoy. With its detailed classification and pithy descriptions of titles, this book gives users valuable insights into what makes genre fiction appeal to readers. It is an invaluable aid for helping readers find books that they will enjoy reading. Providing a handy roadmap to popular genre literature, this guide helps librarians answer the perennial and often confounding question "What can I read next?" Herald and Stavole-Carter briefly describe thousands of popular fiction titles, classifying them into standard genres such as science fiction, fantasy, romance, historical fiction, and mystery. Within each genre, titles are broken down into more specific subgenres and themes. Detailed author, title, and subject indexes provide further access. As in previous editions, the focus of the guide is on recent releases and perennial reader favorites. In addition to covering new titles, this edition focuses more narrowly on the core genres and includes basic readers' advisory principles and techniques.

Presents some of the best science fiction short stories written in 2015.

A new superfast space plane that skirts the edge of space, inbound on a two-hour jaunt to Hong Kong, collides with a satellite. Metals groan as if in pain. The aircraft slowly overturns. Suddenly the emergency floor lights extinguish. All manner of objects bounce and sail though the cabin. In the darkness some debris strikes passengers. Screams of injury join shouts of terror. Various tourists claw at their restraints, freed, they fall away into darkness. Bounding travelers kick, and swing their arms; scratching the bodies of other sightseers. Indescribable howls fill the fuselage. Deafening, hysterical shrieks eject from every throat. One, clear, horrified voice rises above the others. "GOD! GOD. OH GOD." The terrified screamer could be male or female, extreme fear reshapes the shouter's larynx. This is the ultimate roller-coaster ride. The grinding metal begins to sound musical like the screech of an electric guitar. The space plane lurches into the vastness of the stellar realm. With fuel exhausted and onboard life-gases spewing from its hull, the space plane drifts and twists through space. The vacationer's eyes bulge as they await catastrophe. Passengers draw lots to determine who will be among those saved, but unlike the Titanic, in "New York to Hong Kong in Two Hours!" there are no deferrals for women and children.

In this demonical issue - a story of unspeakable horror by William F. Nolan, co-creator of Logan's Run sword versus sorcery in Ken Bulmer's Ice and Fire bestselling writer Brian Lumley's The Man Who Felt Pain ...and news and views from the world of fantasy