Melon.This random and powerful thought turns the sun into a massive honeydew melon, destroying the Earth and ruining Dr. Maximilian Tundra's day.In another even more unlikely universe, an alternative Max discovers the mining colony on Callisto has disappeared. Not only has his new home vanished, so has every shred of human civilization in the entire system!These two Maxes (and a few more) must discover the cause of this decoherence and save other universes ...

"A delightful collection of stories ranging across genres, whose recurring motif is the distinction between what is real and unreal, a true and a false dream. What this in turn leads to is the raising, usually in a lighthearted way, of the sort of moral questions we'll soon be having to deal with more frequently.~ Alex Good, Toronto StarWhat happens when you're face-to-face with a truth that shakes you?Do you accept it, or pretend i...

Keelan Cavanaugh is fat. That's why the government put him in prison.They placed him in a Calorie Reduction Centre (CRC), where trained staff work to help him and many others slim down. Well, that was the intention, anyway. The powers that be had decided chubby citizens must either go there or lose their health care coverage.hen he meets Jacinda Williams, an activist lawyer researching this new system, Keelan is more determined than ever to slim down. But K...

★★★★★ "Funny, yet deep, this is definitely worth venturing into the multiverse for."Amazing Stories says: "Snarky as Pratchet, insightful as Stephenson, as full of scathing social commentary as Swift or Voltaire, and weirdly reminiscent of LeGuin, Alpha Max is the only multiverse novel you need this month, or maybe ever."Maximilian Tundra is about to have an existential crisis of cosmic proportions.When a physical duplicate of him appears in his liv...

Chill out. It's only the technological singularity.Blake Given's web-enabled fridge has pulled the plug on the Internet, turning its owner's life – and the whole world – upside down.Blake has modest ambitions for his life. He wants to have his job reclassified, so he can join the Creative Department of the advertising firm where he works. And he wants to go out with Daphne, one of the account execs at the same company. His fridge has other plans. All Blake knows is he's at ...

Ever wondered what might happen if your therapist was replaced by a pirate? Or how disquieting it would be to receive postcards from your future self? If William Shatner was elected President of the United States, what would his inaugural address sound like? Mark A. Rayner tackles these and stranger questions in his collection of short stories, essays and flash fiction that thrum with the absurd and hum with alienation, all to a humorous beat.Jesus contends with dinosaurs. Marcel D...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart walks into the sex change clinic, determined to have his "sprouter" snipped off. So begins The Amadeus Net, a satirical novel set in the year 2028, which explores art, love, and identity at the end of the world. For more than two centuries, the one-time wunderkind has kept his existence secret while he tried to understand his immortality. Living in style through funds raised by selling "lost" Mozart works, he has also helped to create Ipolis, a utopian city-state, a...

So hair is sprouting in unspeakable places and you can no longer carry a tune, but if you're a surrealistic artiste with an addiction to Freudian mythology and guilt-free sex, turning into a monkey has its upsides.Nick Motbot may be evolving as a novelist, but his friends aren't too sure about his DNA. At least, not since Gargantuan Enterprises started experimenting with it. Once they figure out what's happening to him, they decide to set things right. Marvellous Hairy is a satiric...

World Ender meets Ender of Worlds...A thousand years ago, Dianna gave up her life in the deserts of Eoria to save her dying sister. She called upon anyone who would listen, not expecting a monster far worse than any nightmare to answer. Now she does what Kaden asks, even if that means securing an ancient relic from the very creatures that hunt her.A King thought long dead and long forgotten.In the old world his name was Samkiel. In ...

The Hartwell Approach to Climate Policy presents a powerful critique of mainstream climate change policies and details a set of pragmatic alternatives based on the Hartwell Group’s collective writings from 1988-2010. Drawing on a rich history of heterodox but increasingly accepted views on climate change policy, this book brings together in a single volume a series of key, related texts that define the ‘Hartwell critique’ of conventional climate change policies and the ‘Hartwell a...

"You've been shoe-horned into the witty saga of the Clive Stone Family...I've been there," I can relate so well; how I found myself; me, in my barely concealed nakedness, legging it barefoot across a squidgy cold damp field with Clive close behind me, in only his 'Simpsons' tm Boxer shorts - with rapidly failing elastic...It's 2003, Clive and Sarah are looking forward to a new arrival- But first they're both in for a shock...

The Kraken's Lament, by Mark Wright“Gather round, wretched peoples of Atlantis, for Acanthus the Talesmith has a story to tell! A story of adventure, of courage, of a Winged Goddess searching for truth and sanctuary in a friendless city… On the streets of this fair city, the Goddess searches for a path to the child of two worlds, but finds instead only questions and danger. Be astonished as she defies the rage of the dreaded Kraken! Wonder as she sups with the tragic Queen in her ca...