As usual we have a great mix of stories and poems, this time by writers from Scotland, England, Finland, Japan and USA.We have a piece on Space Opera by Samantha Dolan, moonlighting from her day job as Reviews Editor, and we feature Eric Brown in 'Back Story'. Eric talks about the inspiration for his new novella Ace Doubles, from which we extracted Chapter One for you here.The ContentsThe Sentinel Falls - John J KennedyBoy or Girl? - Haruka Mugihara, transla...

Climate change, nuclear proliferation, and the threat of a global pandemic have the potential to impact each of our lives. Preventing these threats poses a serious global challenge, but ignoring them could have disastrous consequences. How do we engineer institutions to change incentives so that these global public goods are provided? Scott Barrett provides a thought provoking and accessible introduction to the issues surrounding the provision of global public goods. Using a variety of exa...

End the exhaustion and brain fog with practical metabolic health strategies for steady, all-day energy. If you are battling the afternoon crash or dealing with unpredictable mood swings, understanding your internal glucose mechanics is the ultimate solution. Turn your commute into an empowering session on exactly how your body truly fuels itself.Forget intimidating medical jargon and rigid, stress-inducing diet rules that make eating miserable. This gentle, conversational guide tra...

Would you like to eat whatever you want and still lose weight?Who wouldn't? Keep dreaming, imbecile.In the meantime, if you'd like to read something that alternates between laugh-out-loud-funny and apocalyptically angry, keep holding this book. Steal it if necessary.In his latest collection of rants, raves, hastily spluttered articles and scarcely literate scrawl, Charlie Brooker proves that there is almost nothing in this universe, big or small, that can't reduce a...

Mastering Manga, How to Draw Manga Bodies is an excerpt from Mastering Manga With Mark Crilley. Get everything you need to know to begin drawing manga figures of all types, from typical teens to parents and babies--with the correct proportions and in all sorts of poses. Mark also shows how variations in height and proportion suit different manga styles, and you'll be delighted by how simple it is to get it just right!

If you walk around every day on eggshells, nervous about making a mistake or looking stupid, then you should read this.If you have a "next big thing" in mind you want to do because you know it will be awesome (starting the business, making the big move, launching the nonprofit, writing the book) but are afraid of doing what it would take to make that thing happen, then you should read this.The universe is very big. You are very small. In fact, you're so small and so insigni...

This is perhaps the most famous of Kenji's short stories and one of his personal favorites, as it was the title story of his one and only self-published collection of short stories. Two hunters go on a hunting trip in the country and end up completely lost. Luckily they come across what appears to be an extremely popular restaurant…but everything is not as it seems.Kenji Miyazawa is one of Japan's best known and well-loved writers and poets. He was born in what is now Hanamaki City...

Future Visions: Original Science Fiction Inspired by Microsoft is an anthology of new short work from some of the greatest science fiction writers in the field. These visionary stories explore prediction science, quantum computing, real-time translation, machine learning, and much more. The authors used inside access to leading-edge work from Microsoft Research as inspiration, crafting pieces that predict the near-future of technology--and examine its complex relationship to our c...

Fans of Black Mirror and Love, Death & Robots will love this darkly comic tale. Nokyo, a downtrodden, mischievous and slightly psychotic office robot hatches a scheme to escape from the drudgery of office life with deadly consequences, setting in motion a chilling cycle of events.Soon to be a major motion picture!

Crossy Road: Ten tips, hints, and cheats to getting further faster!Crossy Road is an endless Frogger-like from Hipster Whale. In this game, you’ll guide one of 50 charming characters across a ridiculously busy, never-ending stretch of highway while dodging cars, trains, eagles, and other voxel-splatting hazards. Game guides ’s Crossy Road Tips, Cheats and Strategies will help you stay splat-free for as long as possible.Crossy Road may very well be one of the most addictive ga...

Gaming just got a whole lot funnier.What was the console gamer's New Year’s resolution?1280x720.Why did Frogger cross the road?Because you’ve been playing the game for an hour and you’ve finally beat this level.Why would a grown-ass person want to play Pokemon Go?Wynaut?This is a joke book for anyone who knows that AAA isn’t just a battery type, you don’t need scissors to do so...

From the genre-defying, critically beloved author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe and Interior Chinatown and one of the creative minds behind HBO’s Westworld comes a sweet and searing, unexpected and delightfully absurd vision of life on Earth a thousand years in the future.Jane is the only person left on the planet, minding the only business left: a gift shop. She wasn’t born on Earth, but her ancestors were; they lived there before...