Epub (reconstituted + covers & toc)Bitterly, Bitterly, Scop is a failure!Scop is doing his job . . .He has spoken to President Kennedy, warning him to leave Dallas immediately . . . spoken to Zapruder, asking him not to take pictures . . . pleaded with Elaine Kozciouskos, begging her only to scream, has even fornicated with her - part of the job. In spite of the pain, he has witnessed, on location, the last minutes of Jack Kennedy, King, Malcolm, Robert Kennedy - all for the fate of mankind.But bitterly, bitterly, he knows he is a failure. Scop is trying to alter, has merely reinforced the future . . .

Blount reminds himself that he is not to enjoy what he is doing. Murdering the rounder is a serious business; it must he taken on that level. He is taking it on that level. The old man’s breath is sealed off like placing a cork in a bottle; Hulm begins to inflate him with his own gases. Closer and closer. There cannot be much strength left in a ninety-four-year-old body. Blount applies himself to the task, the emotional edges retracting further. Harder and harder. In and out. Hulm flops on the bed. His body dilates. His eyes open and look into Blount’s. In those eyes Blount sees his own face. He feels ’ no horror. He looks no different than he has in years. Murder is not changing his features nor deforming them with complexity. It is now, it is always to be, it has always been the same old Blount.

Epub (reformatted covers added)On a Planet Alien. In the title novel, a mission to civilize the natives of a distant planet goes awry when the captain and his crew start to question their motives and maybe even lose control of their minds;

For nearly half a century, Barry N. Malzberg has been stretching the boundaries of the science fiction and fantasy genres to tell truly entertaining tales. In a collection of fiction that Malzberg himself considers his very best, this anthology showcases a literary career spanning almost 50 years, dozens of novels, hundreds of stories, and countless classic books. Each of the 32 stories in this compilation offers Malzberg's trademark vision of a future that is equal parts cautionary tale and social commentary. In the fictional world depicted in one story, dreams turn into frightening trips through time to reveal an ultimate horror; in another the rules in a war game change with every flip of the manic military command. Including pieces appearing for the first time in book form alongside rediscovered gems, these hand-picked selections exhibit his versatile imagination and the dark humor so characteristic of his work.

You mean we're truly going to play for the fate of the Universe? "Exactly," the Overlord said, "a forty-one game chess match to be broadcast throughout all civilized sectors of your Universe so that everyone can witness it." "But why chess? Why me? Why this planet?" "Because chess is ideal for such a final judgement; it is a methodical game with absolutely no element of luck, and therefore there can be no complaints by the loser. Chess is known only to your plant, and you and your opponent are the most evenly matched living players. Good against evil. No other chess players are so close in true potential abilities. There is no other reason."

Twenty-two tales by a mythologist for the new millennium, Shiva and Other Stories brings together some of Malzberg's finest work from the '80s and the '90s, including many stories featured in major Year's Best anthologies. From pragmatists like Huey "Kingfish" Long, who plays human nature like a pat-hand of cards to win the presidency and then deal with a punk named Adolf Hitler, to soulless bureaucrats, to a long parade of recalcitrant dreamers who tragically attempt to impose fantasy on unyielding reality, Malzberg shows that neither super-science nor djinni magic can prevail against human folly. At the same time, he's very funny. A time traveler must face the idea that he may have committed a serious crime against his alternate selves. A moralist puts his indignation ahead of his survival instinct, again, and again, and again; a detective investigates the murder of the 20th Century itself. This is a wry and brilliant collection by one of the greatest social critics in science fiction.

Aspiring science fiction writers, take heed! If you want to understand where the field has been and where it's going—if you want a career—you need this book. In The Engines of the Night, Malzberg reviews his own ambivalent relationship with science fiction up to 1980 and gauges its past and future potentials. Would science fiction have been better off without Hugo Gernsback and the pulp-literature stigma with which he cursed it? What are the seminal works of science fiction? Can science fiction kill you? His answers are brilliant, unequivocal, and surprising. Updated with a 2001 introduction, this award-winning essay collection remains an essential and enduring history and critique of a fascinating and problematic genre. (Locus Award Winner. Hugo Award Nominee.)