Aspiring
translators undergo neurological
alteration in symbiosis with alien
beings. An interstellar colony ship begins to malfunction in ways which
threaten the survival of its crew. Living art pieces roam the Milky
Way. Doors which might lead anywhere appear in a city descending into
chaos. A strange emotional magnetism reaches across space-time. The
mysterious retreats which mark the life of a multi-talented artist
intrigue her lover. After the Earth’s seas have risen, a
community of amphibious and terrestrial people struggle to defend their
village and decide their own destiny. A devout priestess comes to terms
with the truths her visions have forced her to confront.
This wide-ranging collection is an opportunity to discover a unique
voice in science fiction for yourself.
The grey sky
billowing with clouds, the sullen and wave-swept sea, Manuelle lying
unconscious and pale on the little beach near the quay, dripping with
water, her protruding, naked belly evident, and the three mermaids near
her, with one facing me, Tiliss, her chest aglow with greenish signals,
a bioluminescent message I was incapable of understanding back then,
but
it was not necessary. I knelt by Manuelle's side, and as soon as I
touched her, I knew what she was...
The results of an
old hybridation project, the mermaids represented, for Arkon Corless,
humanity's future, at a time
when mankind had been decimated by a worldwide epidemic. That's what
Manuelle had always believed--at least until Spark showed up...
They are all
fifteen, thirty or forty-five cycles old. Like Ouré,
diOuré and triOuré. All except Hilch, who is
twenty cycles old, does not possess any clones,
and feels like a foreign body aboard this Ship that left twenty-three
generations ago.
Jacob's escape pod
has reached a planet where he can survive while awaiting rescue. But,
two days after he lands, strange dreams invade his mind, dreams that
are not his--or are they?
Six short stories
with a rare literary and thematic intensity, six unique emotional
immersions in the infinitely flexible space-time of Elisabeth
Vonarburg.
One of Canada’s most prominent and popular science-fiction
authors brings her work together in one collection.
In The
Slow Engines of Time and Other Stories,
Elisabeth Vonarburg’s short stories appear in English for the
first time. This emotional and intense work takes readers from Earth
far into alien, future and alternate worlds. It presents works of vivid
imagery and emotional intensity, set in the same future as the award
winning novels The Silent City
and The Maërlande
Chronicles.
The Center's inhabitants are many, as are the aspiring Voyagers. And
the Voyagers... Suddenly you think of the Voyagers: perhaps some of
them have returned during the night, or a short while ago. You realize,
then, that you are at the Center, The Center, and a kind of dizziness
makes you close your eyes, clutch the edges of the bed; it seems you're
falling right through the stone floors, sucked down by a great void:
the underground hall with houses the gate to other universes.
She's called
Kathryn, Mari, Mélané or Talitha; she travels
from one universe to the next, perhaps you have met her on the canals
of a Venice-like Montréal, or in Baïblanca, as she
takes a walk around Colibri Park...
Six stories, six
journeys in an infinitely mutable space-time.
Includes "La Course
de Kathryn", Aurora Award for Best Short Work in French, 2004
Published in
English as "See Kathryn Run", in Tesseract
9 (Hades Publication)
At the tip of the
South, by a seashore, in a world poised between death and rebirth,
stands Baïblanca, a city haunted by the rise of the waters,
where tranformed humans live side by
side with living works of art and other enigmatic creatures.
Is
Baïblanca a city, or several cities? Is it the locus for
several universe, the strange attractor that perhaps allows them to
communicate?
Seven short stories
from yesterday and today, seven journeys in the infinitely mutable
space-time of Élisabeth Vonarburg.
"I'm not known for
my brevity in fiction, that's the least you could say ! Still, that's
how it began. Also, though I write poetry, I am known for writing
genre, mainly science fiction. That's not exactly how it began. The two
first really short texts I ever wrote are in this collection - written
in 1963 and 1964 (I was fifteen and sixteen), they were published
respectively in 1991 and 2000. Neither is genre, although about half
the stories in this anthology are, or are at least flirting with genre.
For years I shunned non-genre fiction, which felt too close, too
dangerous. Science-fiction, now, that
had nothing to do whatsoever with I-me-mine, I was safe ! After ten
years writing SF, of course, I got wiser. Still, I had to learn to
write the so-called mainstream stuff all over again, and found out I
can do it only in very short bursts. This collection spans some forty
years of trying, with a few originals and reprints from more or less
obscure French and Québécois publications : only
there did I dare more revelatory disguises..."
