infinity plus singles Books

Venn, a fickle and restless young musician, is drawn to the “lost planet” of Habille where, it is said, human nature has changed, and love once experienced can never die. In an afterword written especially for this edition, Lisa Tuttle explains her controversial decision to refuse the Nebula Award for this story. “Tuttle creates out of a genuinely strange imagination... ‘The Bone Flute,’ literally haunting, is possibly the best of its kind that I have read.” -- Josephine Saxton in The New Statesman. “‘The Bone Flute’, literally haunting, is possibly the best of its kind that I have read.” Josephine Saxton, The New Statesman

What if the paparazzi could read their targets' minds? Anna-Louise is a young and ambitious reporter, on the trail of an adulterous footballer, trying to hear through the mind noise to find out what he's really up to. Contemporary SF from an author described by Locus as belonging in "the recognized front ranks of SF writers".

Life jumps the rails, runs away from you and there’s no catching it up. Not ever. Winner of the Derringer Award for best short crime story. "I mean it," the gunman shrieked, and he pointed the revolver at Ward, the end of the barrel moving in tiny circles with the shaking of his hands. "I mean it. One step closer..." Ward stopped where he was. Other than the man with the gun, no-one else was standing. The sun was shining bright through the frosted windows, and somewhere in the bank a lazy dying fly buzzed and battered against the glass. The bank smelt of floor polish. Ward could taste the pickle from the sandwich he had eaten an hour earlier. Everything was very real, as sharp and defined as the stars on a cold and cloudless November night. I've not been a bad man, Ward thought, although I could have been a better one. But I've not been a bad man. There's always that. He thought about how blue and perfect the sky had been that morning. He thought of Sarah, of how they were before it had all gone wrong, and he wondered what she was doing now. He hoped that she was happy. I don't think I have ever felt more alive, he thought. And now I know I've wasted so many things. So much time.

In the room across the hall the old soldier shouts, just as he has done for years... And behind her, something in the shadows stirs. "One of our brightest cultural commentators" --Publishers Weekly

The little boy next door is just so good. In fact, he's pretty much perfect. And he has a strangely powerful influence on Danny. A disturbing story from an author whose short fiction has been described by scifi.com as "Brilliant on all levels". "Reed has a prose style that's pure dry ice, displayed in dystopian stories that specialize in bitterness and dislocation." --The New York Times Book Review "Kit Reed calls herself 'transgenred...' Her new collection, What Wolves Know... is confirmation of an extraordinary talent." --The Financial Times

A powerfully evocative portrait of an alternative community in the early 1970s, told with a child's-eye simplicity by a young resident. Short fiction from an author whose work has been described by World Fantasy Award-winner Jeff VanderMeer as "Rapacious, intelligent and witty". "Monterra's Deliciosa & Other Tales & could never be mistaken for ordinary genre fiction ... don't imagine this as high falutin' 'lit'rature' accessible only to people with advanced degrees. Anyone with a taste for beauty, audacity, sensuality, and wit can find much to enjoy here." --Faren Miller, Locus "... odd and surreal ... sometimes whimsical, and often wonderfully strange." --Kelly Link and Gavin Grant, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror "Anna Tambour is an Australian writer of decidedly offbeat stories... she has a supremely quirky viewpoint and a tendency toward genre-bending and strange humour. But I had no idea to what extent! Monterra's Deliciosa & Other Tales & is a revelation and a delight. Tambour's writing ranges from mainstream to slipstream, to animal and plant fantasies, metafiction, horror, science fiction, and stories odd enough that they can hardly be described as anything but 'Tambour fiction'." --Rich Horton, "A Different Drum: Anna Tambour's First Collection Reviewed", Lost Pages "Anna Tambour for me is one of those underrated speculative fiction authors." --Charles Tan, Bibliophile Stalker

We come to Pavonis Minor, invited by the Burul'chasi, descendants of the first wave of human settlement. They have successfully resisted intrusion into their territories for many years, yet now they want someone to come, now they want someone to see. "Only one man," they said, through their intermediary. "Only one man may come." And so we three are here, riding in the body of one. Which is all very well until the three begin to disagree... "'Jurassic and the Great Tree', with its brilliant and remorseless anthropological logic, resembles Michael Bishop at his best. But that's because it's well-argued anthropology, rather than well-copied Bishop" (Simon Ings, Foundation )

In a future where naming is vital and the labelling of a new species can have major ramifications, what hope is there for an ancient tongue that is effectively linguistically dead? "A rich and rewarding read from a stylish new Scottish talent" (World Fantasy Award-winner Jeff VanderMeer).

“They say that the sight of a lizard drives a woman wild with desire. Any woman, any lizard, the merest glimpse. But lizards belong to men; they’re death to women.” An ordinary woman is torn from her normal life and thrust into a weird alternate reality where the power to structure human relationships, and even to travel between worlds, resides in the living bodies of small green lizards. “Tuttle creates out of a genuinely strange imagination.” – Josephine Saxton in The New Statesman “Tuttle manages to combine the restless, biting curiosity of a natural SF writer with an ability to project a real feeling.” – Evening Standard “Simply one of the very best writers in the field.” – Science Fiction and Fantasy Review

Tim Thornbourne, successful in business but not in marriage, retreats to the country to grow gourmet and largely forgotten fruit. In time his orchard would become a Mecca for foodies and he, Tim Thornbourne, would be The Man Who Rediscovered the Medlar. But the last thing he expected was for the orchard to become a cooperative venture. Moving and surprising fiction from an author described by World Fantasy Award-winner Jeff VanderMeer as "Rapacious, intelligent and witty".

Home for his parents' funeral ... all the familiar, yet unfamiliar, things. And the horizon. How could he have forgotten the horizon? Mind-bending fiction from a Hugo-winning author.

“Something terrible happened to me when I was a little girl...” so begins this extraordinary, International Horror Guild Award-winning tale of abduction, survival and escape from the author Stephen Jones has called “a major force in macabre fiction.” “Lisa Tuttle’s stories have a way of lingering long after you’ve read them.” – The Good Book Guide “Tuttle is at her best as a short story writer. The power and sheer quality of her work are unmistakable on every page.” – Chris Morgan “For those of us who cherish short fiction, Tuttle’s work is a treasure trove, a vast and fearful kingdom in itself.” – Thomas Tessier

The wives spent every day by the pool – this was where the men had left them, after all. A moving, incisive story that gets right under your skin from an author whose prose style has been described as "pure dry ice" by The New York Times Book Review.