Short Story Collections

"Far beyond the usual fare of science fiction" is how Ben Bova, Executive Editor of OMNI, describes Orson Scott Card's work - and these eleven stories richly bear out that opinion. The title story, a Hugo and Nebula nominee, says as much as can be said about the nature of creativity, the artistic impulse, and pure human stubbornness; "The Porcelain Salamander: is a brilliant and moving fable that will be read and reread; and "Kingsmeat" touches on a truly original horror in the tale of a necessary treason and its consequences. Orson Scott Card demonstrates the dazzling range of his versatility in this collection, from the harsh depiction of merciless training for interplanetary warfare in "Ender's Game" to the tenderly elegiac mood of "Mortal Gods" and the bitter inventiveness of "The Monkeys Thought 'Twas All in Fun" - a "hard science" story that is at the same time more bizarre than the farthest-out fantasy. No story is any preparation for the next: the sardonic view of jingoism in "I Put My Blue Genes On" seems worlds apart from the uncompromising eerie look at the ultimate punishment presented by "Eumenides in the Fourth Floor Lavatory"; and only the sheer outstanding quality of imagination and writing connects the treatment of the supernatural in "Deep Breathing Exercises" and "Quietus." Most short stories, especially in what are called "category fiction," are destined to be enjoyed - if possible - and forgotten. Orson Scott Card's tales will invade and enrich the reader's memory like the work of few other writers.

In Orson Scott Card's classic apocalyptic science fiction novel The Folk of the Fringe , only a few nuclear weapons fell in America--the weapons that destroyed the nation were biological and, ultimately, cultural. But in the chaos, the famine, the plague, there existed a few pockets of order. The strongest of them was the state of Deseret, formed from the vestiges of Utah, Colorado, and Idaho. The climate has changed. The Great Salt Lake has filled up to prehistoric levels. But there, on the fringes, brave, hardworking pioneers are making the desert bloom again. A civilization cannot be reclaimed by powerful organizations, or even by great men alone. It must be renewed by individual men and women, one by one, working together to make a community, a nation, a new America.

A provocative collection of short fiction, edited by one of science fiction's best-known names. Of particular interest are several stories from the cyberpunk school, as well as Pat Murphy's Nebula award winning `"Rachel in Love' and Ursula LeGuin's wonderful "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight.'

This huge collection of short stories by one of science fiction's most beloved and popular writers is sure to please his millions of fans. Keeper of Dreams contains 22 stories written since 1990. From the opening science fiction tale, "The Elephants of Poznan," we see the hand of a master at work making a familiar idea new, strange, and wonderful. "Angles" takes a sideways look at alternate universes. "Geriatric Ward" is published here for the first time; it was originally written for the legendary Last Dangerous Visions . Keeper of Dreams contains science fiction, fantasy, and several of Card's mainstream fiction works. Included are two tales from the Alvin Maker universe, "Grinning Man" and "The Yazoo Queen." In addition to the stories, this book features new introductions by Orson Scott Card for each story, with commentary on his life and work. With the earlier Maps in a Mirror , this collection is a definitive retrospective of the short fiction career of the writer that the Houston Post called "the best writer science fiction has to offer."