Showing results for "The Child's Story" in Science Fiction

“What does ‘allegiance’ mean?” the New Teacher asked, hand over her heart. In this classic and chilling tale about an elementary school classroom in post-war occupied America, James Clavell brings to light the vulnerability of children and the power educators have to shape and change young minds. Originally written in the Cold War era, Clavell’s extraordinary and enduringly relevant allegory on the impressionability of the human mind is still read in schools around the globe today, and is a call to every person to keep questioning and keep learning.

The time-travel series that everyone's talking about.... Jodi Taylor's The Chronicles of St. Mary's is back with a short story. It's Christmas Day 1066, and a team from St Mary's is going to witness the coronation of William the Conqueror. Or so they think.... However, history seems to have different plans for them, and when Max finds herself delivering a child in a peasant's hut, she can't help wondering what history is up to.

"Children of the Bedtime Machine”, a story by Robert McCammon, was originally published in the 2012 anthology Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury.

The apocalypse is coming. There's only one way off Earth. When a small-moon-sized asteroid is discovered hurtling toward Earth, billionaire scientist Darien Trass must deal with the hardships of finding the select few who will join him on his voyage to escape the apocalypse and rekindle civilization on another world.

This is the story about a 35-year-old man that was initially abducted in Fairbanks, Alaska only to wind up in the middle of a cornfield. After removing an implant from his body, he attempted to relocate to a small town in northern Michigan known as Alpena to escape further interaction with aliens. Unfortunately once the aliens choose someone it is more than difficult to start over somewhere new.

What should have been the greatest moment of Dr. Spencer's life would be a death sentence if he told what he and some other scientists were working on in a secret underground governmental facility called XJ7. Rumor has it that Dr. Spencer and a team of scientists were working on reverse engineering on a UFO that crash landed on a farm about 25 miles from the XJ7 facility. It wasn't the Government that these scientists had to fear it was the aliens that were recovered from the crash site about keeping it secret.

During the 1920's, a young doctor by the name of Dr. Masterson went on a secret expedition with two of his closest colleagues and stumbled upon a second Mayan calendar that was covered in human blood in the Palenque ruins near the Usumacinta River in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Dr. Masterson couldn't believe what he had just discovered, but that wasn't all he found in the ruins. Before Dr. Masterson had a chance to call out to one of his colleagues and show him what he had just found, his torch blew out.

During the 1700's, Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge ran aground at the entrance to Beaufort inlet and wasn't discovered until hundreds of years later. During an expedition of the sunken ship, something went terribly wrong, but the effects of that incident would not be felt until years later when a barrel of an unknown substance was tossed overboard during the expedition. The barrel took several years to erode, but when it did that's when all hell broke loose.

Children fighting on the front lines? Maybe in some other country. But things have gone from bad to worse in the U.S. as the South American war drags on. Now the government has hatched a scheme to attract teens and even preteens into the army: they are offering kids a chance to be the star of The Johnny America Show, a reality show set on the battlefront. In a country wracked by shortages and draft sweeps and despair, maybe picking up a gun isn't such a bad idea after all.

Lisa and her Autistic son Tim have moved to suburban neighborhood for a fresh start in life. Yet soon discover they are looked at very questionably by the neighbors. People Lisa initially trusts, but Tim never takes to at all. Is there something more at work here, or does Tim just not trust too many people? Also, there is a man who constantly has his eye on Lisa. Is he himself a strange individual she cannot trust, or does he himself known something about these people?

All Her Children Fought is a short story from the collection Tides from the New Worlds. Caribbean-born novelist Tobias Buckell established himself as a gifted new voice in science fiction with his stunning first novel, Crystal Rain. Now, in his first collection, Buckell demonstrates his strengths in the short form, offering listeners a collection of stories that are compelling, smart, wonderfully imagined, and entertaining.

The Destroyer of Earth did not set out to be one. A perfect storm of catastrophes, a touch of hubris, and a lot of human ingenuity, and you get yourself deeper than ever. The button has been pressed, the world is in ruins. Will humanity figure out how to survive? What is Antigravel? What did you think was the road-stop for man to explore the empty reaches of space? Faster than light travel? Interstellar navigation? Time dilation? Puh. We beat all that by sheer force of will. No. It was micrometeoroids. Rocks. F--king space rocks.

With wit and humor, a man's determined to escape Los Angeles' "Big One", an impending asteroid strike, that will take out Southern California, Northern Mexico, and much of the Southwestern United States - despite the obstacles awaiting him at every turn.

Through the exploits of Chicago's Big Dez Zombie Hunter, we see why zombie apocalypses have a season and why zombie hordes will never defeat humanity.

Resisting the Blue Chip: John thought his days of belonging to the government would be over as soon as his enlistment ended. When he receives a job proposition from the CIA, he ignores it. He soon finds out the proposition is not an offer - it is a sentence. He has been chosen for the Blue Chip Program - and they won't take no for an answer.

When an aged watchmaker pits his two protégés against each other, the result is magnificent imperfection. The Rival Mechanicians has been lauded as one of the finest science fiction tales from the first half of the nineteenth century. The Western Literary Messenger declared it to be “above praise” when it was first published in 1847.

After running away from home, a teenager finds himself facing some difficult and skin-crawling experiences while on vacation with his new family. He finds himself thrust into manhood out in the woods where the night sky has clearly been hiding some secrets. Between those hours of asleep and awake he comes to a horrifying realization that beefalo aren't the only strange creatures near their lakeside camp.

Madeline, a Ph.D. student, is determined to expose the truth about black holes. Her calculations prove there is a wormhole beyond the horizon of every black hole. Hoping to make history and impress her long-time colleague and secret crush, she ignores all advice about picking an easier thesis. Her efforts lead to something even Madeline couldn't have predicted.